Browsing articles from "December, 2011"

The Year That Was.. My Top Ten Favorite Posts

Dec 31, 2011   //   by Devlin   //   Blog  //  No Comments

2011 has come and gone, and per­son­ally I am very happy to see it go. It was a rough one for me, full of ups and downs. But I know that 2012 will be a great year. May Janus smile on all our endeav­ors in the com­ing new year.

But before we get started onto the new adven­ture com­ing up next year, I thought I’d take one final look back share my 10 favorite posts for 2011.

  1. 15 Great Free Hand­writ­ten Fonts
  2. 10 Great Typog­ra­phy Sites
  3. Updated Sur­vivor Color Swatches For The Adobe Cre­ative Suite
  4. Awe­some or Awful (depend­ing on taste) Auto-tune songs
  5. Fri­day Free­bie: Free Vec­tor Speech Bub­bles for Adobe Illustrator
  6. Online Check­out in the Real World
  7. 10 Great Exam­ples of Kinetic Typography
  8. Lawrence of Ara­bia Poster
  9. Great Read: Exit To Tomor­row, World’s Fair Archi­tec­ture 1933–2005
  10. 10 Fun and Chal­leng­ing Font and Typog­ra­phy Quizzes

Friday Freebie: Illustrator Cocktail Glass

Dec 30, 2011   //   by Devlin   //   Blog, Freebie  //  No Comments

New Years is just a cou­ple of days away, what bet­ter way to cel­e­brate that with a free drink! Or rather a free Adobe Illus­tra­tor vec­tor cock­tail class. Remem­ber, if you’re design­ing, don’t drink and if you’re drink­ing, don’t design.

Down­load the cock­tail glass here.

Free to use for per­sonal or com­mer­cial projects. Just give me a shout out if you do.

Random Design Quote

Dec 29, 2011   //   by Devlin   //   Blog  //  No Comments

A ran­dom quote from famous graphic design­ers on design, cul­ture and art.

A logo derives its mean­ing from the qual­ity of the thing it sym­bol­izes, not the other way around.
– Paul Rand

Good Read: Cartoon Modern: Style and Design in Fifties Animation

Dec 28, 2011   //   by Devlin   //   Blog  //  No Comments


If you are inter­ested in ani­ma­tion or mid-century art, then I have the book for you. You should check out Car­toon Mod­ern: Style and Design in Fifties Ani­ma­tion by Amid Amidi. It chron­i­cles the art and design of ani­ma­tion dur­ing the 1950’s. It was a period that changed ani­ma­tion, as tele­vi­sion became the dom­i­nant medium to dis­trib­ute ani­ma­tion and the effects that had on the art and craft of ani­ma­tion. You’ll learn how the dif­fer­ent artists coped with this chang­ing land­scape and still made amaz­ing ani­ma­tions. This story unfolds as you learn the story of many of the the greats of this period includ­ing Hanna-Barbera, Ter­ry­toons, Walt Dis­ney Pro­duc­tions and Warner Bros.

This is a must read for ani­ma­tion buffs and fans of 50’s art and culture.

Know Your Type Designers: William Caslon II

Dec 27, 2011   //   by Devlin   //   Blog  //  No Comments

Typography Tuesdays Banner

This week’s Typog­ra­phy Tues­day: Know You Type Design­ers: William Caslon I.

William Caslon II

Born 1720
Died: 1778

Most famous for being the son of William Caslon I, he nonethe­less had a big role in con­tin­u­ing the suc­cess of the foundry cre­ated by his father. He took over the busi­ness and began man­ag­ing it in 1766. He kept the foundry as a major player in the Eng­lish type set­ting busi­ness. Upon his death he, left the foundry to his son William Caslon III (1754–1833) who con­tin­ued the fam­ily busi­ness into the 19th Century.

