Article by Martin Gibson – Twitter: @martingibson @embody3d - 19.11.2011

ISBN – 9781592537433

Graphic Designers Essential Reference – Visual Elements, Techniques, and Layout Strategies for Busy Designers by Timothy Samara and published by Rockport

Starts with a good ‘How to Use this Book’ section.

Graphic Designers Essential Reference outlines some essential tools of the graphic designer including a good computer, sable brushes, swatch books with spot and profile colours, gouache, loupe, erasers, steel ruler and tringle, cutting mat, knife, lucite brayer and a bone folder. This is a good section and I enjoy how they note down a lot of traditional tools to be an equipped designer, but they really need to focus more on digital. I know traditionalists are going to hound me on this point but because of time restrictions and the digital way of communication the need for laptop and software is becoming increasingly important. Let me put this way a graphic designer can survive without a set of paint brushes but a designer can’t survive without a laptop.
The following educational section I believe is well orchestrated. It teaches in a basic manner the study of form and composition, colour, typography, scale, contrast and hierarchy. Not to mention principles of symmetry and asymmetry and working with photographs or images. The diagrams used in this section are brilliant it clearly explains the core concepts, and the pages aren’t too overbearing. I particularly enjoyed the section on choosing and combining typefaces as this is something I have developed personally by experience but to see a theoretical teaching of it really drew me in.

After this extended introduction of sorts the book then splits up into 2 core areas. The first is all about graphical elements which are illustrated in a swatch format, and the remaining half ‘Project Strategies’ shows how these principles are being used throughout projects.

Graphic Elements
Graphic elements is segmented into pictorial staples (like icons, patterns and image treatments), then chromatic concepts (colour palletes), then typographic stylings (fonts and combinations), then followed by layout strategies (like grid structures, cropping strategies and ideas on proportion).

In general the graphic elements section is well composed, there definitely could be more filtering by only showing a couple of the best and more unique concepts. At times the concepts can be repetitive and even at times amateurish. For example the swatches on photography where it shows different filters you can put on photographs seems to follow the ideals of the creators of Photoshop. As in we all know there are some crazy filters in Photoshop, but just because we can mathematically create crazy things it doesn’t mean stylistically we should use them. When would a top design studio ever digitally emboss or solarize an image? The textures on the other hand are great, the colour palletes on the other hand could use some work; some of them just don’t seem to work at all. But perhaps it is just my subjective eyes.

Project Strategies
Project strategies is split up into 4 sections like graphic elements, these include: first impressions (cover designs, advertising and website homepages), then setting the stage (editorial spreads, posters and advertising and retail displays), then the heart of the matter (packaging systems, content websites and extended publications), and then finally letter perfect (which is just a selection of typographical solutions).

Project Strategies on the most part is pretty good, I like how on each design it has a ‘visual profile’. The visual profile just uses graphic design buzz words to describe the piece which is actually pretty helpful and unique. For example: continuity, flow, modular, spatial, narrative, layered etc. etc. It is rare that I say this but the quality of some of these works is at times pretty average. I am used to getting design portfolios and books that just blow you away, but just some of these designs you wonder how they made the cut. Don’t get me wrong on the most part the standard is pretty good, there are just a few stray shooters that make you wonder.

Graphic Designers Essential Reference is good but not heart stopping. The educational section is really great; it’s almost a shame it isn’t any longer. It would be nice if they could interweave the three areas of education, templates and real like examples into one section because they kind of bounce well of one another. Although it is pretty weighty and is titled as a reference book it feels like things are just missing from it, for example where are borders or gradients for example? It is by no means a complete reference book but it is sufficient in delivering a good mix of everything. As a present or for design students I recommend this book, for professionals I would recommend a more in-depth title to use as an essential reference.

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Article by Martin Gibson – Twitter: @martingibson @embody3d - 19.11.2011

ISBN – 9781592535965

The Best of Business Card Design by Rule 29 and published by Rockport is the mother of all business card collections. Rule 29 is a strategic design firm that focuses on making creative matter for a wire array of clients and in their community.

Many see business cards as merely a communication tool, a way to exchange details. Of course to many a business card is a whole lot more. Business cards are a really a representation of you, it is an aspiration of the quality, scope, personality and agenda of your product or service. It is also a first impression and at times the only thing your customer, distributor, supplier or business partner will take away with them to represent you.

The promising thing about business card design is that if you do have a well developed logo or style pack and a sense of creativity a good business card won’t take long to develop.

The business cards featured throughout contain a variety of high quality logos, card, typefaces, colour and shape exploration and trims or cuts.

Each logo has a caption containing the design firm responsible for the design, the individual designer, the client and some contain notes which document the design programs and typefaces used.

I was very surprised that so many designers were using Adobe Indesign to design business cards; of course the majority were using Illustrator, but Indesign just seems like a bewildering choice.

