Seen Your Design

Let Me (Us) Introduce Myself (Ourselves)

2009-05-05T05:53:00.001-07:00

Designer Kelli Anderson has redefined the business card to optimize its function (picking up chicks) for a band, The Royal Chains. The card's clever use of multiple choice allows each band member to carry the same card but then provide the key personal details to groupies: their name and what instrument they play. Both http://cardobserver.com/ and Kelli Anderson's portfolio website (http://www.kellianderson.com/main_index.html) are fun to spend some time on.

Kate Moross

2009-05-03T16:43:00.000-07:00

Kate Moross is a 22-year old London-based Illustrator and Graphic designer. Here are some of my favorite illustrations she has done so far. I also really enjoy the clean look of her website (http://www.katemoross.com/) -- she uses such bright colors in her work that anything else would compete.

Cookies for Christmas... in May

2009-05-03T16:40:00.000-07:00

Cutesy work of Simon Cook (aka Cookie), a designer and illustrator includes a Christmas Cheat Sheet with wonderful illustration and a precious handmade quality to its aesthetic.

Detail:

Unrelated Images

2009-04-26T20:33:00.000-07:00

Graphic Designer Richard Perez's "Things I Like" - A unique illustration style and color palette complement the poster's theme

BBDO's Identity for "The Kitchen" - Nice use of letterpress, solid colors, and close attention to negative shapes

Poster Advertisement for Redstripe Beer - simplicity can be effective

Willoughby Design's solution for the New Leaf 100% Recycled line ("presenting environmentally friendly paper as a stylish, even luxurious, choice for consumers. The Willoughby Design Innovation Lab helped New Leaf design a series of product lines and accompanying packaging to present personal stationery, school supplies and commodity office products in a way that proves you don’t have to sacrifice style and convenience to make responsible choices. The paper goods, available in Whole Foods, Office Depot and Target stores, use innovation to compete with non-recycled mainstream brands at a better quality, price and style."

Getting Crafty

2009-04-26T20:21:00.000-07:00

Recently featured on Steven Heller's "Daily Heller" blog, Jesse Willmon and Kirsten Sorton have created a hilarious reaction piece to all those who are glued to their iPhones, Blackberries and other smartphones: "We created our own version of these technological travesties to use when your friends/enemies/passing acquaintenances are being jerks with their hand-held technology." Their solution? The i-wood, a piece of wood with graphics that make it appear like a fancy schmancy smartphone. Smartass applications vary from "status symbol" to "time waster." I suppose there are equal concerns about getting this phone wet, but at a fraction of the cost, I think it's worth it just to make your point.

Can You Infographic Anything?

2009-04-26T20:13:00.001-07:00

Courtesy of Francesco Mugnai, a Graphic Design teacher in a renowned Italian institute of Art and Design in Florence, there is now a list of fifty great examples of infographics. The entire list is available on his website here. The wide array of examples really opened my eyes to the unlimited possibilities there are for creatively depicting information but still in a sensible manner. Here are my two favorites from the list.

Inside Bob Dylan's Brain (detail available here) includes everything from bad jokes to recipes.
What's in the Customer's Mailstream? (from Deliver Magazine issue 24, page 7). This infographic breaks down what's in the average mail delivery in the U.S. The illustration is by Jude Buffum.

NYC Gets Colorful

2009-04-26T20:11:00.001-07:00

New illustrative advertisements for the city of New York are the epitome of cool, adopting its street vibe.

Icons and Info Graphics

2009-04-19T11:05:00.001-07:00

I love the color of these medicine-related icons, but the high level of detail makes me question their practicality and function in the real world (if there is one). Here's a cool idea for how to record the movement in a room over a particular time span.

Working with Texture

2009-04-19T10:49:00.000-07:00

Here are two cool ways that posters can become "interactive." The textural experiences complement the designs by simulating the noises if you actually interacted with the physical objects and not just pictures of them.

Also, below is original work from Needle Noodle that may make you salivate. The texture adds an awesome dimension to the work. More work can be found at their flickr photostream here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/needlenoodles/

Cool Things with Type

2009-04-19T10:40:00.000-07:00

Part of a set of posters by Sydney ad adgency Publicis Mojo:

Here is an LCD greeting card where you can write any message you’d like within the 2 rows of 8 grooved squares - the raised sections will guide your marker on the right track. Posted originally in Swissmiss, a design blog and studio run by Tina Roth Eisenberg, a "swiss designer gone NYC." I suppose it's another way aside from the e-card phenomenon to digitalize your greeting card?

A sample of Julene Harrison's impressive typographic papercuts:

Unknown work:

A Well-Designed Budget

2009-04-10T19:09:00.000-07:00

Where do our taxes go? The budget submitted by the president every February is publicly available, but why sift through thousands of pages of government documents, when a designer can create a comprehensive information graphic to explain it all? Designer Jess Bachman created "Death and Taxes," a 6-square-foot infographic that organizes the budget into an amazing bubble diagram (available as a poster and online). Agencies are assigned their official seals and scaled according to the program's annual expense. A percentage change is also given in spending from the previous year--helpful in understanding our last president's priorities. Bachman has her work set out for her for the 2010 budget design.

Lettering the Body

2009-04-10T18:58:00.000-07:00

Peter Chmela wanted to get physical with his work. His "Don't judge people according to their appearance" is a subtle, yet powerful photography project. My favorites: "judge" (yay fingerprints) and "appearance"; I thought their legibility and context were the strongest visually.

Brochure

2009-04-10T18:52:00.000-07:00

Type treatment, illustration, and sophisticated silver/light gray for this brochure complement the idea of a sparkling, bubbly drink. Designer unknown.

Designs You Want to Touch

2009-04-10T18:41:00.000-07:00

Lizania Cruz is a graphic designer who currently lives in Philadelphia (she finished her BA at Philadelphia University and now works as a graphic designer for Anthropologie). I love the tactile and delicate element she adds to her designs. Samples below include a discount/sewing kit sent to select Anthropologie customers as a birthday gift, an identity for Anthropologie’s bedding collection (designed in collaboration with Anthropologie’s in-house design department), and the concept and design for a clutch bag made out of a FedEx Tyvek envelope.

More than Nutrition Facts

2009-04-01T08:40:00.001-07:00

Instead of relying on a nutrition facts label smacked on top of your beautiful design to speak of its ingredients, why can't we express your product's healthy contents through the packaging itself? Japanese industrial designer Naoto Fukasawa is one step ahead. He created a series of fruit juice packages where the packaging mimics the color and texture of the actual fruit skin. These designs are definitely not from concentrate.

Bathroom Signage

2009-04-01T08:30:00.000-07:00

Recent Yale MFA graduate Aliza Dzik is helping you mark your territory by marking her own. The use of continual type across both the women's and men's bathroom doors is a witty visual experience and an example of successful abbreviated signage. Still, it says a lot about how we process information that understanding the signage would not have been nearly as immediate if the type was the same color on both doors.

Typography Gets Scientific

2009-04-01T08:13:00.000-07:00

Hydrogen... Helium... Lithium... Gotham? Students have diligently analyzed the periodic table of elements hanging in classrooms for years, and design-wise the table has served as what is actually a long-lasting example of information design. Why not present a history of typefaces the same way? Like elements, typefaces also have specific properties, compositions, ways that they can be grouped (families etc.), and can produce "reactions" of sorts when used together. While I don't expect this Periodic Table of Typefaces to be hanging in mac labs anytime soon, the table lists 100 of the most popular, influential, and notorious typefaces today. The typefaces are grouped first by families and then by classes of typefaces (sans-serif, serif, script, display, geometric, humanist, slab-serif...). Each typeface cell has a logical symbol and also the designer, year designed, and a ranking of 1 through 100. Rankings were based on combining lists and opinions from a few other sites. A larger image of the entire periodic table is available here.

Communicating Clean Lines

2009-03-23T15:48:00.000-07:00

This furniture company does it perfectly.

Making Protein Look Tasty

2009-03-19T22:03:00.000-07:00

"Probar is a high performance energy bar made from whole, raw foods. Each flavor is a different mix of fruits, nuts, berries, and seeds. Unlike most energy bars, Probar’s ingredients are natural and recognizable. Moxie Sozo was hired to redesign Probar’s entire product line. After the new launch, sales increased dramatically, market share improved, and the company picked up numerous new retail accounts.” No surprises here, except in the packaging! Who would have thought you could make a product look so tasty from the outside -- especially in a product category that in everyone's minds seem to be antonyms of delicious and filling. The use of color is spectacular, and the collages are beautiful enough for me to justify the purchase... even if the bar does taste like crap.

Obama Administration Designs

2009-03-19T21:47:00.001-07:00

With the 2008 Presidential election now in the past, we've become well aware of the potential effects "good" design can have... the ability to represent values, induce emotions, and give people a visual with which to associate and rally. So if presidential logos can have a "feel good effect," can the Obama Administration's government-sponsored logos do the same? In early March, President Obama unveiled the logos for two economic recovery programs of his own: the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) and the Transportation Investment Generating Economic Recovery (Tiger). He said: "These emblems are symbols of our commitment to you the American people," and that they will remind the public "that your government is putting the economy back on the road to recovery." Steve Juras, creative director of Chicago firm Mode Project (that collaborated on the campaign "O" logo) led designers Aaron Draplin (Draplin Design Co.) and Chris Class (Wire & Twine) to creating the match for these logos. I can't even imagine the restrictions of freelancing for the White House, but what a nice porfolio piece! Juras said: "It was explictly stated that the ARRA logo not look 'governmental'.... We were asked to create a 'visible sign of progress' in a contemporary way while referencing energy, education and health care. The goals for Tiger were even simpler: use a tiger motif to speak to the Dept. of Transportation's new initiative, and be sure to include 'USDOT' somewhere in the mark.'" Sounds simple enough, but the turnaround was in under 4 days! Impressive. Well, just like the Obama O was atypical as far as presidential logos were concerned, the administration is definitely making a departure in its visual communication. I applaud the contemporary style and direction as the unifying aesthetic for this administration's designs, but I worry that the logos will lose their official, serious air and be hard to distinguish from other logos being designed today in the nongovernmental sector.

Sending Dots from Abroad

2009-03-19T21:43:00.000-07:00

Simon Mortimer, in his final year at Lincoln School of Art and Design, designed this piece titled "Dot 2 Dot." It's a typographic experiment using connect the dots to spell out well-known worldly greetings on postcards. The words include ola, aloha, hello, bonjour, guten tag, and ciao. While the idea is original and I like the interactive aspect of the postcard, the color palette seems a bit dated to me... yet so are postcards, no?

