Apple's iWeb - a false economy

Its no wonder that startups and small organisations look at the costs of using professionals to develop a website, and have second thoughts. There are countless solutions available that target this market with low cost or free solutions to allow customers on a budget to develop an online prescence themselves, with little or no knowledge of the web.

Apple's iWeb does just this, but the end results are disappointing when published to the web, or viewed on different browsers and operating systems. Problems include large file sizes, inconsistent layouts and poor performance when moving from page to page, due to the way that the website structure is generated by the software.

The draw of a cheap solution and self sufficiency going forward will remain tempting to small businesses, but as we have seen now in several of our clients cases, the diy route has proved to be a false economy.

Tilt-Shift Camera

Tilt-Shift Camera lenses and have been around for quite a while now. But with the added twist in the use of Photoshop it still makes it a fascinating watching. If anybody out there fancies to get their hands dirty there are as usual plenty of sites to show you how.
Wikipeida, Ispiration, DIY build, Photoshop work. Finished.
Happy (shifted) snapping.

Picture by:
Nakayan's tilt-shift Sapporo 箱庭 札幌駅前の交差点

The Movie Font

Ever noticed how many films use classical looking caps serif fonts in their promotional artwork? Well it turns out its probably Trajan, a font derived from letters inscripted on the base of Trajan's column in Rome. Kirby Ferguson pokes fun at the graphic designers responsible for this phenomenon in this video clip. For those not put off by his plea to abandon such fonts take a look at this from FontFont.

The Nature's Silence - Richard Long

Following an inspirational day in London, we wanted to share with you a picture of the habitual bought post card of the exhibition we visited. Richard Long’s major exhibition at the Tate Britain is his first survey in London for eighteen years - a unique opportunity to understand afresh the artist's radical rethinking of the relationship between art and landscape.

We especially loved the clever use of simple type, colour and kerning on this postcard and exhibition poster, giving the artist his own voice and consequently brand, helping to sell a beautiful range of merchandise to art and design lovers.

Trends in Logos

Over the last few years we have seen logo trends come and go. See this article which documents some of the very latest trends of the last 12 months. These changes in trend and fashion provide the designer with new work, spinning the wheel of business.

Our experience, however, tells us that it is often the simplest of designs combined with strong ideas that will hold their ground and prove to be memorable in the eyes of the consumer or client. See this interesting article on Paul Rand, a master of corporate identity design.

We particularly like this description of what a logo is and should do:

A logo is a flag, a signature, an escutcheon, a street sign.
A logo does not sell (directly), it identifies.
A logo is rarely a description of a business.
A logo derives meaning from the quality of the thing it symbolizes,
not the other way around. A logo is less important than the product it signifies; what it represents is more important than what it looks like.
The subject matter of a logo can be almost anything.

And lastly, to make your logo-mouth water, see here.

Deutsches Institut für Normung

On the search as always for modern typefaces we came past this classic one. The DIN Typeface, still up to date. Simplicity at it's best. For a little more about it and how it came to be - the story so far or a little more background on all DIN see Wikipedia

Design Employment

Continuing the theme from our last post, we would also recommend taking a look at the following website: http://www.graphic-design-employment.com/

From Job interview tips, to introductions to core skills, this site is worth a look.

What - after College

We have had a lot of new graphic design and other graduates contact us over the last couple of weeks. Some good, some not so good. So we thought we'd have a look at what ideas and advice there is on the internet for graduates finding themselves in the job market for the first time.

We found these articles:
Here is one. click
Here is another one. click

Or to check out the competition, visiting Free Range is a good place to start.

Coke - long overdue

We just came past another interesting article regarding the new look (not design) for Coca Cola. For little more detail click here.

New Reverse Designs

D&Ad Winner 2009Graphic Design / Applied Print Graphics

We very much like.

Designer/Matt Dent
Sculptor/John Bergdhal
Production/The Royal Mint
Client/The Royal Mint
Brand/UK Definitive Circulating Coinage

The Ancient Way

As the ancient Romens did it. Spotted on the 'Via dell'Amore'. (the Path of Love for all you non Italians out there).

Interesting that not much has changed in the last 2000 years when it comes to classic Serif Typefaces.

Coke recycles cans and poster in sculpture stunt

Coca-Cola is celebrating Recycle Week with a 50-metre sculpture on the Sussex coast made from 200,000 used aluminium cans.

The 'Precious Metal' artwork is inspired by a Coca-Cola poster from 1949 that shows a lady sunbathing and the drinks giant hopes it will encourage people to recycle more this summer.

Coca-Cola citizenship manager Liz Lowe said: "We want to inspire people to think twice about binning their empty bottles and cans. An empty drinks can that you recycle today could be back on the shelf as a brand new on in just six weeks."

At the end of the week, all the cans will be recycled which will save enough energy to power a television constantly for 70 years, Coca-Cola said.

Coca-Cola commissioned artist Robert Bradford, production designer Paul Cross, aerial photographer Jason Hawkes and Norfolk Environmental Waste Services to create the artwork.