Fonts have feelings too!

Love it! I give it two open mailboxes!

See more funny videos and funny pictures at CollegeHumor.

Social Commentary Mosaics

I found this link off of the actor Jeff Bridges' web site (thanks Mr Bridges!). This Artist, Chris Jordan, does these amazing photo illustrations made of common items that are destroying our environment, our society, and even ourselves. In some pieces, the number of items used in each mosaic are representative of the overwhelming volume of consumption of the item that is damaging. They are amazingly detailed and shocking.

Please consider how you maybe contributing to these numbers and act accordingly. I personally need to buy cloth bags for grocery shopping.

View his social commentary mosaics.

The Powerful Symbol of Peace

As a teenager I remember drawing the peace sign on books. Not knowing where it came from I remember contemplating its design and hearing opinions on where the sign came from. I had heard the inverted cross, this wrong and was made up to discredit the symbol that had such an influence.

I just found out it came from a group protesting Nuclear Weapons in the late 50's in London. Like the Vitruvian Man, the symbol is a person inside a circle, signing the letters "N" "D" . The circle represents the earth and the letters stand for Nuclear Disarmament. Designed by Gerald Holtom, "a designer and former World War II conscientious objector from West London". From its original purpose, the symbol has transcended it's original meaning.

If you would like to know more about this most influential symbol, please read this BBC story, World's best-known protest symbol turns 50. Happy 50th Birthday Peace Sign!

Stranger Than Fiction

In the movie "Stranger Then Fiction", the design firm working with production used graphical representations to show what was going on in the mind of Harold Crick. I think it was a genius idea that they got from the computer/web design world. They described their design as a GUI (Graphical User Interface).

Harold Crick is an IRS auditor who lives by numbers. His life is an equation where he counts everything like Rain Man. The GUI gives the audience an insight into the calculated mind of Harold. The GUI was a non-distracting embellishment that communicated well what could not be seen with the naked eye.

TOYOTA liked the design because they have copied this design style in their new "Moving Forward" ad campaign. I can not find these examples but they are the ads where Timmy wets his pants and kicks him sister in the head, and the one where the guy has problems backing up and has jacked up neighbors cars and trees.

If you haven't seen Stranger Than Fiction, I suggest you rent it. Be sure to watch the bonus features. They go into the development of the GUI showing their design process and evolution of the design in the movie.

Color Site for Inspiration

Here is a great site My co-worker Bevan passed along. I have been slacking on posting helpful design sites I come across so I'll try to be better about that.

ColourLovers.com : Great site for choosing a color palette!

I'll post some more helpful sites for web designers soon.

Happy 4th of July!

Leo Burnett, "When to Take My Name Off the Door"

I visited a friend in Chicago this weekend and I saw where Leo Burnett is headquartered. Now that I'm back home I was looking at there site and my boss found this speech by Mr. Burnett before he retired. It's genius and scary to me. These are all things I pray I never do as a designer. These are his words.



"When to Take My Name Off the Door"

"Somewhere along the line, after I'm finally off the premises, you – or your successors – may want to take my name off the premises, too.

You may want to call yourselves 'Twain, Rogers, Sawyer and Finn, Inc.' …or 'Ajax Advertising' or something. That will certainly be okay with me – if it's good for you…

But, let me tell you when I might demand that you take my name off the door.

That will be the day when you spend more time trying to make money and less time making advertising – our kind of advertising. When you forget that the sheer fun of ad-making and the lift you get out of it – the creative climate of the place – should be as important as the money to the very special breed of writers and artists and business professionals who compose this company of ours and make it tick.

When you lose that restless feeling that nothing you do is ever quite good enough. When you lose your itch to do the job well for its own sake, regardless of the client, or the money, or the effort it takes. When you lose your passion for thoroughness…your hatred for loose ends.

When you stop reaching for the manner, the overtone, the marriage of words and pictures that produces the fresh, the memorable and the believable effect. When you stop rededicating yourselves every day to the idea that better advertising is what the Leo Burnett Company is all about.

When you are no longer what Thoreau called a 'corporation with a conscience', which means to me, a corporation of conscientious men and women. When you begin to compromise your integrity, which has always been the hearts blood, the very guts of this agency.

When you stoop to convenient expedience and rationalize yourselves into acts of opportunism, for the sake of a fast buck. When you show the slightest sign of crudeness, inappropriateness or smart-aleckness, and you lose that subtle sense of the fitness of things.

When your main interest becomes a matter of size just to be big, rather than good, hard and wonderful work. When your outlook narrows down to the number of window, from zero to five, in the walls of your office. When you lose your humility and become big-shot weisenheimers…a little too big for your boots.

When the apples come down to being just apples for eating, or for polishing, no longer a part of our tone, our personality. When you disapprove of something and start tearing the hell out of the man who did it rather than the work itself. When you stop building on strong and vital ideas, and start a routine production line.

When you start believing that, in the interest of efficiency, a creative spirit and the urge to create can be delegated and administered, and forget that they can only be nurtured, stimulated and inspired. When you start giving lip service to this being a 'creative agency' and stop really being one.

Finally, when you lose your respect for the lonely man, the man at his typewriter or his drawing board or behind his camera or just scribbling notes with one or four big black pencils, or working all night on a media plan. When you forget that the lonely man, and that God for him, has made the agency we now have possible. When you forget he's the man who, because he is reaching harder, sometimes actually get hold of, for a moment, one of those hot, unreachable stars.

That, boys and girls, is when I shall insist you take my name off the door. And by golly, it will be taken off the door.

Even if I have to materialize long enough some night to rub it out myself, on every one of your floors.

And before I dematerialize again, I will paint out that star-reaching symbol, too. And burn all the stationery. And tear up a few ads in passing. AND THROW EVERY GOD DAMNED APPLE DOWN THE ELEVATOR SHAFTS.

You just won't know the place the next morning. You'll HAVE to find a new name."

- Leo Burnett

Effecting Society

The Distortion of Beauty
by Dove


This is an example of how graphic design and related industries can effect society. The ability to manipulate photos gives an unrealistic view of feminine beauty. Like the Barbi doll, these photo manipulations are dimensions no woman can match without surgical augmentations. This is why it is so important to consider who and what you are designing for.

Examples of dangerous design:
1. Designing Cartoon Character ads for a cigarette company
2. Designing for any company after realizing the product is carcinogenic or harmful in anyway to the general public.
3. Ads of emaciated models that influence fashion.

Remember that good design influences and we can make a difference by not helping the influence of damaging ideas and products. Consider your message wisely.