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The Canon of Massimo Vignelli

Monday, February 8, 2010

Multi-discipline designer, Massimo Vignelli has designed and published his own canon, downloadable at your convenience: http://www.vignelli.com/canon.pdf

In a quick summary to spare you a bio-piece (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Massimo_Vignelli), Vignelli is a contemporary designer, notable for his work on the Helvetica documentary and for the corporate identify of American Airlines. As mentioned in class, Vignelli is the designer who believes that our kind can live on a handful of typefaces. Originally, he limited his canon to four typefaces, but he has expanded it slowly over time.

His canon layout is clean-cut and functional, reflecting his personal philosophy of design. He follows a grid and a systems, and he has selected acceptable typefaces to exist within his system.

Vignelli’s Original Four

  • Garamond
  • Bodoni
  • Century Expanded
  • Helvetica

Vignelli’s Canonical Concessions

 

  • Optima
  • Futura
  • Univers (the most advanced design of the century since it comes in 59 variations of the same face)
  • Caslon
  • Baskerville

As a designer, do you believe a design canon is necessary? Does the exclusion of certain designs (i.e. typefaces such as Comic Sans and Papyrus) imply the existence of a canon? Do you have a personal design canon? If not, why not or what would you put in it?

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Good Font, Bad Font: Don’t Pity the Typeface

Monday, February 8, 2010

Sure, I laugh when I see Comic Sans, tilt my head at the appearance of Papyrus, and don’t really care where I see Helvetica. But, I have to wonder, aren’t there times when the typeface scapegoats of the design world are appropriate to use?  

Design history is so unforgiving to typefaces. Think of Cooper Black, Times New Roman, or Avant Garde. I am not suggesting that we all pity the poor fools, but as designers, we can do something about the stigma. (Other than avoiding use of these typefaces at all costs.) We have a voice within our field, and maybe the only people who care about the naivete of Comic Sans are within our field. 

I suggest refreshing the exhausted typefaces into new fonts (some of which may already exist). Can we find a use for Comic Sans small caps or Comic Sans Ultra Light? The use of Times New Roman small caps surprised me because it looked professional, yet strangely familiar. Perhaps new fonts and weights could update these stale typefaces.

P.S. Don’t alter letterforms in Adobe Illustrator and use them in client work. AIGA notes that it is infringement.

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Comcast, Who Do We Curse Now?

Monday, February 8, 2010

When a friend recently told me that Comcast was changing its name to Xfinity, I couldn’t help but think: why do they want to sound like a bad sci-fi movie?  Apparently others had something else in mind and thought it sounded like Comcast was entering the porn business.  After the last couple of years of competition with Verizon Fios (where Comcast was able to hold their own), I had to find out what made the cable giant think that a) they needed to rebrand,  b) Xfinity was a good name, and c) it’s a good logo.

Comcast and Xfinity logos

In Time’s Comcast’s New Name: Rated X? Sean Gregory informs us that even amidst Comcast’s newest task of taking on NBC they thought that rebranding their cable and internet service division was key to showing the market that they are on top of the game with their Project Infinity. To me that’s called competition and keeping up the fight with Verizon.  I’m not sure if they had to go so far as to completely rebrand something that was already working with increased revenue in ‘09 despite the economy.

Pretending that we can get past the rebranding to Xfinity, lets talk about the logo.  If your new company name is going to be strange and misleading,  at least make a good logo out of it.  I’ll admit, I’m just a design student that only has one or two courses under my belt, but my gut tells me that the Xfinity logo is just as bad as the whole rebranding in the first place.  It’s boring and makes you want to scream the name like an overexcited sports announcer at a monster truck event.  With the color gradient it seems outdated, and the only elements of marginal interest are the descenders of the x and y and the fact that they stayed with the color red. With a good name successful logo design can be just about the letterforms.  In the case of Xfinity, they would have been better off diverting attention elsewhere.

You know, with all this said I’m not sure I even know what Xfinity stands for.  I can’t seem to get past the horrible name and the logo that backs it up.  Since I can’t say it any better, as brand expert Rob Frankel was quoted in Gregory’s article, “If you are going to rebrand, it should communicate a strategy. Now you’ll just say, ‘The old Comcast guys f_____ up my cable.’ “  Lesson learned:  if you’re going to have internet outages and cable freezes, at least choose a good name
(and a good logo) so we can remember who to curse.

