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Quote of the Week:

Papyrus

Ah, XKCD, you know us typographers all too well:

Labels: humor, typography

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3.03.2009

The official Recovery and Reinvestment Act project logo

The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act has a logo, which will appear on all projects funded by the Act:

It's nice, I suppose. One interesting thing I noticed is the upper left borders of the two stars that intersect with the blue background border (in the upper left quadrant of the logo) aren't there. These two stars look like they've opened up, blossomed, perhaps, into the white space of the circular inner border.

Another nit-picky thing: the "RECOVERY.ORG" typography is very small. If you're using it at the size you see on this screen, it's about 14 points in size (nice use of old standby Trade Gothic, BTW. Is there a subliminal message to be had there, in the use of a typeface whose name reflects commerce?). When this mark is used in smaller sizes, the type is going to become illegible. I could see this happening when the ARRA money is being used along with other funding for a large project, and promotional roadside signs, posters, and web banners have to fit a lot of logos into a small space (they become, in PR parlance, "bugs".)

The little reverse swiss cross that forms the center of the big gear in the lower right quadrant of the mark...it alludes to the health plan reform, perhaps, as being integral to the recovery?

[3/3/09 22:24] UPDATE: This emblem, along with one specific to transportation projects, was designed by MODE in Chicago. Um, if you don't know by now, they did the Obama "O". (I can't wait for a Denverite to be President: more branding work for us Queen City designers...).

Other comments? Post them below!

image via abc news

by the way: looks like the folks over at recovery.gov are using Numbers for their charting:

Labels: branding, bug, design, graphic design, illustration, information graphics, politics, typography, usability

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2.23.2009

Now I won't have to wonder what that new store-brand orange juice is

...because Tropicana is dropping their bland, "looks-just-like-a-house-brand" orange juice packaging, and returning to their original, more distinctive design. Apparently I wasn't the only one who was confused and/or annoyed by the new look. The New York Times' Stuart Elliott has an article here.

A telling excerpt:

“We underestimated the deep emotional bond” they had with the original packaging, [Neil Campbell, president at Tropicana North America] added. “Those consumers are very important to us, so we responded.”

Among those who underestimated that bond was Mr. Campbell himself. In an interview last month to discuss the new packaging, he said, “The straw and orange have been there for a long time, but people have not necessarily had a huge connection to them.”

Reminded of that on Friday, Mr. Campbell said: “What we didn’t get was the passion this very loyal small group of consumers have. That wasn’t something that came out in the research.”

Labels: b2c, branding, clients, design, food, logo, packaging, typography

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12.16.2008

Brand update, in the wild

I was picking up a gift for a family our preschool is sponsoring for Christmas, and spotted this excellent brand update for Habitrail:

The linked letterforms echo the essence of the product: interconnected plastic tubes that rodents can wander around. The gray color of the typography allows the product and secondary banding (the product name) to stand out. Really excellent work!

Labels: branding, logo, typography

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12.08.2008

Great Graphic Design makes everything better

One thing I remind people about all the time: everything anyone has ever made has been designed by someone. Great graphic design makes products, companies, and ideas more accessible by more people. Bad graphic design just makes products, companies, and ideas more opaque.

What differentiates the good from the bad? Lots of things. Focus. Brand integration. Accessibility. Grokability.

Paying someone $150, or $400, to design a logo will almost always result in bad design. Does that mean the designer who made it is not a good designer? Not necessarily. What it does mean is they aren't taking the time to find out what the essence of that brand should be. The same thing goes for paying a similar amount to design a website. Or a brochure. Even if you think about that money in terms of an hourly rate, rather than the value the design has for you (which is really how you should look at it), what does $150 translate to, in hours? I'll tell you: very, very little.

Would you trust a lawyer to draft the articles of incorporation for your business for $50? Would you let a $400 doctor operate on your heart?

Labels: advertising, advice, aiga, b2b, b2c, branding, graphic design, illustration, information graphics, interface, licensing, logo, marketing, nonprofits, packaging, process, ROI, seo, typography, visual information, web design, work

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11.11.2008

New Book Cover Design

I created a new book cover design for my client, Ben Leichtling, who is an author of half a dozen books and audio recordings on how to deal with bullies in the workplace, at school, and at home. This one was for his soon-to-be-released book on Parenting Bully-Proof Kids.

I don't know about you, but I was terrified of the tetherball court when I was a kid.

Labels: book, design, typography

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8.29.2008

Corn Dogs and Ice

Corn Dogs and Ice
Originally uploaded by notchcode

It's Friday, so get yourselves out of town and enjoy life! The Colorado State Fair is happening down Pueblo-way, with all the cotton candy and corn dogs you can eat. C'mon, you know you want some!

Labels: advice, photography, typography, vacation

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8.18.2008

Damn right your dad drank it

Check out the excellent period-appropriate typography, color palette, and imagery used in Canadian Club's latest print ad:

The colors are pulled straight from the main image, and the type is dead-on for what you would see in a Mid-'60s ad. Even the copy style is stylistically correct. The only thing that probably should be in there, that isn't, are periods at the ends of the title and subtitle copy blocks; I have seen a lot of those in the older print ads, and they aren't as in vogue these days.


Here's a detail:

via 5 Blogs Before Lunch.

Labels: advertising, graphic design, typography

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8.04.2008

PYREX branding: they still got it.

