Andy Smith

The face of disaster, 2000.
Limited edition poster.
Andy Smith.


This typeface is so interesting. Each letter is made up of different torture or disaster situations. It could be used really nicely in a cool layout as a title or something. The content would have to be funny and to do with pin... but it would work well!

National Forest

Everybody enjoys, 2004.
Poster.
National Forest.


This poster makes me feel comfortable... the colours are not striking or overpowering. Nothing is shouting for attention and I like it that way. Everything seems to have an equal role of importance. The really simple illustrations are beautiful. And even thought 3 colour have been used it is very interesting and busy when you look closer. Love it.

Geoff McFetridge

Live what you love, 2006.
Patagonia.
Pencil drawing for t-shirt.
Geoff McFetridge.


I am not sure if I like the saying more than the illustrative type on this piece... I really wish the 'love' was a bit higher and maybe budged over to the right to sit nicely with the 'you'. Such a tiny preference but I would love it even more if this was the case! I also think that it could work better with a bit more emphasis on one of the words... just looks a bit plain... but then again i think the simplicity suits it... Hmmm... Saying all this, it is on my wall!

Emily Anderson

Strand.
Emily Anderson.


This typeface is so innocent looking... it works really well in the advertisement on the right, The image and text work really well together as they compliment each other.

Justin Thomas Kay

Back in Black.

One one nine.

Strawberry Switchblade.

Wamp wamp.

Royale.

Preen.















Woah. Justin Thomas Kay brings me great inspiration for his type treatments! This gave me a great idea for my speaking from experience brief. Would love to experiment with using woodblock type and then editing it afterwards with illuatrations. I love the quality and look of hand printed type instead of digital printing. It has such a different effect. I know you can recreate it in photoshop or just use a typeface that looks like wood block print but why not use the real thing? Imitation is limitation.

Eric Olson

FIG. 
Weights used - sans, serif and script. 
Eric Olson. 


The mix of content and style is really weird but I think it works strangely. I love the typefaces used, so simple but effective. They look clean and just really nice!

Lodma

Black. 
Variant of Birfurk typeface. 
Lodma.

Roberto de Vicq de Cumtich

Men of letters & people of substance. 
Roberto de Vincq de Cumtich.

Fiodor Sumkin

"I always try to use a hard mix of 'brutal' or filthy language and very gentle, beautiful fonts."

Yeah... I can see! Quite like this style of font but would only work in certain contexts. It looks pretty cool and eye catching and I like the mix of what we perceive as good and bad. 

Abramesque.

Fiodor Sumkin.

Ext Inked

Tattoos of 100 extinct and most endangered animals. Its not graphic design but I love the idea of this collection being out in the world walking around. I am not keen on tattos but think this is a great idea! The tatoos are there forever unlike the content and I find this really imteresting. I actually want one! I might do some research into the whole 100 and get one for myself!

Pine Marten

Short Snouted Seahorse

Bunny and the Bull

Film and DVD cover SBT Design

Where

Vintage Coke Cans

Found these beautiful Coke cans from inspiredology. I am really interested by the branding of Coke. I heard that Father Christmas originally wore green and was slimmer, until Coca-Cola got their hands on him and changed him into the jolly round red fella we know today. That is a massive power. They are also a brand which recently only use their logo on the coke cans and no other illustration.

Where
Branding is a huge part of any company or product and these retro coke cans show a different perspective to branding. There is no real set style and the only similarity on each is the coke logo. These cans are drank by such a large audience and variety of poeple that it must be tricky to target some specific group.

Vintage Coke Cans.
Rouge age estimate 1980's.

Sean Freeman/There Is

There Is creates some wicked typographic treatments.

What
The function of some of the typefaces are that they express the word spelled out. I think they work really well and effectively as a header piece.

Fear.
Wired Magazine UK.
There Is.

Cream.
There Is.

Hot.
Book cover.
There Is.

