Helvetica has us surrounded!

Sorry it's been so long since I last posted anything, hope you're all doing well, I'm fine thanks, anyway lets get onto todays post.


This documentary video shows just how often Helvetica is used and how common it is to see in the streets everyday. I'm even using it right now for this post. I think this proves it's one of our favourite type fonts.


YouTube

Word Puzzle 'Universal Wrapping Paper'

Check out this cool wrapping paper concept, called "Universal Wrapping Paper". The crossword puzzle has text for every possible holiday you could think of!


I'm a big fan of this idea, it's great how you could use it for any time of the year and for all types of gifts, Christmas, birthday, Valentines day etc. Saves money not having to bother buying different wrapping paper for each holiday. I wish this was on sale, I'd definitely buy some and I think this wrapping paper would be quite successful in the shops.

TheDieline

Creative fruit carving

These people must really enjoy playing with their food.

Here's a few of my favourite fruit carvings, I've selected some for how humorous they are and others for how accurately carved and detailed they are. Check out the rest of the creative fruit carvings on the link below.

mrBadak

FdA Year 01 summary

Here's is a summary reflecting on my first year as a graphic design student on the FdA course. Click on the image to enlarge the document.

Austin Powers slihouettes

After doing the silhouette workshop of Darren's, I started to spot silhouettes EVERYWHERE... on signs, shadows, logos and more. Then one day watching a classic comedy film; Austin Powers, I noticed that they actually use silhouettes for the humour of a whole scene, in one of the funniest parts of the film. Then I remembered that they actually repeated this method in the final film of the trilogy because it worked so well. Enjoy these YouTube videos of the silhouette scenes.







YouTube

Knokkers!

It's set to be the new top pub game, a cross between pool and ten-pin bowling, where you're the cue. The game was created by Californian cousins Sam Parks & Steve Wienecke. The image below shows Steve trying out his Knokkers game on his £25,000 table, which is the length of two double-decker buses. 'People from all over the world are trying to get their hands on Knokkers' said Sam, it's said to be popular in Britain, the US and China. Besides from you being the cue and having to bowl the ball, the rules are the same to pool. Knokkers looks like a fun game to try, and I can imagine seeing this game in bars in the future. So keep an eye out for this game, because it could be coming to a pub near you.

Metro

Angels seen falling down to Earth!

The irresistible scent of new Lynx Excite is causing angels to rain down from the skies to Earth. The video above about someone who had a great idea to make it if you stand inside a square that was marked out in Victoria station and look up an interactive angel appears to be beside you on the big screen you face. A great way to advertise a new brand, which adds fun to it. The video below is the full length version of the TV advert for the new Lynx deodorant released, Lynx Excite.





YouTube

Jimi Hendrix plectrum mosaic

This one-of-a-kind mosaic of legendary guitarist Jimi Hendrix was made by artist Ed Chapman, using 5,000 different guitar plectrums. The plectrums used to create the 120 cm x 100 cm artwork are made by Fender, the guitar brand Hendrix is known to have been most fond of. The mosaic was auctioned at a charity event for the Cancer Research UK's Sound & Vision fundraiser event, It was sold for £23,000! 


Ed said,
"I am very happy to have raised so much money from something that was fun to make. Jimi is a guitar legend and nobody played a Fender guitar quite like him."

I like this mosaic for several reasons, one because of it being of Hendrix, who's music I am a big fan of. However my main reason, is that it's such a simple yet clever idea to make a mosaic using plectrums.


What the Cool
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Chapman mosaics
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Oddity Central

The Fun Theory: Volkswagen Masters the Viral Video

Here's some great viral videos made by Volkswagen (or rather ad agency DDB Stockholm). Their new campaign "The Fun Theory"is a series of experiments captured on video to find out if making the world more fun can improve peoples behaviour.


Experiments captured on video below are: does turning a set of subway stairs into a real-life piano encourage people to use them (answer: yes, 66% more). Another experiment asks whether making a trash can sound like a 50ft-deep well will make people pick up their trash. An upcoming experiment, meanwhile, will turn a bottle recycling centre into an arcade game.


Both these finished experiments are great and very humorous, but I think my favourite has to be the piano stairs, if underground stations in London had this, I'd be late for college everyday playing on the stairs. They also remind me of the Chopsticks scene in the movie 'Big', at the bottom of this post i've attached a YouTube video of Tom Hanks having fun playing with a giant piano.

