fairey

It’s always interesting to me to see fantastic pieces of design being brought to the forefront of social issues as was the case for Shepherd Fairy’s Hope poster. Speaking strictly as an appreciator of art, it’s a striking piece that I believe instills confidence, security and unity. Whether intentional or not, the use of red and blue, the colours of the two opposing political parties, is appreciated by me who is a Canadian and remembers that no matter his political affiliation, Obama is the president of the entire United States, and not just the Democrats.

This poster stirred up a lot of controversy for many reasons both good and bad, but the important thing is that it got people talking about the effectiveness and power of design, which I appreciate.

Here is a letter of thanks Obama sent to Fairy after he eventually did win the election:

I would like to thank you for using your talent in support of my campaign. The political messages involved in your work have encouraged Americans to believe they can change the status-quo. Your images have a profound effect on people, whether seen in a gallery or on a stop sign. I am privileged to be a part of your artwork and proud to have your support. I wish you continued success and creativity.– Barack Obama, February 22, 2008

I think that shepard fairy is an incredibly influential and amazingly socially conscious designer who strives to make a difference. Considering his work with the Kony initiative (whatever your opinion on the matter may be) he is one who is willing to step up and let his voice be heard, which in a field of professionals who's primary function is to communicate effectively, i find that extremely admirable.

my work

Here are some posters i have designed for my work. Let me know what you think

obama loves infographics

Although i am not a huge fan of the political machine or its deviant community of politicians, i do keep tabs on the goings-on of the world as it relates to me. 

Here is an article posted which i believe is a step in the right direction:

President Obama Appoints Edward Tufte--Big Victory for Data Visualization And Transparent Government

Posted by: Bruce Nussbaum on March 08, 2010

I just picked this up from my Twitter stream. It’s quite an amazing event. Edward Tufte helping the American public see where their $787 billion in economic stimulus tax money is going to help revive the US economy. Turning to Tufte is a brilliant move by Obama and a big win for innovation.

Here is what Tufte says:

“I will be serving on the Recovery Independent Advisory Panel. This Panel advises The Recovery Accountability and Transparency Board, whose job is to track and explain $787 billion in recovery stimulus funds:

“The Recovery Accountability and Transparency Board was created by the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 with two goals:
To provide transparency in relation to the use of Recovery-related funds.
To prevent and detect fraud, waste, and mismanagement.
Earl E. Devaney was appointed by President Obama to serve as chairman of the Recovery Board. Twelve Inspectors General from various federal agencies serve with Chairman Devaney. The Board issues quarterly and annual reports to the President and Congress and, if necessary, “flash reports” on matters that require immediate attention. In addition, the Board maintains the Recovery.gov website so the American people can see how Recovery money is being distributed by federal agencies and how the funds are being used by the recipients.

Mission statement: To promote accountability by coordinating and conducting oversight of Recovery funds to prevent fraud, waste, and abuse and to foster transparency on Recovery spending by providing the public with accurate, user-friendly information.”

I’m doing this because I like accountability and transparency, and I believe in public service. And it is the complete opposite of everything else I do. Maybe I’ll learn something. The practical consequence is that I will probably go to Washington several days each month, in addition to whatever homework and phone meetings are necessary.”

We need more designers and design thinkers like Tufte in government.

enjoy incubus

I often feel as though the music industry has a better handle on good design than any other field. There is a tremendous amount of visual design that goes into selling music that it truly is overwhelming and most of it often goes unnoticed.

As i stated before, Incubus is my favourite band mostly because of their music, but they also have a distinct style, visual appeal and stylistic swagger that i personally don't believe any other band has. 

Their chosen typeface for their latest album  (although not my favourite) truly captures their essence of being a band that incorporates all that is good about music from influences of jazz, rap, rock and soft ballads. 

You go, Glenn Coco!

appropriate or inappropriate

What is good design?

I feel more and more often that there is no real answer to this question. My instructor said this statement at the beginning of the semester and it really stuck with me: “there is no such thing as good or bad design; there is only appropriate and inappropriate given the situation.”

