Hubert's Lemonade

It is probably no secret that I would buy objects just to collect the packaging. It is just fascinating to me to keep a physical reminder of designs  and interesting packing. This package hording has expanded its disease to my husband he come home from work on a warm day with a bottle of lemonade and said he had to buy it just because he knew I would like it (he liked it too but it is easier to blame me for this condition)

Hurbert's Lemonade. The lemonade is natural and tasty, and they invested in interesting to design to help you engage with their product. The cute lemon design is also given the extra detail of texture. Modern printing techniques have given designers and printers the ability to add texture and depth to our print designs, but most companies do not want to invest the extra cost to add this physical stimulation. Any fruit that is printed on the bottle is given the additional texture, emphasizing that the fruit and flavor is essential to this brand.

This company also embraced typography that is fitting to a nostalgic lemonade stand. Some will be offended by the use Helvetica as the simple accompaniment. I think it is a nice break from the exuberant energy of the "lemonade stand" font. The package is completed by the simple glass bottle with the clear labels letting the lemonade to show through.

My Idle Hands

"Idle hands are the devil's play things" Work has an ebb and a flow. There are times that are very busy that require long hours and caffeinated beverages, and then there are other times when there is a definite lull. I usually fill those times with cleaning my desk, going through old paperwork that I ignore most of the time. That barely takes an hour. What to do? I have found a new way to make this time more profitable by refueling my creative juices. This new tool is Pinterest. I love being able to pin images from anywhere and categorizing for when I want to access them later. I can look for inspiration or help develop my ideas for this blog. I know I have a lot of fun hours ahead of me repositioning my multitudes of bookmarks into workable image boards.

Of course this also might just be another digital life distraction! Especially since it can connect with your fackbook and twitter. Happy pinning!

Home Trends: Typography

Trends are trends for a reason: they com ean dgo, but I found one trend that I want to hold onto:

Typographic Decor

I love type, so I want to be surrounded by it in my home. I found some great decor inspiration, most of it outside of my price range. For some of these I think I could go to the old standby of DIY. I hope to come up with a project soon and send it your way. until then, please enjoy!

The Bane of Avatar

Remember when Avatar came to theaters in 2009? Besides being a more fantastic form of FernGully , the most disappointing feature of this movie was the use of Papyrus. This movie is estimated to cost $280 million, and I was surprised that they would use a common, crude, and un-liked typeface for a movie of this epic a proportion. With all this money spent, it would have been small change to develop their own typeface or spend a couple hundred dollars and buy one with more unique, and less offensive styling.

• Skylark : This typeface has similar attributes to Papyrus: distressed look, extended ascenders and descenders.

• Baker Signet Roman: This one is not distressed but has similar ink quality to it, with the thick and thins of the lines that make up each letter. The ends are also come to a point like Papyrus

• Solano Gothic: This one is not like Papyrus at all, but because of its condensed letterforms and the unusual short descenders and ascenders with curved edges.

• Eurostile: Similar to Solano this also has the feeling of being sci-fi without the illegibility. TI also has short ascenders and descenders.

 
There is an entire site dedicated to all of your papyrus sightings. It's everywhere. Where have you seen it today? Apparently James Cameron did a slightly customized typeface with a few alterations. Either way, why emulate a bad typeface so closely?

Type Love: L

I haven't posted about a type love recently, but I recently noticed the script that appeared on my wedding invitation. The "L" of the script is a beautiful and elegant script typeface that is not overly fussy. It is perfect for a wedding ( I have spotted it on a couple wedding invitations since my own wedding.) and scripts are not very useful outside of formal invitations. Invitations give us the opportunity to splurge and be a little "spiffy". 

Kuenstler Script was developed in 1902 by D. Stempel AG (a German Type foundry). This typeface also has a pretty sweet A and E.

Comic Sans: Misused and Misunderstood

Comic Sans is one of those typefaces that has made its way into the Type Hall of Infamy. Its overuse and inappropriate use has given this typeface its sour reputation. Questions come up such as: when is appropriate to use? Does any anyone know the answer? Like most things this is entirely subjective. some people would tell you never to use Comic Sans ever. I would say it has that Comic Sans has its place and time: comic books and children stories. Although there are other options that are more unique and possibly more appropriate.