Ingmar Spiller

Ingmar is a German Graphic Designer and Illustrator. My DC blog has been missing some type lately so when I saw this it was an instant post! I love the lines used in his work and angles used in this Runic typeface.

What
Created for White Lines magazine, I reckon this is a typeface more used for a header, rather than a whole passage of text! Would probably be too tricky to read if there was alot of it.

Runic Typeface.
Ingmar Spiller.

Kimberley Chan

Just couldn't stop looking at this Kimberley Chan's site and blog... The photography really enhances everything. She is currently at Lincoln Uni which was my second choice, also 21 and I just hope I can do some stuff to the same quality as her by my third year! Really varied projects from type to illustration. This is where I want to be when I finish my degree. This is one of my favourite pieces found on her website. It is such a clever idea, colour are brilliant and simple design is clear with the message.

What

"A poster concept about deforestation in the Amazon rainforest and information on steps to help save it. It encourages interaction or ‘Feel me to Heal me’ approach by using heat sensitive ink, which when warmed makes the trees appear over the stumps." - Kimberley Chan

Save the Amazon!
Heat sensitive poster.
Kimberley Chan.

Blu

I love stop motion animation and street art. Blu combines both! Really imaginative stuff.

Where
This piece was made in Buenos Aires and Baden. Its absoltuely brilliant. Is is produced in the public domain and is seen on such a large scale. The location for this shoot must have been huge. I think it is brilliant how the charcters move in real life, along the streets alongside the public.


- Muto. Blu.

Lernert & Sander/We Love Our Work

Some amazing videos... some which I'm not so keen on. Lernert and Sander's ideas are really impressive, and as with Sam O'Hare's work, the quality of shoot is just magnificent and makes the work polished.

What

The two vidoes below both are imaginative and show the viewer another perspective. I couldn't help wanting to go off and do something imaginative like this, and I think that their work is encouraging to an audience and is communicating the message without words...

... I showed these videos to my family and they didn't seem all that impressed! Maybe they communicate better to people in the creative industry? 

- Chocolate Bunny. Lernert & Sander.

- CDEFGABC. MTV Europe. Lernert & Sander

Sam O'Hare

The Sandpit is incredible. Sam O'Hare has produced this with amazing quality and thought put into the context. Found from Arthur's blog.

Who
I think everyone will get this video. It makes people look like little ants and when I first saw it, at the beginning I thought it was created from a model environment, something like thomas the tank engine! The quality of shooting is brilliant, even though the subjct is so far away, there is a really short depth of field which gives an unralistic image. For me, that is what makes it so amazing. Making the real seem unreal.


- The Sandpit. Sam O'Hare

Yanni Kronenberg & Lucinda Schreiber

This animation is so mesmerising. Everything about it is amazing... apart from  I can't find a website for either of the people who made it to check out any of their other projects!

What
This music video for Autumn Story by Firekites works so well. It represents the song well and gets the imagingtion of their target audience. A real organic feel to the animation through the erasable chalk. Love it.


- Autumn Story, Firekites. Music video. Yanni Kronenberg & Lucinda Schreiber

Toben

Stunning website and work.

Where
Leaves to make an album cover for a band called The Falls is great work. I love how the team have use real materials. There is such power in software that I think alot of work is completely digitalised because that is seen as quicker, or that it gives a better effect. But what could be better than using the real thing?!

Toben Website.
Toben.

The Falls CD Cover.
Toben.

Alberto Hernández

Being Twenty caught my eye as it had great interest by using the image of a rubiks cube, but in a more complex state than normal. With it being in place of a brain it makes my think of how difficult decisions can be sometimes and the complexities of life. Alberto (Here I Go) has done some pretty ace work including Hybrid Novels... really cool stuff.