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the joy of winning

Monday, February 8, 2010

http://tinyurl.com/3ok83r

it’s scary to think how most everything is becoming digital. luckily, soup wont.. and there’s some art thats still made the classic way. childrens picture books, of course! 2010’s winner of the Caldecott Medal is “The Lion and The Mouse”.  Jerry Pinkney used watercolors, no words, to retell one of Aesop’s tales. yea, i have one without the medal seal.

the best thing about seeing this work is that it really shows how the world still appreciates the good old things. not only in the use of watercolors, but in the use of an old fable. i think the idea of reworking something classic is always applicable in design. i know we had the discussion of just ripping someone off, but we also uncovered just plain inspiration. i also appreciate the use of minimalism. i’ve always preferred a design that wasnt packed with absolutely every color and font and gimmicky lens flares.. just using the popular font helvetica is simple enough. thats a designer thing, right? using helvetica? well keep on doing it! its working.

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A Controlled Cluster

Monday, February 8, 2010
The Escapist is a web site
http://www.escapistmagazine.com/

The Escapist is a web site I visit quite often.  I return so much because of two shows.  One of which is a video game review show called Zero Punctuation where the reviewer, Ben “Yahtzee” Croshaw, reviews a game in a manner that sounds like a long run-on sentence.  Though this would sound annoying, he does well at keeping it entertaining.  The other is a show called Unskippable were two guys watch the opening cut sense of video games that can’t be skipped and crack jokes about what’s going on.  These show keep me coming back but if they weren’t on the site I probably wouldn’t.  The page is cramped.  It use to be much cleaner, but as the site became more popular the design changed to fit everything on the home page.  The easiest way to clean up the site is if they didn’t show off so much on the main page.  If it were to just show off the newest thing of the other pages instead of the newest 5, the home page would be much cleaner.  I’m still going to go back but thats because the shows help me tolerate the layout.

http://www.escapistmagazine.com/

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Sunday, February 7, 2010

There are basic tenets of web design that if obeyed create websites that are visually appealing, informative and easy to navigate. Very rarely have I ever seen one website that blatantly violates all of them. A few months ago, I stumbled across a website belonging to a group named the “Almas Shriners.” As I navigated through the website I was apalled by how much it sucked. Every page had a completely different background with the buttons located in different places every time. There was no page that even explained what the group was even about. One page had a couple videos about the Shriners Hospital but nothing to explain what the connection was between the hospital and the group. When I showed this website to some of my classmates, they were equally terrified. One of them wondered out loud when Papyrus would show up. Surprisingly, it never did. When I re-visited this website to remind myself just how bad it was I was pleasantly surprised to discover that since my last encounter with it, the site has been totally redesigned.

The ever-changing backgrounds have been thrown out completely. From page to page, the buttons stay on the left side of the screen and a banner with the group name and their logo is at the top. ON the home page there is a mission statement along with some history about how the group was founded. One thing that bothers me is the placement of the photographs. The first two paragraphs of the welcome message are sandwiched between two images with no captions. One image is of a statue of a man carrying a child and the other is a photograph of the leader of the group. If it were up to me, I would lose the photo of the leader and replace it with the other photograph because it shows what the group is about. That would free up space to move the two paragraphs to the left and get rid of the orphan that they have. Overall, the redesign is an immense improvement over the original. It may not be the most beautiful piece of web design but at least now it communicates its information coherently.

The website I am talking about can be seen here:
http://www.almasshriners.org/index.html

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Photography: Graphic Design Pictures

Sunday, February 7, 2010

Many graphic designers find themselves in situations where the use of a photograph is needed to convey a certain message to the viewer. Some even come into situations where the client would prefer the use of photography within an ad. Thus increasing the importance of a Graphic Designers ability to understand good photography as opposed to terribly done photography.

Photographers face the same expectations that graphic designers do with concern towards their composition, choice of color and other various elements. Many view the two mediums as separate entities but in fact, each of the mediums share the same principles of design.

Here is a link to a site with a few images that best display examples of graphic design element use in photography:

http://www.betterphoto.com/gallery/dynogall2.asp?catID=98

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South of the Border

Sunday, February 7, 2010

If you have ever traveled south on I-95 in the states of North Carolina and South Carolina then I’m sure you have seen the many South of the Border billboards.  For those of you that don’t know what South of the Border is, it is a rest stop with restaurants, amusement park and fireworks for sale.