Spell It Out

2009-03-14T19:46:00.000-07:00

Below is work of recent University of Portsmouth graduate Jodie Silby, who created a "Portsmouth Vernacular" map using words to create directional lines of the map. The map presents the geography of the city in addition to the dialect and language that's used around it. In addition to an introduction to the map, there is an alphabetical index and translations for mapped dialect. I think the work is both visually and conceptually interesting, but I wonder if having a map of a more well-traveled city would make the map more enticing.

Why Milk?

2009-03-14T19:31:00.001-07:00

I've noticed lately that milk cartons seem to be the "go-to" object for packaging experimentation. Understandably, the white multi-sided carton provides a designer with much flexibility, as shown below, but why not redesign the actual carton as well?

Christina, a senior at Texas A & M University Commerce in Dallas, designed a can and milk carton design for Sprouts Farmers Market, "a grocery store that incorporates local farmer's products into their produce department.... The cans and milk cartons are designed for the simple metro life. Quick and easy to figure out what is in the can without words or the overused picture of the food on the front of the product." I absolutely love the style; the use of simple icons and recognizable colors will send a clear, direct message to shoppers.

Monika Ostaszewska, a graduate from the Faculty of Industrial Design at the Academy of Fine Arts in Warsaw, takes a very different approach to milk. Her graduation project, "Flavours of Podlasie," embraces the ornamental style of the region that was based on a typical pattern of double-warp fabrics from the Podlasie region of Poland (close to the eastern border of Poland).

Lastly, David Fung, a recent graphic design graduation from the Rochester Institute of Technology School of Design wanted to "use the standard milk carton as the canvas to create a clean, modern, and functional design yet still approachable for the average consumer." While I like the illustrated splash and the typography is nicely set, the color scheme seems a bit out of place.

Making a Difference with the ABC's

2009-03-14T19:21:00.000-07:00

Animalphabet is a typographic collaborative project between 16 artists around the world, where each creates a letter formed as a real or invented animal. The letters have joined together as a limited edition poster (only 500 are being printed), and the profit will be donated to Unicef. The artists include:

Tauba Auerbach (US), Lisa Jeannin (BEL), Jan Kruse, Human Empire (GER), Mike Perry (US), Andy Rementer (US), Rui Tenreiro (NO), Stuart White (UK), Maja Sten (SWE), Geoff Mcfetridge (US), Chris Hopkins (JP), Evan B Harris (US), Luke Best (UK), Espen Friberg, Yokoland (NO), Sara Nilsson (SWE), Joseph Hart (US), Nan Na Hvas, Sofie Hannibal (DK), Kristoffer Busch (SWE), Åsa Klingberg (SWE), Christopher Davison (US), Andreas Samuelsson (SWE), Mélodie Mousset, Tatiana Rihs (CH), Holly Stevenson (US), Oscar Bauer, Ewan Robertson (UK), Christopher Green (UK), Megan Whitmarsh (US), and Marcus Oakley (UK).

Details of a few of the letters:

Patterned Packaging

2009-03-13T19:34:00.001-07:00

These designs are beautiful, refined, ornamental, and colorful. Featured first is for the Brooklyn based artisan chocolate brand, Mast Brothers Chocolate, followed by packaging for Lucia Soaps. Apparently, the Mast Brothers' is just wrapped in Florentine paper from Rossi, and they stick a custom label on it. Regardless, I worry that the aesthetics are too similar that I might end up putting soap in my mouth instead of chocolate...

Obsession with Obama in Food?

2009-03-13T19:26:00.000-07:00

First it was cupcakes, and now it's breakfast cereal. Here is a presidential portrait by Hank Willis Thomas and Ryan Alexiev made with Froot Loops. I suppose it's a Joe Sixpack version of Seurat's paintings?

Extremes of Perfume Design

2009-03-13T18:58:00.001-07:00

Here are two designs that sit on entirely different sides of the perfume packaging spectrum. The first perfume, featured in GOOD Magazine, was ironically created by a perfumer who hates perfume. To channel his frustration, Christopher Brosius created a line of pleasant and nostalgic perfumes... "a variety of whimsical, subtle fragrances like 'Winter 1972,' 'I am a Dandelion,' and 'In the Library.'" The design is simple and has a quaint medicinal quality. There is a nice arrangement of typography that emphasizes each unique scent and still the collection as a whole. Meanwhile, Le Ettes, a French-Austiran perfume producer, wanted to be just as explicit about its point of view with perfume: "I wanted it to be really girly and colorful and at the same time have a functional and easy system for scalable product lines." Denmark designer Emil Kozak did just that, playing with the circles and dots from the company's logo and using one color for each product line's packaging. According to Emil, the bottles are “lightweight, compact, shatter resistant and re-usable."

More Inspiring Work from Pentagram

2009-03-13T18:47:00.000-07:00

The identity for Free the Word, a festival of world literature, was completed by Harry Pearce and his design team at Pentagram. Pentagram designed the identity and the mark for the inaugural festival in 2008. The execution is superb -- animation help from firm AllofUs truly marries the design solution with the name and concept behind the festival. The festival is hosted by International PEN, a worldwide association of writers that promotes international cultural cooperation in literature. Below is the animated version of the logo (used as an identifier at events throughout the festival) and a poster for the event.

deSIGNS

2009-03-13T18:46:00.001-07:00

DJ Stout and his team at Pentagram (Austin) designed Signs, a collaboration with Texas musician Joe Ely and photographers Michael O'Brien and Randal Ford, which focuses on the issue of homelessness. The book features a series of homeless signs that Ely collected over the years, and his forward recounts his brief experience of homelessness at age 17. The sign collection was photographed by Ford and is juxtaposed with portraits of the homeless that were shot by O'Brien. Here is a sampling of the signs, which show an array of handwriting that when seen together is quite spectacular and awesome.

Catching Up

2009-03-13T18:35:00.001-07:00

I haven't been able to post in a long time, so the upcoming posts will be a collection of seemingly random images that caught my eye over the past few weeks: A typographic world map. Very clever design, but the random breaks in typography impede legibility. I also think that the monotone colors are too grim-- the background color (water) should have been more set off from the land

2D Goes 3D

2009-02-25T12:57:00.000-08:00

A commonly used strategy in contriving a symbol for a business is to find a way to visualize literal components of your name or the services you provide. Think trees and leaves for environmental groups, keys and locks for locksmiths, etc. So if Jack is in fact in a box, why not make the box 3D instead of 2D? Fast food chain Jack in the Box, headquartered in California and with most outlets on the West Coast, is well-known for its cheeseburgers and Americanized ethnic foods. With an already nationally-recognizable mascot, the big-headed Jack, and humorous TV ads, the chain recently decided that Jack's square of a box wasn't realistic enough. The new logo, designed by Duffy & Partners, is much more saavy, sleek, and expensive looking--a big departure from its previous familial, cutesy look. While I definitely like the 3D change, I miss the charm. My other criticisms: What's with logo's obsessions with sneaking in so-called "smiles" into logos recently? Too bad Pepsi took the lead in that race. Why did they separate Jack from "in the box" if it's really one phrase in our culture? The typography below the 3D box looks way too space-aged for me to associate the chain with comfort and stick-to-my-stomach goodness.

Great Color Palettes

2009-02-25T12:49:00.000-08:00

Lisa Rupp is a graphic designer and artist based in Arizona who graduated from Utah State University in 2007. Her patterns are ethereal, feminine, and delicate. She shows impeccable variations of color.

High-Protein Design

2009-02-25T12:37:00.000-08:00

Understandably, you would not be enthused to be treated like a piece of meat... but have your designs be treated a nice slab of beef? It's the new craze. Weird Clothing recently packaged its Bermuda shorts brand "Human Meat" in styrofoam and plastic wrap with a sticker label. Sydney-based Salad Design created a promotional, fund-raising package for a local zoo for WWF (World Wide Fund for Nature) and the Australian clothing company, Mooks. Styrofoam, is clearly not the most green option for a mass-produced packaging concept, but the red/white marbling of the shorts really works well visually to mimick the fat-laced meat. In conceptually linking live animals to the packaging we see of dead ones, Salad Design's work is provocative and not just one-note. The steak-shaped tag makes it that much more successful. Rather than jumping on the bandwagon, I hope that other designers think twice about whether this sort of packaging would augment the meaning behind their work. If the relationship doesn't fit, the designs will reach their expiration date before they know it.

Tropican't

2009-02-23T17:25:00.000-08:00

Tropicana (a flagship product of PepsiCo) announced today that it would be discontinuing its redesigned packaging that was launched in early January. Thank you design gods! The previous version with classic imagery of the orange and protruding straw will be brought back in March. So why the sudden switcharoo? Was there that much of a backlash against replacing fresh oranges with a picture of a glass of OJ? Did Tropicana finally realize how generic the revised packaging looked? Did the new numbers reflect an inability to differentiate Tropicana's bland packaging from other companies' generic juices? Apparently, Tropicana's most loyal consumers fervently complained to Tropicana about the redesign via email. This is a definite rare occurrence for a company, but I think that Tropicana is moving back in the right direction. It goes to show the extent to which internet access is changing the ways that companies can tap into their core consumers' brains and bring consumers closer to the big honchos.

Too Cutesy to Communicate?

2009-02-23T17:21:00.000-08:00

London-based Design Friendship's objective was "to create a clean and simple identity for a new brand communication agency. The mark represents the process of bringing light, attention and more importantly life to any client or project Pretty Green will work with." While I love the stylistic direction of the identity, I think it might be too generic of an icon to represent and be easily associated with a brand communications agency. I love the incorporation of transparency, though, in the design.

Take a Crack(er) At It

2009-02-23T17:10:00.000-08:00

Design student Meg Gleason designed this Russian-Constructivist-inspired food packaging while studying Graphic Design Methodology at Iowa State. The University describes the course as involving "analysis and application of scientific, systematic, and non-traditional problem-solving and problem-seeking techniques." As you nibble away at the biscuit crackers, you can start deconstructing the package and flatten it (see below) or reconstruct it into an entirely new structure. Overall, it's a great way to think about ways to reuse and display a package, especially in a retail setting. My only gripe is a functionally related: How does the packaging ensure that the biscuits will stay fresh?

Judging Wine by the Label

2009-02-23T13:54:00.000-08:00

A hilarious and interactive wine label design that will surely jump off the shelf at buyers. It was designed by Talia Cohen, who graduated in 2008 from Rhode Island School of Design studying Industrial Design.

