hey you, twitterer, do yourself a favour, watch this short, brilliant, animated film. from Ani 

Have a sweet, crazy summer, and remember to always wear clean elephants. Play nice !

dude, chex it auwht

Grafische kopzorgen

by Jens Pieters, 2012

Part of the exhibition “21”, where 21 young Belgian designers were asked to design a poster as a personal statement.

To the person who left me a graphic gift on my office door, thank you, 
it was fantastic, very witty. Cheers TF

really, what can you say ? Dieter Rams circa 1966, genius.

custom chalk lettering, yes chalk, as in the White Cliffs of Dover, it seems like hand made is almost cool again - chalk by Dana Tanamachi de Brooklyn

"Bradbury Thompson was truly a master of almost every aspect of the design profession. 
He studied printing production, was an art director for Mademoisellemagazine, designed books, 
pushed the boundaries of conventional typography and taught design at Yale University. 
He designed 60+ issues of Westvaco Inspirations for the Westvaco Paper Corporation. 
His designs reached thousands of designers, printers and typographers. 

Born in 1911 in Topeka, Kansas and educated at Washburn University Thompson stayed in 
touch with the university throughout his career. From 1969-1979 Thompson worked together 
with Washburn to create the Washburn Bible. The book was the most significant development 
in Bible typography since Gutenberg first published his masterpiece in 1455. Another significant 
point in his career, in the field of typography, was his publication of Alphabet 26, which was 
labeled as amonoalphabet. It contained only 26 unique characters, case was established by size 
only instead of entirely new characters (i.e. r/R, e/E, a/A). Thompson's work garnered him the 
highest award of every major design organization including AIGA, the Art Directors Club and 
the Type Directors Club. He died in 1995."

Likely the most widely used form of any three dimensional application in design - packaging serves as a dominant, and an extremely influential form of communication with consumers - since it provides a daily, intimate, and largely symbiotic experience for individuals in their routine lives.

We're submerged in packaging in fact, from our jeans, to our genes. it is just about everywhere really .... even on the bloody moon.

Because of this ubiquitous proliferation of consumer based products in our largely, environmentally indifferent society - packaging probably has the greatest impact, and widest range of applications of all the forms of graphic design.

Millions of different products require unique, individual packaging solutions to set themselves apart from the ocean of competition when they reach their retail destinations.

This never-ending creation of new products, while grotesque in aspect, at least provides designers both with an ecosystem of materials,  and the impetus to develop new and different package designs which in kind, reciprocally trigger a perpetually evolving array of production techniques and materials, to satisfy both the market and the industry which maintains it. hmmmn .. 


Products can be packaged in paper, cardboard, plastic, rubber, metal, even space, among other things (what's next ? flesh ? don't laugh ....)  

This morphogenesis (if i can borrow a term from evolutionary biology) requires not only a matrix of production materials and processes, but also encourages the development of emerging printing and imaging techniques in order to create and address the constantly mutating aesthetics of branding for the individual product or line of products. 

This never-ending list of possible production vectors, requires product designers to be well versed in typography, color and three-dimensional design etc. to ensure that their package designs are unique in every aspect. So get to work, you little Angry Birds, the new coolest thing, is just a moment away. In fact if you blink, you'll miss it. 

Traversing the world between art and design, Tadanori Yokoo's work has a very personal nature and often reflects his own interests. He began working as a designer during the late 1960's and his work often resembles a collage style that was quite the opposite of the modernist, swiss graphic movement. 

Interested in mysticism, psychedelia and the Indian culture, his work is often associated with the 1960s pop culture. He has repeated several motifs throughout his work including the rising sun and waterfalls. In 1998 a large scale exhibition of his posters was held in Japan, the 40,000 people that crowded the exhibition during its thirteen-day event were a testament to his enduring popularity. In 1981 he unexpectedly "retired" from commercial work and took up painting after seeing a Picasso retrospective at the Museum of Modern Art (New York). His career as a fine artist continues to this day with numerous exhibitions of his paintings every year, but alongside this he remains fully engaged and prolific as a graphic designer.

" Mike Libby (b 1976), creator of INSECT LAB, is a multi-disciplinary

artist who makes sculptures, models, collages and drawings using diverse

materials, detailed craftsmanship and conceptual curiosity. Mike exhibits

Insect Lab and his other work in the state of Maine, where he was born,

and throughout the US and in parts of Europe, his work is in a variety of

collections local and worldwide. And he enjoys being an active member

of his local community in Southern Maine as a citizen, a visiting artist at

several educational institutions and an entrepreneur. Mike Graduated with

a degree in Sculpture from RISD in 1999 and has since attended the Vermont

Studio Center, been artist-in-residence at the University of Maine at Orono,

and has enjoyed being a recent presenter at local Pecha Kucha events in

Portland, Maine.