This then means that there is a time and a place for everything, just that the the frequency of said appropriate imagery isn’t always equal.

In my job, I find more and more that what I consider to be good design isn’t always appropriate for the audience in which I am working for. Poster work must convey a tremendous amount of emotion, information, understanding and visual interest while keeping in mind that in most cases it won’t be looked at for longer than a quick glance as onlookers walk on by. Although maybe technically successful, a poster isn’t always effective based solely off of good design.

That’s the long and short of it. It may be a tough pill to swallow, but it’s a lesson that must be learned in order to survive in this field.

median calendar

Hello again old friend.

I love thedieline.com and everything that it is about. There’s not an article on there that I find to be uninteresting, unwarranted or unwanted. Of course the entire thing is unnecessary, that’s not the point. It is a celebration of what can be done in the field of package design. It is a forum in which talented individuals can display their feats of design proudly in a community of persons who are best suited to appreciate and enjoy it.

Here is an example of Sandi Grigoryan’s work: the median calendar.

"Median Calendar is about balancing your time and energy. Customize you calendar by charting anything in your day and you will see if you are too involved or not involved enough. If you haven't spent much time on what you are tracking, you will be slacking off but if you spend too much time you may be spreading yourself too thin. This calendar is a visual representation to show how balanced your life is." 

There is nothing about this submission that i do not find fascinating. It's not the most necessary product, nor the most practical, but i find the concept fascinating, i find the execution fantastic, even the medium a successful choice. 

I LOVE thedieline.com

10 famous graphic designers

Since I dream of being known for my graphic design, I thought it would be interesting to find out how these graphic designers became famous, and what made them different from anyone else. 
http://www.8womendream.com/5723/10-famous-graphic-designers/ 

good ol' chuck

The part about designing that I love the most is the subtle art of storytelling that we get to do in our work. Attached here is my submission for the beer label project we had to do for 2-D design. Maybe not best design technically speaking, but you get an idea of a setting, a mood, the type of person who would be drinking this beer, when and where. What do you think?

strong, yet weak

I feel as though my greatest strength as a person is my desire to be understood. I grew up in a family of poor communicators both verbally and emotionally and it’s something that I have always strived to correct about myself.

Effective communication is an imperative skill which is universal to every career path, every interaction, and every simple conversation. There simply is no meaningful instance where being understood fully is a negative thing.

This being said, I believe that this is one of the main reasons why I have chosen to become a Graphic Designer, a.k.a. a visual communicator.

My greatest weakness (although there are many,) from an introspective standpoint would most likely be my distaste for being critiqued. Be it my hairstyle, the clothes I wear, the font I choose or the paper I print on, it upsets me every time when someone comments negatively on something I have done. Even unconscious, meaningless things like an accidental pen mark on my chin, when commented upon I immediately get defensive and put up a wall of arrogance. Who’s to say that I didn’t want that pen mark there? Maybe it was intentional?

Understandably this is a trait I need to shake, or at least learn to deal with better, but the unexamined life is a life not worth living.

go me!

I have recently procured a new job in my chosen field while studying here at Conestoga College, and it makes me happy to know that I will be producing real work to be put on display.

The process was more nerve-racking than anticipated. I have interviewed before and I think that I have gotten rather good at speaking in front of others and getting them to like me; but it is a whole other ballgame when what is up for discussion is one’s own work. Suddenly I am a twelve-year-old boy again who when asked a simple question like: why did you decide to use blue in this poster, I respond simply and bluntly: Because!

Truly an uncomfortable experience which I know I will have to repeat in due time.

I believe my strife and anguish is worth it though, because there is a sure sense of gratification when you see your poster splattered across the school as both an art form and a means of communication.

Go me!

first things first

We, the undersigned, are graphic designers, art directors and visual communicators who have been raised in a world in which the techniques and apparatus of advertising have persistently been presented to us as the most lucrative, effective and desirable use of our talents. Many design teachers and mentors promote this belief; the market rewards it; a tide of books and publications reinforces it.