Stylistically it is difficult to capture these designs in words. But if one could choose one word, it would be simplicity. While there are a few extravagant, time-consuming and detailed designs, most possess a minimalist charm often just containing the company logo and the contact details. Another really interesting theme I picked up from The Best of Business Card Design was the amount of business card collections. That is, business cards that are a series of 2 to even 8 cards that make up a whole or work in unison.

There’s not much to this title, it is ridden of any words, analysis or educational entries. But it is full of beautiful business cards in vector or photographic format. The page size is nice and large often scaling the business cards at 1:1 or even larger than life. The business cards are exhibited in a variety of layouts, frames, backgrounds and angles keeping every page a little different. I have never seen business cards of such beauty and quality before, and I have seen many many collections before.

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Article by Martin Gibson – Twitter: @martingibson @embody3d - 30.09.2011

ISBN – 9781592537594

When it comes to a design career, there really isn’t a better moment than university, well despite the lack of pay. However when it comes to projects you don’t find anything better because of the lack of budgets, scope and of course lack of a real life client with all their misdemeanours and often complex and illogical nature. Design School – Extraordinary Class Projects from International Design Schools by Steven Heller and Lita Talarico and published by Rockport brings together the best university graphic design projects from around the world in one neat book. Consider this an end of year show on steroids with the only absence being bad student projects.

Design School is compiled from over 50 teachers covering numerous top art and design schools. Some of these schools include: University of Art and Design – Helsinki Finland, Bologna Academy of Fine Arts – Italy, Berlin University of the Arts – Germany and much more. Teachers were asked to showcase the most interesting and challenging projects from their cohort and what a stunning collection it is. There are some truly fascinating, creative and inspirational projects featured throughout. There is a great mix of projects as well from interface design, graphic and system design. This will certainly appeal to all those product designers out there who find themselves delving into this space as often product designers need to present or contextualise their concept in the best possible light by visualising things like labels and packaging. Projects range from labels, packaging, advertising, point of sale, fashion and accessories, games, puzzles and typography, but really there is a lot more than that.

Design School initiatives by detailing the anatomy of a successful project, it does this by showing both the teachers and students perspective. There are some very interesting projects like a paper scooter and visual storytelling in a narrative form. One of my favourite projects is this toy doll which is promoting support for the humanitarian crisis in Darfur. The project uses a hyperbole on western commercialism and the ridiculousness of our desire for riches when so many suffer in an urgent humanitarian crisis. Some other projects include a way-finding totem for hospitals and an array of modern chair designs, but I won’t spoil the book anymore.

There is quite a lot of text to get through in the book and I feel like the primary font selection in Design School (which I believe is a straight Museo font) although it is clear and it is a beautiful font for headings, as a primary font it is slightly irritating and detracting on the eyes; even a standard arial or helvetica 55 would be a welcome choice. To counter-act this amount of text some full page images would be a great addition to this title; it is a surprising loss considering so many other books in this portfolio genre seem to revel and pride in this presentation means.

One of the great highlights of Design School is that despite its variety and international compilation the book is very well standardised and structured. For example every project is split up into 3 sections: project brief, project goal and project outcome and this format works well for keeping text relevant, relatively concise and still delivers an element of serendipitous discovery from page to page. Design School features some outstanding projects making it a necessity for students in their penultimate year at college or university to gain an understanding of quality expectations. For everyone else there is also inspiration to be garnished. It is a challenge for us persevering in the daily grind that can way down upon is in the workforce to not be scared of trying things differently. Challenge clients, disseminate briefs, undertake research, harness teamwork and professionals these are the subliminal challenges thrown out by Design School.

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Article by Martin Gibson – @embody3d @martingibson – Monday – 19/12/11

This week in Industrial Design features the hottest links to other cool Industrial Design resources from around the web. For your weekly dose of Industrial Design news, events and products check out TWIID! If you have or know of a good resource for TWIID please get in touch with us!

The CAD of Aerospace

What Happened to USA Design?

An Exhibit of Ive

The ID of Braun

Article by Martin Gibson – Twitter: @martingibson @embody3d - 19.11.2011

ISBN – 9781592534821

1000 Type Treatments – From Script to Serif, Letterforms Used to Perfection by Wilson Harvey/Loewy and published by Rockport

The best way to describe 1000 type treatments is that it is a book about standard font manipulation. That is, you have a whole great selection of free and premium fonts in your design program like Adobe Illustrator, now how can you make these fonts dazzle and create interest for your desired project.

The book is split up into the following chapters: Flyers + Leaflets, Books + Magazines, Logos + Stationary, Brochures, Posters + Banners and 3D + Outdoor + Digital.