Sacrifice Design for Ink

2009-02-23T13:36:00.001-08:00

In the age of "going green" and making a serious effort on the part of designers to save paper and use recycled materials, it's curious that the design community hasn't given much thought to conserving ink as well. Ecofont is a free font for Macs and PCs that incorporates little white circles within the lines of the letters as the font size is increased, in an effort to help ink cartridges last longer. The Ecofont is based on the Vera Sans, an Open Source letter. The company estimates that Ecofont uses up to 20% less ink than standard fonts off your computer. It's absolutely free, but involved quite the elaborate exploration that led up to its creation: there was extensive testing of all kinds of shapes (the best results were achieved using small circles) to find out how much of a letter could be removed while maintaining readability. Still, I'm not convinced that designers, for which typefaces are sacred territory, will be willing to compromise their designs to save toner.

How to Drive Design

2009-02-18T13:44:00.000-08:00

Can you get a sense of a car just from an advertisement with solid design and a clear concept -- not even showing the actual car? Peugeot proves it possible with its latest advertisements for the Tepee. These three-dimensional line illustrations contrast the Tepee with car stereotypes like the "bling"ed out SUV, sleek sports car, oversized limo, and the car that can barely fit its driver's big ego. The typography that characterizes the opponents is inspiring, and the use of more realistic wheels contrasts nicely with the drawings. The ads aren't too serious, a nice change compared to "all business" car commercials out there. After all, buying a car might not be quite the party, but driving one sure is. Futura Extra Bold was a nice font choice. The ads were devised by the creative team of creative director Rémi Babinet, art director Raphaël Halin and copywriter Benjamin Sanial. The commercials are even more upbeat and funny.

Links to view the commercials:
Much too much
Bling bling
Moimoimoi

Delicate Skincare Design

2009-02-17T19:54:00.000-08:00

This delicate illustration work was developed for the La Fleur Organique brand of French skincare manufacturer Sanoflore. Archrival, a Nebraskan branding strategy & design firm, created the name, logo, packaging, and website. The line is sold exclusively at Walgreens. This is a fine example of how to effectively keep the style consistent across a line, but still make each product distinct.

Cheers to Illustration

2009-02-17T19:35:00.001-08:00

You might be well acquainted with fine men like Jack Daniels or Captain Morgan, but what about the grandparents, parents, and children of the Oggau Family? Well, grab a glass and you can get to know them all too. The Oggau Estate is a new wine growing estate that produces 9 wines. But unlike differentiating their labels by denoting grape varietals, each wine here has its own individual character, its own story, and "complex, changing relationships" ("intrigue, secret affairs, arguments, colorful characters and the odd black sheep"). Jung von Matt designed the logo, original typography, letter paper, wine labels, and a wine box for the Estate. What great illustration work to drink up to!

Heinz Seeks Clarity

2009-02-17T19:15:00.001-08:00

After over 60 years of keeping its bottle label essentially the same, Heinz recently realized that its label was having an identity crisis. Its new label replaced the pickle underneath "Heinz Tomato Ketchup" with a tomato on the vine and its new tagline: "Grown not made." Why was there a pickle there in the first place? The pickle was the Heinz brand symbol ever since the company's pins were shaped like pickles for its early offerings (sour gherkins and chow chow pickle) at the Chicago World's Fair in 1893. Where will the pickle go? The white top of each bottle. London design firm Vibrant made the colors on the label brighter as well as increasing the size and boldness of the Tomato Ketchup headline. 57 varieties is now on the label also instead of on the bottle's neck. While the design didn't really need an update from a visual standpoint, Heinz pushed forward because the design *did* need an update as far as changing its brand--the perceptions about the company held by the consumers. In today's economy, Heinz needed to reemphasize its quality and pure ingredients, especially facing competition from cheaper store brands and private-label products. The small changes are surely not enough to convince a competitor's loyal customer to switch to Heinz, but they are reflective of how Heinz stays up-to-date with consumer trends and needs and will do its best to keep its customers' loyalty.

Dry Clean Only

2009-02-16T14:52:00.001-08:00

Winning poster from How Magazine's 2009 International Design Awards. The poster is made from actual garment tag fabric (100% cotton) with screen printed ink and can even be washed! It was designed by Vancouver design firm RETHINK (designer/illustrator Kim Ridgewell). The iconography is beautifully executed, and the concept is insightful: laundry tag language is complex and confusing, so leave it to the professionals--aka drycleaners. The fabric poster is meant to hang in a store-front window.

Detail of Dressed in Blue logo:

More Alice Cho

2009-02-16T13:58:00.001-08:00

Here are two other works from Alice Cho, a New York designer and Art Director (last information graphics image below) that I really like. Her travel diary to Brazil features a great variety of layouts and pacing. The typography is consistent yet unpredictable. Beautiful photography and use of color. The last spread is my favorite. Her packaging for her mom's granola definitely looks "wholesome, down to earth, and reminded (me) of home." It's use of white, simple typography, and shape will help it stand out against commercially-designed brands.

Variety of Information Graphics

2009-02-16T13:45:00.000-08:00

(1) DesigningTheNews is "a series of visual experiments which explore the news in various ways to encourage new ways of understanding information" and make readers more cognizant of how information is presented and subsequently understood. The Guardian newpaper was used as source material, and some of its headlines were converted into "clear, simple, distinguishable pictograms." The following pictograms were from an article on beer consumption in the UK ("Do we think we've had enough? Beer sales plunge as Britons stay at home."). As a second experiment, photographic textures were added to the outlines to enhance their appeal.

(2) While not the most aesthetically pleasing charts, here is proof that even the silliest "facts" can be communicated more effectively and efficiently with information graphics.

(3) Information graphics that are a little more hardcore. Can you imagine how many pages this information would take up if it were prose?! (Alice Cho)

Branding... a Location

2009-02-15T12:18:00.001-08:00

I just recently finished reading Obsessive Branding Disorder by Lucas Conley, where he devotes an entire chapter to describing the lengths to which states and cities will go to alter/create specific perceptions of their respective locations-- the topic is shockingly expansive enough to fill its own book. "Fishington" is a great satire of such branding attempts, designed by Studio On Fire, a design and letterpress workspace in Minneapolis.

Delicious Portraits

2009-02-15T12:15:00.001-08:00

Cupcakes are the new pixel. Pastry artist Zilly Rosen from Buffalo constructed side-by-side portraits of Presidents Obama and Lincoln this weekend at the Smithsonian American Art Museum. The portraits were in honor of Lincoln's 200th birthday and used more than 5,600 cupcakes. (vanilla with chocolate buttercream frosting, chocolate with vanilla buttercream frosting, and red velvet for the American flag backdrop). Spectators were allowed to "de-install" (i.e. consume) the cupcake mosaic after waiting for 5 hours. I wouldn't be surprised if a few entrepreneurs brand this technique into a nation-wide business. It could be the new cookie cake craze!

Low Art, High Calorie

2009-02-15T12:11:00.000-08:00

What better way to praise your local greasy spoon than design a book around it! Designer Siaron Hughes recently designed a new book Chicken: Low Art, High Calorie to "celebrate the varied and visual qualities of fast food signage, and the people involved." From publisher Mark Batty: "Throughout the world major fast-food chains are easily recognizable, synonymous, for better or worse, with an American way of life. Far more interesting, however, are the generic fast-food establishments that serve menus that are more or less the same, but not as slicked with corporate marketing. A sub-genre of such eateries, found across the United Kingdom and urban America, is the chicken joint." It's incredibly interesting how the gaudy signs with horrible typography are so commonplace, and that when they're laid out in a book by someone with an impeccable eye for design, we read it as clear praise for earnest, vernacular design. At $24.95 per copy, it's an upscale version of the dollar menu that's worth the calories.

Cover:

Excerpts from inside:

Now That's a Well-Designed Beer

2009-02-15T11:51:00.000-08:00

Beer accompanied by a label design that just echoes "well-crafted" and "masculine," accompanied by entertaining and well-executed illustrations. Not all beers can look that tasty, even when back lit. It was designed by a London-based firm, Stranger & Stranger. The firm specializes in making the outsides of alcoholic bottles stand out as much as what's on the inside-- a respectable job.

A Punny Invitation

2009-02-10T05:53:00.001-08:00

The San Francisco Museum of Modern Art recently started holding a biennial fundraiser "to raise critical funds for the museum's exhibitions and education programs." Design firm Elixir's identity for "The Modern Ball" is fun, differentiable, and is a style that allows for small updates to be made each year to the flyer design inside the ball. It's a great example of how packaging can make or break a design.

Redesign... Because Everyone Else Is

2009-02-07T07:10:00.001-08:00

Futura Extra Bold set in all caps is not exactly the best way to freshen up your look... especially if you already have a fun logo working for you! Blimpie's old logo full of personality, arguably moreso than Subway, and significantly more lively and appealing than this new dull green one. Yes, I associate it with the vegetation that will likely show up in my sandwich. Check plus there. But we all know that lettuce isn't the heart of a well-made sandwich. The new logo needs some more ingredients to make it work.

The competition:

Think (and design) London

2009-02-07T06:47:00.000-08:00

After the London 2012 logo came out, I've been increasingly skeptical of any designs produced to advertise the city of London. Johnson Banks, a London firm specializing in strategic identity and branding, designed this tourism logo for Think London, London's "official foreign direct investment agency," "a non-for-profit private-public partnership" that helps connect businesses to the city. Johnson Banks explains their rationale for the design: "Think London’s job is to sell the city as a location to the world’s businesses. ‘Forget Paris, Berlin, Beijing, set up in London instead’ is their pitch. So how do you distill all that London has to offer into 1 symbol? Well, you don’t. You use 45. We twisted the famous skyline 180 degrees into a reflection and made a new skyline out of all the other factors that would help you choose the city." I like the concept behind the logo, but not so much the execution. The reflection shows the real skyline and the upper skyline has new symbols to represent the modern city, but the mark is incredibly busy, and definitely not reducible. It would just look like a blue blob. The video advertisement that accompanies the logo makes me like the logo a bit more, but that might just be because the logo already has so many elements that it's pretty easy to translate to another medium. Still, the video was way too long and visually complex-- too much messaging isn't the only thing that leaves the viewer overwhelmed with these designs.

Detail:

Looks So Good You Want to Taste It

2009-02-07T06:37:00.000-08:00

Designs by Paul Torres: Identity with great use of highlights to create the effect of volume. An applaudable effort to really make chocolate look like chocolate. Nicely tracked type to complement. Accompanied by Identity, illustration, and packaging for "Daddy's Mixes" pancake brand, sold at church functions and fundraisers. "The logo incorporates the founder's likeness in a playful manner." The eyes are a bit freaky, and I question the size of the logo on the front. Dare I say "Make it bigger"?