10 Excellent Video Game Fan Films

Dec 26, 2011   //   by Devlin   //   Blog  //  No Comments

Who doesn’t love video games, okay mom’s, but beyond that? One thing is for cer­tain, the mak­ers of the fol­low­ing ten fan films and fake trail­ers sure do! These were def­i­nitely cre­ated by fans and for fans. I am very impressed by their work, cre­ativ­ity and ded­i­ca­tion to detail. With pow­er­ful inex­pen­sive tech­nol­ogy in the hands of fans, Hol­ly­wood should be ner­vous, for these film­mak­ers make films that equal or best any­thing the big stu­dios can make.

A quick note, if you are inter­ested in the the­ory of video games and the cul­tural impact of them, check out these two great sites:

Half Life: Ori­gins Live Action Short from Infec­tious­De­signer
The music is very riveting.

Beyond Black Mesa from Infec­tious­De­signer
A lit­tle schmaltzy, but still pretty sweet.

The Leg­end of Zelda Fake Trailer
If only it was real…from IGN.com

Poké­mon Apoké­lypse: Live Action Trailer HD
The act­ing could be bet­ter but I like the gritty take on the world’s most annoy­ing game.

Tetris, the movie.
I never real­ized it was so deadly!

Jim Henson’s Res­i­dent Evil 5
Mup­pets and zom­bies, two great tastes that go great together!

“Mario” — SXSW 2011 Film Bumper
Mario Bros. as you’ve never seen it, an indie film! Best line: “Mario you’re a plumber, not some hero.”

Por­tal: No Escape (Live Action Short Film by Dan Tra­cht­en­berg)
This is very poignant and well done.

Mod­ern War­fare 3: Find Makarov — Oper­a­tion King­fish Short Film
Almost too realistic.

Half Life in 60 Sec­onds
Okay not as seri­ous as the oth­ers, but if you’d played the game it’s pretty funny.

Twitter Weekly Updates for 2011-12-25

Dec 25, 2011   //   by Devlin   //   Blog  //  No Comments

Pow­ered by Twit­ter Tools

Merry Christmas!

Dec 25, 2011   //   by Devlin   //   Blog  //  No Comments

Merry Christmas

Happy Hol­i­days and a very Merry Christ­mas to one and all!

My Top Five Favorite Christmas Movies

Dec 24, 2011   //   by Devlin   //   Blog  //  No Comments

Christ­mas is by far my favorite Hol­i­day. Dec­o­rat­ing, bak­ing, giv­ing gifts all of the trap­pings and cul­tural tra­di­tions are things that I love. Rit­u­als are very impor­tant to me and I sus­pect by most of my fel­low Homo Sapiens.

One of the tra­di­tions that I love is the show­ing of the clas­sic Christ­mas films on tele­vi­sion. Some might find this excess of nos­tal­gia annoy­ing, I find it rather com­fort­ing and fun. I’d like to share my top five favorite Christ­mas Movies:

It’s A Won­der­ful Life (1946)

The big daddy of all of the Christ­mas films, and one of the best. There are a few inter­est­ing things to remem­ber about this film, that it wasn’t actu­ally much of a suc­cess when it came out, but was later became a hol­i­day tra­di­tion mainly due to the pro­lif­er­a­tion of tele­vi­sion and babies. Baby boomers that is, who watched this as chil­dren on tele­vi­sion and the film was for­ever etched it’s place on the Hol­i­day land­scape.
The other thing to note is that in most way’s it really isn’t even a Christ­mas movie per se. Think about it, there is really noth­ing that the film really has to do with Christ­mas. When the town comes to George’s aid in the third act, this could’ve just as eas­ily hap­pened at Arbor Day.

A Christ­mas Story (1983)

A film that for my gen­er­a­tion is the equiv­a­lent of It’s A Won­der­ful Life is def­i­nitely A Christ­mas Story. The film is based on the semi-autobiographical writ­ings of author Jean Shep­herd and details the life of a typ­i­cal fam­ily in late depres­sion era Chicago and specif­i­cally about the young Ralphie’s obses­sion with get­ting a BB Gun, a Red Ryder Car­bine Action Range Model Air Rifle with a com­pass in the stock.