Big name typography, used to not be so ubiquitous, such as: Papyrus, Helvetica, Times New Roman, Arial, and more. As a typeface becomes more and more common, using that typeface looks like you just picked the easiest and cheapest type to create a design. Your typography should always be chosen with a purpose. Comic Sans was not developed with the purpose to soften a blow or to use humor in corporate, plumbing, newsletters, and (other such inappropriate places).

Comic Sans was developed by Microsoft in 1994, but this typeface has experienced hate for over ten years (1999).I don't think comic sans deserves all the hate that it gets, who deserves the hate is all the jerks designing posters with Comic Sans. Comic Sans is perfectly acceptable if you using this for comic books and children events.  Avoid using this on office notes (it just makes people mad), on bathroom notices (it will just make people puke), and avoid using it for any designs for profit.

I'm Comic Sans, Asshole from joehollier on Vimeo.

Enjoy this video, but I think I keep flopping on how I feel about this typeface. I don't hate it, but I would never use it either. (Not that I haven't used it before...dark days)

Book Design is Changing

Borders is disappearing, leaving Barnes and Nobles along with a few local shops the only book shops available. None are near where I live, and I bet this is common for other people, as well. Even if Borders had made it through, the way we buy books is changing: Amazon sells more kindle books than paper ones. The way we shop for these books has changed too.

"Smell is the most powerful trigger to the memory there is. A certain flower, or a-a whiff of smoke can bring up experiences long forgotten. Books smell musty and-and-and rich. The knowledge gained from a computer is a - it, uh, it has no-no texture, no-no context. It's-it's there and then it's gone. If it's to last, then-then the getting of knowledge should be, uh, tangible, it should be, um, smelly."

We could go to a store and touch the book and flip through the illustrations and decide if a book was truly for us. I am huge on texture, and I like being able to feel a book in my hand, before I buy it. This is impossible when I order a book online. This becomes more important when I pick out a book that has several cover options: such as my Alice in Wonderland book. There were at least 7 options for this title, but I chose the one with the hardback binding, letterpressed cover, and gilded pages. If I could not feel and see this book in person, who knows what I would have purchased. Probably whatever was cheapest would have been in my shopping cart.

Not only are shoppers effected by this change of shopping but: designers, illustrators, printing companies, ink companies, paper mills, and I am sure there is more behind the scene action that has changed in the creation of a book. As operating systems become more sophisticated digital can include color, illustrations, and unique typography. A digital book will lack the texture, feel, and smell of a book. Until digital books can incorporate my loves (plus the feel of paper) I don't I will make this digital jump.

Learning from Mistakes

I often hear we learn from mistakes. Mistakes are not failures, unless we fail to learn from them. Errors become these bright red lights that at the time overwhelm me with disappointment. when I finally move on from it, I can make the further effort to make sure that NEVER happens again. To help you learn from my own mistakes here are some typical mistakes for designers (but not limited too).

• SPELL CHECK: spelling errors are probably the most common mistake. And I have seen fellow designers loose clients through lack of diligence. Sometimes I too forget to hit that little spell check button. In fact if I could convince Adobe to make it a little icon on the tool bar, instead of being hidden in the file navigation, it would be a very welcome change.

•  MIND YOUR FOLDS: a recent mistake of mine to ignore the printers folds. Made a huge problem. It has to be reprinted and refolded. It has caused a project that was already running behind (due to the client's complications), but now the project is another week behind schedule. It has taken me a few days to stomach this problem, but I need to move on and make a vow to dictate clearly my vision to the printer. Hopefully this mistake will never occur again through vigilance.

•  USING RGB (for print): Printers can only print in CMYK and particular ink (such as Pantone).  Believe me it can make a huge mess to clean up after someone who uses RGB for CMYK. RGB is for screens only. If you are doing digital work that is perfect, but for print use CMYK.

• MISUSE OF PROGRAMS: the Adobe Suite can be fairly interchangeable, but each program has its own specialty. You can create print documents in Photoshop, but I would not recommend. Doing so will create more work for yourself, and for your printer (professional not your desktop).

