Why I'm Single

Being single for the past 3 and a half years, I'm the butt of my own jokes. But when I stumbled upon a list of 50 reasons to not date a graphic designer, I had to share the top 10 on this list.

1. They drink and eat all kinds of weird shit just because they like the packaging.

2.  They ask your opinion about everything but  they do whatever they want.

3. You will spend the day brainstorming.

4. They read comics.

5. They can’t go to a restaurant without secretly critiquing the menu design.

6. They see CMYK and RGB like Neo sees the Matrix.

7. They are always sleepy because they work 24/7.

8. They hate Comic Sans with the same passion they love Helvetica.

9. Everything becomes something other than what it really is: cards as tickets, cards as …

10. You will never understand their gifts.

I am guilty of all these things. Come at me, boys.   

LMFAO

I saw this the other day, and laughed my graphic designer sweatpants off.

Remember, if you don't have an original idea, that thing that drives you to create something amazing...then don't do it. You will never make a good product without a good idea.

I have learned from experience that you can't churn out something when there is no basis, or justification for your decisions. It ends up looking discombobulated and you'll hate it. Trust.

Picture from deviantart.com

Logo Loco

Recently I've been noticing a trend that should really stop. This tend I'm referring to is the logo design trend where we take an already known logo, which is fun and unique, and numb it down about 10 notches. For example.

The old ebay logo and the new, duller one. Nothing about the new logo is necessarily "better" or interesting. The brand is well known enough that this doesn't necessarily affect it too much, but there are so many things they could have done with it. They could have taken a google approach where they change up the logo according to particular sale days, or made a unique new shape.



Microsoft is another criminal of logo lobotomy. Some designer somewhere stuck their pointy little nose into their logo and scrambled up all the unique little quirks about it and spat out the vegetable of a logo that remained. Needless to say, I'm, not impressed.

On the flip side, there are places that do it right. Pepsi for example. When they redesigned their logo, they made it more fun and interesting, matching their new marketing techniques and commercials for the new century.
This is how you (re)design a logo properly.

Pictures from google

Proposal for the Future

You know those annoying youtube ads that come up when you go to listen to your favourite song? I'm sick and tired of hearing the same stupid ads on youtube all the time, and they're not even that good. They're not intuitive, funny, clever or good in any way. I am more likely to not buy a product simply because that stupid commercial interrupted my video.

This may be roughly what you're thinking.

  picture from google

Yes, I am aware that designers make the banners on the side of the VEVO videos, and the brands for the commercials, which is what we get paid to do. I understand. But the marketers must also take into consideration the fact that people don't want to see these ads. Actually, no one ever wants to see ads. The moment that 4 seconds is up where I can click "skip Now", I do, faster than the freaking Flash. Those commercials that go on for a minute and a half in the middle of my video? Muted, and minimized until it's done. These advertisements are actually doing the reverse of what they are supposed to do. Advertisements are on TV, on signs and billboards, etc. They are already thrown in our face enough as it is. We don't need these ads proactively getting in our face on a daily basis. 

Have you ever got deja deja deja deja deja vu? Ya, everytime I see this stupid commercial.

Colour my World

SSomething I struggle with on a daily basis, whether it be as a designer or an illustrator, is colour choice. Yes, I have sat through the colour wheel lectures and learned about all sorts of lighting, but for some reason my "range" of colours is extremely limited. This is most likely due to the "grass is green", "sky is blue" mentality we have as children.

In reality, the grass can be many shades of green, with different hues added in, with reflective light as well. The sky can be any colour of the rainbow given what time of day it is, or the weather. This concept has always been difficult for me to get ahold of. That's when I found design-seeds.com.

I found this site a while back, and it has really helped me to create efficient colour palettes for my work, based on the actual colour properties of objects of pictures.

picture from design-seeds.com

Photoshop is my Life

In my graphic design class, we  use Photoshop quite a bit. However, though I know this program quite well, I never originally used it for photo editing (that came later). I used it for digital painting, which is a whole new realm of illustration, where you "paint" with a mouse or tablet on the computer. You can see these in game designs and concepts for company works.

 Work like this is the end result of digital painting. It is such a malleable new technology that it has changed the way we look at digital art.

Digital painting can also be used in a sense of fine arts. Most of the things I know about photoshop never stemmed from editing photos. It grew from illustrating digitally, looking up step by step tutorials from experts online.

www.deviantart.com is a very valuable place for finding these said tutorials, like the one below. If you want to learn more about photoshop, or perhaps take an interest in digital painting, then I would highly recommend trying it out, and visiting deviantart, viewing all of the different styles and techniques there are to offer.

Pictures from google an deviantart

It Won't Sink the Titanic but...

For one of our first projects in my graphic design class, we were assigned a logo project. Find or make up a restaurant name, and design a logo for that restaurant. Now, logos aren't exactly my thing. Finding that visual figure ground, clever visual was never something I could wrap my head around. That being said, I decided to find a literal sounding name to represent.

It was then I came cross the Icebergs restaurant. Nice enough place, with a horrendous logo. Perfect. I started on concepts, when I realized there was an extreme lack of correlation in the aspects of my design.

A) This place was called Icebergs. What did they serve? If you guessed traditional Italian, you're insane, but right.
B) This restaurant is in Sydney, Australia. Yeah.

This was possible the weirdest set of parameters for designing a restaurant logo. However, after 1000 pages of concepts (exaggeration, I'm lazy) I came up with this.

And then I made these.

Overall, though it was frustrating, I realized that sometimes the original concept is the best/easiest to go with. Trying to communicate too many messages at once is both foolish and impossible. So basically, I learned to keep it simple...stupid.