This film has, like It’s A Won­der­ful Life, as entered into our pop­u­lar cul­tural dis­course, “you’ll shoot your eye out,” “I can’t put my arms down,” and “oh, fudge” are phrases I use all the time and almost any­one of my gen­er­a­tion would know these lines by heart. The film has inspired an annual 24 hour marathon, a museum and even a musi­cal. Though, I’ve seen the musi­cal and I’d rec­om­mend a pass, just watch the movie, though the dance num­ber with the leg lamp was pretty good.

Char­lie Brown Christ­mas Spe­cial (1965)

Another Christ­mas film that I love is Char­lie Brown’s Christ­mas Spe­cial. The heart warm­ing tale of love­able loser Char­lie Brown’s quest for the per­fect Christ­mas is a won­der­ful moral les­son that the point of Christ­mas really isn’t about mate­r­ial things it is about fam­ily, faith and love. Even for the sec­u­lar, this sim­ple les­son is one that you can take to heart.

Char­lie and his friends turn­ing a hor­ri­ble tree into the most beau­ti­ful tree in the neigh­bor­hood through com­mu­nity and love is some­thing we should all try to emulate.

Elf (2003)

The hilar­i­ous film Elf, star­ing Will Fer­rell is a clas­sic film we watch every year around Christ­mas. Maybe it is not quite as mag­i­cal as the first two, but for my money it is the sin­gle fun­ni­est Christ­mas movie ever.

Fer­rell is per­fect as the over­grown man-child who was raised by Elves, Bob Newhart in par­tic­u­lar, and sees the world through sugar coated glasses. See­ing him as an inno­cent nav­i­gat­ing the real world is laugh out loud funny. It is a clas­sic fish out of water story, but one that has it’s heart in the right place. Yule love it! HA!

Rudolph the Red Nosed Reign Deer (1964)

This film is great, I remem­ber watch­ing this on tele­vi­sion every year as a kid. But as an adult I find that I like it much more for it’s creepy absur­di­ties. It has it’s heart in the right place, but the King of the Island of mis­fit toys as rather creepy. I also love the stop motion ani­ma­tion that is used in this film. Won­der­ful work by the ani­ma­tion team of Rankin/Bass Productions.

 

Hon­or­able Mentions:

  • Santa Claus is Com­ing to Town
    Sim­i­lar to Rudolph, I love the Rankin/Bass style of stop motion animation.
  • Frosty the Snow­man
    I always feel a bit sad when Frosty has to leave, even if I know he’ll come back next year I still feel sad when he leaves.
  • The Polar Express
    The Chris Van Ells­berg book is way bet­ter, the songs are ter­ri­ble and the ani­ma­tion falls off the cliff into the uncanny val­ley, but I still love the bit with the Christ­mas Bell.
  • Emett Otter’s Jug Band Christ­mas
    A won­der­ful film from Jim Hen­son with great music and puppetry.
  • Bob the Builder Christ­mas Spe­cial
    This only made my list because the incon­gruity of Bob the Builder and an ani­mated Elton John in the same movie is way too bizarre, not to love.
  • Die Hard
    Well, it takes place at Christ­mas doesn’t it?

Friday Freebie: Christmas Tree Vector Scribbles

Dec 23, 2011   //   by Devlin   //   Blog, Freebie  //  No Comments

Merry Christ­mas from Devlin Don­nelly Design!

For today’s free­bie, enjoy six Vec­tor Scrib­ble Christ­mas Trees! Free to use on any per­sonal or com­mer­cial prod­ucts, just give me a shout out if you do. Down­load the free trees here.

Click for a larger image.

 

 

 

Pages:1234»

Blog Categories

Recent Posts

My Twitter Feed

Posting tweet...

Powered by Twitter Tools

Devlin Donnelly Recommends

Read My Daily Paper: Communication and Graphics Daily

UA-4623281-2