Signs and portents

Love this timeless book cover design.

(via namashco)

New AOL [Aol] Brand.

A redesign for AOL has memories of their competitor Addison’s goldfish brand here from Wolf Olins.

From Creative Review

Interesting architecture

New Porto headquarters for mobile phone company Vodafone, designed by architects Barbosa & Guimaraes – Portugal. Photo’s by Nelson Garrido.

From Dezeen

Nook.ie anyone?

Here’s a humorous article from Steven Heller looking at American bookseller Barnes & Noble’s new product. A reaction to the Kindle (I mentioned his article about that, here), the Nook is visually more appealing to my eye than the cumbersone Kindle. It does, however seem to owe a royalty to Jonathan Ive at Apple.

Speaking from this side of the pond, Nook is an aphorism for something else entirely. But that’s enough about that. In case you are wondering, nook.ie is available.

Er, the domain name I mean, that wasn’t an offer.

I love this simple graphic poster. It does seem that more of our relationships are enabled by these things, or are the relationships with these things? (via moopee1176)

Binary code, anyone?

We like this old school ‘video game’ wedding invite. It reminds us of the pixel people we designed for our wonder-web programming partner Jim, way-way back.

Via: 9gag

Fred Lebain’s New York photographs. Apparently he takes a shot on the first visit, prints it up large and positions himself (see fingers!) in a new shot.

From DesignBoom Via: loveallthis

The Woolmark, what else. Classic.

(via moopee1176)

What’s it all about?

After putting much effort into the research of my roads signs information design project, and creating design prototypes for testing, I find it interesting that many people have commented on liking the simple illustration above.

Don’t get me wrong, there’s nothing wrong with anyone saying ‘that’s nice’.

But, it doesn’t actually reveal much about the project. Rather, it shows some randomly selected variants of the outlines of type (designed for preventing infill at night and maximising the impact of word within the footprint of the sign), but the important thing here is that people like the look and feel of it. Buried in the detail of my research and pressured for tangible results, I probably neglected a fundamental of communication design.

It’s an unquantifiable fundamental… namely, feel (or form) is as important as content (or function).

It reminds me of another lesson. ie. why did I neglect this - when it’s what I do for others every day?

• Well, time of course (this is self-initiated research, after all).
• But, more importantly, perspective or objectivity. Stepping back is much easier to do for a third party project. Perhaps this is one reason why few in-house teams produce great design outcomes?

What is it all about?

I the words of the late David Goulbourne, a colleague, friend and great designer, “It’s words and pictures, Mate!” If you get the right words and the right pictures, and get them in the right order, you’re really on a winner. But that’s a hell of a lot easier than it sounds, and in the process, some perspective helps a lot.