Archive for the ‘Articles’ Category

On November 15, 2010, some fine ladies & gents launched a fun contest for graphic designers called How Low Can Your Logo? The gist of the contest is for designers to “willingly create that which you spend your entire life trying not to create: the worst logo ever. ” It’s an awesome way to bring the design community together and have some laughs, and it was a really fun, quick project to complete.

Perhaps the most fun part of the whole contest is the client writeup, where you get the most jargon-laden client brief to work from ever. Full of contradictions and punchlines seemingly pulled straight from ClientsFromHell, I had a good laugh reading it. Here’s a few sections pulled from the client brief, so you can see what we were tasked to create:

Meet the Client

Excellencico (established in 1996) is a global leader in providing a focused, broad range of services to a world-class, international, region-centric clientele. Excellencico harnesses evolving, dynamic e-technologies to provide unparalleled levels of synergistic e-products to a heterogeneous set of unperpendiculated e-applications…

Direction

Our logo needs to be simple and yet detailed, complex yet spare. We prefer that the logo convey the forward-thinking nature of our company without looking too futuristic or flashy but we also don’t want anything too conservative or neutral. “Just right” is the vibe we are looking for. We believe that “e” best defines our unique approach and core company culture. We’re very drawn to the colors one finds in a rainbow but color wheels are a significant turn-off. I have attached a picture of our puppy. We don’t want the puppy incorporated into the logo but we do want you to capture her spirit and attitude and expect that to be conveyed through design elements.

Pure designnerd comedy gold, I tell ya. Armed with this information, I opened up Illustrator and, with much thought, created this monstrosity of a logo: Read the whole article >

A graphic designer in today’s day and age has to have a wide-ranging skill set. Along with the obvious grasp of design principles like contrast, balance, color and such and the knowledge of how to use the industry-standard software, many clients also expect designers to be developers, illustrators, strategists and more. I agree with most of these expectations (so long as they’re realistic); however, there is one specific skill that can and does, in my opinion, mark the difference between a good designer and a great designer: the art of clear communication.

Read the whole article >

The importance of having a quality logo cannot be understated. A logo is the face of a business – it’s the first thing clients see, and we all know we’re a first-impression society. With that in mind, there are a few characteristics that any good logo must have, and these traits are must-knows for designers both new and old. In my opinion, there are three overarching goals that great logos meet: they are flexible, they are memorable, and they are simple. Allow me to elaborate.

3 Quick Tips for Great Logo Design Read the whole article >

Graphic design is a saturated field. Just look at the amount of design blogs, this one included, out there in Internet-land. Yes, there are many of us providing our services for clients – whether those services are web design, identity design, print design, all of the above or some combination. Getting into the graphic design field and providing services is one thing, but being a responsible designer is another. What, then, is a “responsible” designer?

How to be a Responsible Designer

As experts in our field, we have responsibilities to uphold. Three main responsibilities that come to the top of my mind are ethics, honesty, and environmental responsibility. These obvious don’t encompass everything about being a responsible designer, but it’s a good start. I welcome additions in the comments.

Read the whole article >

I remember the first album cover that truly grabbed my attention: Meatloaf’s Bat Out of Hell. Why my dad had a Bat Out of Hell LP, I don’t know. What I do know is that image of a guy on the chopper bursting out of hell in a cemetery on the cover, made me think, “I need to listen to this record.”

The Changing Landscape of Album Design

Such is the power of album art. It draws the viewer in. It can expand the story of the album. It can increase album sales. In some cases it can even achieve legendary status, like Pink Floyd’s The Dark Side of the Moon or the Beatles’ Abbey Road. For years, designers have worked alongside musicians and record labels to create imagery and packaging that brings an album to completion. However, the landscape of album art is changing drastically with the rise of iTunes and similar digital music providers, and as graphic designers we need to adapt.

Album Sales Figures

If we look at Soundscan’s 2009 stats for music sales in the United States, there are a few numbers that jump out.

  • Music sales overall went up 2.1% – good news for the music industry and thus for the design industry.
  • Digital singles sold 8.3% more than the previous year, and digital albums themselves rose 16.1%.
  • Vinyl sales climbed 33%, but still only make up 1.6% of total sales (2.5 million units compared to 1.55 billion units).
  • 297.6 million physical albums were sold; of this, 76.4 million were digital albums.

What do these numbers tell us? Basically, digital sales continue to rise while physical album sales continue to decline. Read the whole article >

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