Archive for the ‘graphic design’ Category

I cashed in a personal rain check last week by picking up The Yiddish Policemen’s Union by Michael Chabon. I loved The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay and really liked hearing Chabon interviewed by Terry Gross, so it was a good bet I’d enjoy it.

Let’s see. It’s a detective novel, in a foreign locale, steeped in foreign culture & folklore, and dealing with the murder of a messiah figure. Um… win, win, win, and win.

Add a handsome jacket design by Will Staehle. I don’t know book jacket designers aside from Chip Kidd, but Staehle has some other nice designs I found here.

Adobe had been emailing me for several weeks before the big release of Creative Suite 5, and I even signed up for the “Global Online Launch”, which seemed to actually be a couple videos they would have sent me anyway. I guess I was hoping for a live, Apple-style event or something.

Don’t get me wrong, Adobe makes great improvements to their tools with each update, and I’ve even seen a few updates that make me excited. The Illustrator “shape builder” tool and art board enhancements look great, and this video (via yewknee.com) on the content-aware fill looks too good to be true. But other than this, I haven’t really checked it out too much.

Here’s the thing — I’ll buy it. New tools, enhancements, all great to see. But I’ll buy it because it’s the software for my industry. It’ll get hard to do my job if I don’t stay up-to-date. So that’s that — I’m saving up for it. And (begrudgingly) looking forward to getting my teeth into it.

I try not to blog about blogging. It’s just not the style I’d like my writing to take, but I have to leave a note in response to my last post. And that note is… Booooooringggg.

I’m still working out what I like to blog about, and while Branding vs. Direct Response is interesting in it’s own way, I realized I was avoiding writing because I had two big posts to get through (one on branding, one on direct response) before I could blog what I actually want to write. Meanwhile, the subjects I’m actually excited about, the things I talk to my wife and friends about, are left unmentioned. The Elements of Typographic Style, for example (and segue).

Paul Armstrong recently finished a nice set of articles called 5 Tools Church Designers Need, and in Part 2 of that series he ended with a list of recommended reading. Top of the list: The Elements of Typographic Style by Robert Bringhurst. To be honest, there’s little chance I’ll make it through this beautiful but intimidating 350+ page book before it’s due back at my local library. Typography technique is not what I’m up for reading when I’m tired, which I almost always am when I have time to read. That said, as much of this book as I can reasonably digest will make me a better designer. And a designer more inspired about type.

I consider myself something of a type geek, but Bringhurst talks about type with a knowledge and eloquence I find surprising and moving. I’ve heard (and said myself) the phrase, “Letters are pictures. Not pictures of things.” But Bringhurst puts it this way,

“Whether the type is set in hard metal by hand, or in softer metal by machine, or in digital form with a computer, every comma, every parenthesis, every e, and in context, even every empty space, has style as well as bald symbolic value. Letters are microscopic works of art as well as useful symbols. They mean what they are as well as what they say.”

If you’re at all interested in knowing/loving typography more, I recommend it.

My training is in graphic design, illustration in fact, but a lot of my work experience is in direct response marketing. As a result, I tend to be hyper aware of the conflicting opinions between two marketing camps: Branding versus Direct Response.

Branding is a blanket term for any marketing that emphasizes putting the “brand” of a company generally before the public eye. This can be logos, advertisements, online video, viral campaigns, etc. One striking characteristic of branding is that it uses clever, memorable imagery and writing to indirectly express the personality and values of the organization it represents. A second striking characteristic is that its effects cannot be measured directly.

Direct response is any kind of sales letter, mail piece, email piece, or online campaign that emphasizes extracting an immediate response from the consumer (hence “direct response” marketing). This may be to buy, call, give an email address, etc. The striking characteristics of direct response are that it values action over style, and if done well, the effects are measured in extreme detail.

Over the next couple blog posts I’d like to talk about the values/detriments of each and try to find the happy (effective marketing) middle where the two meet.

I finished two identity packages in the last six months or so, both of which turned out well. I haven’t had a chance to add them to my portfolio page, so here they are.

AMW Design Studio is a local interior designer. While the overall look is very clean, the color and typefaces highlight the tension between two styles she incorporates into her work: sleek and modern versus classic or even earthy. It’s interesting working with another visual creative as a client, and she added valuable contributions to the final logo.

South Loop Pediatric Therapy is a physical therapist working in Chicago, IL. Stairs are a common image denoting development, and these also refer to the company name. The south loop is part of Chicago’s “El”, the local elevated train system, and stairs leading up to El platforms have color coded signage displaying which routes can be accessed from that station. It would be a familiar sight to any of SLPT’s potential clients.

This is for the (beta) Mac version of a tool my brother and I produced that will tell you which of a set of keyword phrases will display local results when searched in Google’s web search. A great tool for local SEO.

Full disclosure: The magnifying glass is an edited iStockPhoto.com illustration. The rest is mine.