Through Insect Lab, Mike has worked widely with book writers, editors,

publishers, and members of the science fiction community, curators of

galleries and museums, debuted at high end craft shows such as

CraftBoston, Philadelphia and Smithsonian, has been a guest of Hasbro,

featured through Neiman Marcus and just this past year is carried by

Anthropologie. Originally from central Maine, he currently resides and

works in South Portland, hoping to adopt a rescue dog soon. "

a fragment from Mathew Mariani's layout assignment

Bernbach on creativity:

“I think the most important thing in advertising is to be

original and fresh… Because you can have all the right

things in an ad, and if nobody is made to stop and listen

to you, you’ve wasted it.

And we in America are spending so darn much money

for efficiency, to measure things, that we’re achieving

boredom like we’ve never achieved before. We’re right

about everything, but nobody looks.”

D2,do dig dese 2 classic 1950 - 1960's Saul Bass title designs

whilst doing some research for a project, I came across the NYPL digital archives which is a robust collection of images, patterns, plans, details and well almost everything else, check it out !

This manifesto for visual culture from Rencontres d’Arles

is a fine addition to these 5 manifestos for the creative life.

It is I suspect, and reasonably so - a little known fact, that while the legendary type designer, artist and pervert, Eric Gill was a type designing genius, he was also coincidentally, an abject failure as a stamp designer.

It's not that he didn't try.

He tried quite a few times in fact and was even invited to try stamp design on a number of occasions. But for some reason, his attempts at philatelic composition were met with rejection, rejection, rejection.

His stroppy attitude probably didn't help. Not one to hide his opinions (who does that remind you of ?

Eric made sure the powers that be knew his feelings on the subject of stamp design.

His thinking on the subject was - that the humble, utilitarian postage stamp was just that, and no more,

Gill thought stamp design should be free from ornamentation, whimsy and sentimentality. And that anyone who felt otherwise, like the fiddly-fingered stamp collectors, were horribly misguided in both their thoughts on the matter and their chosen leisure-time pursuit.

Hardly surprising then I guess, that the decision makers at the British Post Office booted out the cantankerous old beard's designs, time after time.

In fact, I suspect they had a right laugh doing it.

Of course, Gill has unlucky too. His Edward VIII coronation issue stamps were all ready to roll of the press when the idiot king dropped his crown in favour of that American floozy Wallace Simpson.

In 1940 Gill drew a British crown design for inclusion on a special Anglo-French issue stamp only to have the work well and truly buggered by the Nazis when they forced France to surrender making the stamp design rather inappropriate.

This is all admittedly from the "Ministry of What ? ", but the minutiae is where the secrets lay people..

A Design Film Festival 2011: Making actual TYPE Faces

In an ancient culture far far away, and like totally a long time ago

(more than 3 whole weeks !), books were important.

So important were books - that people would actually read

them, even all the way to the end - they'd cherish, protect and collect

them too. These wordy titans would lovingly hoard them like glittering

jewels in a crown, proudly displayed for all to see.

Granted, sometimes this adoration went a trifle too far, resulting in

a little web site called bookshelfporn, if you want to see these forbidden

pleasures, the lingual fruits that the ancients so adored

click right here twitter boy ...

Leggo my leggo - from the department of,"ah geez .. I wish

I'd thought of that", OK you wieners, it's contest time ! How

many can you identify ? I got most of them, but not all.

Let's see how you do. If you get all of them, you'll win a

brand new iPad, donated by Wesley and Taline.

my nine fave typefaces ( this week ) what are yours ?

An insight into Dubai’s most interesting art galleries.

Featuring: 4 Walls Art Gallery, Art Sawa, Ayyam Gallery, Carbon 12, Courtyard Gallery, Etemad Gallery, Gallery Isabelle Van Den Eynde, Green Art Gallery, Lawrie Shabibi Gallery, Meem Gallery,Mojo Gallery, The Flying House, The Jam Jar, The Third Line Gallery, Total Arts Gallery, Traffic Gallery

'Al Quoz' is the dusty industrial heart of Dubai, where 16 art galleries organically settled in the last 10 years. In the midst of 166 cement factories some of the most interesting Middle Eastern talents were discovered and introduced to the international art scene. Low rents and generous spaces, a unique feel and art from all over the world - 'Al Quoz' is far from fitting the cliché of shiny dull Dubai.

Onlab, a Swiss design studio, dig 1 & 2 please visit and, look through their archives

Dig 1 Grids ... Another piece of interesting grid design to look at is Twitter.

The website has relaunched their website design with a new format, one which perfectly fits into the golden ratio. "At least since the 20th century, many artists and architects have proportioned their works to approximate the golden ratio—especially in the form of the golden rectangle, in which the ratio of the longer side to the shorter is the golden ratio—believing this proportion to be aesthetically pleasing"

The visual idea of the golden ratio, is the notion of perfect proportions, and something called positional hierarchies - it is a formula calculated to be the ideally pleasing structure to look at. It appears within and is intrinsic to, an extraordinary array of life's designs found in nature, and aesthetics.

It is reported that it was used as far back as the Egyptian’s when building the Pyramids.

