Gone are the days of having to fall back on web-safe typefaces. Cutting edge web design is now typographically sophisticated, powered by web-served typefaces. This seminar gives a good overview of what is now possible, and easily accessible to those who are not elite designers. It touches on type selection, readability, editing and other issues.
Squarespace have a fun little service for non-design people needing a logo in a hurry. Using a very simple interface, users can select a symbol from a fairly extensive library, add their business names in one of a few quite decent open source typefaces, tweak the colours and positioning and add a tagline. The design can be previewed for the web, t-shirts and as a business card, and also saved as a png file. For design that actually works, please see your graphic designer.
A neat visual summary of the key colours used by major brands. Colour psychology is an area overrun by dubious pop science and just-so explanations, but you can sure the world's biggest brands take the emotional aspects of colour seriously.
Ideological fervour was not the only thing that glowed brightly behind the Iron Curtain – the Communist-era Poles had a surprising love of neon signs. Neglected since the breakup of the Eastern Bloc, a museum has been set up to preserve what is left.
One of a series of four textbook covers. Bold, simple, picking up on the tool theme without going too far over the top.
fonts.com has put together an excellent resource for those interested in learning more about type design and typographers. An exacting, precise craft, high-level type design requires extreme attention to detail and the ability to slog through endless iterations, individual kerning pairs, multiple weights, extended character sets and nowadays, the promotion of one's work. The best type families combine beauty and workaday functionality, and if admired and appreciated, will often enjoy a life far longer those that of their creators.
For print-oriented graphic designers, posters are an opportunity to abandon restraint and strive for high impact. While still a lively area of contemporary practice, some of the most striking and memorable poster design graced walls many decades ago and is now in the public domain. This site has curated hundreds of very high quality vintage posters, most of them suitable for print. Every single one was created without the aid of computers and collectively they are a testament to very high levels of craftsmanship and imagination.
The Australian Academy of Sales wanted a display unit with a listing of all of their courses. White, highly readable type against a deep blue background made the unit highly visible without shouting too loudly.
Like all creative fields, graphic design continually lusts for the new while cannibalising and recycling the old. Trend List catalogues aspects of designers' eternal search for novelty and a fresh look. Depending on your perspective, its discoveries are an index of things to emulate, or approaches to avoid.
We've been designing for this event for some years — when the weather gods are benign, a good time is had by all...
Our client wanted a business card and letterhead that conveyed the warm feel of the acoustic guitar and a distinctly pre-modern look. We used Cheap Pine, images of our client's guitar and a faded paper background.
Billboards are an important way for local government to keep ratepayers up-to-date with coming events. When people are driving past at 60kph, text needs to be big, bold and attention-grabbing, and boiled down to just the essential information.
Fascination with combinations of repeating images/symbols and colour seems to span cultures and appear in every historical period. The Mayans, the Egyptians, the Persians and Victorian-era Britons were obsessed with pattern, whether applied to walls, monuments, clothes or jewellery. Those similarly afflicted in the 21st century can use programs like this. While they may not be designing a grand tomb, they could at least generate a nifty wallpaper for their mobile phone or PC...
The Internet has brought many benefits for designers (enhanced communications with clients, easy transfer of files, access to vast image libraries and type retailers, etc) but it has also brought some challenges. One of these is the phenomenon of Crowdsourcing. Certain websites offer clients the chance to post a brief, and receive many potential designs before paying a pittance for the selected artwork. Needless to say, the vast majority of crowdsourced designs are deriviative, poorly thought out and represent the lowest common denominator of graphic design. The exchange here goes right to the heart of this vexed issue and does a great job of explaining why using a real designer is always a better option.
Our client prospected for diamonds, and even diamond-hunters need a business card. Aside from the usual contact details, he was keen to give the reverse side of his card additional utility as a way of measuring objects and providing scale in photographs. He also intended to use it for jotting notes to include with samples. After ten years of use, he returned for an update and reported that the card/ruler had been very handy.
Remember those endearingly plain pictograms that first gained popularity in the 1970s? Designed to transcend text and communicate simple concepts/commands, pictographs are still a staple of the sign world. Victor Hertz has employed the pictographic vocabulary to amusing effect, creating pictographic posters for a raft of movie classics. Beside the whimsy, it is a very interesting design exercise to be forced to boil a complex idea down to simple iconic image.