Learning from the Past

I am a big believer in learning history--especially art history. Some of my fondest college moments were spent sitting in a darkened auditorium watching slide shows. When my old college professors received complaints about our cumbersome art history requirements, they used to respond "how can you paint, if you do not know what has already been painted."

The same concept applies to design. It is hard to create good, meaningful design without knowing what is out there, what design has been successful in the past, and what has been a complete flop. As we discussed in last night's class, technology is creating even more design possibilities for the web and other new media. Having an understanding of tenets of good design is now more important than ever.

Whenever I am stumped on a project, I reach for my graphic design books to see what kind of inspiration I can gather from the masters. Here are a few classic designs that still look fresh and relevant today.

Logos by Saul Bass:

As a side note Saul Bass is a great inspiration for movie poster design.

Logos by Paul Rand:

Design by Milton Glaser:

More Resources & Inspiration
Here are a few more cool resources to consider when looking for design inspiration.
AIGA Design Archives
Grain Edit
Hatch Design
JDK

bilingual designer needed

Mariana,

Get in touch with me if you are interested. My recruiter (Heather at Engine Performance) is looking for a bilingual designer for an in-house freelance gig in Baltimore.

gillespie2021@yahoo.com

-bob

Sorry to misuse the blog.

Sometimes I wonder if I am the only designer who cares. I have a few fellow designers who don't mind handing out work they aren't proud of. Their excuses for their selves, and their peer pressure on me, is shameful. They claim that if a redesign is better than the original, even by a small percent, then its a job well done--even if the new design is obviously sub-par. I also hear that if you're not getting paid, to not put effort, heart, time, and thought into it. I wonder if these individuals can sleep at night. Sure that thought seems severe, but the must not love what they do... that'd keep me up all night. Fortunately, art, design, creativity, solving problems, opening communication where it was a jumbled mess before--that is one of my great passions. I love what I do. I will put in extra time, not just to help the client, but also because I am invested in their success. I hope I'm not alone in this. I hope than most designers get to enjoy and become immersed in their professions as well.

On another note, I began to understand the drama around the ikea logo. Yesterday, I bought the first grape juice I spotted in the school store. It wasn't until I settled down into my office and was halfway through my tasty drink did I realize this was my usual brand of juice: dole. They changed their packaging! It looks more like the off brand orange juices with a white background and a super thin stroke for their logo. Was this the brand of orange juice everyone talked about last class? I'm still uncertain if the redesign was for financial reasons, or for a more organic clean feeling. In either case, I wouldn't have guessed it to be a brand I trusted and loved for so long... in a way I felt betrayed. Such quality orange juiced should be backed by a quality label. I wanted to show it on here, but i through the bottle away with out thinking about it... the fact that I didn't give it a second though says something about the product. So take a look and see if you see it in the stores. If you don't then hopefully its a sign that they rethought the bland look and amended the error in their ways.

Type

I find it interesting that there seems to be this strict code of ethics on type and copyright when browsing the web, however, that sounds great on paper, but whose actually following these rules? Who even knows them?

There are tons of free font sites that feature free typefaces that are basically rip-offs of copyrighted material. We, as designers & students, are totally guilty of using dafont.com and its cousins in mimicry, but we live our lives guilt free. Are we morally bankrupt when it come to fonts?

How many of us have sent files to press via Quark or InDesign? Did you uncheck "include fonts" when you sent made the disk? For those fonts included in the package, do you own the rights to reproduce that typeface? Have you read the warning that pops up? But yea, who cares, right?

What about sending files to press as PDF? Do we own the licensing for those typefaces to embed them in a PDF and have it reproduced by a company who may or may not have the licensing too? How about publishing a PDF on the web? What rules apply there? Do we ever give a crap?

How many of us use bootlegged typefaces? Better question, how many don't?

In my experience I think the rules of licensing on type are archaic and sort of a waste. No one is paying attention to them, but that doesn't mean it doesn't matter. The fact that there is debate about using specific fonts on the web, print, etc. means that what is currently law isn't working. I'm not offering solutions, just frustration that foundries, the lawyers and the designers haven't settled this issue yet. Why is it that you can only view certain typefaces on the web? You can pick from a short-list of serif, sans serif type only? How dumb does that sound?

Hopefully the future solves this nonsense real quick, so in a couple of years we can look back and laugh about the times when you could only use Arial or Times or Verdana when designing for screen.

In the meanwhile, check out this link for some free web fonts for designers. Apparently they are totally awesome.

Color Palettes

Inspired by Nichelle's post on Pantone I wanted to share this link to Colorlovers. They have tons of color palettes for almost anything. I have a freelance job I'm working on designing stationary, invites, etc. and the only direction I have on the audience is "masculine." So I searched through some palettes on CL and found a couple that would work. It sure saved some time. So when you are thinking about your audience while doing these project, save some time and find some great color combinations already ready for you.

Pantone Colors

So, I was reading my blogs as usual and stumbled across Pantone colors having it's "own" fashion week in NY. It's called "Pantone Fashion Color Report, Spring 2010." They have invented new Spring 2010 colors for designers to chose from. It may seem funny, but when I think of Pantone colors, I only think of print and web. It has never crossed my mind to think about clothing and the colors that are associated with it. Now I can see the correlation. Here is a link to the PDF of designers and the colors/sketches they are using for Spring 2010. http://www.pantone.com/pages/pantone/Pantone.aspx?pg=20694

Click on preview colors for Spring 2010.

Copyright for Freelance Designers

Here is a good primer on copyright for freelance design projects: http://freelanceswitch.com/the-business-of-freelancing/to-share-or-not-to-share-that-is-the-question/