Who

"Being twenty is a major moment for everyone. Transition from childhood and adolescence to adulthood, from emotional and material dependence towards an existential autonomy in perpetual progress. Daily things take up an important space that one could not have imagined and they are mixed up with more complex ideas on life one has created while maturing their own thoughts and critical sense." - Alberto Hernández

- Being Twenty.
Chaumont Poster Festival 2009.
Alberto Hernández

Creative Review redesign

Well... Over the last 6 months or so, I have become less and less impressed with Creative Review. I wasn't inspired to read the articles or even to flick throught it when it landed in my postbox, clearly I cancelled my subscription. I used to really like the layout and the clean feel to the pages. However, now it is begining to look cluttered and just rammed with everything even slightly related to graphic Design. I still get the subscription emails, and have recently seen they have had a redesign... Great, I thought!...

Who
Or not... It looks worse than before in my mind and more dated than ever! The logo seems to make me blink as if I a m not focussing properly, I am not sure whether it is the colour or typeface, but it doesn't work for me. It has gone the opposite way to which I hoped. I'm sure they know what they are doing and there must be a reason for this design. I really hate writing about stuff that I don't like, what right do I have at the end of the day to slate someones work... but when I paid good money to receive that, surely I become the audience, and this should in theory be aimed at me... Not anymore.

- Email from Creative Review.
The Redesign Issue.

OK Go

OK Go have some great music videos for their songs and this is my current favourite. All their videos ae original and don't stick within the boring conventions of most music videos. The video for "This Too Shall Pass uses the Rube Goldberg Machine which is a fantastic piece of engineering! There is even an interactive floorplan which shows photos and clips from the making of the video showing the machine in action. This post also relates to the 'What is a Line' brief as it shows the passing of time and calculations to make a sequence of events happen in a certain pre-defined order.

Who
I think OK Go do something amazing in the sense that they appeal to such a large audience in their music videos. They are interesting and because they don't have a set convention for their videos, they are appealing for different reasons every time.

Reading For Life

It is Easter, I am home, I have TV! Saw this lovely little advert earlier today and it made me smile =) So simple but witty at getting the message across. I am not normally a fan of celebrity endorsement, but I think it keeps you watching in this case. I like the way each person is reading a different book on a different topic. They are not just tackling the issue of reading for pleasure, but also the benefits of it in everyday life such as the highway code, instructions and kids storys. It also brings the subject into a modern day lifestyle with one person reading online. Saying all this, It didn't make me pick up a book and read...

Who
I think by the people who are reading the books... the intended audience is adults. They are well known comedians and celebrities and would be more popular with adults between 20-50 rather then teenagers, kids or older generations.

Emily Forgot

I love Emily Forgot's style of drawing simplitic people (children especially) Her other style of work I am not keen on, too much gradient for my liking. I really like the block colours and limited palette. Simplicity is beautiful.

Where

Playground Plates are beautiful. I can't put my finger on why I like them. I think it is the simplicity. I love monochrome and the quality of line. Just really nicely thought out stuff!

- Playground Plates,
Emily Forgot.

- If I Could,
Emily Forgot.

Maggi Noem

Stickers are an interesting medium and one which I have never considered. Using only 3 colours Maggi Noem has created such a wonderful piece.

What?
Giving stickers a different meaning and an emotional purpose, not just a practical one.

- Bubble hands, created from red, yellow and black circle stickers, Maggi Noem.

Dr. Martens

Dr Martens celebrated 50 years on 1st April 2010 and are joining up with Schuh for competitions and prizes. I really like these poster designs and the theme is carried on through the website. The yellow works so well and really like the halftone effect of the black image on the bright yellow.

Who
The celebrities using in the design are popular to a younger audience than the original Dr. Martens which were originally shoes designed for comfort. They became a fashion piece aswell as a practical working shoe. With this campaign, Dr Martens are aiming towards the fashion conscious generation through bright colours and celebrities.

- Dr. Martens posters to celebrate 50 years and publicise the Schuh competition.

- Dr. Martens celebrating 50 years homepage of website. Interactive TVs.