This rest stop is the most advertised rest stop that I have ever seen along a highway.  It probably is the busiest rest stop along I-95.  South of the Border does a great job getting families to stop by placing a billboard every fifteen minutes of driving down the road.  Usually when I’m driving I don’t pay much attention to the billboards but when a place is being advertised hundreds of times, you don’t just drive past it and forget about it.  It catches your eye and makes you want to see what all the fuss is about.  The billboard includes the famous mascot Pedro, a stereotypical Mexican wearing a sombrero and a different funny word pun on each billboard.  I can’t say my family ever stopped at this place but I’m sure hundreds of families with screaming kids have made their parents stop and check out the attraction.

Here is a list of some of the sayings that the billboards include:

“Pedro’s fireworkds! Does yours?”

“You never sausage a place! (You’re always a weiner at Pedro’s!)”

“Chili Today, Hot Tamale!”
“Keep America Green! Bring Money!”

“Keep yelling, kids! (They’ll stop.)”south of the border

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Para pa pa pa. I’m Lovin’ it!

Saturday, February 6, 2010

McDonalds has some of the most effective advertising strategies out there. Their designs promote colorful menus, toys based on popular movies, large portions for a small price, and that you are loving this. The fact that their commercials appear every five minutes definitely helps. You will think McDonalds every day and know that one is just a block away. An article I recently read discusses these points regarding child obesity.

As many of these advertisements are addressed towards children, are these designers conscious about the high percentage of obesity among children and the health problems these children will encounter throughout their lives because of the effectiveness of their advertisement?

This brings out an important ethical point. What do we do as designers when advertising for companies on whose beliefs we do not take a part of? Do we not participate in certain designs, decide on working for a non-profit organization instead, or ignore certain things and move on with our lives the way some politicians ignore global warming? Where would you draw a line?kidsmeal

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Package Design ‘Ketchup’

Friday, February 5, 2010

Yesterday, the first ketchup packet makeover in more than 40 years was announced: the Heinz Dip & Squeeze. After all this time, Heinz felt it was time to redesign the portable ketchup packet.  Interestingly enough, this redesign made national news.

“Heinz Ketchup’s Dip & Squeeze product is just the latest milestone in our long history of packaging innovation,” said William R. Johnson, H.J. Heinz Company Chairman, President and CEO.

Anchors across the country spoke about this redesign as the thumbnail picture, that you see below, was displayed on screen. Newspapers also reported on this package redesign. Sure,  it was a fun story sandwiched between larger news stories, but still – it was a DESIGN topic making headline news. I wondered if this redesign warranted spotlight attention.

Package Redesign: Heinz Dip & Squeeze™

Package Redesign: Heinz Dip & Squeeze™

My first response to the re-packaging efforts was positive. The new packaging continues the look and feel of the Heinz branding. The designers opted to use the bold red hue and the consistent Heinz sans serif typography. The designers also took the original ketchup ‘pillow shape’ packet and re-shaped it to look like a ketchup bottle. These aesthetic elements all reiterate the brand of Heinz and as a result, are successful.

In addition to aesthetic appeal, the new Heinz Dip & Squeeze packaging is also attractive from a functional standpoint. The packaging directions use minimal directions to explain how to use the packet for dipping or squeezing with dotted lines and arrows that represent tearing or pulling back the wrapper. The Dip & Squeeze resolves the problem of messiness that many fast-food eaters experience while driving. I’m sure we’ve all been there … trying to distribute the ketchup onto our burger, fries, or nuggets while keeping our hands, steering wheel, car seat, and slacks clean. I, for one, am always making a mess of the ketchup.  The newly designed packaging seems to solve this dilemma as it allows for squeezers and dippers to enjoy, sans-mess.

Aesthetically and functionally, I’d give Heinz my approval. However, the re-design does not seem to be environmentally friendly. My main criticism would be regarding the packaging used. I’m curious why Heinz didn’t jump on the ‘green wagon’ with their re-design. Heinz had the opportunity to use environmentally friendly packaging products. They also had the chance to design the package in a way that it could be easily compacted for recycling purposes. Neither of these steps was taken.

It’s an interesting phenomenon when a familiar product gets a facelift, whether it’s the template of Facebook (is anyone else frustrated with this new layout?) or the packet of ketchup. Even more interesting is when the redesign makes national news, bringing it to the attention of those who use the products.

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