Mashable
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YouTube

Tall Psychedelic Painting

Check out his video of this tall psychedelic painting, it's amazing. The vibrant flowing colours are beautiful, I would love to try this myself, it looks like it needs A LOT of paint and good timing for it to work properly.




YouTube

Dead Bin Laden newspaper front pages

Many of the front pages use the same photo of Bin Laden, but treat it differently with the use of colour, bold headlines, type size and placement. By Wednesday, a couple days after Bin Laden's death, newspaper front pages featured unanswered questions, like "Who pulled the trigger?" and "What did Pakistan know?". On the link below, there is almost 50 of the best front pages on Osama Bin Laden's death, I've picked out a selection of my favourites.

Poynter

Recycle Newspaper - Improved for Summative Assessment

Sorry for not posting anything for a while but life's been busy recently... but I'm back. After putting some extra time into the Graphic Design of this project, especially the layout and typography, I feel I've made a big improvement to when I handed it in for the Formative Assessment earlier this year. I feel that adding more text to the pages of the newspaper also helped as It explains what you're looking at. My favourite pages in the newspaper are 'The China Question', again because of the duck, but also for how much it had been improved with how the text fits into the columns, and the Chinese type font which I was very pleased with finding online.

Open publication - Free publishing - More newspaper


issuu

Amazing Macro Photography

Have a look at these amazing close-up photographs of insects taken by photographer Thomas Shahan. It's not often that you see an insect from this close a range, that they actually have a bit of an alien look to them.

Here's Thomas Shahans camera set up, including his lens and flash. To take some photographs which capture this much detail, this guy must have the 'Top Gear'.

Check out more of Thomas Shahans work on the link below.


flickr

Alarm Dance

Here are a couple of the Alarm Dance videos made by London-based artist Daniel Eatock (born 1975). One of his projects he's done is a set of videos with different dances to a range of different car alarms. Eatocks artwork has a lot of humour to it, which is one of the main things that attracted me to his work. If you're interested in seeing more of Daniel Eatock, visit www.eatock.com to explore more of his projects.






Daniel Eatock

Starbucks logo update

In march 2011, the most powerful brand in coffee, Starbucks, started using a simplified logo to coincide with the 40th anniversary of the company. The new logo does away with the Starbucks coffee' text and the outer ring, leaving only the siren in green. Starbucks are now like Nike with their logo, they've been around for so long now, and are so big, that everyone knows them and there's no need for the text on the logo.

"The result is an evolved logo that celebrates the siren in a much bolder way - it's more expressive and energetic and still uses the same vibrant green circle that is so well recognised by our customers around the world"
Mike P., Senior Creative Manager, Starbucks


I totally agree with the Senior Creative Managers thoughts on the new logo, they managed to change and improve it, by keeping the only part of the logo that was really needed anymore.



designboom

Bubble Project

The Bubble Project instantly transforms any annoying ads you may find on the street, public transport etc into open public dialogues. More bubbles mean more freed spaces, more sharing of personal thoughts, more reaction to current events, and more importantly, more imagination and fun. After watching the slideshow of bubbles I found it to be idea with some very humorous results, and feel It would be a fun and easy thing to try myself one time.




Bubble Project

Customise your Converse All-Stars

I am a huge fan of Converse All-Stars, and have my own little collection of Cons in a variety of different colours. Converse is launching its new customisation service, you can get your Converse stuff inked, exclusively at Selfridges. In a matter of minutes you can personalise your trainers using a library of 200 graphics, which will be regularly updated with new designs. If your interested in customising your Converse All-Stars, you can get more info and sign up for it on www.selfridges.com.

Customise your Converse at Selfridges

ASICS silhouettes

My brand idea was to 'Live in your shoes' meaning to wear them 24/7 doing all activities and wearing them in all environments, so the idea is that you can wear your ASICS EVERYday, EVERYwhere, doing EVERYthing. Below are silhouettes of a scuba diver, ballet dancer and Elvis. I decided to go with a similar style to the Apple iPod silhouette adverts. I gave the silhouettes thought bubbles saying "live in your shoes" because that's what the people wearing ASICS would think 24/7. My favourite of the 3 posters I made using card was Elvis, what's yours? When I hand this project in again in the summer I plan to have made these using Illustrator and Photoshop so I can possibly change the layout, edit them more, and do more changes which I think of.

Star Wars Apple iPod Silhouette

While searching the web for interesting or humorous things to put on my blog I bumped into these silhouettes of Star Wars characters, copying the famous advert for the Apple iPod. After seeing these I would like my final piece for the Interbrand project on ASICS shoes to have some silhouettes in it. My favourite is either Darth Vader or Chewbacca, what's yours?

