blog
One Year and a Day
Approaching the first anniversary of the passing of Beastie Boy MCA, artist James Curran created and animated these 35 prints. Each print contains a reference to a Beasties lyric. How many can you name?
Time for Background Productivity Music
From the studio offices of Grohl, Homme, and Reznor.
NYC Transit Authority Graphic Standards Manual 1970
About as clean and detailed as anyone could get, this manual for the iconic NYC subway system is the work of legendary designers Massimo Vignelli and Bob Noorda. Timeless and perfect, there is no better signage system in my view. This site, featuring an original printed copy of the manual, is absolutely fantastic. It takes you from a well thought out system overview to the intricacies of kerning every possible letter combination (and putting in an easily digestible grid) to the precise construction of elements as humble as the arrow. All this is done with the goal of simplifying a complex system for the efficiency of its users.
Often times clients will tell me, “I just need a logo.” I don’t do that, because that’s not what they need and I am in the business of providing clients with what they need. While the logo is probably the single most important part of a company’s visual identity, even the greatest logo without consistent application is a failure. What is Coca-Cola without red or UPS without brown? What is the NYC Subway without colored discs? The purpose of consistent design elements is to create recognition and build trust. For this reason I don’t do “just a logo” work. When you hire C Davis Designs for your graphic identity, a graphic standards manual is part of the package – fonts, color specifications, application rules – all this at a minimum. Will it be a 168 page tome? No, but there will be a graphic standards manual and it will be appropriate to the needs of the client, big or small.
WEVE Brings it All Together
When bringing the services of three large and successful brands together under one name, you would expect a pretty bland result. That’s not the direction chosen for “WEVE”, a joint venture of EE, Vodafone UK, and Telefonica UK. Not so much a logo as a logo treatment, the WEVE ad campaign does what conventional wisdom deplores – they’ve put treatment above logo. They’ve also put originality ahead of grammar. But let’s look at what they’ve managed to accomplish. They’ve got themselves a name they can trademark anywhere for an abstract product that is an amalgamation of three brands at once. That is an impressive achievement. And that is what was accomplished by SomeOne.
“Weve offers a single point of contact, a single point of focus. The coming together of all things mobile and mobile commerce. The name and brand reflects this. The duality of the name means that Weve can talk about the partners, and the benefit they offer together. “Weve come together to make mobile communications easier…” as well as the inference of “weaving together” what were complex mobile offers. The identity is simply formed by things coming together.Designed to change, frequently, regularly and relevantly. You’ll see Weve made of mobile phones, people, marbles, digital data, light bulbs, footprints, ball bearings, cogs, clients logos, branded products, faces…”
Now let’s take a closer look at that treatment. They chose to assemble like objects into a readable configuration to create the logo. They also chose to do it in multiple ways and these ways appear to have no end. Furthermore they can choose any iconography they want to adapt to any message they want. Does WEVE have a great idea? A hundred or so light bulbs will get that message across. Will WEVE save you money throughout Europe? How about a logo made up of a hundred coins? One logo, one treatment, infinite messages.
You can already see how easily this could be animated as the objects disperse and coalesce. Taking it further, you can see how the business cards retain the theme as they would assemble to form the logo.
You can already see how easily this could be animated as the objects disperse and coalesce. And with the wealth of platforms currently available to display animation – especially for a wireless carrier – the animation becomes all the more important for this client.
Viewed from afar, it has the appearance of a halftone, with more depth and interest up close.
Yes, the logo breaks the rules and ruffles a few feathers in the process, but when it is done so, so well none of that matters. In fact, it helps the brand demonstrate that its sole purpose is to break new ground. Gutsy choice by the client. Gutsy choice by the agency.
Via Brand New
An Interview with Legendary Motorcycle Designer Miguel Galluzzi
Anyone I’ve spoken to or even reads my posts on Hell For Leather will find these thoughts familiar. Motorcycle design, and the design of its related industries, has veered off over the last 10-15 years into a desperate attention grab. Fake parts and parts which serve no purpose beyond questionable styling has diluted the essence of these products – especially in the standard and sport varieties – into something befitting shelf space in a toy store. Covered mechanical parts in plastic, often times intended to look like cast aluminum, has gotten so out of control that genuine cast parts are often criticized as looking like plastic, to wit the rear subframe of the poor Triumph Daytona 675 being mistakenly decried as fake. The pervasive dishonesty in materials is cheapening the industry and detaching it from an upcoming generation that places real value on the genuine article. It’s time, not to bring the past back, but to bring forth a sense of design that is not condescending toward its customers. End users need to be respected and we need to have the faith in their intelligence to see through the smoke screens of marketing that are selling image over substance and controlling and ruining design in its wake. The era of “perceived value” is the past. The future is a blending of aesthetics and engineering, not of the former hiding the latter. We’ve gotten to the point where mechanical limits far exceed the ability of humans to exploit them. As an industry we have to better understand the mechanical and the beautiful from both perspectives at once. This is the intersection where great products have been, and will continue to be born. Styling is for the whims of fashion. Design is what lasts.
MV Rivale, Now With Lighting
A little tweaking to the levels so we can see what’s going on.
Pics via Hell For Leather.
Spain’s Olympic Embarrassment
You’ve got to feel sorry for the Spanish athletes at the Olympics. This was tweeted by Spanish Field Hockey team member Alex Fabregas. Hopefully the entire team has his sense of humor.
Pulling Together the CBR250R’s Colorway
I am starting to like where Honda is headed, at least with their concepts and with this bike. But I’m not a fan of the red fender, gold stripe, or silver wheels. That’s just throwing too much at this little bike.
The red fender was way out of place here, looking as though it came off another bike. And when you’ve already got black, white, blue, red, and silver, the gold around the red stripe is only adding confusion.
The colorway is now simplified and more cohesive with the color count reduced (gold swapped for silver) and the fender now one of the main panel colors. This brings continuity to the uses of red (graphics) and white (bodywork). You may think the white wheels a bit too much, but this whole colorway is about being bold and really, white’s not that much harder to clean than the light silver they were using. Plus, they just look good…when they’re clean.
Black wheels look much better than silver too. They also serve to clarify the color hierarchy. In order of most to least: black, white, blue, red, silver.
An Upgrade to Suzuki’s Yellow GSX-R Colorway
These manufacturers need to start running their colorways past me before taking them to production.
Like this.^
Not this.
The flow really got disrupted with the yellow tank and black tail. By stacking the color vertically, the bike looks slower and it really emphasized the roundness of the tank which is out of place with other lines of the bike.
The ZX-10R Colorway Kawasaki Should Have Made
An overlooked option for the 2012 the ZX-10R – Black/Silver. They should have ditched color on the upper fairing for every colorway.
Here are the colors they went with.
His Majesty’s Royal Safety Device
Prince William guerrilla markets the latest Royal Safety Device just before getting hitched.
Original pic courtesy Hell for Leather via The Sun