OLIN Gets an Update

2009-02-07T06:25:00.001-08:00

Designers at Pentagram under Abbott Miller recently finished redesigning a new identity for OLIN, a landscape architecture/urban design/planning firm based in Philadelphia. From Pentagram's website: "OLIN is the recipient of the 2008 Cooper-Hewitt National Design Award for Landscape Design and is internationally recognized for creating spaces that promote social interaction as well as for emphasizing environmental, economic and social sustainability in their work. The firm was previously known as Olin Partnership, and the identity and website coincide with the introduction of the abbreviated name... The simplicity of the name and mark are counterbalanced by vibrant color options and flexible logo compositions that allow for a customizable identity. The OLIN website extends the identity into a navigable experience that encourages users to view the firm’s work through a series of different lenses. The result is an intuitive environment that complements the firm’s deep understanding of public space." I couldn't have said it any better. It's a nice use of the extremely circular O in Gotham Black that we know pretty well by now. The widespread application of color and use of scale make the identity more than just a mark--it becomes a system by which the firm can communicate visually to consumers. And any doubts that I have about this designs static nature are put to rest by the interactive features on OLIN's website.

New wordmark:
Identity repeated on the website:

Project view in the new OLIN website:

Letterhead:

Keetra Dean Dixon Cordially Invites You...

2009-02-02T11:14:00.001-08:00

Some intricate and inspiring typography from a small ongoing series of cordial invitations.

Super Bowl Logos

2009-02-02T10:38:00.000-08:00

A online New York Times multimedia section shows the evolution of the Super Bowl logos since the Super Bowl's inception. The official logo actually featured no football until Super Bowl 26, no shield traditional to the league until Super Bowl 34, and no hint to the existence of 2 conferences until Super Bowl 40 (excluding the first game, which wasn't called a Super Bowl). Are these just logos or are they something more? While I believe that the logos surely aim to evoke the tradition of the game and I think that it's nice to show the evolution of graphic design in the U.S., I find it hard to believe that fans remember or care how the logos change from game to game, year to year, despite duplication on beer cans, jerseys, hats, and other memorabilia.

Last week, the New York Times called professional and amateur designers for proposals for alternative Super Bowl logos. The "best ones," including an entry from Pentagram, were published later in the week on the Fifth Down blog. I think the second one below is hilarious -- it definitely captures why so many Americans enjoy watching the Super Bowl.

"A departure from the roman numerals primarily featured in past Super Bowl logos, a bold symbol celebrates the coming together of the champions of the A.F.C. and N.F.C. Their two overlapping helmets, in the N.F.L.'s colors, embed a football within the center of the design. The ball rests on the 50-yard line, creating the game's iconic trophy." -- Michael Gericke, Don Bilodeau and Jed Skillins, Pentagram

"Since Super Bowl Sunday is the second largest U.S. food consumption day, following Thanksgiving, I propose to mark this unofficial second (or for some people first) national holiday with the elements that any self-respecting football fan or American cannot go without: pizza, burgers and chicken wings. So this logo is a celebration, an ode to the fan and America's favorite pastime. The only graphic requirement is to design each food item in the shape of a football." -- Julia Hoffmann, New York

Jesse Kirsch

2009-02-02T10:28:00.000-08:00

Jesse Kirsch is a graphic designer now working in New York City. He graduated from the School of Visual Arts and specializes in packaging. Here is some of his work; he shows great use of illustrative and sans serif typography and clean color shapes.

Gatorade or G?

2009-02-02T10:10:00.000-08:00

Instead of a nice shower of Gatorade after the big game, victories will now no longer be complete without a "bath of G." Gatorade has renamed its product an abridged "G" and created new bottles and packaging to match. The name Gatorade is of secondary importance on the label. Why the change? While shortened "G" certainly matches the energetic and awe-inspiring qualities of the lightning bolt logo, how can a company simply throw out the brand recognition that's been building since the product's invention in 1965? Doesn't this new campaign go entirely against previous advertising campaigns where the company emphasized the product's strong heritage rooted in athletics? From an article in the Palm Beach Post: "The 'G' marketing campaign is the brainchild of Sarah Robb O'Hagan, who was named the company's chief marketing officer in June. In a release, Gatorade Co. said it is 'redesigning everything from the sidelines to the shelf to appeal to a broader range of athletes and active people,' while using 'bold new packaging.' It is part of a larger initiative by Gatorade's parent company, PepsiCo, to redesign its core brands." In honor of Super Bowl XLIII, Gatorade produced commemorative "Champs" G bottles for the winning team. Since the Steelers won, only the Steelers' version will be released. The bottles were supposedly to appear on the field and in the locker rom yesterday, with the new "G" packaging. In 2008, Gatorade honored the New York Giants with a commemorative bottle label as well (limited to 2,520 and sold on Gatorade.com). This year, only 45 limited edition bottles will be made, and they will not be available to the public. Will consumers ever refer to the product simply as "G," or will we forever call the classic neon yellow drink "Gatorade"?

Digital Shortcuts

2009-01-30T15:34:00.001-08:00

The title "Commands" for this series of 3 digital prints (each 5x7 and available for purchase) couldn't be more fitting... but the success of the muted color palette and mass-produced look is questionable. I'm curious if a harsher, crisp, digital approach would be more appropriate for the subject matter.

Follow-Up: Vernacular Design Isn't Boring

2009-01-30T15:19:00.000-08:00

"Intelligent Design" by Scorsone Drueding Poster Design shows a contrived evolution of the paperclip in a cool/jovial yet mechanical/tech style.

MenuPages Upgrade

2009-01-30T15:06:00.000-08:00

MenuPages.com, the site perfect for helping find menus, reviews, and information on restaurants in major cities across the U.S., has finally updated its logo and website design. Now no longer tied to beveling or its diner aesthetic, MenuPages gives consumers new faith in the quality of restaurants it features. No greasy spoons here (unless that's what you're going for). Graphic design firm Mucca Design really stepped up to the plate with this one, creating a sleek and metropolitan (yet approachable) identity.
Map from MenuPages' Manhattan section of the website:

Jeff Krichmar Has Wit

2009-01-30T14:41:00.000-08:00

The "qualifications" section of Jeff Krichmar's website (www.krichmar.com) begins: "24 years ago I left my mother's vaginal canal. 20 years later I won the Adobe Design Achievement Award for interactive design. Two days later, I got kicked out of art school..." This guy's designs are as bold and humorous as he is. His identity/collateral system created for a Kentucky-based gourmet fast food restaurant is almost sophisticated enough to make grease look good for you. He created an absurd (yet cute) line of cereal with corresponding packaging for astronauts--Buzz Lightyear would surely approve. My favorite: his print ad campaign for Birthright Israel. With slogans like "Cheaper than JDate. Easier to get into than med school," Krichmar clearly understands how to appeal to his target audience.

Anonymous Design Made Known... Sort of

2009-01-26T20:06:00.001-08:00

"Anonymous," "ad hoc," and "vernacular" design should by no means be viewed as unappealing or unimpressive, and graphic designer George Tscherny is making bold moves to share his enthusiasm for the everyday designs "born of necessity; often spontaneously, always pragmatically." When it comes to his new book Where Would the Button Be Without the Button Hole? Unsung Heroes of Anonymous Design, ordinary is in. The book's black cover with simple white/gray typography is fitting for the praised anonymity of the book's focus. The book features many objects from Tscherny's own collection, and includes a folding lunch box, vintage re-closeable bottle, the paper clip, safety pin, wire hanger, cheese grater, corn dryer, and various measuring devices. The empty layout and careful placement and organization of objects on the inner pages let the vintage designs shine.

Back to the Obama Drawing Board

2009-01-26T19:37:00.000-08:00

What if the Sol Sender, principle of design agency Sender LLC who also joined VSA Partners as a strategist and led the design team for the Obama '08 logo, had chosen a different identity for the campaign?

Sender was in charge of the design strategy and directed a team of designers on the project, which began in late 2006. In just two weeks, Sender and 2 other designers developed 15 or 16 options (usually they only develop 2-4, maybe 5) and then focused on 3 finalists (which included the chosen identity). The team’s refined chosen Obama logo made its official debut in February, 2007, when Obama announced his candidacy for president in Springfield, Illinois.

Here are a few that I found inspiring and just as innovative as the chosen design:
About one of the other finalists: “There was a lot of excitement about this. People felt this was really something new, something different. It was a kind of populist expression — everyone’s excited about Obama, people are talking… (but) it was a little too far out of the box. We felt that having a little more tradition in the mark was the smart way to go.” I definitely agree with Sender's view. The identity below works extremely well for outdoor advertising (especially since it has 3 different versions), but the shapes would be too awkward for a button/sticker.

AIGA 365 Design

2009-01-26T19:17:00.000-08:00

AIGA members recently received by mail copies of the annual 365: AIGA Year in Design (this is the 29th issue). The book, this year designed by Paula Scher, is a larger format than previous years (now 8x10 inches with 368 full-color pages of design). Appropriate to Paula Scher's autobiography, her goal was to "make it bigger." The book was printed with 4 different covers, each a different pastel color. "A concentric motif is carried throughout the interior pages in the form of the table of contents, end pages and color-coded chapter openers." It is a difficult task to design a cohesive look for a book that is filled with hundreds of other designs without having the aesthetic detract from the featured work, but Scher's contrasting color palette and over-the-top style prove successful. Divider pages scream out at the viewer, while the remaining pages give the work the attention and spotlight it deserves.

COVERTABLE OF CONTENTS
CHAPTER OPENER

MAD Museum Follow-Up

2009-01-26T19:15:00.003-08:00

Great pictures and blurbs on each piece in the "Second Lives" exhibit at the Museum of Art and Design in NYC.
http://www.core77.com/gallery/photos_search.asp?context_id=1&album_id=84

Increase Self-Esteem with Donuts

2009-01-26T19:05:00.000-08:00

From an article in the January 20th Media & Advertising section of the New York Times:

The power of positive thinking has been promoted down through the decades by everyone from sages and self-help gurus to hucksters and swindlers. Now, in particularly parlous times, comes a campaign that offers an encouraging word, albeit with a reference to a brand name baked in. "You kin' do it" is the theme of the upbeat campaign that began in early January in the form of television and radio commercials; print, online and outdoor ads; signs in stores; and promotions. As can be guessed from the replacement of "can" with "kin'," the campaign is courtesy of the Dunkin' Donuts division of Dunkin' Brands.