Love: &

I have another type specimen to drool over. In general an ampersand is a beautiful character, but I wanted to share my favorite one of all. This is the Adobe Caslon Italic ampersand. Obviously this was named after its founder: William Caslon. This is another serif typeface, but unlike the Baskerville Q, this is an Old Style typeface. The thicks and thins of the strokes are not as prominent. This typeface was named after its founder: William Caslon.  The first printing of the Declaration of Independence was set in Caslon.

The ampersand has a long history in how it came to being. It originally was "et", which is visible in this letterform. The ampersand continually transformed into the figure it is today, but being an older typeface you can still some of its early roots. If you have a favorite ampersand please share I can always look at more of this elegant letterform.

If you want to learn more about Adobe Caslon, check out these links:

• Typedia
• Right Reading
• Wikipedia

Goals: A Formal Announcement

Not too long ago I answered a question posed by GeneralOverachiever about managing creativity. I talked some big talk, but very little commitment. Lists and sketchbooks help me define my goals, but I have discovered that they to not inspire me to complete the work I have set out to do.  I am more prone to do something if I inform others of my goals. The thought that others could hold me accountable, makes it easier to force myself do it. I believe all of these goals will help me to be a better designer, employee, blogger, and person. 

_____________________________________________________________

 LIST OF GOALS

_____________________________________________________________

YEARLY:  Go or do one thing out of the norm or at least out of WICHITA.

BI-ANNUALLY: Update my website (at a minimum)

MONTHLY:  Have a food adventure in the kitchen.

WEEKLY:  Create an illustration every week. Whether simple or small I need to create something for myself every week.

EVERY TWO DAYS: Continue to post every other day, or sometimes more often!

DAILY:  Do something active and engaging every day.

CONSTANT VIGILANCE: I want to constantly observe and engage in typography around me, and particularly the typography I use and create.

Let's check back in one year and see if I have accomplished my goals! Do you have any goals you are hoping to attain in the near future?

Type Love: Q

No not Bond or Star Trek, but Baskerville. The Q designed by John Baskerville is striking with the eloquent curved strokes. In all typefaces this is my favorite Q, and I just wanted to share a little bit on the history of one of my favorite letterforms. Baskerville is a Transitional typeface. To the average person the biggest difference you will notice with Transitional faces is the stroke contrast is more prominent that Old Style or Humanist typefaces.

This typeface was designed in 1757. I am not alone in my fandom. Fournier, Bodoni (another typeface designer), and Benjamin Franklin were all fans of his work.The tail of this "Q" is what makes it so sensational.

Want to know more about this typeface? Check out these links

• I Love Typography
• Right Reading
• Wikipedia

LOVE: Bear River Valley

Design, pro-green, whole grains, and tasty! Bear River Valley offers it all. I fell in love with this brand when I was in the cereal aisle pondering granola bars and turned around and saw the display for Bear River Valley. Nice, clean, simple, and a pleasing color palette attracted me right away. Then I noticed that they use less packaging and supports wind energy, so BONUS! Then you get it home and enjoy some, and finally a product that you can get behind that doesn't taste like cardboard.

Design is simple yet fun with a rounded script and window to see the food product inside. Everything is matte and muted, which adds to the natural-side of this cereal. The names for each product are fun too like "Frosted Tumble Wheats" and "Marshmallow Avalanche". How can you not want to dig into a nice big bowl? The food is good for you to being full of natural ingredients and whole wheat it is a great start to the day or a snack in between.

No Love for Serifs

These days the public, and designers do not seem fond of serifs. Some people even profess to hate serifs. Companies want to be modern and designers lean towards sans serif to convey modern. Serifs can have an older feel since many of the traditional serifs were first developed when letterforms were cut from word or stone or calligraphic pens. Companies, who wanted the appearance of longevity and history used serif typefaces for their logos, but have moved on for a more human aspect. Grade schools, in a similar thought, no longer teach cursive and most people print rather than any other type of writing.

Serifs are still in use. Modern serifs tend to be thicker, more like slab serifs, or ones that have a vintage feel because VINTAGE IS IN. But these are not your grandparents' serif typefaces:

Vitesse by Hoefler & Frere-Jones

Archer by Hoefler & Frere-Jones

Alda by Emigre

Technotyp

Hera by Lucas Sharp

Museo

Serifs are a great addition to any design. You just have to know how to use them.