Animated Star Wars Apple iPod silhouette ad

ASICS: Origami "In Pursuit of Perfection"

This video relates a bit to my previous project of recycling paper because of the origami. This is a wonderful video which tells the story of ASICS in a creative way, it goes from talking of things which happened in the past, to what the future is for ASICS.




YouTube

The Gadget Show

This is a video of The Gadget Show looking at sports trainers, in this episode former sprinter for the United Kingdom, Linford Christie, tests running shoes. He compares a pair of ASICS, Nike and Somnios, and gives his opinion of which are the most comfortable to run in. The video is on this website: 
http://fwd.channel5.com/gadget-show/videos/jon-test/sports-trainers



Gadget Show

1976 Olympics gymnastics Shun Fujimoto

ASICS for Japan is what NIKE is for the USA, ASICS dominate the streets with a high % of people wearing them both for sport and just for comfort and looking cool. The whole of Japans Olympic team wear ASICS shoes, and in the 1976 summer olympics hosted in Montreal, Canada, a Japanese gymnast Shun Fujimoto won a gold medal for Japan on the rings with a broken leg.




YouTube

Royal Footwear

Another famous face I discovered wears ASICS shoes is heir to the throne, the future King of England, Prince William. He's actually wearing the same Onitsuka Tigers as I have, so I can actually say that I wear the same shoes as the Prince. He must've had these shoes custom made and measured to fit his feet by a pro flown in from Japan, no doubt fitted by the owner Mr Kihachiro Onitsuka himself.

Kill Bill

While researching ASICS shoes I bumped into a funny fact which I'd bet a lot of people aren't aware of. I found out that hollywood star Uma Thurman wears Onitsuka Tigers made by ASICS in the blockbuster film Kill Bill. She had her own custom made shoes created for the film, the shoe model is called Onitsuka Tiger - Mexico 66 - Yellow/Black. The shoes she wore in the 2003 & 2004 films were part of the retro relaunch of Onitsuka Tigers. She might also wear them in the Kill Bill trilogy when the third film, Kill Bill: Vol. 3 gets released in 2014. I searched for these shoes in several of the ASICS shops including the Onitsuka Tigers store but couldn't find them, they must sell them somewhere, maybe online, maybe abroad.

Making of Onituka Tiger Made of Japan

This video is amazing, I love the idea of this... ASICS island. It must have been so fun to be part of the team making this. One of the first things I thought when I watched this was "I wish I thought of it first".


Making of Onitsuku Tiger Made of Japan from Brooklyn Model Works on Vimeo.


vimeo

ASICS Running Shoes

For this project I chose to re-brand or re-fresh ASICS. The popular Japanese running shoe known as ASICS have been developing sports shoes and apparel for more than 50 years now. They are very popular with olympic athletes and marathon runners, that apparently 50% of the people taking part in the London Marathon wear them. One thing that makes ASICS unique from other running shoes is their technology such as their core GEL cushioning system which has helped to create some of the most comfortable and performance enhancing shoes and apparel on the market, which is true because I bought a pair of their Onitsuka Tigers which are surprisingly comfortable. The company name, an acronym for the Latin phrase "Anima Sana In Corpore Sano", means "Sound Mind In A Sound Body". Check out ASICS website listed below.

ASICS
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ASICS/about

Project briefing at Interbrand

For this project we got briefed at Interbrands London office on 85 Strand, which was just a 5 minute walk from Covent Garden underground station. It was very professional looking on the inside, with a nice view out the window of central London. Here's an image of Interbrand from outside using Street view on Google maps, followed by some of the photographs I'd taken myself while indoors.

 

 

Google maps

Interbrand

One of the first things I did when I got this brief was search the web to find out more about Interbrand. Straight away when I had a read about them on their website I was surprised about how famous and global they are for their work. Interbrand started in 1974 and have now nearly got 40 offices and are the world's largest brand consultancy. The list of huge clients they've worked for goes on and on, with big names on it like McDonald's, Samsung, BMW and more. Check out their website on the link below.

Interbrand

Interbrand brief

Here's the brief to my 2nd wave project; a branding project working with the well known branding agency Interbrand.

The future to packaging in supermarkets?

Here's some more new technology that science is bringing to shops for the future:



Apparently the technology inside the box only costs 10 cents. The supermarket shelves would need to have some kind of electric conducting strip on them though to make the boxes actually light up. So it would only work in the supermarket, not in your cupboard at home. Thinking about it, if this got popular and the supermarket had the flashing lights right down the aisle it could look like some kind of disco nightclub, so they may as well give the shop a dance floor too.


