Save the Date Postcard

This is an image of the Save the Date postcard that I designed, just arrived from the printers.

Defence of bad graphics

As interesting article on the guardian website about the over use of infographics.

Defence of bad graphics

I have always liked good infographics, I have been immersed by the beauty of the design and then content with the new information I have gleaned from it and had taken it as a given that everyone would like well designed displays of information. BUt to read and to hear the alternate views on the use of the infographic is both insightful and a reminder to question what is presented as the norm.

In the article they posted this debate between Neville Brody and David McCandless, which again was a challenge but really insightful.

Interactive Music Video Game.

Since Arcade Fire's interactive music video The Wilderness Down there has been a number of attempts to marry music with interactive tools available online. This latest video by Adrop is a beautifully realised computer game which also works as their music video.

The game is all about getting your tweet from one end of the game to the other without getting the letters messed up (letters get messed up if you run into obstacles).

The illustrations alone are amazing but the interactive nature of this video, which also harnesses social media ticks all the right buttons.

The Green Soccer Journal

One of those little ideas I have had in the back of my mind was to make a football magazine, which would have articles that surround the the game rather than being about current events. The magazine would be well designed, with beautiful photography and informative articles.

I was at Gatwick airport flying to Gothenburg on Saturday morning, killing some time by looking through all the magazines in W H Smith, when I cam across "The Green Soccer Journal", which is a magazine that is well designed, with beautiful photography and informative articles... I should have been quicker with my idea.

This bianual journal really is a thing of beauty, with articles that look at details around the game as well as looking at the profile of players that aren't just the obvious poster boys of the premier league. Highlights included the article on whistles, the tradition of exchanging shirts, the photographic feature of Clairefontaine and profile of Mamadou Sakho.

With contributions from the likes of Peter Saville to Gabriele Marcotti, it has a broad collaborative feel.

Performance Wear from The Green Soccer Journal on Vimeo.

Senna

If you haven't seen this masterpiece of cinema. Stop what you are doing. Now. And book a ticket to see this amazing film.

The whole narrative is constructed from archive TV footage of the formula 1 racing car champion Ayrton Senna, edited together in a compelling way, that makes it so much more than just a sports documentary.

huey Crowley

Saw this amazing website with the kind of Paintings I like.

Check it out

Braun Time

It's been a few years since Braun were in the watch making business but their new range of clocks and watches makes you wonder... Where have you been Braun? Beautifully minimal it's straight from the Dieter Rams school of design, like he never retired.

Braun Time Website

Guess Who App

Hasbro - Guess Who Digital from Luong Lu on Vimeo.

I do quite a lot of work for Hasbro, so I was excited by this cool new reinvention of a classic game. Its an example of how social media is having a big impact on how people design.

Middle East Time Line app

The Guardian, always a place of beautiful info graphics have made this amazing flash app to show the timeline f events in the middle east since the protests broke out at the beginning of the year. Check it out

McDonalds Ad

Really nice Advert for McDonalds. Simple, honest, funny images of children, beautifully shot telling the viewer all they need to know about some new fizzy drinks.

Famous objects from classic movies

http://famousobjectsfromclassicmovies.com/

A great online game, beautifully made and totally adictive.

new 7 up logo

New logo for 7 up. Looks clean crisp, a really nice evolution of a renowned logo.

Zidane

BBC were showing Zidane: 21st Century Portrait this week. A beautiful film. Special praise for the opening credits by m/m; a great example of motion graphics with fantastic use of typography.

This is the...Renault?

This weekend I saw the new Renault advert and just couldn't help but wonder what the person who designed French Connections "This is the Man" campaign thought of it. Both use the font of the moment; Gotham, both have the type overlaid on top of the image.

You can make your mind up for yourself below.

Spencer Murphy: Fallen Empire

I have always been interested in the discarded, forgotten things and places. The quiet after the party has finished. No location seems quite as isolated as the forgotten theme parks and holiday resorts of this world.

Spencer Murphy's Fallen Empire is a beautiful illustration of this.

Interesting interview with him on itsnicethat.com and you can see more work at www.spencermurphy.co.uk

The External world

The External World from David OReilly on Vimeo.

This amazingly beautiful animation by David O'Reilly has been doing the rounds over the past couple of days. Enjoy.

I Heart Milton Glaser

Milton Glaser was on Radio 4 talking about his I heart NY Logo.

Check it out on this link.

My ________

While trying to find a song through google I stumbled onto mySpace, the website that facebook caused to be redundant. They've had a major facelift since I (or anyone else in this world, surely) has been n there. Its a total branding refresh, new colours, gone is is the deep blue, new logo, even loosing the word space.

Its brave, very few companies change there logos in such a drastic way, especially on the web, amateur attempts at a logo such as confused.com are persistently used. So Hats off to them.

But unfortunately, I fear no amount of rebranding can bring myspace back to where it used to be, facebook topped it, and facebook is going nowhere.

All tangled up

As I have mentioned in previous posts I am a big fan of animation, so I went to watch Disney's new feature "Tangled". I thought it was pretty good, maybe not quite as good as last years excellent Princess and the Frog but an enjoyable film neither the less.