War on Type

The war on tiny type has begun. There has long been a struggle between designers and nondesigners over small type. I have been told recently "everyone hates small type". I do not believe that at since I love small type, and my KU education was based around the ideals that body copy (for print) is 8pt, captions are 6pt, and heading and subheads were whatever you wanted. I realize that not everyone can read that small type, and I do not think it is too much to ask for 10 point, and for designs for senior citizens 12 – 14 is appropriate. Type size is not declarative of design aesthetic, but should be for the marriage of form and function. Typography is beautiful. That first type class changed my life forever. I cannot help to notice the subtle nuances that type can bring to a design or the type that surrounds our everyday life.

I came across this thread, that denounced the use of small type and that designers think only of beauty and not about the functionality of type on the web.

From Marion Bataille ABC3D

I think there is often a particular war with graphic designers and web designers. Often we have to work with one another. I know only of a couple people who can accomplish both sides of a website project. Maybe if when working with one another, we took time to explain our varying points of view, perhaps, there would not be this misunderstanding that is clearly shown in this forum.

More than type size, type variety is crucial for reading comprehension. In fact type that is too horsey can be harder to read then something small that forces you to focus. The great use for the web is that if you make your font resizable, then when it is too hard to read that person can enlarge type to make it easier to view, which is I prefer to use em’s not pixels. When you can use type not images. HTML 5 should make it easier for everyone to use a variety of typefaces as html without problem, so you can have style and readability.

As a designer, I lean towards tiny type to organize the information to the simplest terms. Type is best when it becomes the hero to my design. I could spend all day talking about the nuances of type, and how to utilize it to organize information is a way that is pleasing and readable. I won’t do that today. Remembering to balance between form and function is always a challenge on every project. I do the best I can; yet, it is sometimes beyond my control based on art direction or client’s requests. Always ask yourself “who is this for?” That should dictate point size best to use for print or web.

 [from what I understand web standard for type is 14 pt (I often use 12)] <-----small for caption purposes

The End of Harry Potter

I like many other out there are celebrating the end of the Harry Potter era with the last installment of the Harry Potter movies. I thought it would be fun to take a look at the movie posters for the 8 films, and how they have changed with time. Obviously the characters have grown but I find the progression of the poster art showed a shift in quality as well. The Harry Potter logo type has been the standard wizardry font with the lightning bolt "P", but it has degraded a little more with each movie.

Let the Magic Begin: This first poster is obviously
the sore thumb in this series. the characters have
been given a drawn effect to give the movie
poster the illustrious quality of the book.

Something Evil has Returned to Hogwarts!
Yeah, and it is those cheesy stars used as the
dots of the "i". More Realistic than the first, and
here begin the glow and smokey effects. Who
is to blame the designer or the software,
but the smoke effects are not very convincing.

Something Wicked This Way Comes: I love
that Macbeth quote, but it is often used.
The poster is another one that is set apart from
the rest. This poster lacks the greenish, blue glow
that the rest of the posters have, and is particularly
close to their faces (much like the final poster).
This is also the only poster to not use the
"Lumos" typeface for the theme line.

Everything is About to Change: After short
break Harry Potter returns to the blue/green glow
color with magical fog seeping through. There
is an epic quality to the triangular
placement of the characters.

The Rebellion Begins: Another dynamic
placement of characters that adds depth, but
I find that there is an over use of the glow and
blur effects on their faces. They are
inhumanly smooth.

Without a Theme: From here on the posters
have left off a tag-line or theme for the top of the
poster. For a time 45 degree angles were trending.
I guess this movie came out then.

The Beginning of the End: An action packed
shot for an action packed movie. This the the
second and last poster with the E.T.-like
glow of the wands.

The End: The Harry Potter logo is no longer
necessary. We know these characters, and
we are invested into the outcome of the final
battle (even if we have already read the entire
series) I am ready to wrap up this series.

I have enjoyed this walk through memory lane. As much as the characters, books, and movies have progressed so have the movie posters. The beginning was very child-like and sweet, and the last poster is gritty, serious, and a little gory. This is a grown up wizardry battle. The effects have changed but some styles that connect (most of the posters is that green/blue hues, darkness contrasted with mystical glows, and strong character imagery. I don't have tickets yet, but I am excited to finish of this series and see have movie makers interpret the battles to come. Good bye Harry!

