Browsing articles from "March, 2010"

Twitter Weekly Updates for 2010-03-28

Mar 28, 2010   //   by Devlin   //   Blog, Uncategorized  //  No Comments
  • More design deconstruction from the New York Times! Poster Art for Revival of ‘La Cage Aux Folles’ – NYTimes.com http://goo.gl/IDfX #
  • An amazing photo of long lost Dreamland park on Coney Island… Dreamland Twilight: 1905 | Shorpy Historic Photo Archive http://goo.gl/qgJs #
  • Hilarious audio take on web design & usability from QN Podcast | A conversation I have every month or so. http://goo.gl/PBqX #
  • More nuggets of Analytic wisdom! Google Analytics Blog: Web Analytics TV #7 with Avinash and Nick http://goo.gl/emSj #
  • Get your Terminator on! Melting Girl in Photoshop | Abduzeedo | Graphic Design Inspiration and Photoshop Tutorials http://goo.gl/u3Xg #
  • Pretty good, watch it all the way through. Good Is Dead. It’s true. Fall, 2010. http://goo.gl/bDah #
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The Seven Deadly Sins… now with Stormtroopers!

Mar 23, 2010   //   by Devlin   //   Blog, Uncategorized  //  1 Comment

The Seven Deadly Sins. The Cardinal Vices.

Just listing them is very evocative, they drip with poetry and dread and have since they were slowly codified during the early history of the Catholic Church:

  • pride
  • avarice
  • envy
  • wrath
  • lust
  • gluttony
  • sloth

The nature of these sins are both replant and attractive. This duality inherent in the human psyche has inspired artists for centuries. We’ve seen the seven deadly sins depicted in many different ways; from the bizarre and fantastic canvases of Hieronymus Bosch to the celluloid terrors of David Fincher. Now we have a new re-imagining of the sins that lead to hell fire made with toy Stormtroopers from Star Wars. And it’s brilliant.

The project is a mini-series by a photographer who goes by the handle Stéfan, who has been, well let him explain it:

Stormtroopers 365 is a photo project starring TK455 and TK479, Stormtroopers in the Galactic Empire Army.

The project began on April 3rd 2009 and should end on April 2nd 2010. Each day during this year, a new picture is added to the series.

The pictures are posted to Flickr.

Here’s a slide show of the 7 Deadly Sins, see if you can guess which sin is pictured. Dont’ forget to check your answers. Also check out the rest his work. It is really funny, ironic and best of all executed with great skill.

7 Deadly Links:

Survivors get ready to RUMBLE!

Mar 23, 2010   //   by Devlin   //   Blog, Uncategorized  //  1 Comment

Design Something Everyday 16/365

After reading the amazing tutorial “How to Creat a Retro Boxing Poster in Photoshop” from James Davies I was inspired to give it a whirl. I didn’t get quite as faux-vintage as James did, but went in my own direction. Turning it into a preview of some upcoming clashes in Survivor. If you’re a fan of the show you’ll get the gags.

Survivor Faux Vintage Boxing Poster

Seperated at Birth?

Mar 23, 2010   //   by Devlin   //   Blog, Uncategorized  //  No Comments

While pursuing the world’s number #1 package design website™, the Dieline, I was impressed by the new design and product photo shoot for The Impossible Project; a new film for Polaroid instant cameras. I enjoyed the designs startling white palette, rigid geometry  and austere typography. However, the more I studied it I kept getting the weird sensation that I’d seen it somewhere before. Then it hit me… I had, sort of. I realized that George Lucas’ dystopian classic THX 1138 & the Polaroid campaign must have been separated at birth, long lost twins, or perhaps, similarly mass produced android soldiers. You decide:


Seperated at birth or rather creation?

THX 1138 the dystopian cult master work:

Twitter Weekly Updates for 2010-03-21

Mar 21, 2010   //   by Devlin   //   Blog, Uncategorized  //  No Comments

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Design Something Everyday 15/365

Mar 15, 2010   //   by Devlin   //   Blog, Uncategorized  //  No Comments

I found a great article in Esquire wherein book jacket designer extraordinaire Chip Kidd discusses the thinking and methods that underlie some of his recent work. One typography trick  that is particularly useful is how he created the distressed text for his cover of Cormack McCarthy’s The Road:

The font is one of the oldest tricks in the book. You typeset text in a regular font, I think this was Rotis, and then you blow it up really big on a Xerox machine and then you shrink it down really small. The trick is to see just how much you can distress it and keep it readable. It’s gotten harder to do because Xerox machines are so much better, but if you’ve got a wonderfully shitty machine it will look all corroded and gummy and yucky. It takes a bit of playing around, but it’s really not that hard.

With that tip as inspiration I used the same technique to make these little design posters. The typeface is Rockwell Bold and each letter was blown up 1600% on a Toshiba photocopier, before being digitally reduced. The Toshiba was too new to give the type a truly wonderfully gummy yucky look, but it was a good exercise. Even with all of our digital tricks, it is pretty fun to get in there with some old school techniques.

Twitter Weekly Updates for 2010-03-14

Mar 14, 2010   //   by Devlin   //   Blog, Uncategorized  //  No Comments

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To seek, to find, to design and not to yield.