Encouraged in this direction, designers then apply their skill and imagination to sell dog biscuits, designer coffee, diamonds, detergents, hair gel, cigarettes, credit cards, sneakers, butt toners, light beer and heavy-duty recreational vehicles. Commercial work has always paid the bills, but many graphic designers have now let it become, in large measure, what graphic designers do. This, in turn, is how the world perceives design. The profession's time and energy is used up manufacturing demand for things that are inessential at best.

Many of us have grown increasingly uncomfortable with this view of design. Designers who devote their efforts primarily to advertising, marketing and brand development are supporting, and implicitly endorsing, a mental environment so saturated with commercial messages that it is changing the very way citizen-consumers speak, think, feel, respond and interact. To some extent we are all helping draft a reductive and immeasurably harmful code of public discourse.

There are pursuits more worthy of our problem-solving skills. Unprecedented environmental, social and cultural crises demand our attention. Many cultural interventions, social marketing campaigns, books, magazines, exhibitions, educational tools, television programs, films, charitable causes and other information design projects urgently require our expertise and help.

We propose a reversal of priorities in favor of more useful, lasting and democratic forms of communication - a mindshift away from product marketing and toward the exploration and production of a new kind of meaning. The scope of debate is shrinking; it must expand. Consumerism is running uncontested; it must be challenged by other perspectives expressed, in part, through the visual languages and resources of design.

In 1964, 22 visual communicators signed the original call for our skills to be put to worthwhile use. With the explosive growth of global commercial culture, their message has only grown more urgent. Today, we renew their manifesto in expectation that no more decades will pass before it is taken to heart.
 

signed:

Jonathan Barnbrook
Nick Bell
Andrew Blauvelt
Hans Bockting
Irma Boom
Sheila Levrant de Bretteville
Max Bruinsma
Siân Cook
Linda van Deursen
Chris Dixon
William Drenttel
Gert Dumbar
Simon Esterson
Vince Frost
Ken Garland
Milton Glaser
Jessica Helfand
Steven Heller
Andrew Howard
Tibor Kalman
Jeffery Keedy
Zuzana Licko
Ellen Lupton
Katherine McCoy
Armand Mevis
J. Abbott Miller
Rick Poynor
Lucienne Roberts
Erik Spiekermann
Jan van Toorn
Teal Triggs
Rudy VanderLans
Bob Wilkinson

http://maxbruinsma.nl/index1.html?ftf2000.htm 

Personally speaking, i find these words to be uplifting, powerful and make me prideful of my chosen profession.

shrouded

Part of the requirements for the project associated with this blog was to accomplish at least seven of a list of fourteen provided topics of interest, my chosen first being: interview someone in a related program to Graphic Design and see how clear they understand what we do. Educate them and share your experience.

I elected to interview a good friend Sara B who is a recent graduate from the print journalism program here at Conestoga College, which falls under the umbrella of The School of Media and Design. Here are her responses.

Q.           Sara, what is the name of my program and what title will I garner after graduating?

A.            Graphic Design, and presumably Graphic Designer.

Q.           What duties are associated with my chosen career path?

A.            I would imagine an artistic eye is required; Graphic Designers are the artists of the modern age.

Q.           Could you name a well known Graphic Designer?

A.            I believe Milton Glaser is a Graphic Designer; he created the I Heart NY logo.

The more in-depth questions I asked, the less she seemed to know; however, it was interesting to me that she did know the basics of the field, and certainly more than I before beginning my journey. Still though, for a profession of visually intelligent persons who’s soul mission is effective communication of information, we seem to all wear a shroud of invisibility to the people we design for.  

lovely dieline.com

I unabashedly admit that thedieline.com is my favourite design website. There`s not a single article on there that I won`t open up and read. Even when I don`t necessarily like something, I can still appreciate the concept. We may not all like the same things, but we are all in this together.