Back to Basics

With all the jazz we sometimes ad to our designs, such as graphics, textures, layers, effects, and multiple type treatments it can be refreshing to get back to basics.

http://lovelypackage.com/brand/

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wKho1aDikBI

These packaging examples prove that simple and elegant type along with simple color fields can make simple look expensive and intriguing. One typeface: Helvetica, it is always a safe bet using Helvetica because it is simple clean and never fussy. Helvetica also gives you many styles and weights to choose from. I also goes to show generic does not need to look cheap.

As I mentioned in Getting the Right Kind of Attention http://designmorsel.blogspot.com/2011/06/getting-right-kind-of-attention.html

It may seem easy, but have a simple and unfussy design can be the more difficult to accomplish. I encourage anyone who is reading this to take a look at your work this week and remove the excess and leave the essentials to a design. Using simple black and white can be elegant and save your client money. Giving yourself a challenge is a great way to bounce off new ideas that would not happen in the same way if you did not give yourself any restrictions.

A recent birthday card I made from my brother. Really simple just black and white. He has that modern aesthetic so this really fit him for me. I could be a little more fun with the interior of the envelope for a surprise punch of color. This was my attempt at going back to basics could clean type. Maybe a little boring with Helvetica, but it is always a classic choice.

Bigger is not always Better

While in school standard paragraph size was 8pt. Now I am lucky if I can get away with 10pt. Most of the time I am forced to use the default of 12pt. It has taken quite the adjustment for me to succumb to the largeness of real world type. I now try to hold onto 10 as much as I can, because 12 still looks like the elephant in the room.

There are real world applications that require large body type, when you are working with young children and elderly. Young children large letterforms because they are learning to read them and need to be able to see the variety of strokes and curves to decifer the words. Elderly people, have deteriorating eyesight, so they would require the large type as well too. So if either of these two groups are your audience, go ahead be as horsey as you want.

But I think for most audiences that smaller type is better, or at the very least, use type that is not standard when you open a program. This shows that very little thought went into the body copy, which is just as important as the rest of your design. It might have more importance, in that it conveys important information to your reader.

Size is not always the issue, but text variations. Making different categories of text different size, weight, style, or color enhances reading and comprehension of your audience. Our eyes naturally try to differentiate text, doing your part to make that easier for your audience helps insure readability, which enhances your chance to convey your message. Type is always a challenge, and I find that designers (myself included) have to continually improve themselves in this area. Type is the meat and potatoes of any design, and if you don't know how to use it your designs will suffer.

TRENDS

As we all know fads come and go; and can be defining styles of a generation. I don't have a crystal ball, so I don’t what the world will look like ten years from now. A growing trend currently popping up everywhere is all uppercase. A few years back I remember everyone doing all lowercase, so perhaps this movement is just a rejection of what has come before. These all uppercase designs tend to use condensed typeface and slender letterforms.

Falling into a trend isn't an evil, but may came back later to haunt our memories when years from now we look back at our design annuals. Trends tend to seep in to our work whether we want to or not. Trends can become appealing to our minds and we begin to use it in our work. And it is okay to let an elegant urgency enter our work in ALL CAPS.

New Selections

Walking through the freezer section of my local Kroger store I noticed a new brand sitting on the shelves. Private Selection has changed the look of their brand for a more sophisticated look. Unfortunately I didn't have my camera with me to be able to show you the new look. But I enjoy the minimalism and sophisticated of the simply elegant type and black label. Really makes generic look upscale. They seemed to have new flavors to go with this new branding. I think it looks wonderful and has the promise of increased sales for the brand.

Vs.

while in school we were educated that 12 pt is horsey (and it is) that smaller is better and white space is optimum. In the "real" world I continually find that clients request larger type and want to shove in as much type as they can into a single poster or ad. School I found myself continuously at 8pt (and I think for most designers that is acceptable), but taking it to a client it seems impossible. I continuously make it larger and larger. I do avoid 12 pt at all costs, but it seems now my normal is 10 or 11.

It is important to have design aesthetics and appreciate the simplicity and look of small type, but schools should also emphasize the need to fulfill the market of growing population of elderly. Most non-designers I have met over 40 cannot read 9 pt type. And maybe it is just a time of readjustment after school for theoretical design into practical.