Children and Logo Brandmarks

Hey everybody,

I stumbled across this on my Facebook news feed and how a child views logo brands. Interesting what design can do for logos right? It makes you think differently on design and what message you are portraying.

You Can't Miss: Unreal Design

This week, I stumbled upon designs that were fun, a little kooky and completely unreal.

Unreal Design #1: The Gold Bullion Bar

On January 17th, Steve Delahoyde posted on Unbeige's blog about designer Jean-Paul Gaultier and his recent collaboration with the Dillon Gage Metals in Dallas to create the Gold Bullion Bar.

Gaultier imprinted his design and name on an ounce of gold. The weird thing is, who can afford to have a designer piece of gold? The post goes on to talk about how pointless it would be for someone to purchase such an expensive piece... that has absolutely no functionality. 


The post had an interesting and humorous quote: 
“Never before has a fashion icon designed a gold ingot. The Gaultier bar is a one-of-a-kind, limited-quantity collector’s piece that not only is a great investment but it will also become a a piece of history. The price of gold has risen more than fivefold in the last 10 years, outperforming almost every other investment,” says Terry Hanlon, president of Dillon Gage Metals. 

The design is very simple, depicting a his name on a ribbon over a striped heart on a starburst background. Nonetheless, the design is very unique to Gaultier. The stripes and starburst pattern can be seen plastered all over his website and products.

What I want to know is where he got the idea to create a design on a piece of gold. It's basically like he made his own brand of money. Unreal. 




Unreal Design #2: Imaginary Flags for Bugs

Yup, you heard me right. 
In DesignTaxi's recent updates, they posted several different designs that answered the question of: "If Bugs Had Countries, What would the Flags Look Like?" 

The agency, Master, Brasil, came up with an advertising campaign for various pest exterminators. Their coined slogan is "Don't Let Your Home Become Their Nation."

Here's what they came up with.

Cockroach Canada

 

Ants

  

 Rats

 

Scorpions

 

Spiders

 I think the flag designs of adveristing agency team was well executed and a little gross at the same time. The flags depict the pests through silhouettes and cartoon-ish outlines of them. Each flag has it's own individual flair and uniqueness to it. For example, if you take a look at the rat flag's crest, each section has a semi-cute trademark to the pest, such as their typical hangout spot (a trashcan), their main food (a chunk of cheese) and where they tend to sneak out of (a hole in the wall).


The combination of the slogan and the various designs is a refreshing sight and completely different from other advertisements. Not sure if the advertisement is very persuasive, but still interesting to see.

Response: Judging

In class yesterday, we got the privilege to judge several locally-based magazines on their execution of design for the City and Regional Magazine Association (CRMA) preliminaries. As a senior in college, it's pretty amazing to think that my design opinion matters... well, at all. To me, the whole process made design as a career more realistic.

Personally, I was a little disappointed in the outcome of the rankings. If I could have it my way, I would have ranked the magazines like this:

1. Boston Magazine
2. Los Angeles Magazine
3. Texas Monthly

The other magazines were all really impressive, but those three were the ones that stood out to me the most. Boston Magazine is so well designed, it made me even consider applying there. Their TOC design (Table of Contents) is completely different from others I've seen before. They used cropped pictures to display what page to find the article. In addition, whoever their illustration artist is, kudos. You have found yourself a new fan.

I thought the Los Angeles Magazine was well-designed and had a fresh look to it. After all, it's a magazine about the famous L.A. and all of it's celebrities, it has to look good too. With Texas Monthly, I feel like the magazine completely captured the personality of the city and the state in general. As a Texas native, I believe that the magazine was able to depict the western and the urban characteristics.

In the short amount of time we had to judge, I really did learn a lot. There were several of my classmates who had completely different opinions. The judging experience showed me that everyone has their own pet peeves and fetishes for design. Not everyone is going to like your work, but it's a matter of reaching out and attracting the biggest audience.

Hope to do something like that again, especially since it's not everyday you get to judge magazines from across the nation.

