Micro Trends are here to stay!

After doing my usual trawling through the Great MotherWeb (may she provide for us all) I suddenly realised how many images I had accumulated of microtrends that are currently floating about. One favourite haunt of mine is icanhascheezburger.com, where you can create your own lolcats (laugh out loud) and shipment of fail where there are tons of fail images. I don't know where stuff like this starts but when a trend snowballs to such an extent you have to ask yourself it's gotta be a work of subcultural genius. Some trends even work their way into the BBC and TimesOnline and even mainstream design, albeit occasionally. If an image has the power to make you laugh the first time you see it then it must be doing something right. Maybe graphic designers and admen can tap into these microtrends more to uncover a rich diversity of warped humor on the web.....it's worth a try! Check out another trend 'ur doin it wrong' images where, well.... the strap line says it all really...

Mayor of Londoff...new pictures.

After recently visiting the big smoke a for a few days on the trot, the London logo (in which a simple play on the city name and the word 'on' is employed) kept sticking in my mind, maybe because the tube is currently being developed. But it was precisely why the tube was being developed (and subsequently delayed all the time) that I felt the logo didn't feel right. I created my own version by changing the last part of the city name to create an identity that may best sum up the city currently, hopefully these darn re-developments will finish soon. The sticker I made attempted to intrusivly blend in with current posters so that it wasn't automatically ripped off by passers-by, a form of parasitic design. Let me know what you think...

Did someone say....copy?

After viewing a site that I hadn't done in years, youthoughtwewouldntnotice, and various ad blogs, I remembered that there is unbelievable amounts of copying within the ad industry....blatant copying. It saddens me when I see a brillient campaign, only to see another version of it later on for a different product. If the product being sold is of a completely different nature, then why choose the same execution? If the rational benefit of a product is different, why choose the same emotional benefit? It seems abit of a cop out. There is so much out there to inspire all of us, so many sights to see, smells to smell, sounds to hear, things to touch yet people sometimes rely on other people's creativity. I supose 'all art comes from other art' as my old GCSE art techer once said to me, and to some extent that's true. It may have been only coincidence that the creative executions of these ads were the same (there are hundreds of examples out there), maybe not (I'm not going to point fingers). Life's too short to see duplicates of everything...

Discuss...

The kitkat ad were done by the same agency so I guess that's a valid reason (?)




Legal bit: All ads copywright blah blah

Badges!

After waiting for a good 14 days, the new i10 badges were plopped through my letterbox. Set in stunning aluminium, these badges are a must for your summer collection, the perfect accessory for that summer frock or tee. Drop me a line if you'd like one (costing zilch-eroony). Also out now are the prototypes for some new i10 stickers, watch this space...

Get yer logos out for the lads...

Logotime! Couldn't stay away from my graphic design roots and have designed a few corporate identities (some relevant to my current MA projects) and some included typefaces I designed including ESSType and Round v1.1. In recent times there has been an explosion of logobooks, and more often than not, most of the logos featured are vector-happy muddles (not saying they're bad visually, it's just that they might not be relevant to the values of what they are supposed to stand for). As 'The Art of Identity' (Gower Publishing) puts it...

"Identifying your core beliefs is no easy matter - but identify you must, for if you don't know, how can you expect your market area to know?"

Some of the 'oldskool' books such as ones by Wolff Olins are definitely worth a look at, as well as the one mentioned above, and in defence of the infamous 2012 logo, the guys were trying to predict fashion/trends 5 years ahead of themselves (they got the publicity they wanted though so an inadvertent bonus there). By trying to visually interpret what the logo stands for, the core beliefs of the client are interpreted by potential markets/customers. If you want to infiltrate various markets however, of varying subjects, the logo may take a universal look (mental note: make self more articulate). Enjoy!


Community.
Q, Stylised letterform.
The construction of light.
'NHance', feat The Blokstar Type.
'It's all RGB to me'.
Go in different directions.

