Beyond Typography

Ad free?

I'm working at our Holborn office today. On my way up to town by train I spotted this excellent ad at Waterloo Station:

The text in the top right reads:

“What’s the first mistake businesses make?”

Excellent. Very effective I think.

I went into the Tube, and what faced me on the platform?

No ads!

Why colour matters

I was looking for some info to back up an argument about how colour affects perception of a brand, and I directed to these sites via the excellent Swiss Miss blog:

The first site is called Color Matters. It is a great site covering all aspects of colour and colour theory;

The second site, actually post, was A Guide to Choosing Colors for Your Brand, on the Usability Post site.

 

It's Tuesday, and yes, it's raining. Pouring, in fact. With gales. Blah!

Remember about a month ago (a rainy Tuesday 12 August, in fact) I wrote a bit about Joshua Allen and his amazing plastic bag street art? Well, his latest effort was commissioned by the agency Ogilvy for the Environmental Defense Fund, a US-based not-for-profit environmental advocacy group, in New York.

By the way, Google have launched a web browser. For PCs only at the moment.

And finally, here's a site where you can vent your spleen about clients and their comments...

Dirty words…

… and dick jokes is a book from Language in Common, a San Francisco-based design agency, that points a finger at five of the dirtiest, nastiest words in the creative industry. There are a few jokes in there as well. They have a little section called Piss & Vinegar which (where this pdf can be found) has guides on How To Clean Out Your Desk, How To Be A Better Lover and Dear Bosses. They are not what they seem!

Via the Language in Common blog, Tiny Gigantic

Via  

A short love story for Saturday

A SHORT LOVE STORY IN STOP MOTION from Carlos Lascano on Vimeo.

A fantastic short film by award-winning film-maker Carlos Lascano, who mixes different illustration techniques into one stop-motion film. There is information about how he made it here.

The music is by Sigur Ros.

Via Fubiz

Monday

Keri Smith is an author/illustrator turned guerilla artist. She has a developed an Artists Survival Kit to help you get through those really crap days. It works just as well for designers, just replace all instances of the word artist or art with designer or design.

Via Debbie Millman

Technorati Profile

Tuesday Inspiration

What is it with Tuesdays? Blah! Rain, rain, rain, work, rain, lotsa work, more rain. But luckily an old friend emailed me the vid below.

Joshua Allen Harris produces street art made from plastic bags that are attached to the grills in the road over the New York Subway. The rush of air fromt he trains below inflates the bags into the monsters that he created. It's amazing what people can think of.

 

I'd like to see him produce a fluorescent devil version and install it late on a Friday or Saturday night. When the bars close it could be amusing to watch the responses from people who've had maybe one too many to drink!

Thanks Nick!

Marketing message

I attended a marketing department meeting the other day. All members of the department are required to attend. I was there because the Creative Services department, where I've been doing a job shadow for the past couple of weeks, come under the marketing jurisdiction. 

I didn't realise how many marketing people there were in the company. ScaRY!

Being marketing all the presenters were very good at public speaking and their presentations were equally as good. There was a howler that NOBODY ELSE NOTICED. An e-direct marketing person made a presentation and began by saying that everybody should have received an email entry for a prize draw, but unfortunately they used the wrong list so not everybody would have received it. WAHAHAHAHAHA! I couldn't believe it!

If you've ever been briefed by a marketing person, you'll appreciate the following vid. I first saw this last night sitting on a (delayed) train on my iPhone on the Debbie Millman blog. Hilarious.

Normal service has been resumed: Updated Type is Art link

Well hello. Sorry for the lack of posts, I've been on holiday. Sunning myself in Cyprus.

I'm back at work now. Here's a quick round up of what's been happening...

Creative

For the next couple of weeks I'm working in the Creative department of the company I work for. Doing a sort of job shadow type thing. As I've been working mainly in editorial for the past 15-or-so years I thought it would be good to see how the commercial side of things operate (even though I've been doing this sort fo thing for a while). In our company there is(was?) a them and us attitude between editorial designers and the Creative designers. Each side thinking they were better. So far, I have not experienced this. As far as I'm concerned, design is design, regardless of discipline. We should all support each other. There is too much pressure and competition from the non-design community for there to be tension within.

Anyway, yesterday was day one and I spent a really useful morning with one of the web designers, who critted my work. I found it really useful as so far I have only had feedback from marketing and editorial people. Thanks Mark.

Sexy things

A few other things have happened. I bought a digital camera. I opted for the Canon Sureshot G9 in the end (see post June 25). I am really please with the performance and results.

I also got my iPhone! FANTASTIC! Friday was an interesting day in the search for a 16Gb version. Got one delivered from the Carphone Warehouse in the end.

Largest Apple customer

One interesting snippet of news last week. Axel Springer, one of Europe's largest newspaper publishers, is moving it's entire workforce over to the Mac platform. 10,000 employees worldwide!

Photography exhibition

I went to a viewing of some photography yesterday. It was one of three that I had been invited to. I thought that this one might be a little different, even if the quality might not be great (my own preconceptions). I was impressed by the quality of the work. Some work being better quality than the endless stream of graduates and new start-ups that do the rounds now, wither by email or in person. The one thing that I found refreshing was the originality of the work, not the endless (tedious) stuff trying to emulate the latest fashion mags. These were good. I have to mention that the work was not at some exclusive venue in London, but at the Treloar College near Alton in Hampshire. The photographs were the final displays for the A-level and City & Guilds photography students. The students are all physically disabled.

Cool

And finally, a bit of fun. Take a look at this. Type is Art is a cool project by Jose Rodriguez where you can create art from parts of letterforms. I originally saw it on the I love typography site.

So where does Creative Juice come from?

This "documentary" explains all!