"...There are, however, some designers and even clients who insist that the public deserve and will respond to much higher standards in graphics. They are convinced, as Charlie Chaplin was convinced, that the best way to entertain the public is to first entertain oneself."
Such a wonderful thing to draw aimlessly on a torn paper, randomly picked among the piles of books and papers on your desk, never knowing what you’ll eventually get to — and not even suspecting that it’ll be related in any way to future events. If Mr. Glaser says ‘drawing is thinking‘, could it be that drawing is also a small peek into the future? I wonder…
The 16th theme for the periodical Design Challenge was a series of covers for Jules Verne books. The mandatories demanded the design of three jackets, hinting the graphic style for the entire series (54 in total).
You can also check out Ciprian’s wonderful solution here.
Design Challenge is a group of creative people that test their wits and talents on periodically-given themes (usually on a two-weeks basis). The themes are given by rotation and are based on less comercial topics like book covers, movie posters, music covers and others (most of us work as brand designers so we try to challenge ourselves with something different from what we do every day).
Jay Jay Johanson sang tonight.
A voice out of this world.
An immense joy for the soul.
•••
If only had I had the pleasure of listening to him somewhere else. I can’t yet describe in words the anger and the desperation that overwhelmed me while watching the people around me. Jay Jay’s music may have trip-hop and electro elements, but in its essence, it’s very close to blues, or old school jazz — a melancholic man singing from the bottom of his heart. How can one trample underfoot such sincere music?
More than half of the ‘audience’ was talking loudly, chitchatting like grocery sellers in the market, backs turned from the scene, smoking their fetid cigarettes and drinking their beer. No respect whatsoever for the few that were all-ears, no respect for the few that felt shivers down their spines whenever Jay Jay’s voice sighed or trembled. No respect for themselves, the ones that are the ‘educated’ young hope for the romanian future. We all know each other more or less — advertisers, journalists, so called modern artists, musicians, entertainers, djs, vjs and so on. Small world. Crème de la crème. The ones present at every hip, cool, trendy, ‘indie’, ‘underground’, ‘alternative’ music event. Muse? They were there. Massive Attack? Of course. Placebo? Cohen? Goldfrapp? IAMX? You bet. All there. Sitting around, chatting and drinking. Like they just got there by mistake. Like it didn’t matter whether the singer was singing about his lost love or the last three burgers he just wolfed down while watching the game. Too bad Jay Jay didn’t have the strong enough sound system to cover up the truth: there is no real cultural demand in Romania. It’s all a façade.
Fuck you very much, hipsters and yuppies. You just proved once more that Romania doesn’t deserve to be european. Not now and not in the next ten years. And that’s being optimistic.
“The secret to creativity is knowing how to hide your sources”
—Albert Einstein
“Bad artists copy. Great artists steal.”
—Pablo Picasso
“Instinct [...] is memory in disguise—works quite well when trained, poorly otherwise.”
—Robert Bringhurst
•••
Last night I couldn’t go to sleep before making this poster (larger here)—it stood as a sketch in my Moleskine for two days. It is one of my works for the 15th Design Challenge (the theme being a bike-day-or-ride poster with the title “I want to ride my bicycle”). The concept is great: a giant, red-striking, italic B (Futura UltraBold, of course) suggesting the word “bicycle”, helped by the small bike icon (InfoPict Two) and being part of an already very well known song line, “I want to ride my bicycle” from Queen. Add that big red letter over a black&white photo (bikes in their urban environment) and you have a clear winner. Looks great (I actually have people that can testify, so please excuse the self-praise :P)
However, this poster—most likely—wouldn’t have been born without seeing another poster three days ago, browsing Flickr. This one was made by Gabriel & Svoboda, exibited at the A:Event—larger here.
Now, the obvious troubling question is: how much is my poster mine?
Sure, they only have the big italic B in common, and the black&white poster is obviously not the first or the last one to make use of a huge, dominating letter as the main focus of its composition. Just as I’m not the first to use red Futura UltraBold over black&white photography—Barbara Kruger did this way back, and she’s in most design books so almost every designer has seen her work at some point, even if only by visiting Centre Pompidou.
Usually we don’t really remember our influences, mostly because we always filter everything we see and learn through our own personality, through our own creative talent. I didn’t think of Barbara Kruger at all when I designed the poster, I only remembered her while writing this analisys. God knows how many other influences I had. But I did know about the other poster, I specifically wrote down in my sketchbook to use the big italic B to illustrate my own ideas.
In the end, I guess it comes down to how much the work is your own, to how well you’ve managed to bring it close to your soul, to how much you believe in it. To how much you’ve “stolen” it or made it your own, as Picasso says. Do I like the poster? Of course, I’m proud of it. Is it mine? I think so. But being an intelligent person, I’m never completely sure of anything (“Only fools are 100% sure, son” “You sure, dad?” “Of course, son”).
This having been said, in commercial work there’s a pretty different story. The last thing you want is to find out that your design resembles another—your whole effort for differentiating your client can be ruined just because somebody somewhere had a similar idea. This is why market research is important, just as keeping yourself informed on other fellow designers’ work is (but this also influences your work—feel the irony?)
Come to think of it, there is this recent case that touches the same problem: Wolff Olins’ Docomo vs Pentagram’s MAD. Many hurried to cry “copy-cat”, but that’s just plain thought-less reaction. All designers, consultants and advertisers (the serious ones, that is) know how many elements are involved during a project. And we all know that you can’t reinvent the wheel. The basic shapes will remain the same, nobody can “own” them, just like T-Mobile can’t own magenta—that’s just against common sense.
It’s always so inspiring to listen to Michael Bierut. This time he talks about five things, ‘five secrets’ he’s learned while working, and he shares them while explaining five relevant projects.
If you’re lazy or just here for a quick reminder, here are the five: • Listen first, then design
• Don’t avoid the obvious
• The problem contains the solution
• Indulge your obsessions
• Love is the answer
Brandient won Best of Awards and Merit for Dedeman and CEC Bank this year on Rebrand. I can’t describe how proud I am to have taken part in these projects and especially to see Brandient recognized as a top-level branding and design company, not only in the under-developed romanian market, but on the international one, running with the ‘big dogs’ :)
You can see the before and after logos in the following images:
Wonderful work and especially eye-drooling typography from Mucca Design (offices in NY and SF). I like how they manage to generate series of books, not just individual covers—talking about covers, you should definitely check the new covers on Design Challenge.
This is probably the best piece of advice I could ever give to a fellow designer. And I’m very very sure Mr. Milton Glaser would agree, as you can read in this interview, with Chip Kidd.
I made an iPhone wallpaper out of it, to keep it in mind as much as possible—maybe, just maybe I’ll be able to actually take this advice myself. Feel free to use it. Let me know if you like it. Thanks :)
Browse less & draw more
And yes, nothing beats Futura. Ever. (small hint to IKEA :P)
Fun video for Wheezer’s song, The Greatest Man Who Ever Lived, featuring Warren Miller:
The song would be pretty much crap without the adrenaline oozing from Miller’s rides. But it did remind me of Wheezer’s funny video and song, Buddy Holly, directed by Spike Jonze (remember Daft Punk’s Da Funk?). This was the first video I saw on my new Windows 95 PC (it came on the CD), back in the days when Mortal Kombat 2 was the thing :))