Clever and works visually too. The perfect way to integrate the message with the existing recognizable brand visuals. Link to commercial: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ino6sVc6-ug

The NYTimes Gets Typographic

2009-01-10T12:10:00.001-08:00

In wrapping up the year, the NYTimes Magazine 12/28/08 issue chose to honor certain individuals who had passed away during the past year and "The Lives They Lived." Illustration by Nancy Harris Rouemy, a designer for the magazine, and typeface design by Pattrick Griff/Canada Type was carried from the cover to the table of contents and through to individual biographies of each of the deceased. The style of the type evokes the delicacy of life and is reminiscent of things past.

Paper Design Taken to New Heights

2009-01-09T19:00:00.001-08:00

Yulia Brodskaya is a Russian-born artist who began "producing contemporary office decoration artwork for Moscow-based companies while studying for (her) first degree in Graphic Design." Now working out of London, she is creating some really innovative 3D paper forms with illustration and typography, which she titles "papergraphics." Some samples of her work:

Medical Design to Tickle the Funny Bone

2009-01-09T18:40:00.001-08:00

Each year, a jury of "365: AIGA Annual Design Competitions" selects a group of examples of outstanding design produced over the previous year to be mounted as a public exhibition at the AIGA National Design Center in NYC (the exhibition opened December 10). Some selections also become part of the AIGA Design Archives, an online visual database of inspirational designs on AIGA's website. Here are some of my favorites from this year's selections that incorporate medical themes into the designs.

Howard Hughes Medical Institute May 2007 Bulletin (selected illustrations)
Editorial Design Category
Designed by VSA Partners, Inc.
Description: Our aim is to engage the reader’s interest through a fun and intriguing opening spread.
Juror Notes: For this type of magazine, the design is surprising – play between illustration ad opener type beautiful – playful.

Sparklehorse Poster
Promotional Design and Advertising Category
Designed by Planet Propaganda (Madison, WI)
Description: Gig poster for live-music venue

Rant
Book Design Category
Designed by Rodrigo Corral Design (NY, NY)
Juror Notes: Fetishistic fiction design perfectly considered—gruesome and jewellike at the same time

Inspiring Logo Redesigns

2009-01-06T13:38:00.000-08:00

Pepsi: The relaunched branding and packaging for Pepsi and its flagship brands is quite the jarring change. The "Pepsi Globe" logo is supposed to now represent a lively and cute smile--an attempt to more directly connect the product with consumers' emotions. I definitely agree with Chris Glass' blog, which mentions how the design is definitely more feminine. Surely the thin san-serif lacks the testosterone that the Pepsi labels possessed in the past. And while I agree that this might not be a good or bad thing for Pepsi, I think it's smart that they are trying to create shelf recognition based more on an icon than type with a background pattern/image. Pepsi shouldn't need words to appeal to its consumers.

Museum of London: As a part of the museum's £20.5 million renovation (aimed to open in 2010), London-based firm Coley Porter Bell designed a new identity for the main museum and the Museum of London Docklands and Museum of London Archaeology. From a press release: "The striking new logo, designed by award winning agency Coley Porter Bell, takes the conceptual form of London's thumbprint. Coloured layers map the shape of London over time, reflecting the ever-changing, diverse and dynamic make up of London and Londoners, past, present and future. The brand mark has been crafted to create visual impact, and link the Museum venues." The new typography is modern and simple, and the integration of layers and topography is interesting. The brand extensions are beginning to work, but the "Docklands" and "Archaeology" seem a bit too off-kilter, especially in their lighter weight and darker colors. Like the London Olympic logo, I seriously question the main logo's new color palette. Couldn't they have come up with something a bit more classic to reflect the city itself?

Tasti D-Lite: The "frozen yogurt" that isn't frozen yogurt recently launched a redesign to be carried throughout all of its stores in New York City. I applaud the effort to make Tasti-D look as drool-worthy and seductive as a full-calorie banana split sundae. From the blog "Brand New": "Avenir is refreshingly light as a support to brand the otherwise slick and generic symbol. The lockup is proportionally top-heavy with the huge dollop of product floating over the loose type." The focus is now clearly on the product. Tasti-D finally realized it needed to raise the bar to compete with brands like Pinkberry and also to compensate for many people's innate aversion to mystery substances.

Typographic Treatments

2009-01-06T12:57:00.000-08:00

Justin Thomas Kay is a Wisconsin-based art director and graphic designer, working in New York City since 2004. He recently received one of the 2008 "Young Guns" Awards from the Art Directors Club. He works mostly in editorial/print and apparel, and has some great typographic explorations. This was one of my favorites: typographic explorations for apparel for the Zoo York Juniors '08. Zoo York is a style inspired by New York City graffiti culture from the '70s. The name originates from a subway tunnel running underneath the Central Park Zoo, where graffiti artists gathered at night. Ned Wright, a designer located in the Midwest, is also using creating some unique designs with typography. His type and package design for Legacy Chocolates taps into the warmth and comfort that homemade chocolates can provide, and are complemented by small "needlepoint" details.

This is one of designer Cameron Moll's letterpress posters, "handcrafted character by character over the course of roughly 100 hours." The Salt Lake Temple is formed by the typefaces Bickham Script Pro, Engravers MT, and Epic. The Salt Late Temple is the largest and best-known temple of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. A polymer plate was created with the raised plastic of the reversed design. A perfect example of text as image... gone OCD.

Designs for Sports Fans

2009-01-06T10:05:00.000-08:00

Football mania has arrived with the Superbowl quickly approaching. Even though the redesigned Arizona Cardinals' stadium opened in 2006, I still thought I would share these designs. After all, last year's Superbowl was held at this new stadium and the Cardinals are still alive in the playoffs. Pentagram's solution for the interiors of the stadium, specifically selecting upholstery for the seating in the Club Lounges, is appropriate, clever, and fresh. They developed a "reversible fabric that features an abstraction of the game in its own language: football play diagrams.

More recently, in mid-December 2008, the Boston Red Sox revealed their redesigned logo and uniforms. The designs include a new alternate blue road uniform resembling the team's road gray uniforms from the 1980s and the "Hanging Sox" to serve as the primary logo for the team--"a reincarnation of a logo that has been used by the club since 1931." The secondary logo is still the "Circle Sox" logo that is used on apparel and souvenirs, but it's also been revised. According to a poll by Boston.com, roughly 45% of fans didn't like the changes and wished they kept the traditional cap and jersey designs. Another 35% liked some of the changes, but not all; the last 20% account for those that liked the redesigned logo and uniforms.

Type to Make a Fashion Statement

2009-01-06T09:25:00.001-08:00

Graphic t-shirts have always showed a presence on the store shelves ... but now type too? New York Jewelry designer Erica Weiner features gold letterpress necklaces ($60 each), created from rescued obsolete iron type that was used on the Vandercook letterpress and then covered in 14K gold. You can purchase whichever letter you'd like, though she does mention that fonts and type spizes vary slightly, as one should expect with moveable iron type that is worn out from normal printing use and was about to be discarded. Along the same lines, the February issue of How Magazine features a typographic scarf from Little Factory, a Hong Kong-based firm. The scarves are laser-cut suede, available in black, white, or gray, and come in uppercase, lowercase, and number scarves ($58 each).

More relevant to my thesis work from this past semester, as part of her Masters Thesis at RISD, Emily Rothschild combined her interest in the role of medication in our lives and jewelry design. She created a redesign of the ordinary medical ID bracelet and "transformed it into something to be valued and worn with pride." From her website (http://www.helloweare.com/): "Medicine, and our relationship with it, has changed drastically in recent years. The medicine cabinet, however, has remained much the same. This project addresses our daily needs of and uses for prescription medication, and how our household rituals can better accommodate these. I am building new tools which reflect current behaviors and needs and which transform the mundane and feared into a more artful daily ritual. This body of work is not meant to amplify or feed into our dependence on pills, but is meant to give a richness to the ritual when it is needed and to call it into question when it is not." Nameplate necklaces and cuff bracelets with blood types and allergies become markers of pride. Current words include Epinephrine, Penicillin, Bee Sting, Nut Allergy, and Type O. She has also designed brass pill organizer brooches and rings.

MAD Inspiration for the New Year

2009-01-06T08:27:00.000-08:00

The newly opened (September 2008) Museum of Art and Design (formerly the American Craft Museum) in Columbus Circle, Manhattan, currently shows how many established and emerging artists are pushing the envelope by creating new objects out of everyday articles made for other functions. While concept is surely king of the "Second Lives: Remixing the Ordinary," execution is surely the queen. Each artist's exquisite handling elevates the craft to fit in perfectly in the museum gallery space. The exhibit features a chair made from high heeled shoes, sculptures from sanding the sides of books' fore edges (Nicholas Galanin), necklaces constructed from safety pins (Tamiko Kawata "Black Orpheus Fabricated") and handgun triggers (Boris Bally "Brave #2"), and a sculpture from tons of mini clear buttons that collectively resembles a gorgeous coral reef (Tara Donovan's "Bluff"), to name just a few.

Some other highlights that I found inspirational:
- Susie MacMurray dress constructed with inside-out latex kitchen gloves
- Yuken Teruya's meticulous and delicate papercut trees that drop from commercial shopping bags. Light shines down through the remaining hole in the bag from where the tree was cut to create a quiet shadow on the 3D tree.
- Jill Townsley's spoon tower constructed from over 9,000 plastic spoons and 3,000 rubber bands, which will naturally deconstruct over time as the rubber bands lose their elasticity.

- A story narrated through just familiar/easily understood icons and symbols (couldn't find the artist's name)

A New Way to Think Green

2008-11-06T07:47:00.000-08:00

From an early September online article... Xerox has apparently developed a type of paper that when printed on a special printer, can print documents that "erase themselves after a day so that the paper can be reused.Xerox says that 25 percent of all documents get recycled the same day they are printed, and that 44.5 percent are intended only for a single viewing." This could vastly reduce paper waste and also save energy... and even serve as an alternative to shredding. Very cool.

Details:
"The new paper is coated with a chemical that turns dark upon exposure to ultraviolet (UV) radiation... While the "ink" will eventually fade on its own, after 16 to 24 hours, the printer can also be used to erase a page and print something new. Tests by Xerox found that if it was not torn or crumpled, a single piece of paper could be put through the print-and-erase cycle hundreds of times."

