In the last five years Yuko Shimizu and her work has been written about in all the major design and illustration publications. If you are unfamiliar with her illustrations, you'll soon see what all the fuss is about. She has a distinct style and a real talent for dream-like storytelling.
This is Shimizu's site (includes R-rated material)...
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I wish more of my work reflected the confidence and restraint this design does. So nice.
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Pictorial Webster's: A Visual Dictionary of Curiosities is a book compiled by John M. Carrera. It features over 1,500 engravings that originally graced the pages of Webster's dictionaries in the 19th century. Here is a fascinating look at the production of the book and the story behind it.
An overview of the project via video. Pictorial Webster's: Inspiration to Completion...
A discussion of the project at Quercus Press...
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Hope you'll share this with someone who has yet to grasp the idea that honest work deserves honest treatment. If they want to trade fonts and images outside of established licensing, all we ask is that they first email the designer to explain why they think the ability to create a design and the long hours necessary to produce and market it, does not merit compensation.
Here's an example of one step of the font design process. It does not even address the issue of the talent and dedication it takes to determine a need and to design something that is useful, stylish, and distinctive.
Watch John Roshell create the Moritat font...
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I was in a local convenience store a few mornings ago and the manager mentioned how significantly their business increases as the weather turns chilly--the coffee drinkers return. Sales, she explained, will remain significantly higher throughout the fall and winter. (I would have thought cold drinks in warm months would balance sales out, but evidently not.) In any case, it is another example of just how much I have yet to learn about specific marketing applications.
So my invitation is this: Share a practical marketing and/or design idea that the rest of us may not have thought of. Doesn't have to be your idea or ground breaking, just something a little off the beaten track.
I'll lead off with one of my own--a "web card:"
Share your idea in the comment section here...
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In the olden days we shot film positives (slides) or film negatives and printed the images on paper--why, all of a sudden, do I feel like Mathew Brady. If you've got some LPs or cassettes around, you likely have some slides and/or some black and white or color negatives--perhaps some stuff that you haven't looked at in years. The problem is, the old pictures aren't nearly so convenient to look at or share as the stuff we currently are able to churn out on our digital cameras.
ScanCafe.com doesn't fit the normal subject matter of these posts, but I thought it was a good enough find to merit a special mention (thanks to my friend Daniel Will-Harris for pointing me to them). In short, you bundle up your negatives or picture album and send it off to a place overseas where the folks at ScanCafe scan and spend a few minutes optimizing the images (don't panic, they claim the shipping is VERY safe--mine got there without a problem). Then, you review the scans online and choose (pay for) only the one's you want. The originals are then returned to you along with a disc containing the scans.
Reasonable prices, good quality, and it's fun to see all those forgotten places and faces.
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It's one thing to choose from a large catalog of typefaces--it is another to envision how those same faces might be used on specific projects. Font Bureau's Image and Project Galleries reveal how designers apply particular combinations of typefaces to actual publications.
Be sure to click the "Inside Pages" tab to see the complete demonstration...
The entire Image Gallery (not as complete explanations)...
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As they explain it, "Trademarkia is the largest, most accurate, and most complete free search engine for U.S. federally registered trademarks on the Internet. We provide up to the minute contextual information about the current use of interesting business names, slogans, and logos through pictures, commercials, and conversations from Flickr, Google, Youtube, and Twitter for each U.S. trademark filed in with the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) since the year 1870."
This is not a "best of" or "how to," this is the work that is or has been in use in the real world. It is a resource I'm guessing every designer will want to link to.
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Adobe has produced a very useful white paper titled Deciphering the Web, A resource for print designers. It speaks to traditional print designers who need a basic introduction to web and interactive design.
Who doesn't do web and interactive design in 2009? You'd be surprised, I know more than a few talented designers and art directors have little or no web knowledge and have resigned themselves to thinking that it's "too late" for them to catch up.
Well that is simply not the case--as they say in the white paper, "Good design is good design." As a matter of fact, if you count yourself among this group, you might even have a bit of an advantage. Today, with some clearly established ways of doing things online, you can skip much of the insanity the online community has had to navigate for the last decade or so.
It is not necessary to be a technical wizard--if you so choose, you don't need to learn to write code, you don't even need to learn how to use all of the programs involved. There are many talented developers and technicians who are more than happy to team with you to produce whatever you dream up. Like print, the key is in knowing what you want to say and show, how you want to say and show it, and in cultivating a network of experts to get the work done.
Deciphering the Web: A resource for print designers (2.79MB PDF)...
This is an in depth presentation that introduced the white paper at the recent Adobe MAX 2009...
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I can bloviate about design this and marketing that all day, but experience is almost always the best teacher. A recent episode of The Office made mention of a YouTube wedding video. Curious, I looked it up and quickly discovered why a top-rated network television program highlighted a five-minute video staged, choreographed, and filmed by amateurs. It's a joy.
As of this writing, Jill and Kevin's Wedding video has been viewed 26,857,328 times. That's right, almost 27 MILLION times. Why? Because it embodies at least three elements of a good idea:
1. You've got to be willing to take a chance. These folks took a big risk--had they misjudged their audience they would have looked more than a little foolish. Obviously, part of the reason a good idea is good is because it's different. You've got to be confident enough in your own judgment to move forward.
2. A good idea needs a leader. Someone thought this up, convinced the others to participate, and motivated them to share the risks. Ideas are not exceptional until they are proven--someone has to believe in the purpose enough to be its advocate.
3. You've got to accept the fact that you can't please everyone. I'm guessing some won't find this as uplifting as others--they'll think it's silly or not befitting the ceremony--my point is, if you're going to be different, someone isn't going to like it.
Enjoy!
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Here is a 20-page web proposal shared by Rogue Element via HOW magazine. It is always interesting, often instructive to see how others conduct business. This (to me) is an excellent example.
The 20-page web design proposal (2.5MB PDF)...
Notes about the proposal on HOW...
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I like the way Pinch describes their work as designers, "We believe in clear, reductive thinking, and in helping our clients say what they mean, without pretense or artifice, and otherwise staying out of the way."
Watch how well that philosophy works.
A recent Pinch design for Smith & Fong...
A case study of the project on the Pinch site...
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I ran a sitemap of GordonRamsay.com and it exceeded the 500-page limitation of the scan—a rather intimidating figure (much like its namesake).
But you wouldn't know it by looking at the home page. Simple, elegant images and a thoughtful user interface make the information easy to find and pleasant to look at. Interesting how well it mirrors Ramsay's own mantra of "classic" and "simple."
(For those who don't know him, Gordon Ramsay is a chef with what one might term an "acerbic" personality who stars in several reality television series.)
Example of the depth of pages--a profile of the Head Chef at one restaurant...
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