And Snow Covered The Land…

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…

(also on flickr)

Steal or copy—treading the fine line

“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.

(quotes reminded by Adi – RO link)

Type & patterns — beautiful work by Andrew Townsend

I wish I made these. They’re that beautiful. Andrew Townsend’s NTU Degree Shows 09 invitations and print materials look just wonderful. Mixing patterns with colour and a strong typeface surely hits the right spot. See for yourself (definitely browse his website for more treats):

(via Graphic-Exchange, thanks Cipri)

Get your own Periodic Table of Typefaces

Remember the Periodic Table of Typefaces? Well, you can print your own now—thanks to the high demand, the kind folks at Squidspot can send you the vector files—donating is of course encouraged. I surely got mine already—I couldn’t consider myself a type-fan without having this on my wall :P

You can also buy the new versions, printed silver on black or white:

“Browse less & draw more”

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)

Sketchnotes by Mike Rohde

Take a look at this:

Looks nice, right? Well, it’s a “sketchnote”, a quick drawing while Mike Rohde opend up his iPhone 3GS package (more photos on his flickr). Sketchnotes seem to be more efficient (not to mention, a lot more pleasing to the eye) than regular notes. Associations Now Magazine decided to let Mike design his interview on the subject, titled “Are you a visual thinker?”. You can view Mike’s design process here. Here are some images for apetizers—can’t help but admire his hand-drawn type:

Later edit:
Mike’s posted the PDF of the entire article, thanks to many requests. Get it from here.

Type jewelry from Base Design

Base Design developed this insanely beautiful type-based identity for Karen Karch, a NY jewelry store. I’d love to see how their store looks like, how the alternating type is further applied to POS, stationery, livery and so on.

(thanks go to Alin)

Periodic Table of Typefaces

I’m glad there are insane type maniacs among us, creating such useful things as the Periodic Table of Typefaces. Up on the wall with it!

Right-click, Save As — this is the large version

(thanks Adrian for the tip)