First World Problem #1

Alright, boys and girls, today we have something a little different. Yes, we have a first world problem. I went to to the local drug store to buy conditioner, went home to use it...and it was shampoo. Naturally. Now normally I would have blamed myself, had it been an honest mistake. However, when I looked at each of the bottles in a sea of shampoos and conditioners, I realized that they look the same, save for one is upside down. The size, label, colour, everything is the same.

pictures 
To someone like me, who just grabs things according to colour and label distinction, this is somewhat frustrating. This is also the second time this has happened to me. The last time was with herbal essences, I thought I was buying conditioner, and when I brought it home, it was a 2 in 1. It had the exact same label, colour and orientation on the bottle as the regular conditioner, save for the microscopic sized "Shampoo and Conditioner" under the label. As designers, we should be able to communicate to an audience what the product is quickly, or in some way that the people shopping for the product can tell it is different somehow. Making the label a pastel blue instead of a deep blue, or making the bottle a different shape. Putting it in a different kind of bottle, perhaps (clear vs opaque).

Herbal essences had a system where the two bottles would fit together, and were easily distinguishable from each other.

This is a much better system for telling them apart. You could walk by, and without a second thought, grab one or the other. And that concludes this first world problem rant. Now the weather.

pictures  from google

Get Your MAC On

Today I noticed that MAC cosmetics has a new collection line out, called Marilyn Monroe, based off of the shades that the diva wore back in the day. It got me thinking that MAC has a strong brand simply because they are constantly coming out with new lines of products, with many different themes, colours, "limited edition" versions of previous lines, etc. They cause a wide demand when they have limited time collections, and hardcore makeup enthusiasts will pay an arm and a leg to get them. But why?

Easy. Mac uses the "only here for a limited time" line to get women to flock to their stores to pick up the latest lines of cosmetics, and then when they're gone, and those same women want those shades again, they have "comeback" lines where they keep an old line for a short period of time. This gives MAC the upper hand with their customers, because they get several purchases out of one line of cosmetics. If the line isn't doing well, they come up with a new theme. Normally changing one's look is extremely risky, but for keeping up with trends and fashions, MAC manages to change their look while keeping the same brand namesake in tact. This is indicative of a stronger brand.

If there is a brand that can play with their own identity and get away with it, it would be MAC. While most cosmetic companies such as Maybelline, Revlon, Covergirl, etc. generally stay within the same confines as their original branding. They do not go outside the box to really set themselves apart from the norm. But that is their branding type. Though they don't call too much attention, they appeal to people who don't particularly want bright eyeshadow and lipstick, but everyday makeup. In their respects, they both accomplish their goals with their branding, but MAC has the freedom to do more with their identity to appeal to several different styles and age groups.

The Art of Minimalism

I stumbled across this package a while ago. At first glance, it was quite easy to distinguish what each of them were due to their shape, and the simple labels. The use of different finishes on the bottles makes all the difference. The labels reinforce the purpose of the different finishes, the opaque bottle being pure sake, the matte finished bottle is the refined sake, and the clear bottle is the ultra-refined sake. This is similar to when vodka brands put a little note on the labels that they are "triple distilled". Though this gets the point across, something minimalistic is sometimes a better approach to communication as a design.

Though both types of branding are effective in their own right, among a sea of brightly coloured  bottles and cans, this collection of bottles would stand out from the rest because of the lack of all of those things. This makes the minimalistic approach much more effective at times.

My Cuppa Tea

 Yesterday I visited the best tea store I have ever been to. Now typically I'm not a tea fanatic, I generally only like overly citrus flavoured teas. However, once I stepped into David's Tea (the uptown Waterloo location), I was blown away by just how much I wanted to just smell and touch everything! I am particularly partial to the colour blue, and all of their branding was absolutely amazing.
And blue. It's clean, colourful and playful. The overall setup and aesthetic made me go insane.
This is coming from someone who doesn't particularly like tea! As a graphic design student I was so excited about the branding and design of the store, but the store itself definitely matched it's amazing design system.

                                    

As I walked around, and looked at more of the elaborately designed labels and colourful tins of tea, I spent 45 minutes looking, smelling, touching, and exploring this little store. In theory, would it be because of the strong branding? If I had walked in to a poorly designed store, would I even bother with trying the tea? No. I would simply assume that the tea is just as bad as the design of the place. However, the reverse is also true. I also assume that the tea is just as good as the design (it was, but that's beside the point).

Overall, I suppose that this was a good experience as a designer-in-training, a perfect example of the fact that people do indeed judge a book by its cover. This is a perfect way to attract people to your particular brand. I assume that David's tea was attracting a younger audience with its playful and colourful displays, yet with a hint of sophistication, so between the ages of 18 and 30 is about where I would aim for. Clearly it's a powerful tool, simple stimulants and words are bound to attract certain audiences. Which is quite amazing if you think about it. A little side note, I left with two tins of tea.

Oh the Simplicity

After exploring the world of packaging, via sites like the dieline, I have found a new respect for well designed packaging. However, sometimes these packages are more form than function, and therefore lose its original purpose. However, I believe the above example is absolutely amazing in terms of both.

It's amazing how simple the idea of this vodka bottle is, yet it is ingenious in every right. The simple action of a katana cutting the bottle--named Samurai for the effect--makes this design interesting and original. Though it is difficult to do, sometimes simplicity is the easiest approach to design, which is something that some of us forget.

The package of the bottle is also quite elegant and original, with the cut between the bottle lining up on both the package and the bottle itself. It brings back the interaction between the package and the product, directly relating to each other. This is also sometimes forgotten in packaging design, when the package is simply used to sell the product, without relating to it or typing each together.

Overall, I know for a fact that I would buy this over other brands simply because of the original idea of the package and the refined, elegant look to it just screams classy.