Now we're getting somewhere. Don't get me wrong, I love learning about harmonious chroma as much as the next guy, but this is my wheelhouse. I love typography. I am aware of how dorky that sentence is, but I couldn't care less. The idea of evoking an emotion just from lettering alone is such an interesting idea to me. Just seeing the thumbnail for the Sony Music Timeline video made me excited. The fact there approximately a billion different faces being used on that wall, but they still play well together is just really cool to me. I want to do things like that. I like the aesthetic of mid-1800's woodblock lettering because it is so bold and evocative on its own, and they use a bunch of that in this video. I love the subject matter, I love how every name is a piece unto itself, I love how there are only like 3 colors. It's basically perfect.
This is where I am comfortable with design.
As for the From Paper to Screen video, I wasn't crazy about it when it started. I mean it looked great, but there wasn't much of substance. When it made the transition to talking about film I got more interested. I also love how Saul Bass is roundly treated as the Michael Jordan of animated typography. Which, I mean, he is, but I just think it's fun to see other's hero worship. It followed the conventions of every version of film type there is and looked great too. I had the vague feeling that English might not be the creator's first language, but that wasn't a big deal.
Also, I think it's funny how like every artsy video is hosted by Vimeo. It's a great video site, but I can never get over the fact that it was founded by the same guys who founded CollegeHumor.
Moral of the story: more type related things, please.
Monday, September 16, 2013
3 ways good design makes you happy, a review.
Don Norman makes some really interesting points. He touches on a lot of things that I find very important. His focus on fun and accessibility really hit home for me. There is a certain pretension that comes with much of art that can really turn people off, me included. Seeing Norman embrace the happiness that can come from design without doing away with functionality is inspiring in a way.
The topics he goes over were by no means Earth-shattering, they are the most basic concepts of human processing. Yet, somehow, once they are put into a design context they feel completely different, almost revelatory. I knew a little bit about these ideas beforehand, but I had never really applied them to design. It's brilliant.
What really took me though was actually the example of the Ping-Pong table. The one with the ripples and the fish. It is the best application of Norman's talk. The idea of a Ping-Pong table, with the loud-ish sounds and highly kinetic nature of the game along with it, juxtaposed with the silence and peace of a koi pond is, on paper, a pretty cool idea. Problem is, that contrast that makes the idea so appealing makes playing Ping-Pong on said table kind of a nightmare. It is the Icarus of Ping-Pong tables. It flew too close to the sun of cleverness; so much so that its more art installation than piece of recreation equipment. That's not fun. It's too high-minded for a game that exists mostly in the basements of divorced dads. Just the name Ping-Pong torpedoes any chance to make it serious and academic. It's like trying to make a flip-flop that is also a comment on Syria.
I really liked this.
The topics he goes over were by no means Earth-shattering, they are the most basic concepts of human processing. Yet, somehow, once they are put into a design context they feel completely different, almost revelatory. I knew a little bit about these ideas beforehand, but I had never really applied them to design. It's brilliant.
What really took me though was actually the example of the Ping-Pong table. The one with the ripples and the fish. It is the best application of Norman's talk. The idea of a Ping-Pong table, with the loud-ish sounds and highly kinetic nature of the game along with it, juxtaposed with the silence and peace of a koi pond is, on paper, a pretty cool idea. Problem is, that contrast that makes the idea so appealing makes playing Ping-Pong on said table kind of a nightmare. It is the Icarus of Ping-Pong tables. It flew too close to the sun of cleverness; so much so that its more art installation than piece of recreation equipment. That's not fun. It's too high-minded for a game that exists mostly in the basements of divorced dads. Just the name Ping-Pong torpedoes any chance to make it serious and academic. It's like trying to make a flip-flop that is also a comment on Syria.
I really liked this.
