Zines: Do It Yourself Publications

DIY and punk ethos has meant everything to me since discovering the whole world in high school. It’s liberating not waiting for anyone’s approval and figuring out how to do crap on your own or with your friends. Call me romantic, but projects coming from a genuine, organic place is something the world needs more of. One of these sorts of projects that is mutually related to graphic design are zines.

A zine (short for magazine) is a non-commercial, often self-published work of original or appropriated texts and images. They can cover any number of topics, to name a few, art, politics, music, sex, and social justice.

What I think is special about a zine is the value that is in craft and freedom of speech. Sure anyone could get on the internet and blog about whatever they could have put into a zine, but there is value in holding and reading a hand-made publication that an individual or group of people have put time and effort into that isn’t dictated by economics or some executive above them.

I’ve been making silly science fiction zines with my friends off and on since being a senior in high school. I’m not sure why the connection of making a purely graphic design zine hasn’t crossed my mind till now.

Taking what I’ve learned about book-making this school year, I’m excited to put together a sweet looking and assembled graphic design zines about different topics that I love. 

Designer Daily

Every once in a while when one of these projects I'm working on gets me nowhere and I have no idea what design looks best or what colors or fonts I want to use, I just go to google and punch in "New Graphic Design". I will usually scroll around for a bit through different websites where new designs are up loaded almost daily, but the one I often visit always is Design Daily News (http://www.designer-daily.com/). This is my place (and who ever else's place) to find inspiration, resources, and thoughts on design. It is maintained by a Swiss graphic and web designer named Mirko Humbert.The art work you will find posted on this site are amazing! This is a big part in my design process when I feel stuck on a problem that I come across. I highly recommend this site to those of you with the same problem or just to those who want to see the work of great designers in world.

Here are some examples of what you'll find.

Check it out!

Design Contracts-Resource #2

While browsing the recent articles of Smashing Magazine, I stumbled across this gem: The Collective Legal Guide for Designers (Contract Samples).  This article contains a list of project examples you may come across in your free lance work & examples of contracts specific to that type of work (web re-design, symbol set, graphic design project, etc.)  I think this is a great way to browse the contract that pertains to your needs in order to get a more specific & effective contract that works for you. Check it out & see what works for you!  Again, these are examples.  There is always room for modification.  Hope this is helpful.

Impressive Typography

Although not quite the same as our upcoming Type2 Project 3 of creating digital typography, I thought this article could be useful for some inspiration.  This article came from Smashing Magazine displaying examples of intricate typography all with the topic of nature for the subject matter.  Although these examples appear strictly or at least the majority created digitally, each image is still very interesting with its interesting way of visual displaying not only words, but creating those words out of powerful images to create a message.  I hope this is helpful in sparking some ideas for our next typography project! Although pretty simple, this is a great example of what we are doing for this project.

Create A Great Logo

Here's a "Logo Workflow Guide" to design a great logo. This definitely will help me once a final design is chosen–sort of like a check list. Hope it helps you out too.

Here's a link to the PDF

http://mos.computerarts.co.uk/pdf/CAP148_chart.pdf

Design Contracts

I don't know about any of you but we are probably at the part of our school career where we have learned quite a bit of information to begin making a lot of personal/side projects that could be used for clients. I know some of the VC-370 courses have client work which is pretty much monitored by the VC Faculty and contract agreements that they created but what about our own stuff?

Looking up several resources for graphic designer contracts (and film related ones for myself), it is tough to sort out the differences and what's needed or not included in protecting you and your work. I found two sites, and combined them for my own contracts for film and graphic design. One, I cannot find the link but its on my dropbox here. And the other contract was from AIGA.

These were great resources for understanding everything that can go into a contract for small jobs to big jobs with various resources for each project (condensed terms, full terms, invoice, brief, past due, collection,  etc.). I combined the two copies and created my own contracts for clients that I have had, and have only used condensed terms and invoices so far.

You don't necessarily have to follow what I have done for the past year or so, but it may help you get your feet off the ground to sort some things out before you graduate if you take the freelance route, or while you are looking for some jobs while you wait.

Graphic Design for a cause

It really makes me glad to see good design used as a means to promote something. Particularly, cancer research and funding. I've had some very personal dealings with cancer in the past five years and it is a terrible thing that obviously needs to be eradicated. While tumbling down tumblr I came across the humble blog of a man who designed his own posters to help people donate money towards his mother's treatment.

