Design, Art, Music
I was at the grocery store and saw this new attempt at packaging for cheer. The old packaging was still on a few boxes next to it and was nothing great, but this is just bad. Awful illustrator work with the blob swooshes, awful bevel effect on the type and no sort of equity taken from the old design. Fail.
Sometimes you have to go back to the basics when looking for inspiration. I have been looking for that inspiration lately and I finely found some by going back and studying one of my original design heros, Paul Rand. His best work is beyond timeless and designs he did from the 40’s, 50’s and 60’s are still as relevant and perfect today. The curiosity and playfulness in his work is something that I personally want to pay more attention to in mine. It is easy to take the easy way out, and I find myself doing it more often than I would like. I also found he has an official website dedicated to his life and work and it is full of great examples, quotes, interviews and more. I recommend anyone with any interest in design to visit it. Here are some of my faves.
UPDATE: Funny enough the day I discover the site on my own Comm Arts highlights it on their home page and writes a brief story about it. Interesting
Over the weekend I helped out some friends with a logo for their new podcast “Cinema Café Podcast” in which hosts Penny and Josh review the latest movie releases as well as discuss current film news. The logo was inspired by Josh’s love of old film noir movies and is a modernish take on the old posters but run through a modern filter with a nod to über designer/illustrator and personal hero Michael Schwab. Every time I sit down to do an illustration I study his work. He has such a brilliant way simplifying things to their very essence with minimal lines shapes and colors. So good. Anyway, back to the point, go subscribe and listen to Cinema Café Podcast if you want to hear some good honest reviews “by the fans for the fans”.
One of our clients at Courtney & Co, buildOn, is an organization that “empowers people and transforms lives by partnering our after-school service programs in the U.S. with communities in developing countries to build schools.” So that means kids in underprivileged neighborhoods in the U.S. volunteer time and efforts to do outreach work in their own communities and as they do this they raise money to build schools in impoverished countries around the world. Jim Ziolkowski, buildOn’s founder was interviewed on the Today Show this morning so we went out early this morning with buildOn shirts and signs we printed up to stand in the outside audience with some of the program kids and get some more exposure. Even though my logo wasn’t chosen in the end, it was cool to have our work broadcast to millions of viewers across America. On a related note Courtney & Company is building our own school in Mali, Africa and Mark, Suzi and I are scheduled to go over there this fall to help build it for a week. I will post more details on that when it is closer, but you can read more information on that at the Courtney & Company website under & initiative.
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Tonight we saw industrial designer Tucker Viemeister of Rockwell Group talk at an AIGA/NY Classic/Contemporary talk. We have been to all three of them so far where we also saw Louise Fili and Jim Sherraden of Hatch Show Prints. All these events have been very low key and informative with short presentations and very insightful interviews. With smaller rooms and crowds it is a much more intimate place than the big ones like the Sagmeister talk a few weeks ago. It is nice to be involved in the ny design community, even if I can’t bring myself to talk to anyone else I don’t know there. The next one should be in April and will probably be just as good. Suzi and I are also going up to Boston for the 2008 HOW Design Convention which will also be ridonkulous.
So it’s been a busy few weeks here for me. One of my projects I have been working on is an album cover for friend from New Orleans, Andre’s band. The album comes out next year I believe in January. It was a nice change of pace to do something like this and I am happy with how it turned out. This week is a big week also with the David Wright gala on thursday night at Hard Rock in Times Square. I will post pics of the gala when I take them. I will also post all the cool designs we did once they are out there. For now though you can go to the foundations’ website and take the rock star quiz that we made. And no, of course I had nothing to do with this site design, although I hope to redesign it at some point.
So, it’s been a really long time since I posted anything. I have been extremely busy with work and freelance and all that stuff so I guess it just fell to the wayside. I have been working on a couple of really cool projects at work, the branding for the Bahamian island we visited last month, and some design work for another client that advocates reproductive rights for women in crisis countries across the world. After all the high-end luxury type stuff it is nice to design something that is for a good cause. I am also set to design the album cover for one of my good friend’s band’s new album coming out. Pretty excited about that as well and I will post when I actually do something for it.
I really like these I believe new XM radio ads that have been popping up. They create a very simple but distinct feel that is fun yet sophisticated. Its also great to see someone break apart and have fun with xm’s great logo. These spots were done by Lowe Worldwide. I can’t find who did their logo, but it is very beautiful indeed.