Society6

One website that I personally use and find to be very interesting and convenient is society6. Society6 is a website that sells artists work for them and also allows you to create your own portfolio and explore other artists work as well. All you have to do is upload your work onto your own profile and the company will print and mail your work out for you on a handful of items including tapestries, notebooks, coffee mugs and much much more. Although you do only get a small portion of what your items are sold for, I do believe its a great way to get your work out there. You can create a “my society” and follow certain artists of your interest and scroll through a feed of the work of other artists. Theres a lot you can do on Society6 and if you’re reading this I really encourage you to check it out.

Self-promotion piece

While looking online, I came across this really cool business card for the company Mais Pilates. The company is a pilates company and their business card is definitely one to remember. It is an interactive business card that gets the company’s point across that pilates is beneficial to our bodies and helps better posture and flexibility. I love the design of this business card and the thought and idea behind it.

http://maispilatesstudio.com.br/contato

https://www.designclever.co.uk

One design blog that I found to be very interesting is Design Clever. Design Clever is a collaborative blog started by graphic designers Jonathan Ring and Bethany Baker. The two have a huge passion for anything and everything design related. Design Clever is a blog that was created to showcase talented artists from all around the world. The blog highly encourages all artists to submit their work. I extremely like the simple layout of the blog. It’s enjoyable to scroll through the blog and look at all the diverse pieces of artwork. I like how the main page has very little type and in order to find out more about the work, the viewer  has to click on the piece of art they are interested in. I believe this a very well-done design blog thats enjoyable to scroll through.

What Are Air Toxics Information Design

I think this information design does a good job showing how air toxics effect us and our community. I like how the designer separated the information about air toxics into 3 different sections stacked one on top of the other. The information is easy to understand and follow and I think the pictures, especially in the first section about “How we are exposed” does a good job showing how we are exposed to air toxins. The designer used a pink color to represent the air toxins and showed that these toxins are in the water, air, and food we eat. I think the designer picked good colors to help catch a viewers eye. More about this designer and this poster can be found here.

Facebook

One identity system of a service that I’m sure we all are familiar with is Facebook. The facebook logo is a simple logo with a single white f surrounded with blue color. The f font is a simple modification of the type face Klavika. Type and graphic designer Joe Kral made the final modifications to the logo. I believe the facebook logo is a well done example of a identity system. The logo also symbolizes the connecting of friends. Facebook is a well-known social media medium and i believe that all identity systems/logos for social media mediums should be very simple. For example, both twitter and tumblr logos can closely relate to the facebook logo.

  Facebook, along with the twitter and tumblr logos use white and simple color. These are all good examples of identity systems because they are easy to remember and although they are very very simple, people will remember what they mean. To learn more about the facebook logo and Joe Kral visit here.

 

McDonalds

The McDonalds logo is a logo that uses the design technique of ambiguity of positive and negative space. McDonalds is a very popular fast food restaurant and their logo can be easily spotted. Most people recognize their logo which is known as “the Golden Arches.” However, these “Golden Arches” can also be seen as an “M” to represent McDonalds. The simplicity of this logo makes it unique and very recognizable. The positive and negative space is equally balanced and the use of the color yellow helps make this logo standout. This simple yet extremely popular logo was created by Jim Schindler. Here is where you can read more about Jim and the McDonalds logo.

Tostitos Logo

I find it funny because I eat Tostitos chips very often and never noticed their logo until just recently. As you can see, the company used the middle t, i, and t to represent two people sharing chips and salsa. I find it very interesting and creative how they got the idea to have the two t’s represent people and the i be some sort of table that holds a bowl of salsa. I also think that the red and yellow colors do a great job helping viewers decipher the message they are trying to get across. I also like how the logo has a very happy feel to it. The two “people” in the logo look like they are enjoying their chips and salsa due to the way the company designed and angled the two t’s. Overall, I think this is a very creative and cool logo and I’m surprised I only recently noticed it.

Peter Mendelsund

Peter Mendelsund is known for his famous book cover designs. One of his most well-known pieces of work is his book cover for Stieg Larsson’s Girl with the Dragon Tattoo. His design for this cover is seen as being “the most instantly recognizable and iconic book covers in contemporary fiction.”

Mendelsund is also a well-known book cover designer for the author Franz Kafka. One of his designs can be seen in the image below for the book Diaries by Franz Kafka. Mendelsund has designed many of Kafka’s book covers, but this design stood out the most to me. I feel Mendelsund used a very simple yet unique way to design this book cover. The title “diaries” matches well with the multiple eyes with the key holes in them. The book covers design ties well with the title and gives off a very secretive vibe to the book which leaves viewers curious as to what lies within the following pages. I like how he styled the title in script so it looks handwritten, almost as if somebody was writing it in their diary. I also believe he balanced out the negative space very well with using different sized eyes that are either placed horizontally or vertically.

The Language of Graphic Design: An Illustrated Handbook for Understanding Fundamental Design Principles by Richard Poulin

One book that I found interesting is The Language of Graphic Design: An Illustrated Handbook for Understanding Fundamental Design Principles by Richard Poulin. For our in class magazine project, my designer I am focusing on is David Carson who is well known for his unique typography style. Chapter 25 in this book caught my eye because it focuses on Typography. 

In the first example Edward Albee’s The Goat, or Who is Sylvia?, Albee uses typographic overlays as interpretive representations of the plays themes and explorations of morality  and identity. A viewer questions “Goat” and “Sylvia” and further questions who these 2 characters are. Another thing that I found interesting in this chapter is the typeface classifications that you can read in both my images. 

I found the typeface classifications to be very interesting because I never knew typography could be classified into different categories. Some classifications include Old Style, Transitional, Modern, Graphic, and so on. I found this part of the chapter to be very important because the reading explains what different typeface classifications there are as well as what they should look like, and also gives some examples. You can read more from this book here.

Peter Cohen: Coalition for the Homeless

Peter Cohen is an advertising creative director who designed this poster in the 1990’s as a coalition for the homeless. Homeless people sleeping on the streets of NYC has been a problem for a while now. On the bottom of the poster it says “They could use your prayers. More importantly they could use your help.” Cohen decided to address this issue by creating this poster in hopes to spread awareness that all citizens of New York should be willing to help those in need get back on the right path. Cohen uses photos of well-known figures/people to grab a viewers attention and address the issue of homeless people. This can be seen in some of his other pieces of work. These posters became the start of an entire campaign which raised hundreds of thousands of dollars for the Coalition. Some more of his work can also be viewed here.