Monday, September 9, 2013
Good-ish/Bad-ish Color Choices
GQ Illustration
The inner pages of GQ are chock-full of how to aim design towards the middle and make it work. The yellows and the blues are both so bright and vibrant, but the amount of negative space from the white makes it remarkably easy on the eyes. I mean that in a literal way, not in the weird dad-phrase way. It helps that black is only used for the edges of the illustration and text. It's pretty simple, and well spaced out. This how you make a limited palate of bright colors work.
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Colorado Avalanche '96 Champs Shirt
I do love this shirt. The Colorado Avalanche began life as the Quebec* Nordiques in 1972, as a part of the WHA , the World Hockey Association. The WHA was the '70s rival league to the NHL (think the ABA vs. the NBA, or the AFL vs. the NFL). They stayed in Quebec until about '95, when they flew south to Denver and rebranded as the Colorado Avalanche. The Avalanche probably don't have the best color scheme/logo in all of sports. However, in comparison to other logos birthed in the '90s (like this, this, this, or, dear god, this), it's not half bad. The wine red and the "Steel Blue" look okay together, not particularly bad but not particularly great either. What makes those colors not work as well is that there are about 3 different textures all competing in the same space. It basically torpedoes any good the design could have. There is the darker net pattern against the main text, the weirdly realistic texture of the puck, and then the motion lines of the Avalanche logo. This is how you make 2 colors and 2 neutrals somehow look really rough.
*The Nordiques were a part of the '70s class of Québécois sports teams with stone cold and surprisingly abstract logos (Nordiques, Expos, & the Olympique). Well, the Expos were formed in 1969, but you get it.
Wednesday, September 4, 2013
Poster influences: Photos.
The following photos are helping me shape my idea for my poster.
This is one of my favorites. I love the way the richness of the blue in the denim contrasts with the brown of the wood. I think I'm going to use a hardwood background for my final poster.
I really liked how simple this one was. The gold really pops off of the neutrals of the black and gray. Have to remember to do something like that on the poster too.
This is a missed opportunity in my eyes. This could have been a jean gradient out in the wild. A Jadient if you will. I am setting out to make a real life denim gradient one day, if it's the last thing I do.
My objects & why I think they're good design
1. Backpack:
4 (understandable) the design of this backpack pulls no punches. It's straightforward, basically 3 pockets and a laptop liner in the back. 10 (as little as possible) Other than the "Herschel" tag on the front of the pocket, this couldn't be designed more simply. There are, in total, 3 colors on the outside of the it. 7 (long lasting) it's kind of fashionable right now, but the simplicity of the design is classic and Jansport has been making this same style of bag for about 35 years.
Why? This is going to come up in all of these, but it comes down to simplicity. It is clearly a backpack, looking almost like the archetype of the book bag, like what would be drawn in a cartoon. That clarity is interesting to me.
2. Fuelband:
1. (Innovative) This is one of the few products of its kind available. It's somewhere between a running watch and a regular watch. But it's also almost aggressively minimalist, as opposed to the outlandishness of most other watches (especially Running watches) 3. (Aesthetic) it looks really really good. 4. (Understandable) There is one button on the front face and the back face opens up into a usb plug. you can't really be confused by It. 10. (As Little as possible) see 4.
Why? Because it is innovative above everything. I've had this thing for over a year now, and I still have no idea how that display works. I've tried. It's sleek and sexy and futuristic without sacrificing accessibility and purpose. But futuristic in a way that isn't only relevant to the current day. It's functional as an accessory for exercise but also aesthetically pleasing enough as a day-to-day accessory to just be worn as a watch. It's kind of perfect in that way.
3. Rubik's Cube:
7. (Long lasting) it's an 80's trope in and of itself, but since its inception this product has never really disappeared, and it's has always been fun and interesting 3. (Aesthetic) It's colorful but simple. 4. (Understandable) It's a puzzle, that's pretty basic. 8. (Thorough) There are no outliers on the cube. It's all regular. It keeps coming back to simplicity.