If you were to look at the bottom of a pine cone, or the classic nautilus shell, you would instantly see the recognizable curl, most often associated with the Golden Sections display. However in this case it has been used within a website design, to make it more compositionally elegant and easier for the eye to navigate.

The use of the golden ratio, or golden mean or golden section as it is sometimes also known, has meant that the website maintains proportional consistency and organization throughout - without being tedious to look at. The information displayed is well laid out, elegantly proportionate and easily understandable and that, for the most part, is down to the golden ratio's remarkable order. You probably know what a ratio is in general. It's a measure of proportion. If there are 100 boys in a school and 50 girls, then the ratio of boys to girls is 100:50, which can be thought of as the fraction 100/50 = 2/1. So you can also say the ratio is 2:1 ("two to one").

Suppose that you have a piece of rope, and you cut it in some place so that you now have two pieces of rope. If you cut it in the middle, then the two pieces are equal, so their lengths are in a 1:1 ratio. If you cut the rope 1/3 of the way down from one end, then the bigger piece will be twice as long as the smaller piece, so their lengths are in a 2:1 ratio.

In theory, it's possible to cut the rope so that the ratio of the larger piece to the smaller piece, is the same ratio as the original uncut rope length to the bigger piece. THIS special ratio is defined as the golden ratio. There are lots of equivalent ways of defining it, but that's the formal definition.

Unfortunately, there's no neat way of writing the number. You can't write it out as the ratio of two whole numbers. So like pi, it's an irrational number. But expressed as a decimal it's approximately equal to 1.618. You can use algebra to show that it's exact value is (1+√5)/2.

It turns out that the golden ratio has lots of other interesting properties. It shows up in a lot of Greek and Roman architecture, because golden rectangles (a rectangle whose length to width are in the golden ratio) are believed to be most aesthetically pleasing. It also appears in nature. Also, take the Fibonacci sequence: 1, 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13, 21....

This is the sequence of numbers where you start with "1, 1", and keep adding the two previous numbers to get the next number (1+1 = 2, 1+2 = 3, 2+3 = 5, 3+5 = 8, etc.). It turns out that if you keep writing this out, the ratios of consecutive numbers get closer and closer to the golden ratio: 1/1, 2/1, 3/2, 5/3, 8/5, 13/8, 21/13...

see it's simple ! next week Fractal Equations and Mandelbrot sets, dude.

Design one, please peruse the I LoveTypography web site. During the next couple of weeks we will be discussing type, its history, design and contemporary uses. It may seem to you to be a relatively small part of design, but it is an essential aspect - as much as colour, line or concept is. Many interesting designs have failed due to the designers lack of type awareness. So check the site out, especially the popular and recent articles sections found on the right side of the page, and please read sections 1 to 4 of "History of Typography", it's a great site. the word typography is linked

Grotesque Alphabet

This late 16th century suite of ornamental letters by Giacomo Paolini

is known as 'Grotesque Alphabet in Mythological Landscapes'.

design two, warning ! our film title design project - is the next to be assigned, so start thinking !

Sanborn Fire Insurance Map Typography

Title pages, headings and letterforms clipped, cropped and isolated from maps and map publications issued between about 1880 and 1920.

Visages,

une exposition collective et une publication dirigées par Joseph Ghosn avec les dessins de Charles Berberian, Theo Ellsworth, Charles Burns, Philippe Dupuy, Sammy Harkham, Frédéric Fleury, Blutch, Frédérique Rusch, Paul Hornschemeier, Caroline Andrieu, Nine Antico, Serge Clerc, Frédéric Poincelet, Antoine Marquis, Julien Carreyn, Emmanuelle Pidoux, Fanny Michaëlis, Ludovic Debeurme, Michael Deforge.

“On ne regarde jamais assez les visages dessinés, les figures qui traversent une case, une page et les regards qui les habitent. La bande dessinée, pourtant, est un art de la représentation, du visage restitué, réinventé, mais toujours fidèle à lui-même, à sa vérité. Ou alors à la vérité telle que la perçoit le dessinateur. Les visages, donc, sont ces pièces centrales qui font que l’on reconnaît un personnage, une figure, immédiatement. La tension est toujours là, dans ce qui dessine l’ovale d’un visage, la souplesse ou la dureté d’un regard : le visage, donc, est bien l’ultime frontière de la bande dessinée – et du dessin, d’où qu’il provienne. C’est pour cela qu’en écho à une idée de la galerie 12mail (exposons de la bande dessinée), la seule réponse qui sorte et s’impose est celle de montrer des visages, d’accrocher des regards plutôt que de montrer des planches qui ont leur place dans des livres plutôt que sur des murs.” …

A l’occasion de l’exposition, 12Mail éditera une publication gratuite conçue par Laurent Fétis, éditée à 1000 exemplaires, regroupant les visuels de l’exposition sous forme de posters détachables.

3 février – 30 mars 2012
12MAIL, Paris