Google is celebrating what would have been graphic designer Saul Bass' 93rd birthday with
a Doodle celebrating some of his most famous title sequences. The doodle, set appropriately to
Dave Brubeck's "Unsquare Dance, " pays homage to Bass' visual work on
Psycho,
The Man With The Golden Arm,
Spartacus,
West Side Story,
Vertigo,
North by Northwest,
Anatomy of a Murder, and
Around the World in 80 Days.
posted by troika
on May 8, 2013 -
30 comments
Photoshop Blend Modes Explained: When you use Photoshop, do you just fiddle with opacity, multiply, and overlay until your image is sort of close to the effect you're going for? Did you figure out two or three blend combinations and then never use any others? Robert Thomas explains the logic behind blend modes, so you can blend more purposefully.
posted by ocherdraco
on Apr 11, 2013 -
17 comments
State of America from Julian Montague: I was recently commissioned to create a series of prints for Print Collection.com. The series
depicts the surprisingly diverse and slightly strange official insignia of the American states.
There are 50 (18x24 inch) prints in the series (titled State of America), including birds, mammals,
grains, fossils, minerals, insects and more.
posted by OmieWise
on Jan 7, 2013 -
12 comments
The legendary Swiss graphic designer
Donald Brun (1909-1999) was a master of the Object Poster (where the image is paramount in selling the product), an artform that thrived in the early and mid-20th Century before cheaper paper and printing and distribution methods made it virtually obsolete. Brun's work is marked by humor and whimsy, bright bold colors and shapes, a wide variety of graphic styles (although it is often compared to classic children's book illustrations), and animals.
[more inside]
posted by julen
on Nov 2, 2012 -
7 comments
Time to make the logos. Take 300, yes 300, fan blogs with all kinds of inconsistent, homemade, clip-art, crappy logos and re-design ALL of them to be consistent with one over-arching look and feel. Oh... and do it in 7 weeks.
[more inside]
posted by pixlboi
on Sep 24, 2012 -
28 comments
North Americans may have noticed that
U-Haul trucks and trailers are emblazoned with colorful
SuperGraphics. First created in 1988 (
previously), the mobile gallery now comprises 206 images. Most U.S states and Canadian territories and provinces are now honored by multiple designs, as are
the U.S. armed forces and 9/11. The classic
America and Canada's Moving Adventure series, seen on trucks and
trailers, features an iconic image for each state, province and territory. The
Venture Across America and Canada series, begun in 1997, presents
"carefully researched rare findings, little-known facts and mysteries," exploring science and nature, technology and history. At the U-Haul website, the "Learn More" link on each Venture SuperGraphic page leads to a surprisingly exhaustive discussion of the subject of each graphic.
[more inside]
posted by BrashTech
on Jul 22, 2012 -
30 comments
Are you curious how the brand of a large suite of complementary products is developed? It's more interesting than you might think.
Adobe describes the decisions that went into the new icons, splash screens, and other brand elements of Creative Suite 6.
posted by gilrain
on May 25, 2012 -
23 comments
"
Gridiron League is a collection of idealized NFL insignias that pay tribute to each team's history and geography in a period-specific aesthetic that glorifies the Vince Lombardi-era over the
Cold-Activated-era. This is not an exercise in nostalgia but an interpretation of the league's founding principles through the symbols that we, as football fans, identify with most."
[more inside]
posted by Doleful Creature
on Jan 25, 2012 -
45 comments
Swissted New York graphic designer
Mike Joyce takes vintage flyers from punk, hardcore and indie rock shows and redesigns them "into international typographic style posters. Each poster is sized to the standard swiss kiosk dimensions of 35.5 inches wide by 50 inches high and set in berthold akzidenz grotesk medium, all lowercase. Every single one of these shows actually happened."
posted by BitterOldPunk
on Jan 11, 2012 -
36 comments
Penguin announces a cover contest for John Green's An Abundance of Katherines. John Green, one half of the
VlogBrothers (
previously on metafilter), is also a
Young Adult novelist. His upcoming book,
The Fault in Our Stars, has topped pre-order lists since its title was announced in June of 2011, thanks in no small part to Green's promise to
sign all pre-ordered copies of the book (150,000 total, as determined by his publisher).
Since the upcoming novel's title release,
fan-made covers have made the rounds on Tumblr, some for which Green has expressed
admiration himself. As it turns out, Penguin went with a
professionally-designed cover for TFiOS, but has also announced a contest to determine which fan-made cover it'll use for the next printing of Green's second novel,
An Abundance of Katherines.
posted by litnerd
on Oct 19, 2011 -
18 comments
"Anyone who was around New York City in the late 1980s and early '90s couldn't have missed the work of the
AIDS Coalition To Unleash Power, better known as
ACT UP. Its group's activism reached a fever pitch during the early '90s, when the iconic black '
Silence=Death' posters and t-shirts seemed ubiquitous downtown and served as somewhat more defiant symbols for the Gay community than the rainbow flags that took over to serve that role slightly later. ...
So what were we to think as we wandered through
Barneys Co-op in Chelsea yesterday when we spied a whole shelf full of
T-shirts featuring ACT UP's famous imagery [priced each at $50 ... 'a portion of that price tag will go to the activist group'] as if they were magically transported there from 20 years ago?"
[more inside]
posted by ericb
on Mar 14, 2011 -
48 comments
Don't Make Excuses - Make Good! Between World Wars I and II, the U.S. economy was booming - workers had choices and employers competed for their time. How to motivate and gain loyalty from a labor force that knew it could walk out the door and find more work soon?
Charles Mather, head of a family printing business in Chicago, offered employers a solution: the
first motivational posters for the private workplace market. Printed between 1923 and 1929, Mather's "
Work Incentive Posters" used strong imagery and short, clear messaging to encourage workplace values like
teamwork, punctuality, safety, and loyalty. Today, some of his 350 designs can be seen in
traveling exhibitions and
poster galleries, and
Antiques Road Show - or you can soak up some motivation from his modern-day successors at
Successories - or
generate your own.
[more inside]
posted by Miko
on Oct 12, 2010 -
25 comments
Canter’s Deli font comes full circle. Graphic designer makes actual typeface family out of casual script seen on sign for classic L.A. deli, Canter’s. (
Wins award!) Youngest, hippest member of the family that owns the diner later independently Googles
"Canter's Deli" + font, locates type designer, then hires him to custom-design a Canter’s “gourmet food truck.” “[W]hat was interesting to me was that this whole scenario could not have happened without the magic of the Internet and search engines.”
posted by joeclark
on Sep 13, 2010 -
37 comments