Original article link: http://www.naturalnews.com/024255.html

How Design Can Save Democracy

2008-11-06T07:41:00.000-08:00

When you went to the polls this year, was there a bit of anxiety in your stomach about whether or not you'd be able to adequately understand how to vote properly? Worried about chads? Was the design of your ballot (if not electronic) confusing? Check out this really cool interactive feature from the New York Times (posted at the end of August) which shows AIGA's comments on common design problems in ballot design and some suggestions for improvements based on new guidelines from the United States Election Assistance Commission this year.

http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2008/08/25/opinion/20080825-ballot.html

Commerce Bank

2008-11-06T07:12:00.000-08:00

The logo redesign associated with the company's takeover definitely has more of a "bank" aesthetic. It incorporates the green (money!), and the logotype is significantly lighter (in a good way) from the old clunky C for Commerce. But does the new design neglect the friendly, approachable feelings associated with the C? Don't worry - apparently the free penny arcades will still exist, but what will happen to the free C-shaped piggy banks? The free dog biscuits? The red lollipops?

I know the election is over...

2008-11-06T07:04:00.000-08:00

... but I just wanted to point out this cool icon from one of the many get out the vote projects, aside from AIGA's poster project, courtesy of The Daily Heller. Plus One's graphics are bold and bright, but I would argue that the most crucial aspect of the design's intent (for everyone to just get one more person to vote) is as immediate as it could be. The integration of purple, though, is a nice way to suggest the bipartisan nature of the campaign.

Lou Dorfsman

2008-11-06T06:45:00.001-08:00

In light of the recent death of creative director Lou Dorfsman, here is some nicely written blurb from an AIGA article last spring and a more recent article from The Daily Heller: "While some may not be aware of this inspiring three-dimensional memorial to typography, many are familiar with its creator, Lou Dorfsman. The CBS cafeteria wall is as legendary as its visionary designer and art director. Conceived in the mid-1960s and ultimately completed in 1966, the expansive wall, spanning over 35-feet wide and 8-feet tall, is a national design treasure. In producing the wall Dorfsman enlisted support from life-long friend and design legend Herb Lubalin. Lubalin, along with Tom Carnase, masterfully crafted the typography for the aptly dubbed 'Gastrotypographicalassemblage.'... Unceremoniously discarded by CBS management in the early 1990s, the wall’s nine panels were thankfully salvaged by New York designer Nick Fasciano. Time and improper storage had ravaged the monument, however, leaving it in a state of disrepair. The Center for Design Study, having acquired the wall, is engaged in fundraising to support the meticulous and extensive restoration required. The goal is to see Dorfman’s wall restored to its full integrity and as part of a permanent traveling exhibition on historical American design, to serve as a tool for education and expanding awareness of the value of intelligently applied design."

Video about the wall: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gQkP-oPqwrI
Typography sketches from Herb Lubalin from 1965 (bottom):
I actually may like the sketches better than the fabricated wall; the handmade quality really complements the joyous, fresh, and expressive mood of the concept.

Subway Grate Sculpture

2008-09-25T06:43:00.000-07:00

New subway grates in New York City, designed by Rogers Marvel Architects, serve both as public art and to prevent flooding. "As a flood-control device, the structure creates a protective collar, or sleeve, around ventilating grates that are typically set flush to sidewalk level. The idea is not to completely waterproof the platforms and tracks below, but to mitigate a devastating cascade of water, silt, mud and debris." The upside: Manhattan fashionistas won't get their heels stuck in the sidewalk-level crates. The downside: The new sculptures will definitely impede sidewalk traffic flow, taking up a good portion of the sidewalk. The new sculpture also is strangely similar to Andrea Blum's Plateau piece on 40th Street. Plateau "was made of perforated steel, concrete and light which formed interlocking pavilions, tables, and seating to identify locations for private and social interaction. It was envisioned as a three-dimensional puzzle designed to respond to the individual and collective needs of a diverse public" (Andrea Blum's website). Both show interesting solutions to the sculptural issue of form vs. function.

A Goodbye to Yankee Stadium

2008-09-25T05:58:00.000-07:00

An interactive feature in the New York Times of Yankee Stadium on it's last night is described as a "panorama composed of a series of photographs taken over a short period of time." Is this the work of Photoshop, stitching the overlapping photos together?

http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2008/09/21/sports/baseball/20080921_YANKEES_PANO2.html?th&emc=th

The home of the Bronx Bombers and 26 world championships that Ruth built that dates back to 1923 held its final game earlier this week. The last game was a celebration of baseball, the renowned stadium, the franchise, and its fans. And what else? A logo, always painted so perfectly on the grass that not even the Pope's feet may touch. An interlocking "NY," according to the Yankees website, was first used on the uniforms of the New York Highlanders in 1909. The design was created in 1877 by Louis B. Tiffany "for a medal to be given by the New York City Police Department to Officer John McDowell, the first NYC policeman shot in the line of duty. Perhaps because one of the club's owners, Bill Devery, was a former NYC police chief, the design was adopted by the Highlanders." When the Yankees move to their new stadium next season, Yankee fans can find comfort both in seeing their same team and the same logo painted fresh on the lawn, even in a vastly different setting. A comparison of the two stadiums: http://newyork.yankees.mlb.com/nyy/ballpark/new_stadium_comparison.jsp

Recent Graphic Design Caffeine High

2008-09-23T21:29:00.000-07:00

Looks like dinnerware designers are reaching out to designers' late hours and resulting addiction to coffee. Here are pictures of a Helvetica mug and a whole series of Pantone products (mugs, cups and saucers, and even messenger bags). With so many Pantone colors, the choice is a little daunting. What next: Pantone mouse pads? CD cases/flash drives?

Introducing Creative Suite CS4

2008-09-23T21:14:00.000-07:00

This morning, I woke up early like other true design fanatics to watch the live launch of Adobe Creative Suite CS4. Adobe featured 1-hour streaming video from 9-10am introducing all the new tricks of the software. Here's a recap of some of the most relevant features in the design applications. If you've gotten into the habit of going far beyond the measurements of your artboard in Illustrator, have no fear--the "pages" aspect of InDesign has now been integrated into Illustrator through multiple artboards. You can create them at multiple sizes and place them wherever you want in your document. They can even overlap, and you can import individual artboards into InDesign books or even save individual artboards for web. There is a new way to paint, called the "Blob Brush" that creates outline-filled objects instead of paths with brushstrokes applied to them. The new outline-filled objects are easy to erase and are a quick-and-easy way to illustrate. Lastly, the appearance palette is now definitely going to be a more frequently used and is finally a more functional palette. You will be able to change all the properties of an object or multiple objects at the same time. In InDesign, you can set specific parameters and then an error window will pop up if you go against them. In Photoshop, you can squish an image with it being aware of the content of the image; for example, it won't squish people but rather the useless pixels of space between people. You can also now use a series of 2D images and stitch them together and create a 3D image from them. You can even place a 2D image into the 3D image. Crazy. It should be interesting to see how long it takes for CS4 to disseminate into the design world. Obviously it's a big investment for studios, but Adobe promises its update will save time and make designers work more efficiently in the future.

See these links for videos with more new features of CS4:
Illustrator: http://tv.adobe.com/#vi+f1554v1699
InDesign: http://tv.adobe.com/#vi+f1556v1689
Photoshop: http://tv.adobe.com/#vi+f1556v1686

Example of Illustrator's artboards:

Set in Ink

2008-08-27T14:56:00.000-07:00

As the 2008 Beijing Summer Olympics came to a close, all are who took part in and watched from the sidelines committed to keeping the memories of the games with them moving forward and onward. The closing ceremonies reinforced the importance of “remembrance” in the featured “memory tower” to live on after the giant flame was extinguished, on which nearly 400 performers climbed and swayed to the music. After nine months of training, the climbers surely represented unity and teamwork, two values by which the Olympic Games stand. It was incredible to watch as the performers moved together like flowers opening, recreating a whole new flame, and using floating yarn at the end to reveal the logo on the tower—the logo living on in our memories.

But in case the “memory tower” is too metaphoric for you, you can always… get a tattoo, the New York Times describes in this past Sunday’s “Sunday Styles” section. Tourists, athletes, and local residents have sported the Olympic rings in ink in an effort to commemorate their time in Beijing. The action is a surprising one, considering the disreputable past of tattoos in China for centuries. The article mentions how “imperial courts tattooed criminals’ faces before sending tem into exile. By the 1949 revolution, the tattoo was the favored mark of crime syndicates and subsequently condemned by the Communist Party. Today, tattoos remain taboo for many of China’s elder generation, which sneers at the sight of a sun or lotus inked on the back of a trendy neighbor.” Even Phelps sports the rings on his right hip... but he also holds 8 Beijing gold medals of which to be reminded.

Get your knock-off logo here

2008-08-23T10:28:00.000-07:00

Want a fake Prada purse? Cheap baseball jerseys? New luggage at a fraction of the price? Well, you can always head to Canal Street in New York City… or better yet… Shanghai. But as the August issue of Print Magazine points out, while you might be able to find such knock-off luxury brands in China, you won’t be able to find any phony merchandise with a particular brand—that of the 2008 Beijing Olympics.

“We cannot sell that,” explains a vendor of fake Nike and Adidas running socks. “The police say it will destroy the reputation of the Olympics.” And I’m not all too surprised by the response. If a country does not allow a young girl with crooked teeth to sing its anthem, what would make people think it would allow copies of t-shirts with the ancient script logo or its cuddly cartoon characters?

Where can you buy the merchandise? The article writes: For several years, it and the Fuwa have been for sale in their own right as part of a mass merchandising campaign unparalleled in modern Olympics history. There are at least three licensed Olympics merchandise shops within a block of each other on the busiest section of Wangfujing Dajie, Beijing’s pedestrian-only, 700-year-old shopping boulevard. T-shirts, caps, and stuffed versions of the five cuddly Fuwa are available at all of them. Those shoppers interested in higher-end items can visit the Beijing 2008 Olympic Flagship Store, a long, poorly lit space where customers file past cases stuffed with goods, and a giant inflated Fuwa stands guard over $1,000 bejeweled commemorative plates decorated with more of the cutesy creatures. It’s a little ironic that even though the Olympics include and embrace all spectators and athletes, the logo has an air of exclusivity to uphold.

Fun Label Design

2008-08-16T18:28:00.001-07:00

This is a cool product that I haven’t really seen anything like it before. Mentioned in September’s InStyle Magazine, Wine That Loves is a wine company that positions itself as a wine company that prides itself on bringing “that seemingly elusive pleasure” of tasting what happens when food and wine are paired right “to your dinner table each and every night.” The wines have titles that range from “Wine That Loves Grilled Steak” to “Wine That Loves Pasta with Tomato Sauce.” It’s an extremely clever way of approaching what many consider a daunting subject – which wine to serve for dinner. The label design is my favorite part. It’s fun, iconic, and there’s a consistency between the different wines’ labels that unifies the brand.

