This past weekend I’ve been listening to a really great podcast called Your Dreams My Nightmares by Sam Weber. Each week he interviews illustrators and designers, and asks them about their craft and working in the commercial arts. Continue reading “Sam Weber’s Your Dreams My Nightmares Radio Show” »
After reading through Erik Spiekermann’s book, Stop Stealing Sheep & Learn How Type Works, I found out about this really great book in its bibliography called Finer Points in the Spacing and Arrangement of Type by Geoffrey Dowding. I managed to find a copy and, wow, this is one of the most useful books on typesetting I’ve read so far! Continue reading “Book: Finer Points in the Spacing and Arrangement of Type” »
Here’s a fun little game called Kern Type that tests your kerning abilities. The game presents a series of individual words and you correct the letterspacing of the letters. After, you submit your solution and the game compares it against typographers’ solutions.
As part of my Advanced Information Design class, I’ve started a book project on the subject of Designers (and Illustrators) and their favourite objects. So far I’ve gotten very positive and enthusiastic responses from people I’ve invited to participate.
(That’s my favourite object up above. I bought it during my trip to Japan in 2007. It’s from the Toji Temple Market in Kyoto.)
You can check out my accompanying blog here: designersfavouritethings.com
I just finished a very short project for a new creative group called Senior Creative People. This group consists of ex-copywriters and art directors who worked for DDB in the 60s.
The project was to design and develop a simple “Under Construction” page with provided copy and photography. The very cool thing with this project is the typography is set in the Univers webfont from Fonts.com.
For the past week I’ve been reading this really great book, “Responsive Web Design”, by Ethan Marcotte. It outlines the reasons for and strategies used in building responsive web designs. Continue reading “Russ Maschmeyer’s Fold Up Demo” »
There is an interesting article in the monthly Stereotype column in the current October issue of Print Magazine. It talks about the ways in which designers get identified, not by their art direction, but by the typeface they regularly use in their designs. Continue reading “Designer’s and their Typefaces” »
One of our VCD program’s recent graduates, Kyle Metcalf, had been commissioned by the City of Calgary over the summer to illustrate some utility boxes in town. The initiative is to promote local artists and illustrators, as well as deter vandalism in Calgary. Kyle’s mid-century modern illustrations fits perfectly with the old drive-thru stylings of Peter’s Drive-In. His utility boxes are my favourite so far.
You can check out more pictures of the project on his blog: kyles-sketches.blogspot.com/
One of the most challenging types of design work I’ve found is branding and logo design. It’s difficult to design with a symbol and/or wordmark that is visually concise and captures all of the ideas associated with a particular company. So I was thrilled to come across this excellent book on identity design called “Logo Design Love” by David Airey. I highly recommend this book! I would say this is the most useful and practical design book I’ve read all year. It covers varying aspects of logo design, from approaches to the design process, guidelines for a successful logo, pricing, and interfacing with clients.
Here are some random bits of useful info that I gleaned from this book:
David Airey also has very two very popular blogs I highly recommend: Logo Design Love (from which a lot of the book is based upon) and Identity Designed.
I found out today from a friend at work a fun little test for colour perception, or hue acuity.
I scored a 4, which is pretty good. I always thought my colour perception was quite bad.