1000 Type Treatments – From Script to Serif, Letterforms Used to Perfection by Wilson Harvey/Loewy and published by Rockport is an inspiration book featuring hundreds of designs from all around the world. The book never aims to educate you on the process of font manipulation but rather give you ideas for your next design project.

All the designs are beautifully designed and presented as either vectors or as in-context photographs. The amount of designs for each section is just about right giving you enough projects to keep it weighty yet it doesn’t overburden you with inspiration and ideas (which actually can be bad). The designs include your typical grunge, minimalist, colourful, greyscale, ultra-modern, consistent, random, contrast, blended, photographic, vector, playful, scary and bold variety and tones.

For each design image it shows the country of origin and the design firm responsible for the work.

The small pages both have are a positive and a negative. Positive in that it is a cute little reference book to show clients. The obvious downside however is that all the images are small, especially when you divide half of the pages into quadrant images. But for anyone with youthful eyes like myself I am sure this will not be an issue.

There is no doubt the designs are excellent, but it just seems to lack creativity or any kind of distinction from many of the other portfolio books we receive. What’s the point of creating a book, a piece of art, a movie, a product when it doesn’t add anything new or unique to the genre? The only thing unique about Type Treatments is its title, in reality however this book is a polished typical portfolio book. The title brings connotations of surgical precision, unknown methodologies but all you will get are great images and inspiration. The term ‘type treatments’ also suggests it is concerning inner font manipulation, that is, how to edit fonts in a designerly manner to create something new. However 1000 Type Treatments also shows layout changes of fonts, so it shows a standard font at a 90 angle, or the structure is disjointed just to mention a few. Because of this open scope there is nothing that separates these portfolio items from any other design book. I guess an advantage of 1000 Type Treatments is that it houses all these project portfolios of different categories like logos, brochures etc. under one compact roof. 1000 Type Treatments isn’t bad, but nothing new.

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Article by Martin Gibson – Twitter: @martingibson @embody3d - 31.10.2011

ISBN – 9781440310324

Identify – Basic Principles of Identity Design in the Iconic Trademarks of Chermayeff & Geismar by Tom Geismar, Ivan Chermayeff and Sagi Haviv, published by Print Publishing is a dedication to the monumental graphic work of Ivan Chermayeff and Tom Geismar.

If like me and you’re a little distanced from the history and development of logos and trademarks the Yale graduates Ivan Chermayeff and Tom Geismar and their company Chermayeff & Geismar won’t be as recognisable as Michael Jackson or Buzz Aldrin but I can assure you at some stage of your life, whether you’re American or not you would have crossed paths with their work. In fact Chermayeff and Geismar’s work is even known on different planets! Even the red aliens of Mars have witnessed the universal (pun intended) appeal of their design nature. The Chase Bank, Mobil Oil, the Library of Congress, NBC, National Geographic, PBS, Smithsonian Institution, Showtime and Armani Exchange all bare the hallmarks of Chermayeff & Geismar.

Their work transcends time and culture and their influence permeates through the industry to this very day. This is really achieved through a minimalistic style, eclectic influence and a modern outlook of what a brand should communicate to its target audience. It’s staggering at how consistent their design language is yet the amount of diversity they are able to achieve with that style. One logo that really took me by surprise was a logo for a documentary series on PBS called ‘Half the Sky’ which actually includes a photograph of clouds within the logo! A practice which would be frequently frowned upon by top college lecturers. Some of their designs upon first impression seem unfinished or even inappropriate, but once you understand the context, design process and let the design sink in you appreciate the beauty of their work.

The concept of skilfully achieving iconic design is a hotly debated issue amongst academics. That is, is the design itself what makes a logo iconic, or is it the design prevalence amongst society and its familiarity in which we view it what elevates it into this glorified ‘iconic’ status. Who knows, but one can’t falter the great success of Ivan Chermayeff and Tom Geismar. In my eyes there is just something special about it even if one can’t document it utilising the written word; well I guess that’s what design is all about.

What I really enjoyed about Identify was its really personal approach. Through its first person language it really felt like Tom and Ivan were guiding me through a museum of their most cherished pieces. Documenting the thoughts and struggles and development of the work strikes a real bond between the author and reader. Identify does a great job of showing concept drawings, different variations and the finished design in different contexts like posters, flags, brochures, and coffee mugs. In the minimalist style of their work, Identify likewise is presented with these same aspirations with grand pages with sometimes little scrawny logos in the middle adding full focus and appreciation of the design.

Ivan and Tom talk about their problem solving design approach that so many of us designers forget. One can easily overlook the problems of a logo design brief, most of the time it seems there is no problem at all. Identify re-affirms that every design addresses a problem. It might be that the current logo merely doesn’t look good anymore, or the feelings and emotions conveyed in the design have lost touch with a modern market, or the businesses current logo doesn’t represent the businesses core values, products or services. The process of sketching for initial ideation and then further development of the concept using computers is the chief tools of the Chermayeff & Geismar design firm.

