MixTape Covers

I was listening to Gorilla vs. Bear - a mix they made on their site - and started thinking about mixtape covers. There's a lot of excellent art found in music. I showed Madonna's CD from Graphic Therapy earlier. Here's the cover for the feb. mix at GvsB:

I like the silhouette and the blurred background. It's simple, with text on the top left and right only, although I think the text would look cool on the bottom, against the black background.
Anyway, here are some more mixtape covers that are pretty cool:

Both of these have a splatter effect that I like. The logo at the bottom looks kind of 80's to me, probably because of the extended lines, wings and neon colors. I don't like the logo that much, but I love the photo. The top tape is opposite for me, Not a huge fan of the photo, but I like the logo, although I think it could look neater, but it goes with the theme of the piece.
I also love the illustration in Big Krit's cover art:

The blue, purples, and grays - along with the yellow - look great. And I love the dichotomy used in the illustration itself.

Behance

So, I put a large chunk of work on Behance, a network for artists to post a portfolio and work history info. It's here:
http://www.behance.net/kmfh10
I happened to find this on behance:

I love the simple design. The description also has plenty of information which provides context for the design's elegance.
There was also this:

It reminded me of the importance of line and extension, and how anything with those elements can fall into very interesting design.

Envelope Designs

Here are some envelope designs I liked, although there wasn't an abundance of choices at first glance:

I like the top one the best. It's always interesting when a design goes off of the medium, so the viewer has to fill it in themselves. The Marvel collection at the bottom is ok - I'm not a huge fan of the colors at the top of the medium, or of the colors themselves. I'd rather see the colors on the side. Kind of like what's found here:
http://www.logodesignteam.com/stationery-design-portfolio.html

As for my own design, I need to focus on the triangle theme. I wonder how it would look if part of the design was off of the page/envelope like in the top collection.

Archer Intro & Design Thoughts

I was watching "Archer" earlier today, and was thinking about the elements of design that go into the stylistic, James-Bond-like intro for the cartoon. The colors are bright and the sillouhettes remind me of the 60's. The end credits, on the other hand, use blocks and shapes primarily to highlight the closing sequence.
Here's the opening - I couldn't find the orginal, but this is a pretty decent remake:

 Again, clean, simple, while the neon colors and cartoon-font kind of underscore the silliness and satire of the show.

More Business Card Designs

Since the new project coming up is focusing on business cards, I was interested in seeing how simple design concepts, such as the triangle in my own logo, can be used in a card format.

Here's a link to a collection of business cards:
http://www.youthedesigner.com/2009/01/23/30-new-slick-business-cards/
My favorites were:

I love business cards that are extremely simple in design. In the Kevin Cheng card, I liked the simplicity of the concept and playing with black and white vs color on the front (4/0, I believe). The design is halftone complementary. I just don't like the centered type. As for the two middle cards, I like the alignment of the Studio Sebastian card - if the type of the front were on the same as the back it would be aligned. I also really like the light gray on white. As for the photography card, I really enjoy the simplicity of the alignment and type. It speaks for itself and makes me want to see more, and go to the website. As for the last one, DarienLibrary, I don't enjoy the colors so much as the alignment and layout of the logo design and the text. I also like the larger font at the bottom and the bolded font on top - it creates a nice balance.

I'm also a sucker for how-to's, so here's one about making a business card for a graphic designer, which I'll probably elaborate on in another post.

http://graphicdesign.about.com/od/howto/a/business_cards.htm

Interesting Video

I was looking at Aurgasm - a site that's basically a conglomeration of varied music - and saw a video by C2C that had a pretty cool logo going on in it. I like the interpretation of the song as well, it's not the most in-your-face video, but the point of it being composed of all of these musical elements is made quite successfully. Anyway, here's the video:

I just love how symmetric and simple and clean the video is - it reminds me of the principles of design I should be focusing on.

Mardis Gras Mask Design

In light of Mardis Gras and such, I figured I should do a post about the mask designs. I've always found masks to be particularly amazing - there are many lovely designs, not just in Mardis Gras, but Renfest and Halloween. I'll focus on Mardis Gras here, though.