The next chance I get, I want to draw on some vintage packaging, preferable in a non packaging setting. I think that throw back to decades before us is a refreshing breath to the ultra modern direction most companies are leaning towards.

This style is always a go-to favourite of mine

Not always what i think of when i think of vintage, but it applies. Vibrant!

Water packaged in what looks like old paint cans is just interesting to me. I honestly would never have thought of that before.

Just fantastic what designers can come up with. This may be a nightmare to ship, however.

design is thinking made visual

A bad habit I have developed in my admittedly short time as a member of this community is the over simplification of the work graphic designers do. I think this is an attitude most people outside of this community have in regards to graphic design simply because they don’t know any better, which, like I said, I totally understand; however, if anyone ever asks me again what I am going to school for, I will just direct them to a Google search of Saul Bass and say: this is what I am going to school for.

After watching a documentary on the man and looking into even a small fraction of what he has accomplished in his lengthy career I truly say that I am inspired by him. My narcissistic self is attracted to the idea of being permanently engrained into popular culture by being associated with big names like Alfred Hitchcock and Martin Scorsese, not to mention big brands like Kleenex, The United Way and The Girl Guides. My less superficial side, however, appreciates and shares his personal feelings of satisfaction for having done good work that he can be proud of as a designer and as layman.

http://www.saulbass.tv/

http://ia.media-imdb.com/images/M/MV5BMTM0NDAxOTI5MF5BMl5BanBnXkFtZTcwNjI4Mjg3NA@@._V1._SY317_.jpg

http://ia.media-imdb.com/images/M/MV5BMjE4ODMwOTI5M15BMl5BanBnXkFtZTYwOTIxMzY5._V1._SY317_CR5,0,214,317_.jpg

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/d/d6/SaulBassLogos.jpg/300px-SaulBassLogos.jpg

why.... just why

I must admit that I don`t care for the new design of OCAD University. I find the design to be overly simplistic, seemingly outdated and visually unbalanced. I say this with little love for the old logo, but I find it hard to see an improvement from one geometrically imprisoned set of text to the next. I find I am a true fan of the simple elegance of a black and white colour scheme, however the thick lines and bolded text seem clumsy to me and purposeless.

Most who know me know that it is hard for me to give a scathingly honest critique of someone`s work, but in this instance I say proper credit where credit is due

Design fail!

credits

It always seems to come back to good ol`Saul.

Movies are my thing, before anything else; I literally own a wall of movies that may shortly evolve into a vault of DVDs and VHS. Being somewhat of a wanna-be expert on movies, I can attest to the power a film`s title sequence has over the tone of the rest of the movie; a Bond film simply isn`t a Bond film without its iconic opening number. Saul Bass is the man to call for just this occasion: to set the tone with a playfully whimsical opening sequence that is engaging and entertaining.

 Maybe not the most memorable of his accomplishments, but being as how Catch me if you can is one of my all time favourite movies, I choose to post this title sequence.

Enjoy.

i choose life!

Guest speakers in my program are almost always a painful experience to live through. I smile, I`m polite and I try to make it as unnoticeable as possible that I am playing scrabble on my iPhone, but it is what it is: a headache. So imagine my surprise when Debbie Repke of Eyelight Marketing comes in and blows my socks off.

In walks Debbie looking very businesslike and proper, a self made woman with years of experience telling me not to be afraid of my chosen career; enjoy what I have elected to pursue, be excited for my future and when you stumble along the way, pick yourself back up and move along. Often is the case when we hear horror stories of missed deadlines, nightmarish expectations and unreasonable clients who don’t respect designers and who think the industry is frivolous and too expensive in a cost cutting world. Maybe this exists and maybe in a dosage that is at times daunting and discouraging, but there is also light in the darkness that makes it all worthwhile.

