Noisy Decent Graphics

Newspaper Club Student Week

Crossed posted on the Newspaper Club blog

Last week was our inaugural Student Week. Lots of students use Newspaper Club at this time of the year for final shows and portfolios so we put together a few blog posts offering advice to graduates from well known industry figures. In case you missed it, here's a quick round up.

Three writers, Henrietta Thompson, Nick Ashbury, Dan Germain, three illustrators Noma Bar, Neil Roberts, Andy Smith, three designers Max Gadney, Michael Bow and err, me, told us what one thing they'd recommend students read.

Kim Papworth, global partner Wieden + Kennedy offered us some advice on portfolios and getting interview.

Simon Manchipp from SomeOne told students of design they weren't designers.

And you might want to look at these posts (elsewhere on the web) from Michael Bierut, Michael Johnson, Frank Chimero, David Airey and Jamie Weicks superb The 50. Good luck with the final shows and dissertations and all that.

R/GA Getty Images Watermark Project

This is good. Watch the video, it explains it all. It's a really simple, subtle idea that does solve that 'oh bollocks where did I get this image from' art director problem. Nice work.

 

 

I've started reading blogs again

Using Google Reader. I'm restricting myself to 10 blogs. That's it. One in, one out.

Guardian Europe Season mastheads (from 2011)

The original idea was to change the masthead to the flag colours and the language of the featured European country - das Guardian etc. They liked it but ran with this compromise instead. Changing the masthead is, after all, a Big Deal. Looking back it still looks dramatic and makes an attention grabbing statement. Nice.

Designs of the Year 2012

I love this exhibition / awards scheme. 

I love the way the randomness of the selections accurately reflects the diversity of design talent in the world today (and what "design" means) .

I LOVE the fact you can't enter, you have to be nominated by your peers.

I love the fact I always see exciting new projects I wasn't aware of next to projects by friends.

(I love that we won the Graphics category in 2010.)

I would love to be on the nomination panel.

 

 

Why can they never make the text line up on the spines of the catalogues from one year to the next?

Adverts on a broken screen at Stratford station

This is an advert for the Sunday Sun, you know the one, similar to this.

And here's a video.

 

Android brand guidelines

Meant to blog about this ages ago. Didn't. Saw this picture the other day which reminded me. So, doing it now, in note form.

At w+k last year we did an ad for the Guardian's new Android app. We had an idea that needed us to play with that robot to work. I looked at the guidelines, they said this

"Android Robot - Can be used, reproduced, and modified freely in marketing communications."

Isn't that brilliant? Brilliant that they explicitly say "Can be used, reproduced, and modified freely".

I have talked to people before about open source brands, something where modification is encouraged. But normally people are too scared to do it. (And you need a big enough brand for it to work.)

Let's be clear - this wouldn't work for every brand. Some brands need really strict guidance and rules. But it's great to see Android taking this approach. Especially given the ecosystem of apps / device etc etc

Here's the ad. A full page press one and the banner mpu which is kinda cute. Note no ugly handsets, there are so many of the app ads these days that flicking through a newpaper can feel like looking at a Carphone Warehouse catalogue. Also notice no huge flash saying - NEW APP - we felt the robot was strong enough to say that as we're only advertising to Android customers and they'd been asking for a Android app for a while.

 

 

UP

Breaking Davies's 3rd law

"if you make something that looks incredibly climbable, you shouldn't be allowed to say people can't climb it... especially if it's an entirely decorative thing. You should either make something actually climbable, or something that doesn't look climbable."

www.flickr.com/photos/russelldavies/3984483065/

Rapha and Mellow Johnny's logo love

I love the Rapha logo. Amazing craft in the hand drawn type. The curves and proportions are gorgeous. Luscious and rich and yet simple. Beautiful.

The other week we visited Lance Armstrong's shop Mellow Johnny's in Texas. I bought this tshirt.

It's not the Mellow Johnny's logo, it's just a graphic on a tshirt. Similar to the Rapha one, isn't it.

An homage, maybe? I'm not complaining. They're both good brands and they both look great. I'd like more stuff like this.

Interview with me on It's Nice That

Talking about the GDS Design Principles over here.

I based our new bathroom on my Nike ID trainers

We've just fitted a new bathroom. And I based the colour scheme on a pair of my trainers which I created with Nike ID two years ago.

Personalisation + graphic designers = endless possibilities. And ever escalating Design Disease.

Visualisation of linked pages within GOV.UK

Not by me. But looks cool.

Lytro camera in the GDS office

Much excitement in the GDS office as Frances brought her brand new Lytro camera in. Billed as "the first light field camera that allows consumers to instantly capture interactive, living pictures and then focus them AFTER they are taken."

Amazing technology. Brilliant for taking pictures of creme eggs. Click on the picture to change the focus.