Go Further, feat Round v1.1.
Making a 'B-Line'.
Relive, feat the ESSType.
Give me a shout if you've seen these before somewhere and I've subconsciously done a doodoo. I think I heard somewhere that in the UK we're bombarded by 3000+ images a day so that's a lot of subconscious input!

iPhoney?

With all the hype and talk about the iPhone in recent months (and various other products beginning with the letter 'i'), there's been an explosion of talk both positive and negative. Forums have dubbed Mac users as 'fanboys' whilst the benefits of owning an iPhone seem vast. On such a forum I stumbled across this movie about Apple's baby, and at first thought it was showing it in a positive light. How wrong I was...

Despite this, I still think Apple has produced a few good products over the years (as well as opening the floodgates to new possibilities in the way commercial media is consumed). Although there are phones out there that previously had Internet capabilities, Apple have produced a 'fashionable' web-phone, but as the saying goes (derived from something similar Oscar Wilde said I think), "Fashion is a fickle business because they seem to change it every 6 months". Discuss...

A World of Colour.

A creative execution here for a self-set brief to create ambient advertising for Pantone. Printed on a durable card then die-cut, the postcards resemble a good ol' swatch except with the centre missing. The simple idea is that the small postcard can be placed on any coloured surface (indoor and out), emphasising that Pantone has a vast array of colour to offer with all it's matching systems and spot-colours. No this is not a paid ad in my blog, just something that I thought would be cool to do (and being a designer, rather a geeky thing to do). Let me know if this idea has already been done however as I'm not sure.

Boring legal bit: Colour identification is solely for artistic purposes only and not intended to be used for specification. Refer to current Pantone colours for accurate matches. Pantone carries all the trademarks of a regular company blah blah...

A free D&AD pencil for you...

That's right folks, the glorious D&AD pencil. Couldn't afford the entry fee? Never heard of Central St Martins? Have no fear! I've managed to create my own from sturdy craft paper out of a simple net design that you can print out.

Here are the nets. I've got them in lovely high-res PDF format as well. Drop me a line if you'd like one or 'rightclick>save image' on the JPEG's. Just cut aong the grey lines/indicators (light colours) and score across the black lines/indicators. I've left a small bleed so that the colour from your printer doesn't show up once it's been made. Have fun!

Where have all the books gone?

Went to my local library a few days back (Leighton Buzzard) to find that it had been re-vamped inside, and was a bit disappointed to find that it was nothing like how I remembered it. In the old days (without sounding like an old man here) it had low lighting, a cosy atmosphere absolutely filled with books neatly organised in horizontal and vertically placed shelves. There was art on the walls, with a gallery space and plenty of seats to study on, along with a cosy children's department where I remember borrowing some of my favourite books as a kid. Now however that's all changed... After walking through the single front door (the old one made a distinct sound when you entered) you're greeted by what appears to be a poorly decorated council building, gaudy blue carpets and the good old gallery and artwork has gone, replaced by wall of badly designed posters depicting stock photos of people with forced smiles. The harsh spot lights make the atmosphere seem tense and sterile. All the beautiful books have now been reduced, displayed in a wonky zig-zag manner, pointlessly taking up space. One of the biggest shocks was the fact that there seemed to be tables with more computers on than books, kids playing on loud, shooty computer games, or adolescents accessing semi-pornographic material.

More computers with complicatd login proceedures than books...

Where have all the shelves gone, and why are they all wonky?

Kids where loitering by the DVD's siting on poorly designed office chairs, and there was hardly anyone in the arts section. To me the library was always a sanctuary of learning, a world of knowledge at your fingertips. You could read half a series of Asterix or TinTin books in a day on the comfy bean-bags in the children's areas, or walk up the stairs (now covered in a sickly plastic grip material and walls plastered with warnings to keep the compensation-seekers at bay should there be a fall) to be greeted by rows of art books on the masters. The art section has been considerably reduced now, from about 6 massive shelves, to 2 tiny ones. It's like the library's gone from that cosy old sweater or comfy chair you used to love and know, to something shiny, contrived, and false. I only hope the character of the old library returns...