Why? I've always been obsessed with nostalgia. The fact that this multi-colored cube alone can trigger memories and long disregarded feelings in someone is kind of amazing to me. Most of that comes from design. The colors of the toy draw you in. The fact that it's a puzzle escalates that. We understand that it is something to be solved. There is a natural human need to fix things. According to our reading, that is design ("For design is a process for making things right..."). The act of doing a Rubik's Cube is design. And that built in subtlety makes for good design.
4. Comb:
2. (Makes it useful) Combs are not super portable products. Sure, they aren't big, but they are stiff. I hate putting things in my back pockets, so the classic comb design makes personal storage difficult. This design, however, eludes that because it can fold into itself. 3. (Aesthetic) The entire product is only 2 colors; black and silver. It's ergonomic, just the right size, and in my personal opinion, really cool looking. 6. (Honest) Well, sort of. This is essentially a novelty product, made to resemble a switchblade but instead being a harmless comb. So the honesty part is a little vague. Stepping away from that, it's also just a more portable comb, honest, simple and clean. 7. (Long Lasting) In the way that the Rubik's Cube is the '80s, this is a very '50s product. In fact, when I bought it, the packaging was styled after those pulpy B-movies about dangerous juveniles. It's used in the movie Grease and by people with a fondness for '50s youth culture. All of that notwithstanding, the almost monochromatic color scheme fits into just about any era, and so does the product's primary function, to make the user look good/fresh.
Why? It goes along with the Rubik's Cube and my love of nostalgia (for eras I did not experience), but also a much more practical function. I bought it years ago at what was basically a joke shop just because I thought it looked kind of fun and different. This past summer, I needed a comb. So I started rooting around my drawers and found this guy. It was perfect, it's so much more compact than any other comb and it doubles as an accessory. Plus, it adds a little bit of old school edge to my otherwise toothless and boring self.
5. Sunglasses
1. (Innovative) Before the Wayfarer, basically all glasses were framed with metal. This is still evident in other classic Ray-Ban products (Aviators, Clubmasters, etc.). The Wayfarer's weren't the first, but they were the most enduring of the new plastic glasses. 3. (Aesthetic) The contemporaries of the Wayfarer are a laundry list of then-novel, now-classic product design, like the Fender Stratocaster, the Thunderbird, and basically everything that falls under the Streamline Moderne umbrella. There is a reason why those designs have grown so huge in our culture, and it's because we just keep coming back to them partially because of nostalgia and partially because of just solid design. 5. (Unobtrusive) It's somewhere between geometric and organic, and in its first run, the Wayfarer was not sold in many colors. Those two factors are clean and smart and have always been applicable. 7. (Long-lasting) Eyewear is one of the least reliable parts of fashion. Cultural taste in glasses basically never stops moving, so the fact that the Wayfarer has been accepted in at least 3 different decades (Mid '50s-mid '60s, the '80s, and from 2007-present) is really saying something about its staying power of this design.
Why? In a selfish way, these are the only types of glasses I look good wearing. That's a design miracle.
Why? In a selfish way, these are the only types of glasses I look good wearing. That's a design miracle.
Photos from Urban Outfitters (Backpack, link: http://www.urbanoutfitters.com/urban/catalog/productdetail.jsp?id=22634638#), Nike (Fuelband, link: http://images.nike.com/is/image/DotCom/THN_PS/Nike-FuelBand-WM0105_001_A.jpg?fmt=jpg&qty=85&wid=460&hei=460&bgc=F5F5F5), ThinkGeek (Rubik's Cube, link: http://www.thinkgeek.com/product/69fe/), TrueSwords (Comb, link: http://www.trueswords.com/images/prod/c/TS-SWITCHCOMB_540.jpg), Ray-Ban (Glasses, link: http://media.ray-ban.com/media/catalog/product/cache/1/image/840x490/9df78eab33525d08d6e5fb8d27136e95/R/B/RB2132-39.png) I own nothing.
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