Graphic Fix

Stripped Logos

Dorothy, a collective of designers and artists, has just created this series of paintings of iconic logos stripped of their names, creating a series that looks like potentially could have been by Frank Stella or Ellsworth Kelly in the ’60s. I wonder if a lot of these logos were created around the same time?

 

Pretty interesting to see which of them still look pretty when they’re just art without the words!

Graphic Fix

Dear ____ Cards

Dear Sapling Press,

Your cards made me laugh out loud.

Thank you for making something so clever.

Eliza

Graphic Fix

‘Hey Look’: the iPhone App for Discreet Public Gossiping

Thought this app was awesome.

 

Graphic Fix

Reimagining the Recipe

Last month, Good Magazine started a contest to “redesign the recipe,” and the submissions are in.

I actually have a really hard time following recipes the way they are usually written out in a cookbook– I have to read them multiple times to understand what is actually happening at each step, so I will often re-write the whole thing in a way that I can understand, and it usually does involve a more graphic, visual approach! So I personally wish that all cookbooks would evolve to an approach like this.

 

Also, it is really is fascinating to see how if you give someone a relatively blank slate and a mission like “redesign the recipe” how differently people will approach it!

My favorite approaches, as in, the ones I found the easiest to understand, were these simple, lovely illustrations by Katie Shelly at top, and this very clear, creative graphic above by Jessica Kreir.

 

 

Graphic Fix

‘Test Drive’ VW’s New Car via Ad and App

This has got to be one of the most innovative ads I’ve ever seen.  In fact, outside of the use of StickyBits, it’s the only print ad I’ve seen that utilizes and integrates iPhone technology and apps.

Here’s the scenario: Volkswagen has just introduced three new innovations that they want people to experience, because experience is really the only way to understand innovations such as these.

 

 

The usual strategy for a car company would be to get people in for test drives, which in reality only a handful of people will actually do. VW had the brilliant idea to use a medium with a much broader reach– print ads– to get more people interested, and then to let them “experience” the innovations through an iPhone app!

So the print ad provides an aerial shot of a road that the user can “test drive” using the iPhone app! The app has three modes, one for each innovation– a sensor that vibrates when you get too close to the edge of the road, another for when you get to close to a car in front of you, and a third that lets your headlights bend around curvy roads.

Check out the video to see it in action.

I’d download the app and try this just to “test drive” the ad, even though I’m not in the market! Just to see the technology in action! Brilliant!!

PS- Did you know that not a single Superbowl ad featured or encouraged connecting to their brand via social media? Isn’t that remarkable?! What a missed opportunity… all those people sitting there with their cell phones within feet. Apparently, the big ad agencies are slipping behind when it comes to creative integrations of social media! I realize this is rather unrelated to the post, but in contrast to all those Superbowl agencies, VW’s agency came up with a very creative new media ad-integration.

 

Graphic Fix

Caleb Owen Everitt

Loving the masculine feel of these designs for masculine clients (a butcher shop, a men’s clothing store, a “gentleman’s race,” I wasn’t kidding!) by Caleb Owen Everitt.

 

Graphic Fix

Lyrics Re-Envisioned

Just came across these fun vintage-style posters of famous song lyrics by the Neighborhood Studio and had to share. That’s all!

Graphic Fix

The Magic of Beautiful Storefronts

Another recent fascination is storefront design. For one project that we’re working on right now, my colleague/co-conspirator/friend Monica and I are loving gold hand-painted window signage as inspiration, and that train of thought spiraled into a complete obsession with storefronts.

When they’re done well, they are little miniature works of art, perfect coalescences of branding, merchandising, and aesthetics that combine to make you want whatever is in that store, and I feel like they are worth appreciating even completely separately from the stores they are attached to!

Here, just a smattering using almost exclusively black, white, and gold and mostly using all-caps serif or slab serif fonts.

 

Btw, the PINK storefront above is the Thomas Pink store, not the Pink collection by Victoria Secret!

Graphic Fix

Live the Language

These short films by Education First are brilliant advertising. They are so all over the trend of making short web films that are heavy on aesthetics and low on anything that says “this is advertising.” You can make it all the way through the film without knowing what it’s for, but it’s so awesome that at the end you’ll want to dig a little deeper to find out.

After watching those, if I were to need a language learning program in the future, would I go to EF first? You know it! Am I a sucker for pretty things despite lack of content? You know it!

The cinematography is gorgeous and the use of typography really, really got me. I now want to design everything I’m working on using French signage as inspiration (all those lines around the words, the engraving shadows, the deco fonts, the angles of the words… oh la la).

The films were a collaboration between Gustav Johansson, Nicklas Johansson, Albin Holmqvist, and Camp David, all of whom I plan to research immediately (check back soon for results!), but I’m also just so curious what advertising/marketing firm EF hired that then in turn put this team together! I can’t imagine they sought these guys out on their own…

(And now they just need that same firm to redo their logo and their website so that it is all in sync with these videos…)

Two more films here.

Graphic Fix

Alvin Diec

I recently came across the work of Alvin Diec and originally thought I’d post a couple of his pieces on Editor’s Chair. Then, I started perusing his entire portfolio, and as I usually do, I was dragging things I liked into various folders on my desktop. Then, I realized I’d dragged almost every single thing in his portfolio into one folder or another.

So, I decided to share all of it with you (or at least, a lot of it). His brand identity and graphic design work is just so spot on. Classic and authentic looking, like the brands could have been around for decades, and yet unique and interesting. And he seems to have a lot of the same obsessions that I do… things that look like old tickets, twine, airmail envelopes, ampersands, luggage tags…

Here are a few of his poster designs…

Oh! And he has a project in his porftolio called Fairly Well Made Co.– clearly a play on Best Made Co., the axe brand that I developed a serious fascination and love/hate relationship with– that makes scythes instead of axes and is hilarious. Here it is:

[And here, here, and here are past posts on Best Made Co if you missed them.]

Check out the gallery for lots more work…

PS- AND, he lives in Atlanta!  Atl represent!