Saturday, March 31, 2012

Alberto Seveso


Alberto Seveso is a graphic designer and illustrator from Italy who has simply created a fantastic style by mixing colourful vectors with black and white photos known as “sperm shaping”. It’s very hard to look at his work and not say WOW.
Can you tell us  how you started and discovered that you wanted be a designer?

I was born in Milan 30 years ago, but I have lived for more than 20 in the marvellous Sardinia Island; today I live in Rome, where I work with some agencies.

I did not study design, and I had no classes; I think this job doesn’t require a degree, even if design schools are very important.

My passion for graphics was born about 15 years ago, when I had an Amiga 1200 and Delux Paint, that I loved so much, but I switched to PC when a friend showed me the potentials of Photoshop: I was astonished and I understood the power of that software (I know what you’re thinking right now, but no, this is not a commercial, I actually switched to PC due to photoshop). From that moment on, I started to go in for my today’s job.

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Lessons From Swiss Style Graphic Design


Also known as International Style, the Swiss Style does not simply describe a style of graphic design made in Switzerland. It became famous through the art of very talented Swiss graphic designers, but it emerged in Russia, Germany and Netherlands in the 1920’s. This style in art, architecture and culture became an ‘international’ style after 1950’s and it was produced by artists all around the globe. Despite that, people still refer to it as the Swiss Style or the Swiss Legacy.

This progressive, radical movement in graphic design is not concerned with the graphic design in Switzerland, but rather with the new style that had been proposed, attacked and defended in the 1920s in Switzerland. Keen attention to detail, precision, craft skills, system of education and technical training, a high standard of printing as well as a clear refined and inventive lettering and typoraphy laid out a foundation for a new movement that has been exported worldwide in 1960s to become an international style.

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Friday, March 30, 2012

5 Steps to the Birth of a Logo


I actually wanted to name the title "5 Steps to the Birth of a Brand", but unfortunately people still don't know the difference and that's why I'm writing today's post. You may be thinking it's time to invest in your brand and have a designer create your logo. Or perhaps you have a logo, but want to give it a good face lift. Well, I'm going to take you through the steps of such a process and hopefully create some converts. Let's face it, logo design is a big investment and some see it as one that is over priced. After all you're not a huge corporation. But success isn't measured in big or small. Size only matters in your way of thinking.

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How To Gracefully Fire a Client


Clients come in many varieties. Some are thoughtful, professional, cooperative and ALWAYS pay on time. Then there are the other ones. When a client goes beyond “difficult,” to being such a burden on your resources that your other clients suffer, then you may have no choice but to cut the cord. There are many legitimate reasons to end a client relationship, including non-payment, poor communication, client procrastination, and plain old-fashioned disrespectful behavior. Sometimes these situations can be solved with a little conversation, sometimes they can’t. For the purposes of this article, we will assume that you have already decided that you no longer want to work with your client. In that case, here is my action plan to gracefully bow out of a client relationship at any stage of the project.

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Can a Font Help a City Make a Comeback?


Around the world, only a few hundred people make a living as fulltime typeface designers. Two of them happen to live in Chattanooga, Tennessee, population 167,000, where they've embarked on an ambitious project to distill the city's artistic and entrepreneurial spirit into a font called Chatype. The goal is to help the city and its businesses forge a distinct and cohesive identity through custom typeface, sending a visual message to the world that Chattanooga—a rapidly growing city in the midst of a creative renaissance—is “more than just your average Southern town.”

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Thursday, March 29, 2012

35 Constructive and Appealing Stamp Designs


I’ve always wanted to have a stamp with my logo on it and use it for client work. Even if it’s the ‘paid’ invoice stamp. For some reason I don’t mind using old technology in 2012. Having a stamp gives people a personalized feeling. The thought of you having to literally use the stamp, means you carefully worked on the project and overlooked everything.

Today we decided to showcase some beautifully designed stamps by designers from Dribbble. We hope you will enjoy this roundup and maybe even create a custom stamp yourself! If you do decide to pursue this task, we collected some useful info listed below:

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40 Remarkable Examples Of Typography Design #5


It’s been a really long time since we did our series of typography inspiration. Believe in or not,  it was all the way back in January 2011. Today we are happy to bring it back, to feature some outstanding typography designs. We selected all of the following work based on quality, thus giving you the best of the best. All of the image are credited their original creators. We do not take credit for any of there work, however we do take credit for scavenger hunting the internet in order to find them.

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For Typography Enthusiasts, A Limited Edition Of Scrabble


If you’re crazy about typography, the new Scrabble edition will not fail to entice you.

The popular boardgame company has just released the limited edition Scrabble Typography.

The new version features a beautiful storage case with a drawer, a matching six-panel magnetized gameboard as well as tiles that carry different and exciting fonts—all of which are made of solid walnut.