There appears to be no order of how and why these logos are placed amongst the pages, but in this instance that’s ok. The book doesn’t make the mistake of becoming stale by revealing all the good designs at the beginning and then drying up. In fact one of the firms most notable designs, the Mobil logo is placed on the very last page taking Identify to a climatic end.

Only sometimes I can say a book truly transforms me to a new level of understanding. Identify certainly does this. For me it emphasises the beauty of simplicity. It is re-assuring to know that beauty doesn’t have to be complex and time-consuming, but rather it has to be of good taste; as they say less is more. What a great tribute to two astounding designers and their design legacy.

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Article by Martin Gibson – @embody3d @martingibson - Monday – 5/12/11

This week in Industrial Design features the hottest links to other cool Industrial Design resources from around the web. For your weekly dose of Industrial Design news, events and products check out TWIID! If you have or know of a good resource for TWIID please get in touch with us!

Investing in 3D Printing

3D Printing Body Parts

Designing a Mars Rover:Curiosity

Apple vs Samsung – The Tablet Wars

Glass Keyboard Design

Article by Martin Gibson – Twitter: @martingibson @embody3d - 31.10.2011

What an interesting book! The Best of News Design by the Society of News Design, published by Rockport. So often when we flick through a newspaper the concept of design is hard to imagine past all the cliché headlines, cheesy celebrity photos, and just bias and often poorly informed journalism. So often newspapers just seem like the pinnacle of efficiency design. It is like a well-oiled train always on time often compromising on imagination and complex thought. With so many templates, poor budgets and tight deadlines, so often the best designed parts of newspapers seem to be the advertisements and that is no exaggeration.

But every so often you will see a feature or a story that will take your breath away. Something that just stands out or strikes interest, or something you admire about the hard work of the collation or the inventive nature gone behind the piece. The Best of News Design is actually a competition that collates these highlight pieces from newspapers around the world.

For those that are asking, this is a product design blog, why on earth are you bothering with this newspaper design. I can’t stress enough the great relevance this book has to product designers. In fact I would go as far to say this is more relevant than any logo or brochure design book we cover on here. The reason for this is that newspapers have the task of telling a story, portraying information/content in an interesting manner. This is something logos and brochures do in a quasi ultra interpretative way but newspapers have to achieve in a literal mass market way. This is the exact angle product designers must venture to communicate their design. Once you delve into The Best of News Design you begin to appreciate the great lengths the artists have gone to reveal the inner-workings and the true nature of events, subjects and stories.

The book has nicely rendered large pages with small captions documenting the newspaper, artist and award category. I don’t want to explore specific examples because I really wouldn’t know where to start as the data visualisations are amazing to say the least. But just to give you an idea of what to expect some illustrations are of wars, sporting events, elections, health, religion, biology, politics, entertainment, crime, natural disasters, history, geology, art and exploration. The authors have picked a real diverse mix of illustrations that cross over languages, cultures, societies, ethnicities and even time which makes the book really interesting. It makes the reader say “where are all these great designs in the real world, they aren’t in my newspaper!”

The illustrations are sorted by award winners and categories like visuals, portfolios etc. While I would prefer it to be sorted into topics like sport, health etc. I can appreciate why The Society for News Design has kept the structure inline with the competition.

Despite The Best of News Design being a competition, one has to appreciate the achievement of bringing these gems into one comprehensive volume, it’s difficult to get these kinds of sources and reproduce them. The book doesn’t have the luxury of nice vector graphics submitted by eager designers, it has to really earn them by discovering them and even at times scanning them in. As a source of inspiration for industrial designers The Best of News Design has loads of potential in the right hands. Even if it isn’t in these crafty palms as a matter of interest and conversation the book is a real entertaining coffee table piece.

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Article by Martin Gibson – @embody3d @martingibson – Sunday – 27/11/11

This week in Industrial Design features the hottest links to other cool Industrial Design resources from around the web. For your weekly dose of Industrial Design news, events and products check out TWIID! If you have or know of a good resource for TWIID please get in touch with us!

Canadian Female Industrial Designers Showcase

Food Industrial Design

Aero Lighting System

The Desk Design

Dare to be Different

Article by Martin Gibson – @embody3d @martingibson – Monday – 21/11/11

This week in Industrial Design features the hottest links to other cool Industrial Design resources from around the web. For your weekly dose of Industrial Design news, events and products check out TWIID! If you have or know of a good resource for TWIID please get in touch with us!

Does Blackberry have any Hope?

Industrial Styled Light Concept

New Age Artists – An Interview

Outdoor Furniture

A Light Tree Concept

Grand Piano Design

Culture and Product Design

Retro Designs

7 Principles of Holistic Product Design

Industrial Design by Braun – MUST SEE!