Mar 9, 2010   //   by Devlin   //   Blog, Uncategorized  //  2 Comments

Design Something Everyday 14/365

To strive, to seek, to find & not to yield.

This was a design based on one of my favorite poems, Ulysses, by Alfred Lord Tennyson. The poem is very moving, and has the great hero Ulysses (Odysseus in Greek) at the end of his life feeling the urge to strive, explore and set sail once again. That is an urge we have and should cherish, that little voice that tells us there is still much more to see and do. It is a human quality that we need to heed, especially when our boat has waited to0 long in the harbor. Here’s the complete poem (don’t worry it’s in the public domain):

Ulysses
by Alfred Lord Tennyson

It little profits that an idle king,
By this still hearth, among these barren crags,
Match’d with an aged wife, I mete and dole
Unequal laws unto a savage race,
That hoard, and sleep, and feed, and know not me.

I cannot rest from travel: I will drink
Life to the lees: all times I have enjoyed
Greatly, have suffered greatly, both with those
That loved me, and alone; on shore, and when
Through scudding drifts the rainy Hyades
Vexed the dim sea: I am become a name;
For always roaming with a hungry heart
Much have I seen and known; cities of men
And manners, climates, councils, governments,
Myself not least, but honoured of them all;
And drunk delight of battle with my peers;
Far on the ringing plains of windy Troy.
I am a part of all that I have met;
Yet all experience is an arch wherethrough
Gleams that untravelled world, whose margin fades
For ever and for ever when I move.
How dull it is to pause, to make an end,
To rust unburnished, not to shine in use!
As though to breathe were life. Life piled on life
Were all too little, and of one to me
Little remains: but every hour is saved
From that eternal silence, something more,
A bringer of new things; and vile it were
For some three suns to store and hoard myself,
And this grey spirit yearning in desire
To follow knowledge like a sinking star,
Beyond the utmost bound of human thought.

This is my son, mine own Telemachus,
To whom I leave the sceptre and the isle —
Well-loved of me, discerning to fulfil
This labour, by slow prudence to make mild
A rugged people, and through soft degrees
Subdue them to the useful and the good.
Most blameless is he, centred in the sphere
Of common duties, decent not to fail
In offices of tenderness, and pay
Meet adoration to my household gods,
When I am gone. He works his work, I mine.

There lies the port; the vessel puffs her sail:
There gloom the dark broad seas. My mariners,
Souls that have toil’d, and wrought, and thought with me —
That ever with a frolic welcome took
The thunder and the sunshine, and opposed
Free hearts, free foreheads — you and I are old;
Old age hath yet his honour and his toil;
Death closes all: but something ere the end,
Some work of noble note, may yet be done,
Not unbecoming men that strove with Gods.
The lights begin to twinkle from the rocks:
The long day wanes: the slow moon climbs: the deep
Moans round with many voices. Come, my friends,
‘Tis not too late to seek a newer world.
Push off, and sitting well in order smite
The sounding furrows; for my purpose holds
To sail beyond the sunset, and the baths
Of all the western stars, until I die.
It may be that the gulfs will wash us down:
It may be we shall touch the Happy Isles,
And see the great Achilles, whom we knew

Tho’ much is taken, much abides; and though
We are not now that strength which in old days
Moved earth and heaven; that which we are, we are;
One equal temper of heroic hearts,
Made weak by time and fate, but strong in will
To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield.

Poem Source

Just for fun here’s a YouTube video of a performance of the poem:

Design Something Everyday 13/365

Mar 7, 2010   //   by Devlin   //   Blog, Uncategorized  //  No Comments

I was at the park with my kids playing in the sand box and I recalled this quote from Chip Kidd’s wonderful novel The Cheese Monkeys: A Novel in Two Semesters: “Design is purposeful planning… Graphic design is the form those plans will take.” Between the juice boxes and pushing kids on the swing I tried to represent that with sand, sticks and pebbles.

Anyone who is interested in literature or good storytelling would like The Cheese Monkey’s, but for designers, I highly recommend Kidd’s book for many reasons, first it is a gripping tale of Happy (the protagonist) discovering himself and the world he inhabits. Second, the host of characters that Kidd creates are unforgettable, especially Himillsy Dodd and Winter Sorbeck. Finally, the book is full of great nuggets about graphic design. That last point is something designers should enjoy, or at least provoke some food for thought. It isn’t often that graphic design gets so eloquently discussed, defended and criticized in any form, let alone a novel. Having the history, purpose and practice of graphic design examined in fiction is refreshing.

Links:

Here are some great interviews/talks by and with Chip Kidd:

Twitter Updates for 2010-03-06

Mar 6, 2010   //   by Devlin   //   Blog, Uncategorized  //  No Comments
  • As I rush to finish a ton of projects I realize that the great philosophers INXS had it right when they said "Not enough time." #
  • A good introduction to Albin's Countergambit http://goo.gl/zRmZ #
  • If you love models, as I do you'll love these Itty Bitty Cities: Models That Miniaturize the World | Design + Ideas on WU http://goo.gl/EEHn #
  • great article Archer opening title sequence | The Art of the Title Sequence http://goo.gl/DgBG #

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