Critique: Roll On Columbia

I'm not going to lie... the first assignment was pretty challenging. It was a struggle trying to figure out the most important feature from the story and how exactly to highlight it using the photos. My biggest regret is that I didn't focus on Roll On Premium Smokes' community atmosphere.

I chose photos that focused more on the store itself and the activity of rolling your own cigarettes. Nonetheless, I'm pleased with the overall look of the clean lines and design.

I actually started the designing the inside spreads and saved the cover for last.

Here's what I came up with:

The Cover

 The cover was tricky to design. Considering that this assignment was a photo essay, I wanted to choose a photograph that would highlight the story, rather than making an illustration. With the confusing teaser of "Roll On," I chose this photograph to eliminate any preconceived notion that the story was about drugs, rather than cigarettes. In other words, I played it safe. Looking back, I do regret not taking more risk with it. I guess I'll keep that in mind for the next assignment.

Under the teaser, I created a rolling paper with the turned corner to make it content-driven and tie the cover with the inside spreads.

 Opening Spread

 

 With the opening spread, I thought the photograph of the owner standing behind the tobacco display case would be a good lead into the story. Because I wanted to focus more on the store itself and the activity of rolling your own cigarettes, I thought the photo showed the variety of tobacco choices and the owner at the same time. Therefore, I made that the dominant photo across the spread. 

To demonstrate my focus, I chose the secondary photograph of the outside of the store. I thought the two photographs combined best emphasized my focus. I also adapted the rolling paper graphic from the cover and used it to highlight the headline. 

With the headline, I chose a semi-thick typography that gave the impression of being light-hearted. The headline of  "Roll On Columbia"seemed like a command that would be best illustrated using capital letters.

In addition, I italicized "Roll On" to give emphasis on the rolling cigarettes activity.

Second Spread

 

With the second spread, I wanted to focus on the process of rolling cigarettes. I chose photos that were showed the detail of rolling cigarettes. Then, I tried to lay out the photos chronologically to the process of rolling. I aligned the three smaller photographs vertically to show this process in a "how-to" manner (hence the sub-headline of "The Rolling Process").

Because my focus was completely off, I feel like if I were to redesign this spread, I wouldn't use half of the photographs I included nor would I lay them out like a "how-to."

Last Page

 With the last page, I wanted to end my layout design the same way I started it... through using dominant photographs. Because of my focus, I wanted to demonstrate the end products, such as the showing the owner smoking and the finished cigarette product.

Even though my design focus was off with the story's focus, I believe I still executed what I originally intended. Making content-driven designs has always been my struggle, but practice makes perfect right?

You can believe that my next assignment (Spring Preview) has taken a lot more planning on my part. I'm pretty excited for this one. Check back next week to see what I come up with.

Welcome.

Hey ya'll. Welcome to my blog: Design Different

I'm still working on some of the details to the blog, but for now I have the bare bones. Starting today, I will be sharing you the world of design through my eyes. I see things different and I design different. So here goes nothing:

My name is Andrea Piamonte (Piamonte means foot of the mountain in Italian or Latin, can't remember which language). I'm currently a senior at the University of Missouri in Columbia with a Magazine Journalism major and a Sociology minor. I'm originally from Dallas, TX and no, I have not rode a horse/gone to a rodeo/wear cowboy boots everyday.

I currently juggle two  jobs. I work as a Communications and Marketing Intern for Healthy For Life: T.E. Atkins Wellness Program during the day and I bartend at B-12 Bar and Grill by night. In addition to those jobs and school, this semester I will be helping to design VOX Magazine and The Columbia Missourian. Needless to say, I don't get much sleep. But I do love staying busy... it makes me feel like I'm actually being productive.

Anyways random non-design things: I am a huge Dallas Mavericks fan. I would like to move to Nashville, Tennessee after I graduate. I like to use power tools and build furniture. I'm only 4'11 (And no, you have to be 4'10 to be legally a midget... I checked). Attending Mizzou and going through the intense and rigorous journalism school has been the best decision I have ever made.

Designing has been my passion for as long as I can remember. Add my love for design with a strong appreciation for journalism and you get Magazine Design.