Manufactured by Winning Solutions, which is behind other classic Hasbro brands like Monopoly and Clue, the set will also include a signed and numbered certificate of authenticity.

Sophisticated and sleek, the Scrabble Typography will be available come August but you can pre-order one now at a price of US$199.


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Fantastic Examples of Package Design


What a better way to end the work week than with a healthy dose of inspiration. And as we’ve mentioned before there’s nothing wrong with looking at other mediums to get inspired. So today we’re showing you some fantastic examples of package design, where beauty and functionality are both equally important. In this collection you will find beautiful typography, color schemes, textures and layouts that might give you some ideas for your own designs. Remember to click on the images to find out more about each package and their designers.

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Tuesday, March 27, 2012

Graphic Design Icons - Lestor Beall

Pioneering American designer in modernist graphic design, Lester Beall believed that designer’s creativity should be present at every step of the process. Beall said, “the designer’s role in the development, application and protection of the trademark may be described as pre-creative, creative and post-creative.” Born in Kansas, Missouri at the beginning of the 20th century, Lester Beall grew up to succeed in a dazzling design career that lasted 44 years.

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5 New Rules For A Winning Brand Launch

One year ago, Kraft did something it hadn’t done in nearly a quarter of a century: It launched a new brand that created a new category. A year later MiO, a liquid water enhancer whose name means “mine” in Italian, achieved an impressive milestone when it reached $100 million in sales.

With its 2011 corporate revenue estimated at $54 billion and brands in practically every aisle of the grocery store, Kraft is the largest producer of branded, packaged food and beverages in America. So it’s hard to believe that before MiO, the last new category Kraft created was DiGiorno frozen pizza in 1995 and its last new beverage brand was Crystal Light, launched in 1988.

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A Clever Branding System Based On Clip-Art Icons

Clip art existed in a place and time that our kids will never know. In a pre-photo era driven by screens and printing technologies with limited resolution and color palettes, it was like every object had its own series of logos.

Creative consultancy Figtree, with the help of icon designer Christopher Gray, recently rebranded public affairs agency Brevia Consulting with a “no-nonsense approach” and “a down-to-earth nature” to highlight their “clear and simple political advice.” What they came up with was a series of 20 pieces of clip art to use across their brand.

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Sunday, March 25, 2012

Starbucks Concept Store Is A Lab For Reinventing The Brand

A new coffeehouse in Amsterdam will be the testing ground for ideas that will find their way to the rest of Europe.

Starbucks is known for its unwavering consistency, from its unoffensively homey store décor to its burnt-coffee smell. But this Thursday, the brand that normalized the $4 latte is opening an experimental concept store in Amsterdam that offers a glimpse of the Starbucks of the future--at least in Europe.

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Friday, March 23, 2012

14 Great Ads By The Real Mad Men, And What Drove All That Cleverness

From 1945 to the late 1960s the advertising business evolved rapidly, first reflecting and then boldly redefining the ways Americans thought and bought. Advertising had stagnated during the war years of 1941–45 as the nation focused on patriotism and productivity. Once peace was at hand, advertising resumed at an accelerated pace—selling products and optimism to returning soldiers and war workers, an expanding middle class who craved material rewards after enduring economic depression and a world war. As America’s gross national product rose, from around $100 billion in 1940 to $300 billion in 1950 and more than $500 billion in 1960, the business of selling to America was serious.

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25 Crazy Typography Artworks – Logos, Posters, Packaging & Ads!

Typography is an integral part of visual arts and is executed by creative professionals like graphic designers, art directors, comic book artists and graffiti artists. There is a general misconception that typography is, similar and easy as writing. But in reality, the arrangement of typeset entails various details like point size, line length, line spacing, tracking and kerning.

In the contemporary graphic design world, typography is seen everywhere from logos to poster designs and graffiti. It enables a designer to put their thoughts into motion and add emotions to their message. Even the world of advertising has employed typographic prints ads to convey the marketing message. Today’s post presents a rundown on some of the best works of typography across genres like logo design, poster design, packaging and print ads.

Each of these 25 typography inspired graphic artworks exhibit a unique and clever way of presenting the idea and concepts:


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Big Economic Ideas Explained, In Minimalist Posters

Wikipedia defines short-selling as “the practice of selling assets that have not been purchased beforehand, but which the seller may have borrowed from a third party with the intention of buying identical assets back at a later date to return to that third party.”

Huh?

Here’s another definition:

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Ultimate creative business cards collection

Agency Bos from Toronto created a business card for Head2Head that served a dual purpose. Not only does it provide a functional benefit (given that each card contained 5 perforated filters), but it also adds a stickiness factor because the card would be something you'd hold onto and refer to, as frequently as you smoked.

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