"...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."

“Voyages Extraordinaires”—16th theme from Design Challenge

Posted: December 21st, 2009 | Author: Iancu | Filed under: design, personal, type | Tags: , , | No Comments »

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).

Here are my designs:


— click here to view the full size image

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).

Design Challenge — something for the soul

Posted: June 3rd, 2009 | Author: Iancu | Filed under: design, thoughts | Tags: , | 4 Comments »

For quite a while now I’ve been dreaming, hoping, pondering, trying to come up with some sort of solution to force myself in working and doing more of the stuff that I like, that I chose to do for the rest of my life—design. ‘Unfortunately’, we’re not as lucky as Michelangelo, Durer or other masters, we have internet, instant messaging, tv and so on, so many things that distract us from what we truly like to do.

Eventually, a solution came up: to give myself a “non-comercial” theme to think and design, every two weeks or so. Worried as I was that I wouldn’t be serious enough to keep doing it on a regular basis, I managed to convince some of my friends to join in, hoping that if I wouldn’t design for my eyes only, at least for them I would :) (I still remember very fondly my college years when I’d work and wait unpatiently for the end of the semester when everybody would show their projects—competing with them was the true school).

So, this is it: Design Challenge.
A flickr account where every two weeks all the members post their work on the previously given theme. Working only for the sheer pleasure of challenging wits and talent.

Here’s a glimpse of how the set with the works looks:
Design Challenge

Since all the members are romanian, comments are not in english. But you’ll get the general idea, trust me. Enjoy :)