NBC Olympic Coverage... or not?

2008-08-09T20:39:00.000-07:00

So I’ve officially been glued to the TV watching endless coverage of the Olympic Games. I can’t help but emphasize the large role that technology and new media have taken in this year’s games. I will address the beauty and intricacy of the opening ceremony last night later on, but I would first like to bring up the issue of how modern technology has redefined how viewers will be watching these games. NBC, which owns the exclusive rights to broadcast the Olympic Games in the United States, created quite the uproar in deciding to delay the broadcasting of the opening ceremonies by 12 long hours, unlike any other coverage across the globe. From a business perspective, this makes total sense—airing the ceremonies live instead of waiting until nighttime coverage would limit the audience size and also waste potential advertising dollars. Yet, in doing so, NBC neglected the importance of the whole world joining together to view the beginning of these games… at the same time. There is something almost spiritual about viewing these opening ceremonies and the notion of everyone viewing the games starting at the same time only adds to this special feeling. Had this delay happened four years ago, Americans would not have had much choice, but today, NBC’s delay sent people all across the country to their computers to access foreign broadcaster’s web sites and YouTube clips. Interestingly, knowing that the 4-hour coverage was already delayed, I figured what’s another 2 hours… let’s DVR the opening ceremonies and fast forward through the commercials, another impossibility from the last Summer Games. And on top of that, I received a New York Times email alert while watching the ceremony declaring that the U.S. had already won its first gold medal in saber fencing. It’s funny—even with all this technology, how are we still finding ourselves falling behind?

Olympic Torches

2008-08-03T20:01:00.000-07:00

The New York Times online sports section currently has a really cool interactive feature about the history of the design of the Olympic torch. The article has accompanying audio, and each torch (the first one was from the 1936 games) has a blurb about its design. The design for the Vancouver Olympics’ torch for 2010 has already begun – promising to be the “cleanest and greenest torch ever.” Check out the interactive timeline here: http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2008/08/01/sports/20080802_TORCH_GRAPHIC.html?th&emc=th

Louise Bourgeois

2008-07-30T19:48:00.000-07:00

This past weekend I checked out the Louise Bourgeois exhibit at the Guggenheim. Some of her work was really breathtaking. It was incredibly apparent how personal each piece on display was to the artist. In most of her pieces, she plays with the relation of the person to the group, a hard and soft duality, and a juxtaposition of elements of male and female anatomy. For example, pieces that suggest organic subjects may not only be interpreted as either phalluses or breasts, but may also be shown in a contrasting hard material like marble or bronze. Form-wise, I found Arch of Hysteria from 1993 her most intriguing piece. Made from bronze, the headless arched sculpture floats midair from the ceiling. It seems graceful but there is a tension in the straining of the body’s muscles. Its interest lies in its interaction with the viewer – it is a confrontational piece and the limbs provide an entirely different view depending on where the viewer is standing. Conceptually, I thought that Bourgeois’ “cells” were her strongest pieces. The Guggenheim exhibition guide describes these works as “a series of haunting, roomlike spaces, in a manifestation of the architectural imagery that pervades her earliest work. Bourgeois refers to these installations as Cells, a term that invites associations with incarceration and monastic contemplation, as well as the most basic element of the human body. Combining sculptural works with found objects she amassed throughout her life, these complex assemblages are vessels for potent psychological narratives, revealing with unprecedented emotional intensity the artist’s attempt to confront and transmute her own history.” The cells are shaped by multiple scrap wood doors (sort of like a fort) with personal memorabilia or metaphoric objects hidden (protected) inside. While all of Bourgeois’ work is extremely personal, I found it odd that some cells were completely closed off from the viewer. Some doors even coincidentally had “private” in transfer lettering on the opaque window. Bourgeois is always in control of her work, though. She purposefully orients the doors to keep the viewer from taking in all of the work/all of her private childhood memories. This parallels the idea that the door itself is something that can invite someone in or close someone off.

Objectified

2008-07-29T05:16:00.001-07:00

I just received word via a Helvetica Film News email alert of a new film coming out directed by Gary Hustwit (director of Helvetica in 2006). Objectified is a documentary about industrial design – “the manufactured objects we surround ourselves with, and the people who make them.” I think this an incredibly interesting follow-up to his tracking of the overwhelming usage of Helvetica all over the world. It is also a cool way to delve into everyday design, as AIGA has also done with its current exhibit (which I will finally have a chance to check out and blog about later this week). Hustwit writes: “I’m interested in industrial designers because their work influences so many aspects of our world yet most of the time it’s taken for granted. And I think that, especially today, it’s crucial for us to re-examine how we make and use consumer products at every level… The term objectified has two meanings. One is ‘to be treated with the status of a mere object.’ But the other is ‘something abstract expressed in a concrete form,’ as in the way a sculpture objectifies an artist’s thoughts. It’s the act of transforming creative thought into a tangible object, which is what designers in this film do every day. But maybe there’s a third meaning to this title, regarding the ways these objects are affecting us and our environment. Have we all become objectified?” Hustwit’s analysis actually connects to the use of the movie logo on a t-shirt, which all of a sudden makes the t-shirt take on a new meaning for the wearer. I absolutely love the logo for this movie (designed by British graphic designer Michael C. Place of Build). It is clearly strong conceptually and its iconic design actually reminds me of one of the design proposals from my Advanced Graphic Design class for exterior signage for Charles Addams Fine Arts Hall last fall. All in all, I’m curious what the movie will have to say about the few objects that got it right the first time—the objects, unlike the toothbrush, whose designs have not been altered since their inception—like that of the paperclip. The movie is supposed to premiere in early 2009 and the Objectified website will be blogging about the film and feature photos from shoots and video excerpts in the meantime so check it out: http://www.objectifiedfilm.com. Also, there are posters and t-shirts available with the movie logo, but be ready to empty our your pockets to get your hands on one.

My First Press Check

2008-07-24T19:44:00.000-07:00

Last week, I went on my first press check for work. The press was in Englewood, New Jersey (not that far from Manhattan). Some of the houses there are gorgeous... Aside from that, it was really cool to see the entire process from how a file is prepped and then printed out on a metallic plate that then goes onto a HUGE press. The paper feeds through the press, gets inked and then little tweaks are made (some by hand, others electronically) to make sure that the registration and coloring looks as best as it can. The whole experience made me really embrace the fact that good design on its own is only half the “battle.” If the paper choice is poor, or the coloring is off, or the printer does a crappy job, good design cannot nearly compensate for these types of errors. While the graphic design curriculum at Penn does emphasize the importance of handcraft, paper choice, and printing in making our final products, I don’t think that our eyes have been opened up enough to the commercial aspect of printing, which if we pursue the field of design, we will inevitably work closely with.

Obauhaus for your momma?

2008-07-24T18:58:00.000-07:00

It has become increasingly clear to me that the 2008 Presidential Elections are not just about the issues our country faces/will face in the upcoming years and which candidate we can see helping move our nation forward, but about (dare I suggest) graphic design. In previous elections of the twentieth century, wearing campaign buttons was largely popular during election season. Some of these buttons, as I found in my house’s basement in my dad’s collection, have hideous designs. There is absolutely no consistency in the use of typefaces or color or styles from button to button for the same candidate. Would this really fly today? Probably not, and I give Obama’s campaign significant credit for understanding this.

Regardless of where you stand on the political spectrum, I have to say that Obama is kicking McCain’s ass as far as campaign design goes. If his nontraditional typeface choice (Gotham) and logo illustration isn’t enough to win the argument, here is the latest evidence: For an address that Obama was scheduled to make today in Berlin, Germany, his campaign produced a poster (left) that directly mimics Bauhaus design (right - one of the most important design movements in the twentieth century that took place in Germany in the 1920s/1930s).

Here is a bit more about Bauhaus design:

San-serif types and strong horizontal and vertical rules were typical of Bauhaus style design, but were part of a much more radical reform which examined the elements of graphic design and the role each played in the transmitting of information. At the Bauhaus, a basic education in the mechanics of visual communication began with the study of letterforms and typographic layout. The Bauhaus set forth elementary principles of typographic communication, which were the beginnings a style termed "The New Typography” that started with:
1. Typography is shaped by functional requirements.
2. The aim of typographic layout is communication (for which it is the graphic medium). Communication must appear in the shortest, simplest, most penetrating form.
3. For typography to serve social ends, its ingredients need internal organization - (ordered content) as well as external organization (the typographic material properly related).

Obama’s poster for Berlin shows the same bold diagonals and san serif that was used in typical Bauhaus designs. While Obama’s poster is more a simulacrum of Bauhaus design (an imitation where the original does not exist), it does remind me of Paula Scher’s Swatch poster (right), which she designed after Herbert Matter’s Swiss Tourist Posters (left and center). Obama’s poster goes to show that even in design and politics, the more things change—the more they remain the same.

About Bauhaus design: http://web.utk.edu/~art/faculty/kennedy/bauhaus/bauhaus.html
About Herbert Matter: http://www.designhistory.org/posters.html

Keep Your Laptops Packed

2008-07-15T15:33:00.001-07:00

Newly designed carry-on bags can pass through security at airports without having to take out laptops for the X-ray as soon as the bags come on the market, says the Transportation Security Administration. These new bags are supposed to be available by late September or early October. “The new cases include either a fold-down section in a bigger briefcase or a stand-alone protective sleeve that contains no extra clutter and can be readily viewed through the scanner,” the New York Times said. While price is obviously going to be a factor in whether laptop owners go out and buy these new cases, there are a couple of other important factors in their success: are you a frequent traveler? Do you already have a laptop case that you are happy with? Would you use this new laptop case just for when you travel? What is the design of the case? Is it missing features that are important to you? And what kind of advertising campaigns are these companies going to create to announce the launch of these new cases? Will it focus exclusively on the emotional or rational benefits of the product? Is there a limit to how much hype an ad campaign can stir over just a laptop case?

Here is the NY Times article with the details... except it doesn't include pictures of what the cases are expected to look like.

