Time to resume...

It has been forever since I blogged just for fun. My life has been taken up with finishing my design degree and making sure that I balanced that with eating and occasionally seeing the light of day. My degree is over now, the end of year show went really well as did the D&AD New Blood exhibition in London. One of our course members won a Best in Show award, which was thoroughly deserved, you can check out Deans here letsmakestuff.com.

Since New Blood finished I have been back to Leeds to spend a busy 24 hours cleaning the house and moving the remainder of my stuff out. You'd think moving already packed up boxes to be a simple task, but living on the 4th floor of a building means a lot of stairs, and on one of the hottest days of the year it really takes it out of you. Anyway, I'm now back in Harpenden with a colossal amount of stuff to sort out, not to mention finding a job of some sort. I'll write about how that is going another time, I feel I deserve a good nights sleep.

Botanical Bakery

I found this lovely packaging on a blog. It caught my eye because of the bright and cheerful colours, and the hand-drawn/cut type. It is nice to see packaging for this type of product moving toward a more hand made and low-fi style of design.

The overall feeling is that these products are very friendly, maybe even good for you! The personal feel is a great link to the consumer, and will keep a customer returning again and again.

Botanical Bakery

Colour Mixer...

I came across this really helpful website via the Lovely Package Blog.
It creates colour schemes from a wheel and will find similar colours, and then those that contrast, compliment etc. It generates the codes for each colours, and allows you to adjust the contrast you want between the colours generated. This kind of application will come in really handy when creating suitable and well balanced colour schemes

Colour Scheme Designer 3

ABC...

This is a gorgeous piece; an ABC of brand logos...very smart, simple (practically already done for you!) and I wish I'd thought of it first! Designed by Jason Dean and available for $50 a print.






Either the U or V is missing...

Lovely Logos...

I have found a new website to worship;
This is a blog about logos and logo design - quite interesting for use graphics geeks.
I found a really interesting post from last october that looks at the negative space used within logos. The majority are really interesting, and use simple but very clever techniques to create an amazingly effective logo. Here are a few of my favourites:


The shape created by the leg and arm is in the shape of Australia. Subtle but so effective.


This incorporates two very different items and makes it into one complete symbol.


I like the present here, very simple


I like this because it incorporates image and text to create a symbol


This is a bit weird and looks squashed at first glance, then the cleverness becomes clear.


This is one I've seen before and this is SO clever. Until someone pointed it out, I'd never noticed it before. Well done FedEx, well done.


I've seen this logo dozens of times - we always seem to be buying yet more beer and wine in France! I feel a little ashamed to say that I had never noticed the C shape! it only dawned on me when I saw it in the greyscale; usually it is red and blue, which I think probably prevents you from seeing the C. I like it, and now have a lot more appreciation for it!

Pantone Potatoes...

Clearly this is a design that every designer, printer etc will appreciate, I do however see a flaw. There is no indication of the flavour; the blue and green - Salt & Vinegar and Cheese & Onion or vice versa? The brown- Worcester sauce? Beef & Onion? Steak? I like them, but packaging needs to be clear and informative, which this certainly isn't.



From Thoughtful

(Someone guessed salsa for the red, and cucumber for the green...had they eaten crisps before?)

Writing on the wall...

This stuff is amazing...I seriously wish my house was painted in this stuff because it would a) be so much fun and b) so easy to design at anytime. This is Idea Paint -
"IdeaPaint is a single-coat, roller-applied paint that can turn any “paintable” surface into a dry-erase surface. Essentially, IdeaPaint can create a whiteboard environment wherever your ideas might take form (walls, columns, doors, refrigerators, bathrooms, etc.)—but it’s less than half the cost of a traditional whiteboard and better performing. IdeaPaint is also the most environmentally friendly dry-erase product on the market, with limited packaging, transport and materials required."




The packaging is also rather good - simple and to the point. The graphic elements in the logo represent exactly what this product is about. Generally pretty bloody good! The only down side is it costs $175 for 50 square feet...which seems like quite a lot. Never mind, a girl can dream right!?