My wife picked up these Pyrex food storage containers to replace our worn-out, semi-reusable Glad and Ziploc storage containers. When I used one of the new containers, the typography of the brand reminded me just how great a well-executed visual identity can be:



The interesting thing to me is how this typography, when it is so strong, differs from Pyrex's main brand identity for baked goods glassware in north america:

Labels: branding, typography

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7.28.2008

Graphic Design Icon: Susan Kare

For those of you who don't know her by name, you've still undoubtedly seen her work. For, you see, Susan Kare created the face of Apple's Macintosh computer back in the day:

You see, Apple needed a series of icons for it's newly minted Macintosh Operating System back in the early 1980s. As Apple's screen graphics and digital font designer for the Mac, she was charged with creating icons that, today, are among the touchstones for a whole generation of computer users. Her Apple portfolio page has more samples, but I have to show you my favorite:

The classic in error message iconography.

For those of you who weren't born when the original Mac came out, you still probably have seen her icon design work. For, you see, she is the designer of many of the original Facebook gift icons, as well:

She is also a typeface designer, and has a wide range of other work. Go check it out!

Labels: icon, mac, typography

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7.24.2008

Microsoft cares about Typography?

Apparently so. Being one of the world's largest suppliers of operating system software to personal computer users, onscreen type is a big deal to them. That doesn't mean that they have the breadth of, say, Adobe, when it comes to typeface offerings. But that's not what they're about. They need a core set of fonts to work in a variety of applications for a variety of users.
For graphic designers like me, it's important to know what typefaces come preinstalled with Windows XP and Vista. So Microsoft has this nice list, arranged by product. And the core web faces are listed right there. So, if you need to know, there it is.

Apple has a similar list, by the way. And they have a long history of caring about typographic design.

Labels: typography

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3.14.2008

Why typography matters online

This from the archives: a popular little link, short but sweet.

Today's tip: Typography does matter on the web. Really. A List Apart has a nice summary of why. One thing they mention that I've been telling people for about seven years: SHORT PARAGRAPHS GET READ. Oh, and don't capitalize whole words, much less sentences.

My favorite line from the 2001 article:

Cary Grant, that most stylish of British gentlemen, warned: "it takes five hundred small details to make one favorable impression."

This is a typographic truism (and really, a design truism) if I've ever heard one.

Labels: typography, web design

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2.15.2008

Like Jenny Holzer, only about Barack Obama

See what Barack has done for you lately.
Nice use of that old standby typeface, Helvetica (which seems to be seeing a resurgence thanks to the epynomous documentaty film and other, less savory efforts of mass-produced graphic design).

barackobamaisyournewbicycle.com via kotte.

Labels: art, politics, typography

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2.08.2008

Anyone ever seen a hand-held calculator that can measure in points and picas?

Yeah, I have Art Director's Toolkit on my Mac...who doesn't? But sometimes I just like calculating old-school-style. Anyone who has ever heard of such a beast, tell me.

Labels: hardware, typography

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2.06.2008

done, and done.

Here you go, mateys.
Via:
Be a Design Group

Form Fifty Five

and the Amazing Shape

But now what I really want to know is:


[cat photo from dark_mephi. Used under a Creative Commons attribution non-commercial license.]

Labels: design, humor, typography

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1.08.2008

Xerox's new brand: something original, or just a copy?

The New York Times has a summary of today's most interesting branding news: Xerox has changed its look. Long gone are the days where Xerox called itself "The Document Company" (it ended that tagline in 2004); now it's young, plucky, chunky lowercase "xerox"! With a playful little 3-D red "x" ball next to it (to represent the connection of "customers, partners, industry and innovation", according to the article).

Xerox (or is it now "xerox"?) hopes to distance itself from its roots as a document duplication company, even though they still create hardware that is essentially document duplication (printers, imagers, hi-speed publishing devices, etc.) and focus more on this synergistic approach that the X-ball --oops, I mean "x-ball"-- embodies.

I will reserve judgement (mostly) for now, on the new look. An all lowercase name does have some benefits (more approachable, more casual), but it is somewhat of a trend, and don't know if xerox does itself any favors by moving with the pack. The 3-D x-ball is a little too internety, and reminds me of the AT&T death star ball that company just rolled out (designed, by the way, by the same company that just created the new xerox logo). Of course you can expect to see it animated online, and in commercials, too. Which is fine, up to a point. I worry that one can take logo animation too far, and overuse it to the point that it competes for attention when used in practice, taking away from the power of the other information and marketing elements that the brand image will share the stage with.

So what do you think? Is this a good idea for Xerox? Or just good money thrown after bad? And if that's the case, what should they have done instead?

Labels: branding, design, typography

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12.22.2007

The newspaper that time forgot

9News.com reported this week on a wonder of wonders: a newspaper that still sets type in hot lead. The Saguache Crescent, first published in 1882, is run on the same technology that your grandparents (or great-grandparents) would have encountered when entering any printing shop in the nation. The Crescent is one of only four newspapers in the nation that uses hot lead-set type. One of four. And the current publisher isn't training a replacement. So get your 19th-century typographic news fix while you can, because someday it won't be left to read.

Saguache is a must-see town for anyone interested in Colorado history. It's about halfway between Poncha Springs and Alamosa, so not exactly on the way to anything. But the next time you head down to the Great Sand Dunes, or to Durango, stop in and spend an hour or so walking around one of the state's historical agricultural centers.

links to the 9News story, a scan of the latest front page, and some info about Saguache from the Colorado State Historical Society.

Labels: colorado, newspapers, typography

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