Learning graphic design

Never use a script font in email

2010-11-12T06:40:00.000-08:00

Here is an email I received from a sales rep at Fox TV. It makes my head hurt. I thought this was a good example of how NOT to use script fonts. Check out the all caps HOLIDAY GREETINGS that kinda resembles hieroglyphics. Guess he thought this was festive.

It’s that time of year again…time to record your Holiday Greetings.

FOX 55/27 Illinois HOLIDAY GREETINGS!

Get your Santa hats and reindeer antlers together and get to the FOX Studios in Champaign to share the holiday cheer with friends, family and customers on Tuesday, November 16th!!

I would like to thank you for being a partner with FOX 55/27 Illinois-WRSP/WCCU TV this year by inviting you to attend our annual Holiday Greetings held in the FOX office at 1704 S. Neil Street, Suite D in Champaign.

We will also be in our Springfield office on Tuesday, November 16^th for those of you who are closer to that office. The greetings will be held all day long at both locations from 7:30a-4:30p with tapings every 15 minutes.

Please RSVP to me ASAP with a time that would be convenient for your group to stop by one of our studios to record the greeting. These will begin airing immediately after Thanksgiving and will run through the holiday season.

Jon

2010-11-11T15:52:00.000-08:00

I know I should be looking for good examples but the bad examples from "Your Logo Makes Me Barf" are so much more fun. This one is for a doctor who specializes in carpal tunnel. Looks like a Garamond or Century serif and a Helvetica or clone sans serif. That whole Brown Hand thing is really weird.

MOMA banner ad

2010-11-05T13:33:00.001-07:00

I like this banner ad that I stumbled across today for MoMA. I think the font is Franklin Gothic bold condensed or similar. It is tightly tracked and leaded so that is edgy, but mainly those colors are so weird together it really gets your attention. I really like the logo treatment too.

Dingbats

2010-11-03T13:33:00.000-07:00

Here is my dingbats post. I couldn't figure out how to get it in my Angel posting.

To Lean Forward

2010-11-03T13:13:00.000-07:00

This is a spread from the front of Time Magazine and is an ad for MSNBC. I think the use of type only is dramatic and eyecatching. It appears to be Helvetica bold condensed. I'm not convinced the concept is that effective though. Leaning forward does indicate engagement and paying attention, but has nothing to do with thinking bigger and acting faster. What if it said, "Lean forward. Be informed. Engage." That would be more active. I give a B- for trying something different but not quite hitting the mark.

Compass Records

2010-10-22T06:53:00.001-07:00

The Compass Records logo at the top left is another example of small caps. The typeface appears to be Futura. The logo is clean and simple but I think there is too much space between the C and O in Compass. I also thought the different type treatments on all the CD covers was interesting to look at in terms of what the typeface is communicating about the music genre. And if you like Americana and Irish music they are having a $5 CD sale through Saturday!

UI Black Chorus Poster

2010-10-15T15:08:00.001-07:00

Here is a nice example of use of small caps.

Old Gap New Gap

2010-10-08T14:43:00.000-07:00

Here is the old Gap (G A P) and the new Gap logo (with square). The old logo is extra condensed and may be in the Century family. The new one looks similar to Helvetica bold but not quite... the discussion on "Your logo makes me barf" is hilarious and mainly is about, if you are going to redesign a logo is that all you can come up with? But working on our wordmark project is giving me a sense of how very hard it is to come up with a type-based logo. And in real life, you have to have it approved by a committee. Fun!

Counterclockwise

2010-10-01T07:00:00.000-07:00

I am going to work on a wordmark for "Counterclockwise," which is the name of a musical group that I play in. We play old-time and traditional acoustic music on fiddle, guitar, mountain dulcimer, and sing harmonies. We play at venues like the Early American Museum in Mahomet, nursing homes, public libraries, and music festivals. Our audience tends to be older people who are familiar with the music, or parents with young children.

2010-09-28T13:08:00.000-07:00

Here are some wordmark logos that I liked a lot. I like the simplicity of type only and yet how incredibly creative these are.

2010-09-24T09:49:00.000-07:00

I scanned this image from the News-Gazette. It is a book cover for a new historical novel. I thought it looked old-fashioned but not quite right, and decided it was because the sans-serif font was more contemporary than the image. I asked my daughter what she thought of the book cover font and she said it didn't look like it went with the old-fashioned image either. What do you think? Does it work for you?

Urology logo

2010-09-17T14:00:00.000-07:00

Well, I am addicted to the website "Your logo makes me barf" and this example of a type-based logo is pretty hilarious. I hope those kidneys aren't in the glyph palette. The font is Baker Signet.

2010-09-10T14:36:00.000-07:00

I thought this was a dramatic and effective use of typography. The font may be Avenir or URW.

Little Lamb Preschool

2010-09-09T00:27:00.000-07:00

I spent some time perusing the website "your logo makes me barf" before finding this sign, which is not really barfy, but a bit trite. I was curious as to whether this was even a real font or whether it was hand drawn. I couldn't find the font through Identifont but put "children's font with backwards s" into Google, and lo and behold, there it was. It's called "Dear Teacher." This sign has a drop shadow on the font.