His taglines are somewhat satirical but they make a very valid point. There's far too many jokes made about the subject and it often gets trivialized or marketed by big corporations. Susan G. Komen is notorious for that unfortunately. They do fund the research but with far smaller of a percent of their capital than I'd like. Clever and simplistic design like this should be used more on these advertising fronts. The hackneyed ribbon is regrettably starting to lose its meaning through overuse and abuse. We have the technology and we have the artists who can make marvelous and memorable design to advertise and battle for noble causes but far too often those artists get bought up by companies like Pepsi or Nike or Apple or whomever. We need more brave designers to tackle these things because honestly, if pepsi had a crap logo, it would still sell. If cancer research had an awesome logo, we would kick its ass.

Sidewalk Illusions

Sidewalk illusions have always been something I have found to be incredibly interesting. I love the idea of creating a 3D environment on a 2D medium. Thus extending the existing real 3D world into a surreal made up 3D world. It can make you look at things in an entirely different way. Another element to take a look at is the perspective/ angle that you are looking at the sidewalk drawing from. The drawings are designed to be perceived from the level of our eyes, vs if you were at level with the ground the illustrations would not create the same 3D effect. I feel as though incorporating these 3D illusions into package designs would catch peoples attention more effectively. Thus selling more product.

designers of tumblr

I've found tumblr to be a great source of inspiration and art-ogling material, but it's also a huge sample size- like one giant petri dish of humanity. For every amazing tumblr made by an inhumanly talented person, there are a thousand that make you cringe. I think this site helps bypass some of the endless digging one has to do on tumblr to find little glimmers of goodness: http://designersof.com . It feels so far like a nice mixture of illustration, typography, sculpture, objects, etc that all have a really strong sense of design without being totally sterile and focused on one style like a lot of other graphic design tumblrs I've looked at. Enjoy.

Coca-Cola Orange Juice Packaging

In light of our recent package design project I came across this and thought it was very interesting due to the fact that they made the individual packages interact with each other in that you need two cartons to have a full orange. I thought this was clever because not only does it draw the attention of the customers walking by but it makes the display feel more complete rather than just a bunch of individual cartons. Bravo Coca-Cola, bravo.

15 Illustrators

I thought that this article was interesting because it shows the several different ways that illustrators design. Some of the illustrators in this article give me a new perspective. I enjoy it because the illustration go from super realistic to very cartoony and fun. It shows a lot of inspiration. I do like that this article also provides an explanation for each illustrator as well.

http://weburbanist.com/2010/02/15/dazzling-digital-illustration-15-artists-to-watch/

High Resolution Recreations

This is some amazing photoshop work.  And the time lapse just makes it even more impressive.  Link here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qyrIU_90epw&feature=youtu.be  This fellow, who goes by Elemental79 on DeviantArt, has recreated several classic videogames in a realistic and extreme HD version.  Watching the process is just incredible.

You can see that he pulls bits and pieces from hundreds of different pictures to put together and blend in such a way that you would never believe could work so well.  Honestly makes me a bit jealous of his abilities to manipulate photos to this degree, but I'm sure he's been working at it for years.

I'm just hoping he keeps creating more of these.

Beer Labels

Beer Labels

While browsing one of my favorite websites—Juxtapoz.com, I stumbled upon this list of "Top 25 Modern Beer Labels". I thought this post would be relatable to our Packaging project to those who need some inspiration.

http://www.juxtapoz.com/top-list/top-25-modern-beer-labels

Here's a couple I admire a lot. I like that handdrawn graffiti effect on these labels. I've never tasted them personally but the way it's presented would definitely entice me.

The Draplin Design Co. 50 Point Plan to Ruin Yer Career

Portland/CreativeMornings - Aaron James Draplin from CreativeMornings/Portland on Vimeo.

Aaron Draplin saved my week. I'm not sure how I'm going to make it through the next 5 days. It's going to be brutal. Luckily, I have inspiration from a new graphic design hero.

I came across this Creative Mornings talk that Aaron Draplin of Draplin Design Co. did and I was instantly inspired to keep trucking. Draplin is an insanely charismatic, funny guy and it is a joy to listen to him talk. Listening to someone that's worked hard to put themselves where they are is encouragement enough to roll out of bed, make the walk to the comm. building, and get ready for a full day of sitting in the computer lab.

Draplin brings up a lot of points that I already try to live by and it was cool hearing it applied to a graphic designers life. Things like appreciating where you come from, loving your friends, staying humble, finding and collecting cool things, supporting your local rock bands, and of course getting cosmic. I needed to hear this stuff to just keep rolling on because working hard and loving it will pay off one way or another.

The New PS4 Controller

So if you had heard Sony announced their new generation system on February 20th. The PlayStation 4, in my eyes has been longly anticipated since the release of the PlayStation 3. Although very little information was leaked about the new system, Sony has revealed that the system is scheduled to be release this holiday season with its rival, the X-Box 720. We have not seen the system its self but we have in fact seen what the controller looks like.