Many of the masks use feathers and floral elements to accentuate the eyes.

I love the jewel in the middle especially. I always love the feathers and the explosions of color in these masks. They transform the person wearing it, which will always thrill me. They create their own character for you to wear, much like design elements can inform the personality of a piece, which I talked about before.

Texture

I was looking for an example of complementary colors for Color Theory when I stumbled upon this:

I started thinking about what makes this photo work so well. Not only do the colors go well together, but the textures are also interesting. I think I've talked about or mentioned texture before in this blog, but it's especially featured here, with the smooth flow of the dress and the static activity of the grass. The direction of the dress is also almost counter-intuitive, since it goes up and out instead of down and around. I also thought of the Bmore Art blog's recent post:

The texture makes a huge difference compared to something rather static in its activity. It just reminds me of how important direction and texture is in design. A woman in a dress laying on the grass seems mundane, but with direction and texture, as well as color, it can make a pretty amazing photograph.

Film

I'm not sure what the name of the film is, but the animated film playing in the class after graphic design made me think more about perspective and art and design. In the film, it seems like the animations in the dream reflect the personality of the characters. I wonder if design can be similar. In that I mean how elements can inform a design and give it a personality almost, much like, inversely, the person's personality informs their appearance in the film. Just thought it was kind of cool. Also, the filling in of elements in the movie. For example, when a person was telling a story and elements of the story appeared visually. This reminded me of how pieces of a design can be used to tell the whole story of the design, or convey its symbolism. Some random thoughts.

Textural Abstractions

I was looking at the BmoreArt blog and saw some pretty cool art pieces by Erin Treacy. Here they are:

I really love her colors - the golds and especially the blast of red on the bottom. It reminds me that design should have an element of the unexpected, while blending in with the entire piece - or fitting in with that piece. It goes back to being outside of the box. I also just love abstract *anything,* because ultimately I think perspective is what we make it.

Business Cards Cont'd

Here are some cards that stood out, that I liked.

I like type that is off center. I love the colors in "green" - how it switches. I also enjoy the logos of all three a great deal. All of these cards are simple, neat and have a level of classiness with their design because of their simplicity. I also love the logo on the back of Karen Davis Design - the lighter white. Brown and white might be considered boring on paper, but these colors work well here. I also like the weighted color at the bottom of the back of Dream Media - it makes dreamimages.com stand out that much more. The color links elements together well - another idea for the business card project.

Business Cards

Since we're doing a project on business cards, and I happened to find a link to a site that features business cards when I was looking on fan-created movie posters, I figured I'd take a gander.
I hated this:

Ew. Not clean and simple, the lens is distracting, and the odd shape would bother me.
Here's another one:

It's getting there. Still don't like the oblong shape. But the typography is interesting and I really like the collection of colors and the design elements used.

I didn't mind this shape as much, because I like the idea of looking down at the cup. In the context of the what the card's advertising, I don't mind *as much* Still, weird shapes are inconvenient.

I like the idea of using the sillouhette and playing with the edges of the card. Not sure if it's too distracting, though.

Fan Posters

So I was reading Pajiba.com, a site I very much enjoy, and came across a fan-created poster for The Walking Dead:

This poster is awesome. The design is simple, or the idea is simple, rather, and very clever in its simplicity. I love the dirty white background and the various shapes of the hand at the end. It's just a really interesting idea, and conveys the show really well without being overwhelming with its graphics. I love design like that. Here are some more fan posters:
http://abduzeedo.com/30-fan-made-movie-posters
I agree with the first comment that some of them are good and others not so much. The ones with good design, that I like, anyway, have simple concepts. Fan created art is always interesting.

Letterheads

There weren't that many letterheads I liked while looking on the internet. However, I saw a few that caught my eye. Of course, a lot of design depends on the context. One letterhead, for example, is for a graphic designer:

http://www.coroflot.com/terryryan/branding-indentity/2

Another is more of a corporate identity:

I love the picture graphic and the vertical logotype used on the communications company. I also like the enlargement of the graphic for the second company as well as the red colors - very eye catching and all-encompasing. The dominance of the space in both companies provides a very pleasing and modern aesthetic.