Tiepolo

2010-09-02T13:39:00.000-07:00

Tiepolo was created by Alpha Omega Typography design team Cynthia Hollandsworth and Arthur Baker in 1987 for the International Typeface Corporation. Described by its creators as a sans serif typeface with serifs, its ink-drawn feel likely comes from designer Arthur Baker’s calligraphic skills. In the same year Tiepolo was created, Cynthia Hollandsworth founded the Typeface Design Coalition to work for copyright protection of type designs. Giovanni Domenico Tiepolo (1727-1804), for whom this typeface was named, was a prolific Venetian painter and printmaker. His work included 104 sketches of the commedia dell’arte character Punchinello. Punchinello, the harlequin, is also known as Punch of the Punch and Judy puppet shows.

More veggies

2010-04-07T15:04:00.001-07:00

This is a silly idea I had about veggies. The veggie on the right is a cucumber (cuke), not a banana. Now do you get it??? BTW that is a made-up website.

Project 3

2010-04-02T12:37:00.001-07:00

My husband and I have purchased a food concession trailer and are going to offer vegetarian cowboy cuisine, mostly at the Urbana Farmer's Market. I am going to design a flyer to invite our neighbors to try out the grub on Sunday, April 18. They are the ones who have to see that giant red trailer in our driveway, so we would like to keep the peace. These are three examples of poster design that I liked and thought would work for my flyer. The cartoon down at the bottom is the little guy I call the dancing jalapeno, who is a work in progress (not by me), but will represent our business - not exactly a logo, but a graphic identifier. So that needs to be on the flyer.

2010-03-25T11:10:00.000-07:00

Some day I would like to write songbooks for the mountain dulcimer of the public domain songs that I know and love. I thought I could do civil war songs, Carter Family tunes, and fiddle tunes for dulcimer. But this requires learning how to do notate songs using a computer program. Right now I tab out songs for my classes all by hand. Anyway, here is a sketch of what a cover for Civil War songs for mountain dulcimer could look like.

Why should you be a vegetarian?

2010-02-24T13:41:00.000-08:00

I played around with a few sketches for my eat meatless campaign idea. I like the one with the pig the best. I think it's the least confrontational.

Sketch angst

2010-02-17T11:42:00.001-08:00

I have been thinking about sketches. (As opposed to doing sketches.) I'd like to create a campaign about vegetarianism. I've been a vegetarian for years, but when people ask me why, I don't have a good answer. It's personal. I don't judge others for their eating choices. I certainly know it's hard to make good eating choices. So, as I've been pondering how to clarify my own motivations for not eating meat, I've also been thinking about how to create a campaign that makes people think without turning them off. We get extremely mixed messages from PETA to the Beef Council, for example. And I don't think either of those camps convince the other side of anything. And there are health claims on both sides of the aisle. I'm not even convinced that humans aren't supposed to eat meat, and I don't expect my kids to be vegetarians. But I would at least like to persuade people to THINK about where the food they eat comes from. So here are some of my thoughts of what might work, and hopefully some of them will become sketches.

A factual approach:
(Note, I haven't verified these 'facts")
* In the US alone, 500,000 animals are killed for meat every hour.
* African countries - where millions are starving to death - export grain to the developed world so that animals can be fattened for our dining tables.
* If we eat the plants we grow instead of feeding them to animals, the world's food shortage will disappear virtually overnight. 100 acres of land will produce enough beef for 20 people but enough wheat to feed 240 people.
* If everyone in North America reduced their animal food consumption by just 10 percent, the grain we would save from animal feed could be used to feed all of the hungry throughout the world (Earth Save)
Tagline: something to the effect of eat vegetarian, it's better for the planet

Dispelling myths:
* Vegetarians don't get enough protein.
* You can't be an athlete, bodybuilder etc if you don't eat meat.
* It's too hard to give up meat. Won't ever feel satisfied.
* Vegetables don't taste good. Healthy food tastes yucky.
Tag line: something about eating vegetarian is for everybody

A more emotional approach:
* Animals are our friends, not our food.
* showing respect for life by eating lower on the food chain
* Eating with a clear conscience
Tag line: it's the right thing to do.

I would love feedback on whether any of these ideas are worth pursuing. What would make you give up eating meat, even for ONE meal?

Saul Bass project

2010-02-10T14:54:00.000-08:00

This is my execution of my favorite Saul Bass sketch after class critique. I still have a few more tweaks to make but here is what I have so far. I really love the top treatment of "bass" even though by using that type size I had to make everything else 9.5 size type. I chose a simpler design than most of my classmates, and I am so impressed that people cut out the images and did other adventurous things with Illustrator. I am still really scared of that pen tool.

Getting better... slowly

2010-02-01T08:30:00.000-08:00

I spent the weekend creating sketches for the Saul Bass project and despite a small amount of confusion (does only TWO type sizes mean that if you use the word "bass" in large type for a graphic element that everything else has to be ONE type size? I decided the answer was "yes" even though it made creating a headline difficult.) managed to do something acceptable, I think. Here are my three favorite sketches for the Saul Bass project.

GDS 108 Week Two

2010-01-20T17:27:00.000-08:00

Well, I'm not ready to share any of my really awful sketches. I am taking this course and drawing 1 so I can eventually produce sketches that won't be embarrassing.

GDS 108 Day 2

2010-01-13T09:13:00.001-08:00

Here is a blog...