Declining Yearbook Sales

2008-07-15T14:58:00.000-07:00

In last week’s issue of The Economist (July 5^th-11^th), there was an interesting short article regarding the recent decline in the purchase and production of printed yearbooks. With the increasing cost of print-runs, the overwhelming popularity of social networking sites, and the replacement of print with electronic media, I find this no surprise. Why pay $75 to remember your college days in just one book when you can treasure the memories online and keep in touch with your classmates over Facebook and MySpace? According to the article, Purdue University and DePauw University, both in Indiana, have recently stopped the presses on printed yearbooks, and many colleges are beginning to try to use new media to replace the print, including DVDs to summarize the year. It should be interesting to see whether this trend extends to high school, where claiming to be part of the yearbook staff had an impressive air. Even if schools begin to switch to new media like DVDs to summarize the year, will it serve as a fair replacement for printed yearbooks? Will more students be more likely to buy these? How much are students and universities willing to pay to see their memories (or snapshots) in print?

Obama, Gotham, and... Lingerie?

2008-07-09T19:35:00.000-07:00

One of my friends found this on a blog of Robert Kelley, a writer and management consultant based in New York City, and I wanted to share. Turns out Obama's "Change" slogan is also the name of a Danish underwear brand whose logo looks almost exactly the same as Obama's signage (see www.change.com). The underwear brand's type is slightly different -- Kelley points out that the ends of the "C" are vertical, the inside hook of the 'G' is slightly smaller, and the tips of the 'E' are of different lengths." Is this really just a coincidence? If not, can you blame whoever designed the slogan that has stood at the forefront of Obama's campaign for being "inspired"?

Recyclable AND Fashionable

2008-07-09T19:19:00.001-07:00

In Union Square, there are 3 grocery stores within a few steps of each other. But today it’s not so much about what you buy or where you shop for food, but what you carry your groceries home in. “Paper or plastic?” is no longer as popular of a question as “credit or debit?” when you’re standing at the register. It is clear why the abundance of paper and plastic bags distributed to shoppers is extremely wasteful and can’t possibly be helping our environment.

Whole Foods Market advertises its “Better Bag,” made from recycled plastic bottles, for only 99 cents and otherwise provides 100% recycled and recyclable paper bags (with tips for other uses for the bags once you get home). Also, Whole Foods Market is providing refunds of at least 5 cents for each reusable bag that a customer provides. Whole Foods claims: “Plastic bags are petroleum based and they fill landfills, harm nature and litter our communities. Since it can take more than 1,000 years for a plastic bag to break down in a landfill, polymers of every single plastic bag ever produced still exist on our planet. As they break down, plastic bags go through photodegradation—breaking down into small toxic particles that contaminate both soil and water, and end up entering the food chain when animals accidentally ingest them. It takes roughly 430,000 gallons of crude oil to produce 100 million plastic bags, and in the U.S. alone, about 100 billion

Whole Foods Market’s effort sounds great, but “Going Green” in New York can end up being more about making a fashion statement and making big bucks off of trend than saving resources. I can’t help but think that many shoppers are carrying reusable totes for their shopping excursions more because they want to be seen supporting the cause than because they legitimately believe in it. Last year, Whole Foods also introduced a limited edition bag designed by “handbag guru Anya Hindmarsh” that read “I’m not a plastic bag” to help raise environmental awareness. They only cost $15 each and people lined up to buy them. How much are New Yorkers willing to pay to look fashionable and green at the same time? The company Leftover Bags designs organic-cotton bags that “feature a graphic that can define your style.” They retail for $38. Even Juicy Couture has hopped on the bandwagon with its “Go Green Icon Tote” for $75. Now that’s a lot of green to drop to “Go Green.”

Got Milk?

2008-07-05T18:04:00.000-07:00

Solution, or Mess? A Milk Jug for a Green Earth

Published in the NYT on June 30, 2008

NORTH CANTON, Ohio — A simple change to the design of the gallon milk jug, adopted by Wal-Mart and Costco, seems made for the times. The jugs are cheaper to ship and better for the environment, the milk is fresher when it arrives in stores, and it costs less.

What’s not to like? Plenty, as it turns out.

The jugs have no real spout, and their unorthodox shape makes consumers feel like novices at the simple task of pouring a glass of milk.

“I hate it,” said Lisa DeHoff, a cafe owner shopping in a Sam’s Club here.

“It spills everywhere,” said Amy Wise, a homemaker.

“It’s very hard for kids to pour,” said Lee Morris, who was shopping for her grandchildren.

But retailers are undeterred by the prospect of upended bowls of Cheerios. The new jugs have many advantages from their point of view, and Sam’s Club intends to roll them out broadly, making them more prevalent.

The redesign of the gallon milk jug, experts say, is an example of the changes likely to play out in the American economy over the next two decades. In an era of soaring global demand and higher costs for energy and materials, virtually every aspect of the economy needs to be re-examined, they say, and many products must be redesigned for greater efficiency.

“This is a key strategy as a path forward,” said Anne Johnson, the director of the Sustainable Packaging Coalition, a project of the nonprofit group GreenBlue. “Re-examining, ‘What are the materials we are using? How are we using them? And where do they go ultimately?’ ”

Wal-Mart Stores is already moving down this path. But if the milk jug is any indication, some of the changes will take getting used to on the part of consumers. Many spill milk when first using the new jugs.

“When we brought in the new milk, we were asking for feedback,” said Heather Mayo, vice president for merchandising at Sam’s Club, a division of Wal-Mart. “And they’re saying, ‘Why’s it in a square jug? Why’s it different? I want the same milk. What happened to my old milk?’ ”

Mary Tilton tried to educate the public a few days ago as she stood at a Sam’s Club in North Canton, about 50 miles south of Cleveland, luring shoppers with chocolate chip cookies and milk as she showed them how to pour from the new jugs.

“Just tilt it slowly and pour slowly,” Ms. Tilton said to passing customers as she talked about the jugs’ environmental benefits and cost savings. Instead of picking up the jug, as most people tend to do, she kept it on a table and gently tipped it toward a cup.

Mike Compston, who owns a dairy in Yerington, Nev., described the pouring technique in a telephone interview as a “rock-and-pour instead of a lift-and-tip.”

Demonstrations are but one of several ways Sam’s Club is advocating the containers. Signs in the aisle laud their cost savings and “better fridge fit.”

And some customers have become converts.

“With the new refrigerators with the shelf in the door, these fit nice,” said April Buchanan, who was shopping at the Sam’s Club here. Others, even those who rue the day their tried-and-true jugs were replaced, praised the lower cost, from $2.18 to $2.58 a gallon. Sam’s Club said that was a savings of 10 to 20 cents a gallon compared with old jugs.

The new jug marks a sharp break with the way dairies and grocers have traditionally produced and stocked milk.

Early one recent morning, the creators and producers of the new tall rectangular jugs donned goggles and white coats to walk the noisy, chilly production lines at Superior Dairy in Canton, Ohio. It was founded in 1922 by a man who was forced to abandon the brandy business during Prohibition. Five generations of the founder’s family, the Soehnlens, have worked there.

Today, they bottle and ship two different ways. The old way is inefficient and labor-intensive, according to members of the family. The other day, a worker named Dennis Sickafoose was using a long hook to drag plastic crates loaded with jugs of milk onto a conveyor belt.

The crates are necessary because the shape of old-fashioned milk jugs prohibits stacking them atop one another. The crates take up a lot of room, they are unwieldy to move, and extra space must be left in delivery trucks to take empty ones back from stores to the dairy.

They also can be filthy. “Birds roost on them,” said Dan Soehnlen, president of Superior Dairy, which spun off a unit called Creative Edge to design and license new packaging of many kinds. He spoke while standing in pools of the soapy run-off from milk crates that had just been washed. About 100,000 gallons of water a day are used at his dairy clean the crates, Mr. Soehnlen said.

But with the new jugs, the milk crates are gone. Instead, a machine stacks the jugs, with cardboard sheets between layers. Then the entire pallet, four layers high, is shrink-wrapped and moved with a forklift.

The company estimates this kind of shipping has cut labor by half and water use by 60 to 70 percent. More gallons fit on a truck and in Sam’s Club coolers, and no empty crates need to be picked up, reducing trips to each Sam’s Club store to two a week, from five — a big fuel savings. Also, Sam’s Club can now store 224 gallons of milk in its coolers, in the same space that used to hold 80.

The whole operation is so much more efficient that milk coming out of a cow in the morning winds up at a Sam’s Club store by that afternoon, compared with several hours later or the next morning by the old method. “That’s our idea of fresh milk,” Greg Soehnlen, a vice president at Creative Edge, said.

Sam’s Club started using the boxy jugs in November, and they are now in 189 stores scattered around the country. They will appear soon in more Sam’s Club stores and perhaps in Wal-Marts.

The question now is whether customers will go along.

As Ms. Tilton gave her in-store demonstration the other day at the Sam’s Club here, customers stood around her, munching cookies and sipping milk. “Would you like to take some home today?” she asked.

A shopper named Jodi Kauffman gave the alien jugs a sidelong glance.

“Maybe,” she said.

New Wal-Mart Logo

2008-07-05T17:42:00.000-07:00

Wal-Mart just (unofficially, according to the Wall Street Journal) announced the introduction of a fresh and new logo for its Wal-Mart stores. The featured logo is no longer in uppercase and is set in a lighter blue in what appears as a friendlier san serif (instead of one that echoes the corporate machine that Wal-Mart epitomizes). What is most noticeable is that Wal-Mart has chosen to replace its iconic star with a “star burst.” It’s unclear what the burst actually stands for -- perhaps something to do with energy, technology, or nature and the environment. It’s most likely an attempt to humanize the company, but can a burst like this one evolve into as iconic of an image as Target’s red target? And what exactly is going to be changing inside the Wal-Mart stores that this new logo is supposed to reflect? How is Wal-Mart really going to make us “live better”?

This timeline shows how dull and ugly Wal-Mart's logos really have been over the years.

An Icon across the City

2008-06-28T13:56:00.001-07:00

It’s kind of like rounding up a group of guys to paint their faces and chests before the big game… except this time the Statue of Liberty is invited. Walking all across the city this weekend, I’ve run into at least a couple of the Statue of Liberty replicas scattered across Manhattan to generate citywide buzz for the upcoming All-Star Game (to be held at Yankee Stadium on July 15). The replicas are each 8.5 feet tall and painted in a different set of team colors. The 42 statues include: “each of the 30 Major League Baseball clubs, the Brooklyn Dodgers, the New York Giants, the American League, the National League, four All-Star statues and statues commemorating the final season of Yankee Stadium and Shea Stadium, an additional version for the host Yankees, and one to be determined to be painted by the artist as a surprise.” It’s only fitting that the MLB has given a makeover to an icon as American as the Statue of Liberty to complement a sport as American as baseball, but I highly doubt even the biggest baseball fans are hunting over the city to find them all.