Friday, February 27, 2009

Can Anybody Swiss?



AnyoneCanSwiss.com is a website which creates your own Swiss style poster for you. Apparently the idea behind the project was to create debate about whether the Swiss style of design actually requires any skill. I can kind of see the funny side of this, but for me they are kind of missing the point. You might be able to create a piece of software to quickly layout type for you, but then this method of assessment implies that design can only be judged on how long it has taken to craft, or how skillful the craftsman is. Neither of which necessarily have anything to do with successful communication or appropriateness.

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For me, great design is successful communication. A good clear idea that is relevant to the audience, expressed in a manner that reinforces the message. I think discourse in design is healthy, but I think they are asking the wrong question. It's comparable to saying is taking a photo instead of doing a drawing cheating? I think a more valuable topic would be asking to what extent we've let style replace good ideas. Anyway, it's still good fun! Shame the kerning's a bit shit.


Merlin x

Thursday, February 26, 2009

Snowboards, paint, pens & cameras



Last week me and Matt Saunders finally got round to having a doodle on my new snowboard. My Canon G10 turned up in the post today so I though I'd have a go at taking a few snaps and pop them up on here. Still trying to get used to what all the buttons do and get to grips with RAW conversion, but these came out quite nicely. I managed to steal Tom Bings radioslave and one of his flashes to light it all, its such a good idea to have a hot shoe on a compact camera!

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Both shot at ISO 400, f2.8, 1/125 - bosh!

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Tuesday, February 24, 2009

D&AD at Urbis



Tomorrow I'm off to Manchester for a D&AD events day.
At lunch time I've got a meeting with somebody from Manchester based agency Thoughtful, to go over my portfolio and give me some top tips on how to make it better. As a company they seem really interesting; as you would expect being formed by ex-members of the chase there work is pretty spot on, but personally I think it's their working practice that really makes them stand out. Their methods of working from big projects right down to their own stationary has been taken back to the drawing board and considers environmental and social issues. They seem committed to doing things not just differently, but better. This includes moving their entire office into clients buildings to ensure the smooth running of projects! Needless to say I'm really looking forward to meeting them! Here's some of their work, check out their blog for some more...

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In the afternoon I'm attending a branding workshop with Liverpool based agency Uniform. As a response to a brief they sent me a week ago I've been working on some ideas for the branding of a new North-West based contemporary art gallery. On the whole I find the majority of art galleries intimidating and a bit lifeless, I'm keen to try and create a completely different experience of art that is fun, accessible and human. Today I'm polishing off some ideas for a promotional leaflet that is essentially an etiquette guide for the gallery, encouraging people to act in a more human way and participate in discussion. I'll get some feedback on all of this tomorrow then hopefully work on some visuals and pop them up here.

In other news there is a One Flag design competition going on over at the Adbusters website, some really great ideas, here's my favourite!

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Right, need to crack on, ta-raaa!


Merlin

Tuesday, February 17, 2009

Full Speed Ahead!



The dissertation is done, thank god! I handed in my 8,000 words on 'the Olympics as a tool for national branding and international communication' last Thursday, and needless to say I was a very relieved and happy boy!

Now that's out of the way I can just concentrate on designing stuff, all day, everyday. Winner!

Been fairly busy this week, just finished two small projects for the guys over at Synergy Leeds. Firstly a logo and web banners for their newly launched Media Camp scheme. Fairly straight forward, sitting in line with their existing image.

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You can see this in action on their website here. The scheme is going live this week sp hopefully by the end of the week there should be quite a lot of stuff up on their site. I've also been working on some visuals for their reporter reviews scheme that is currently picking up speed, I'll have some pictures for this soon!

I've also been putting together some work for a pitch to design the art college end of year show promotional material. The poster is currently looking like this...

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Still needs some love I think, need to get the visual language working across the board, flyers, posters, leaflets, web etc.

Here's a picture of top lad Kyle 'of man' Bibby and forty pints of our first batch of home brewed ale, fingers crossed it'll taste nice!

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Also Kyle has just been listed as a 'Hot Graduate' on the Character Creative website, congratulations to him.

I'm currently saving up for one of these...

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High resolution digital compact that shoots RAW files, looks amazing!

Also found a website this week called Just My Type, it has an interesting collection of display typefaces all available as illustrator files free of charge, winner!

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Right I need to get on with some work.


Merlin x

Tuesday, February 03, 2009

David Carson





Seems like a good lad!
Inspiring stuff.


Merlin