Where my buttons

The design of these buttons were inspired Micheal Schroder, Berlin 1983. In his book there there is a black&white picture of a button that read "Wearing badges is not enough". The badges were created for the Mr.Motley project and are exact replicas but one of the badges says the complete opposite to put a twist on the original. 

Browns

Jetset Wristbands

SMCS Campaign

The abbreviation SMCS and the use of the typeface Univers refers to the original Stedelijk Museum. The use of the red and blue diagonal lines refers to the pattern found on an airmail envelopes.

The SMCS logotype is basically a crossroads of two histories; the history of Stedelijk Museum as an institute, and the history of the former Post Office that is now the new, temporary location of the museum.

This poster deals with the idea of "now" and very cleverly refers to the concept of time. This has been done by letting the letters of the name SANDBERG slip away, like sand in an hourglass, brilliant.

 

This final poster is advertising 'Open daily', and this is communicated by the positioning of the type. It as if the type is leaning against the frame of the showcase, as if it is quite lazy.  

Non alcoholic beer does have it's uses!

A great ad, perfect for it's target audience and funny!

Layout

This is a poster by April Greiman for the Pacific Design Centre. Greiman drew on the language of video and computer as well as print graphics. By using this technique and laying out the type to a degree a rigour, she has created a harsh space retro feel to the poster. Some of the type appears as if you require blue and red lensed glasses to read it.

Urinal

I am not normally impressed or inspired by abstract expressionism, but I am intrigued sometimes. However, Marcel Duchamp does impress, inspire and intrigue me. It was in the 1920s when Duchamp randomly began picking up objects from the world around him and either combining them into unique constructions or simply announcing them as art. Duchamp proves as artist or designers we can create something so radical, so controversial and so ahead of it's time, theres nothing we can't do. He proves there are no boundaries and no rules, and this is why I am inspired by Marcel Duchamp. Plus I do like to think he may of not been trying to create a new art form and was simply just keeping himself entertained and having fun doing humorous works in an area which was so strict at the time.      

Fountain (by R.Mutt), 1917

Why Pepsi is better than Coke.

This is a banned Pepsi advert I found on youtube, you might have seen it before, but it is one if my favourite adverts. It shows that you can have fun with advertising and have the license to be controversial, even without words. I do not believe putting down your competitors is very good marketing or branding but in this advert there is no mention of why one is better or why one is worse, it just is. I am also a fan of adverts set out to get banned as they arguably create more hype and a bigger response to the campaign.

Franz Ackermann

The above images were painted by Franz Ackermann, who is a German artist born in 1963. I first became interested in Ackermann's work when I was studying in my first year of college. I came across a piece of his called 'Helicopter' which reminded me a little of pop art and a more graphic side of art/painting. The painting compressed any sense of real space to create a flatness which looked almost like a logo. After looking more into his work I was inspired by his concentric use of colour and pattern and his controlled chaos of his layouts. 

 These set of paintings were interpretations of destinations, known as 'mental maps', and Ackermann uses tangled organic masses together with all the other elements of his painting such as colour, composition and perspective to communicate the chaotic lifestyles we lead and our warped perspectives about society. 

Olympics continued through animation.

One of my main interests as a designer is animation and illustration. Staying with the Olympic theme, this is an animation by Damon Albarn and Jamie Hewlett. It featured in the build up to the Beijing Olympics on the BBC. I think the animation is captivating, exciting and well executed. It has been slightly criticised for being stereotypical, but I think the style of the animation has just the right balance of Chinese influence. I like how the animation is kept to 2-D but still manages to provide so much detail. As well as the illustrations themselves I enjoyed how each character was brought to life and how each event was represented through a well thought out story about a journey the East. I just wanted to watch more.

 Any guesses to whom Damon Albarn and Jamie Hewlett make music videos for?

Olympic Debate

As the olympic games have only just ended I thought I would start my blog by carrying on the Olympic theme. Above is the logo for the London 2012 Olympic games and it appears on my blog as it represents one of the fundamental reasons I got involved in the design world, debate. Ever since the symbol was revealed it has caused debate and controversy. Everyone seems to have an opinion on it ,which I believe, means it is a good design. Good design should always create debates, and it will be interesting to see if it's large criticism is fair or if the emblem is just too ahead of it's time and by 2012 is widely enjoyed by designers and the public?