YouTube

LEGO Augmented Reality

This augmented reality kiosk called "DIGITAL BOX" has been developed by LEGO Digital Systems and metaio. It's awesome, all you have to do is hold up a LEGO box in front of a camera and a 3-D representation of the fully assembled model is projected on top of it. You can rotate the box and the model moves with it.






After an evaluation phase it is now rolled out to LEGO brand stores worldwide and is widely seen as one of the best examples of augmented reality in marketing. I think the kiosk will make shopping funner and easier, because you won't have to just guess which toy is better from the image on the packaging, you can now see inside it, and see the constructed toy from all angles, and view its scale, without having to even open the box.

I don't think the augmented reality kiosk is going to only be seen in LEGO stores for long, because I believe this is the future to shopping.


YouTube - LEGO Augmented Reality

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YouTube - LEGO DIGITAL BOX - augmented reality kiosk system

Strictly Cone Dancing

I liked this video not just for the simple yet humorous idea, but also its name; which is taken from the hit UK dance show Strictly Come Dancing.




filthy luker
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YouTube

Recycle Newspaper

Here's how the final piece looked at the end of the project. Overall I'm pleased with my work but feel if it just had one more weeks work put into it, it could have been much better. I think I did more research than was required for me to do and I'd taken too long on deciding my theme, if I hadn't made these mistakes with my time management I would have gotten more time to spend on the layout and improving the graphic design like the typography. My feedback from the tutors was ok, and Alex Jarvis liked my duck, he said I had a "Nice quirky way of looking at things" and I had "Playful ideas on re-use of paper - interesting ideas for interactivity". My tutor Darren said "There are some nice interesting ideas here" and "The best bit which should be explored more is the 7 days for a newspaper to become a newspaper again".

Open publication - Free publishing - More project


issuu

Success by Design

This is a newspaper designed as a collaborative 1 day project in class, we split the class into 4 groups which each had to design 3 pages of the newspaper. Everyone in the group would be given a different job, such as Art Director, Editor, Senior Designer, Graphic Designer, Artworking and Digital imaging. My group did pages 7, 8 & 9, the jobs I was given were Artworking and Digital imaging.

Open publication - Free publishing - More student work

issuu
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Jo Spencer

Art made from recycled newspaper

I really like these images I found online of amazing pieces of art made from everyday newspapers. They all look great, but a few of them help the planet more by using the newspaper to make something that not only looks good but has a use to it as well.

Art Made From Recycled Newspaper

Editorial design

In class with Jo we looked at editorial design. This included looking at all the different roles their is in an editorial team, then we looked at the process of content planning and process of design by making FlatPlans. Enjoy these interesting videos which show designing a magazine in fast motion.





YouTube - Designing a Magazine in Fast Motion
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YouTube - Page design

Origami

Once I had decided the theme to my newspaper would be recycling newspaper, I looked up all different ways that newspaper can be recycled creatively. The main one I've been looking at recently is origami. After trying to do some of my own origami, I discovered how precise the folds have to be in order for it to work, the folding instructions are far more complex compared to a paper aeroplane. When I was searching the web for folding instructions on origami pieces I found this site with galleries which are FULL of different objects to make out of paper. Gilad's Origami Page is the home of the largest collection of origami book reviews and photo galleries. The images below are only a small amount of the origami on this site.




I might use origami to communicate something about Elephant & Castle because LCC is located there, by making an elephant like the one above. Make sure you check out the gallery of origami pieces on the websites link below.

Gilad's Origami Page

BERG

For the Newspaper Club project, Alex Jarvis is a designer at BERG who will be coming in to help crit the work, at the interim crit and again 2 weeks later at the final formative assessment. BERG is a design consultancy, working hands-on with companies to research and develop their technologies and strategy, primarily by finding opportunities in networks and physical things. Alex graduated from Central St Martins in 2007 with First Class Honours in BA Graphic Design. For the last year he has also been a mentor on the FdA mentorship scheme at the LCC, providing advice and assistance to students in their second year of the course. Alex knows what I should be aiming for in this project so I will be listening to his feedback from my crit.

Alex Jarvis

At the interim crit I had 5 minutes to present how my work was going, my feedback wasn't great but it helped me understand the project better and decide that the theme to my newspaper was going to be recycling newspaper, the crit was also a bit of a wake up call which got me to knuckle down and knock up some real sized prototypes.

BERG