I am forever grateful to Debbie for quelling my doubts and inspiring me to aim high, shoot true and remember that, `nobody ever died from the work a designer does.`

Here is a list of twenty-five lessons Debbie has learned over her twenty-five years as an owner of her own marketing firm:

25 lessons I’ve learned along the way….

1. Empower and trust others. You can’t do it alone.
2. Recognize your strengths and do them really well.
3. Great design is everything. But nothing kills it faster than a typo.
4. Get involved personally – business relationships create lasting friendships.
5. Shut up and Listen. Understanding is the key to the solution.
6. Be yourself. Trying to be someone you aren't is a tough and tiring act.
7. Don’t burn bridges. Respect others and take the high road – it’s always the best path.
8. If you don't have the answer, admit it and then find the answer.
9. Speak your mind and share your opinion. Saying 'yes' all the time is not what clients pay you for. They want our input.
10. Learn from your mistakes. We learn far more from risks and errors than accomplishments.
11. Be in the moment. Distractions come far too easily. Be engaged with what you are doing or who you are talking to.
12. I love the ‘AH HA’ moment. Developing the right logo, the right slogan, or the right plan.
13. Learn to put things in perspective.
14. Balance your life. Creativity needs time to refuel.
15. Ditch the diva routine. This is a group effort. We all share in the failures and the glory.
16. Follow your gut.
17. Computers didn’t give me more free time as promised. But they did take away the need to do marker layouts.
18. Do things in life that excite, motivate and inspire you.
19. Don't wear white shoes to a meat slaughter house … enough said.
20. Get involved with your community. Give back.
21. Don't take anything for granted. Life is full of twists and turns.
22. Surround yourself with smart people. They teach you a lot.
23. It’s not the mistake – it’s how you fix it that defines your character.
24. Watch Mad-Men! Don’s ‘pitch’ never gets old.
25. Deliver more than expected. Always.

incubus

My favourite band is Incubus, no ifs ands or buts. I think that they are creatively unique, refreshing in an age where musical artists need only to reference the consumption of alcohol or sex to make it to the air waves, and most importantly they are not afraid to change their style and experiment with something new while maintaining their popularity.

While music itself isn`t exactly an appropriate topic in a design blog, the design work that goes into selling a bands image is something that I have always found interesting and attractive especially now that I am in the right career path to make some of it my own.

This music video in particular I find to be both compelling and artistically appealing. the message is sound and is represented well in the visual medium: you are what you make of yourself. 

carson

Last year I completed, however begrudgingly, a project where we had to redesign a book—any book—in the style of a noted graphic designer or illustrator. Seems straight forward enough, but not when your chosen designer is David-frigin-Carson and you are redesigning the bible!

Sounds like a hilariously ridiculous pairing; little did I know how much of a pain in my backside it would be. Below is a video that I watched to help me enter the mind of Carson and pull out from it a successful project.

http://www.ted.com/talks/david_carson_on_design.html

gorey

I must admit that I am a bit uncertain of what I want my future to look like. Call it the typical non-committal ways of my generation, but when asked: what do you want to do when you grow up? I always answered something with a comedic slant to it to halt and subsequent questioning I want to sell balloons when I grow up, or, I’m going to be president of a fan club, that’s what I’ll do, is what I would answer. Oh, bother!

Well here’s a secret ‘tween you and me: when I was younger, one of the things I always wanted to do was to be a writer. Anything that was other­-worldly, mystical, ungodly or just plain weird interested me as a young book lover and still does to this day. And yet here I am at 23, in school to be a graphic designer. Way to follow your dreams, Tom! Good on you.

Well, just when all hope of me becoming a writer is lost, here comes Edward Gorey and his fantastically messed up mind. Admittedly, much about him is still a mystery to me as all I have found is a lovely little number called The Gashlycrumb Ttinies, but I have to say, I’m hooked.

Here are a few illustrations from the book to tide you over while I look him up a bit more.

http://www.fuddytv.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2010/03/title.jpg

http://www.fuddytv.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2010/03/k.jpg

http://www.fuddytv.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2010/03/t.jpg