With this design Sony promises a better online experience with a "share" button on the top left and a light bar that can be used to identify players with color-coding. This blue light bar is also the link to the PlayStation camera that can track the pad for advanced motion controls.

All in all I like new controller design. It's a little more polished and a lot more interesting than the old controller. It's also great to see Sony deviate from the standard Dual Shock pad, smoothing things out and making the whole thing look a little fresher. I can't wait to get my hands on this and start playing some beautiful PS4 games!

What NOT to do in Logo Design

I found another awesome article from Smashing Magazine that I think could be very useful for all designers called "10 Common Mistakes in Logo Design."  Although I have little to no experience in logo design (the only logo I "designed" my client had already sketched out what they wanted for me) I think it is good to know this tips on what NOT to do so if I do start log design I have something to go off of.  The hardest thing for myself in logo design is knowing where to even start, so maybe knowing where NOT to start and having this information in the back of my mind may be helpful.  Most of these tips have to do with avoiding the obvious, what others are doing, or what already exists in logo design.  I think overall what I can take away from all these points in this article is to make your logo unique, ordinary, and professionally fitting for the business it is to represent.
If you don't have time to read the full article, here are the bullet points they say graphic designers should avoid in logo design:
1. Designed by an Amateur
2. Relies on Trends
3. Uses Raster Images
4. Contains Stock Art
5. Designing for Yourself Rather than the Client
6. Overly Complex
7. Relies on Color for its Effects
8. Poor Choice of Fonts
9. Has Too Many Fonts
10. Copies Others

The Reward

"The Reward", available here on vimeo, is a nine minute animated film by students at The Animation Workshop in Denmark. The film is beautifully polished, and uses a strong style unlike anything else out there right now. It is primarily hand drawn, but uses 3d to its advantage for seamless camera angles and backgrounds. There is a ton of concept art available online, as seen here for example, that showcases the strong design elements of this film.

The technical skill and amazingly creative designs in this film are worth watching, even if you're not into animation. The making-of video, available here, is also extremely detailed and informative- it breaks everything down all the way to color scripts. This piece and all the work that went into it shouldn't only be inspirational for animators- design students can absolutely benefit from looking at the work that goes into something like this as well. Diversify!

Infographic Galore!

I thought this would be quite a relevant post for all of John's classes - Infographics!

This website, Visual.ly helps people (NOT DESIGNERS) create infographics from their easy to use infographic via website builder. Not only can you make your infographics on there (we are too good to do that easy peasy stuff cause we're legitttt) but you can make an account as a viewer, designer and creator. I made a designer one and uploaded my infographic from class and its been a hit!

I recommend you all do the same with yours to get your name and work out there for people to enjoy and see! If you do post yours, insert the link into the comments of this post for our other classmates to see!

Cheese! infographic

Design You Trust

This blog, Design You Trust is one of my favorite design blogs that I follow. They have a mobile version on the Pulse app for Android (and iOS) that I read on the go along with my other favorite design blogs all in one place.

Anyways, Design You Trust is a great way to view many different aspects of graphic design that is uploaded/posted by users from around the world all in one place. Clicking through the +10,000 pages of content, you can find practically anything of graphic design inspiration out there instead of going to a specialty site. I like this blog because users can upload great links they find but also their own work (I have!) for others to see. The nice thing about this is its similarity to our own class blog because links are posted within a post that bring you to other blogs or sites which can lead you to more as well. It's an inception of great design content that can get you lost for hours with mounds of inspiration and ideas for any project for class or clients.

Check it out and get acquainted with it to view lots of posts per day that could spark an idea for your next design!

Comic Sans: Misunderstood or Just Plain Tacky?

      If you were to name one font that you absolutely detest and makes you cringe when you see it used in a public space, what would it be? If you are like most of the designers (or just people with taste in general) I know, your answer would be Comic Sans. I know that personally, Comic Sans is on my definitely-never-ever-use-this-typeface list. But how many people have actually stopped and thought about why we hate this typeface so much? Sure - it's poorly kerned, unprofessional and looks tacky. But why did anyone ever design it in the first place? Did it ever have a purpose? I stumbled upon this video a few weeks ago and thought that I would share: 

   
     Now if you're like me, this video still did not change my opinion on the tackiness of Comic Sans at all. I did however, gain a little bit of respect for it than before. Now that I know where it came for and what it's original purpose was, I'm feeling a little less disdain towards it than before. Plus what this guy said was true, people who know absolutely nothing about design using creative fonts like Comic Sans is a step in the right direction towards design literacy. It's a small step, but a step none the less.