The sub-plot and to all this and perhaps the most interesting thing prior to the release of this film was the name. At first it was called Rapunzel, then it was Unbraided before Disney decided that Tangled was the the best choice.

These changes were not just at script level but occurred rather late, there was even early promotion with the different titles used as you can see above.

"Tangled" was chosen in response to Princess and the Frogs relatively poor turn out at the box office. The reason for this was apparently that boys were turned off going to watch a "princess" film. So Disney, in response to this, changed Rapunzel to Tangled and made a point of feature the male lead as the predominant figure in the trailers and he also appears on all posters.

I am not so sure about the name personally, it doesn't have that timeless feel that Disney has monopolised over the years. By definition a timeless film (as Disney's greatest work is undeniably) should be relevant no matter who watches it, no matter when they are watching it. Snow White for example was made in the 1930's but was recently re-released on blu-ray and it dominated the charts for months with many children finding a film some 80 years old for the first time and they still find it engaging and relevant to them. Equally, in a totally hypothetical world, you could take Beauty and the Beast made in the 1990's and show it to a child in 1940 and I would think they'd find it just as engaging.

And this is the problem with Tangled the name feels very "now", post-Shrek, appealing to the Children of today. Time will tell if in ten years it will be the new Little Mermaid or whether it is this generations Oliver and Company.

The early indications are that the film is going to do well financially and rightly so it is a very good film. But for Disney value of film is not measured in its initial box office takings (Pinocchio flopped on its release), but if in 50 years if they still have Rapunzel dolls being sold in Disney Stores around the world.

Scriptographer

Triangular from Scriptographer.org on Vimeo.

Creative review featured the plug in for illustrator called scriptographer, which I have spent the day having loads of fun with, check out the video of what you can do or download here

Der Fuehrers Face

I am a big fan of animation, especially the early disney shorts. This is one of the most famous of the donald duck shorts, mainly because Donald wears a Nazi uniform, which does make it slightly surreal.

The short was made as part of Disney's partnership with the US government during WW2. It was a partnership of necessity as the Walt Disney studio almost fell to it's knees due to the financial flops of the now much loved Pinocchio, Dumbo, Bambi and Fantasia. Walt Disney had put all his heart and effort into Fantasia especially, so when this failed to produce a significant return on his investment he fell out of love with animation and you can see a shift in his priorities from making the best animated feature possible to keeping his business afloat. WW2 gave him an opportunity to make quick money by producing propaganda for the US government.

Der Fuehrer's Face is possibly the most famous film from this era, though it isn't the best Donald Duck Cartoon it certainly has an incredibly catchy song about Hitler, which I haven't been able to get out of my head for the past week.

Norman McLaren - Neighbours

Norman McLaren is one of the film makers I can type into youtube spend five minutes watching a short and love every second. Great way to start the day.

Just my Type

I am currently reading just my type by Simon Garfield. It is an engaging book on the history of type and the specific histories of certain fonts or letters/symbols.

What struck me about this book, was that it was placed at the front of my local book shop in the new books section, not hidden away in the graphic design section in the far corner of the shop; I had to buy it and see why such an honour was given to this book over others on a similar subject.

Books such as the excellent "Type and Typography" have long been used by design students interested in learning about the subject and these books are full of technical detail and rich history. They are however very much like a text book, and do an excellent job in the way they are designed to.

"Just My Type" is not a text book. It has, what the music industry, call cross over appeal, i.e it is written in a way that makes it accessible to a wider audience than just the typographers of this world. Each chapter looks at an area of type, maybe a type face such as comic sans in the first chapter or a symbol such as the ampersand in chapter 6 and details a narrative about these subject areas.

As well as the stories behind a font, the book also details technical aspects of the font talking about what makes caslon structurally different to garamond for instance. But this technical side is not demanding for the non-designer, and this knowledge is imparted through out the book, little by little, so that it never stops being engaging.

This is the really success of the book, in an age when people have got greater opinions about fonts than ever before, when anyone can look at a drop down menu to decide how their birthday invitation will look, having a book that opens up discussion on these typefaces and gets people thinking about type is a great achievement.

Black and White

Check out this beautiful website, which is exhibiting some really nice work at shirotokuro.com

Shirotokuro is a shortened form of ‘Shiroi to kuroi’ which is Japanese for ‘black and white’.

So as the name suggests everything is in black and white and looks rather dashing.

Mr Smiths Letterpress Workshop

Really interesting interview with Kelvyn Smith regarding his Letterpress workshop, done by Creative Review.

Mistakes that make you smile

One of the joys you don't get with digital photography is the excitement of taking the photo and not really knowing what your pictures will look like until they are developed. And inevitably you get the images you thought were amazing coming back out of focus, or sometimes you find images that you didn't think much about and they turn out to be amazing.

This image I was really happy with but, was a total fluke, forgot to wind the film and got this double exposure which was one of those nice surprises you don't get with the new technology.

Snow Phoenix

Check out this page I worked on for Glenfiddich Snow Phoenix.

Just think that they had some nice imagery which makes design a simple page all the more enjoyable.

Confession time

You go away on on Holiday and when you come back you neglect things you shouldn't have.

Such as this blog.

I will be adding things to this blog a bit more over the coming days.