Thanks for asking -- we escaped the brunt of tropical storm Sandy here in Central Virginia but we continue to send good thoughts to those north and east of us who have begun to recover and rebuild.
I want to show you an excellent example of how information design can be used to help real people in real crisis -- a Google "Crisis Map." (Thanks to Karla Humphrey for pointing us to it.) Here
Be well, Chuck
Have you seen my InDesign Ideabook?
315 template files in 19 different categories -- Everything from brochures, newsletters, and direct mail to packaging, calendars, and books (one CD works with both Mac and PC). Use two or three files and you'll pay for the entire book and disc...
For Adobe InDesign Here
For QuarkXPress Here
Behind the scenes of some high-powered design projects
A few posts back I pointed you to a new forum for learning about integrated branding - here's another. This one, Google's Creative Sandbox, provides the names of people, the companies they work for, and the tools they used to create some impressive projects and campaigns. In this case you'll even find details such as the number of lines of code written, the number of photographs taken, and so on.
For example: A project for Herman Miller... Here
The Creative Sandbox website... Here
Creative Sandbox Submitter's Guide (291KB PDF)... Here
Some amazing vector illustrations from the London Olympics
These information pieces that illustrator Hugo A. Sanchez created for the London Olympics are simply stunning.
Part 1: The Olympic Park... Here
Part 2: The Aquatics Centre... Here
Part 3: The Basketball Arena... Here
Part 4: The Velodrome... Here
Part 5: The Copper Box... Here
Part 6: The Olympic Stadium... Here
Sanchez's NewsPageDesigner.org portfolio... Here
From the Ideabook.com Design Store
Tintbook CMYK Process Color Selector: A palette of 25,000 CMYK process colors in print... Here
Color Harmony Guide: From French designer Dominique Trapp... Here
Graphic Design, Referenced: A Visual Guide to Graphic Design: One of my favorite design books... Here
Brief looks...
Linotype: The Film is being released today. Just got my copy via the producer's Kickstarter campaign. You can buy a copy here... Here
My niece Summer Ventis is a gifted printmaker. Here is her new website (tell her I sent you!)... Here
DO NOT MISS this surreal time-lapse video of the Space Shuttle moving through the streets of Los Angeles. It has a real theatrical bent to it. (Thanks to Matt Hanna for pointing us to it.) Here
Another interesting variable identity design
I like these amorphous identity pieces and parts created by Michael Dyer of Remake Design. They remind me of the variable identities created for organizations such as Tate and the MIT Media Lab in recent years.
In an all-things-digital age, I think this may ultimately be a very normal path for building a brand.
Example 1... Here
Example 2... Here
Example 3... Here
A letterhead... Here
An earlier post about MIT's Media Lab identity... Here
And the Tate brand... Here
This is the Remake Design website... Here
While we're looking at Dyer's work, here's a collection of stamps design by Dyer and art directed by Antonio Alcalá of Studio A... Here
Meet illustrator Seymour Chwast
Horror of horrors. I realized that I have not done a post about Seymour Chwast! Not that you don't already know him - he's (by all measures) one of the most influential designers and illustrators of the last one-hundred years.
I realized the omission as I was about to point out how another illustrator's work conjured up Seymour Chwast and, when I went to find the earlier post I did about Chwast, I realized there was none.
In any case, you'll see his influence on design in 2012 when you look at his work. I became a fan way back when I was a kid. In its heyday, the 1960's and beyond, Pushpin was the quintessential design studio.
From the AIGA Design Archives, a compilation of Chwast's work... Here
Push Pin Studios... Here
A book of illustrations: Seymour: The Obsessive Images of Seymour Chwast... Here
A biography of Chwast by Steven Heller from the AIGA website... Here
Meet illustrator Craig Frazier
I really like lyrical, narrative illustrations by Craig Frazier. His work reminds me a bit of Seymour Chwast (the post above).
Example 1... Here
Example 2... Here
Example 3... Here
Craig Frazier's website... Here
Preliminary finding: Humanist genre typefaces are more legible
If you can get excited about proof that "highly assimilated letterforms increase ambiguity," hold on to your hat. Bryan Reimer, Bruce Mehler, Joseph F. Coughlin, researchers with MIT's AgeLab, "...have found that dashboard displays using the more open and differentiated lettering found in the 'humanist' family of typefaces are easier for people to read quickly than displays using the more uniform and tightly spaced letters of the 'square grotesque' style. Male drivers, in particular, can process messages in humanist lettering about 10 percent faster, on average."
Seriously, this is pretty interesting stuff. As we travel the amazing path new technologies afford us, it is this type of discovery that (ultimately) will improve communication on a visceral level. It will also, I think, create new classes of utilitarian versus aesthetic approaches to design.
Thanks to my friend Jessica Jones for pointing us to it.
An overview of the research... Here
The new release... Here
The white paper: An Evaluation of Typeface Design in a Text-Rich Automotive User Interface (4.3MB PDF). Here
I assume the term "humanist" refers to a classification of typefaces (devised by Maximilien Vox in the 1950s) that imitate early humanistic manuscripts)... Here
Frutiger is the humanist typeface tested... Here
Eurostile was chosen as the standard because it is often used in automotive applications... Here
Monotype Imaging sponsored the study. It owns Linotype which, in turn, owns the trademarks to typefaces such as Eurostile, Frutiger, Univers, and Helvetica... Here
Will you join me on Facebook? Here
Seeking out, re-casting, and embellishing work you did not create
We've been treated to many feats of visual dreamwork in recent decades but none more compelling than those curated, edited, and created by Michael Benson.
Since the early 2000s, he has researched, stitched together, and rendered an awe-inspiring collection of images cobbled together from the vast database of photographs taken by spacecraft in the last 50 years.
Today we celebrate the publication of his latest book Planetfall: New Solar System Visions published this month by Abrams, which features imagery from the new, more powerful cameras of more recent probes.
I point you to it because it strikes me as an excellent example of the astounding results creatives can achieve by seeking out, re-casting, and embellishing works they did no invent. In other words, I don't always need to be the inventor to make a valuable contribution.
Example 1... Here
Example 2... Here
Example 3... Here
A gallery of images featured by The New York Times... Here
Dr. Jim Zimbleman, from National Air and Space Museum discusses what it took to create the final images... Here
Benson's new book: Planetfall: New Solar System Visions... Here
Michael Benson's website... Here
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