Which to Choose, What to do

I'm still trying to figure out how to best incorporate the block elements with a burst of color. It made sense to do something with the "n" in "Denwa" since it splits the word in half - thinking of how Docomo often plays with pairs of letters in their even-number-lettered name. Anyway, here are some samples:

I think it works better with one colored-pink letter, because three blocks distracts from the word. The embossing is also preferable because it compliments the strong pink better than the lighter gray, though both go with pink. I think the block colors and the pink in the "n" is what I like best. I also tried other fonts for the "mobile phone company" text, but I like the original best. Gothic was a close second. So that's where I'm at now.

Color Psychology Cont'd

It's interesting that there seems to be quite a few phone companies that use red in their logo. Docomo, of course, in addition to companies such as Vodafone, Verizon, VirginMobile and Motorola.

I wonder why that is - for the aggressive component. It seems like there's a lot of black and red combinations which are particularly aggressive and bold. Is red more of a tech color? I'm not sure, but it something to consider. I really like the grey in my design, and some sort of pink or electric color would make the company stand out, since so many use red and, if not red, than blue.

I've always liked the Tmobile logo, because it looks different, but still clean and compact.
I'm not crazy about the font, but I enjoy the graphic and the spacing, as well as the color.

Color Psychology and, yes, Docomo

I was looking at the original ad Docomo had and realized my eyes are drawn immediately to the red letters at the end, forcing you, almost, to read the rest of the ad in the strong contrast of white and black. I don't really like putting a graphic on a black background, since it is so heavy, but it works well here:

The alignment of the TATA and "Do the new." also creates a very pleasing, balanced aesthetic.

More Docomo

Looking more at Docomo ads, they have some really great ones. I love how the company has fun with the visual of the name by making the "o's" a bigger size and by using analogous color combinations to divide the name into pairs of color.

It's as though each letter has its own character or personality. It also reminds me of a pacman-type video game, which I think creates fond memories of nostalgia for a lot of people, while looking fresh and new for a younger demographic as well.

Inspiration and Where to Draw the Line

Just something I was thinking about today - where does one draw the line between being inspired by another design and borrowing too much from it. The reason I'm thinking about this is because my design ended up being influenced greatly by Docomo's ad:

Here's my design (in the works):

I'm not sure to go with the original, without the blocked letters, even though I like the block style. Anyway, just some random thoughts about design.

 

Stencils

So for Color Theory we have to do a stencil, and I was looking online at a few examples. It's striking how a bit of strategic shading can create an image, and how the brain completes an image for you. I was working on my logo earlier and found that the suggestion of a crane shape is much more effective than an explicitly drawn crane, for example. I really love the stenciled image - especially in street art. Here are a few examples of stencils and/or comparable art created by suggestion of a full image:

Go Media & Basic Elements

I honestly am not sure what to blog about today, so I looked up graphic design companies and came up with this: 

http://vector.tutsplus.com/articles/web-roundups/22-great-graphic-design-agencies/

While I was looking at the GoMedia site, I'm starting to think that design is a lot about having a thorough art and design knowledge, and being able to break ideas down visually to their components and building up. For example: 

This appears to be a simple design, but how long did it take to come up with and fine tune the design?

Here's a more visually complex design, while the idea is simple:

I love the colors. Again, color is something I've been continuing to think about. Anyway, a few thoughts for the day. 

Color

I've been thinking about color, a new element to the swirl of other factors I'm considering for the logo and letterhead. I really love the combination of light grey and white. It's used well in a product I mentioned earlier:

When expanded to an ad it looks like this:

The amount of color also expands and different shades of grey are used, as well as the dotted texture in the logo used to form the picture of the U.S. I also like the use of the line to divide the picture from the logotype. It's so appealing visually. I also like the block of white used between the dotted color and the rest of the color wheel.

I'm considering using the segment of the black and white crane picture to suggest the grace and comfort with the lines. Perhaps I should experiment with texture, like in the above pictures. I could then use the texture in the letterhead design to make it more appealing. The letterhead has me a bit stumped, but I hope to come up with something comparably assuring to look at visually.