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Qs / Vols. 10 - 11 / October 29 - November 4

The top 15 out of a 39-quip week.

A = Authors | C = Community

A / No. 92 / Armin / If you are a fan of Marian Bantjes — and who isn’t? — you might want to spend $45.00 on her first, and awesome, typeface: Restraint. [Apologies for the friendly and blatant shilling!]

A / No. 95 / Armin / STEP magazine’s upcoming cover, designed by Modern Dog, is deadly. Sure, it might not look it from the cute picture of the All-American girl with her basket of art supplies and a puppy. [Smaller pic here]. But look harder… and you will find Modern Dog’s 140 ways to Die. Subliminal art is alive and well, thank you very much!

C / No. 3 / Josh B / The millionaire, teenage graphic designer (no really). Watch the video. I hate this girl.

A / No. 1 / Armin / Trick or Treat or Terrible Vanity Halloween Logo? BuzzFeed tracks that web sites that adorned their logo for this spooky night.

A / No. 93 / Armin / E-mail spam has never looked lovelier: Hand-lettered spam one-liners by UK-based illustrator Linzie Hunter. [Via Drawn]

A / No. 89 / Armin / If you watched The Office last week (or DVR’d it and watched it last night) you may have been as excited as I was to see the result of Pam’s logo animation for Dunder Mifflin’s Scranton TV ad that kept her up until 2:15 am. The verdict? Pretty darn cool.

A / No. 96 / Armin / Out of a thousand little design pieces in the current Print Regional Design Annual, it was only Jesse Kirsch’s poster for the 19th Columbia Film Festival, that made stop the flipping and actually look. Lovely solution with what would otherwise be two unbearable clichés (film roll and camera).

A / No. 5 / Armin/ The Periodic Table of Brand Evolution Terms. If you think you can skip this link, ask yourself if you know what Divestiture means.

A / No. 3 / Joe Marianek/ In an era of economic uncertainty, we can count on The Bierut Effect. Unbeige charts Saks Fifth Avenue sales, pre-Bierut and post-Bierut.

C / No. 54 / Neal S / Pentagram brings an air of sophistication to the casual dining world with their fresh take on Ruby Tuesday.

C / No. 56 / Todd Carver / Something every designer needs, in cream form.

A / No. 2 / Armin / Creative Review showcases the identity and supporting work for The Chicago Spire, one of the city’s most phallic beatiful buildings in the making.

C / No. 62 / Jeff / Microsoft redesigns the iPod packaging to humorous effect.

A / No. 91 / Armin / Lucky you if you speak German: Some sort of kick ass manual about corporate identity, put together by, what I can gather, a group of German students, which you can download. But, no matter, just click here for some lovely infographics to be found in the document. [Via ffffound]

A / No. 1 / Josh B / The most incredible (albeit fictional) pitch ever given, from the season finale of Mad Men. Truly brilliant. Don’t miss this.

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ENTRY DETAILS
ARCHIVE ID 4056 FILED UNDER Miscellaneous
PUBLISHED ON Nov.05.2007 BY Armin
WITH COMMENTS
Comments
Ryan W. Peterson’s comment is:

Has anyone seen this?

Link

Maybe you already talked about this, I haven't been on in a while.

It seems Paula Scher is working with hp to develop downloadable pre-designed business systems. Now I realize they probably look nicer then 90% of systems out there, but do things like this and create your own logo services on the internet devalue the role of the professional designer? Or is it just a public service?

On Nov.05.2007 at 02:49 PM
Pesky’s comment is:

Paula is a wonderful designer and probably a lovely person and maybe it's inevitable that designers get replaced by templates, but this f*&^%ng stuff makes me wanna weep.

I knew I should have gone to medical school ....Everybody needs a doctor now and then....or at least: a pharma flack carrying free pills to doctor's offices...

On Nov.05.2007 at 06:38 PM
Tselentis’s comment is:

I adore that HP link. I especially love the fact that she pitches AIGA, and the site sends you to the AIGA 'find a designer' database. In all, this could be a good thing. She's demystifying design, and also sharing where to find the talent. The glass is half full, folks.

On Nov.05.2007 at 07:42 PM
Alex’s comment is:

Mad Men are cool.

On Nov.06.2007 at 04:29 AM
Ryan W. Peterson’s comment is:

Sure she pointed people to those things, while at the same time offering a service that shows you don't need them. If you think it's not only going to get worse from here, you're mistaken. Did you try that template out? It's so completely slick and easy to use, its scary.

Don't get me wrong, I liked Paula's book quite a bit, and respect her a lot, that's why I was surprised she became the poster girl for design templates.

On Nov.06.2007 at 09:28 AM
Peter Whitley’s comment is:

I would reinforce Tselentis' comment that the site broadens the public discourse on design. While the easy 5-step process to creating passable letterhead is a potentially destructive gimmick, serious audiences will quickly observe that the identity they were offered is nowhere near as accurate as those that Paula herself is responsible for.

A more important aspect is the heroic treatment the site gives the designer. There are few superstar designers that are household names...at least households without visual professionals in them. The emphasis on the service of thoughtful, visual analysis (that presumably only a designer can offer) is the true take-away.

And interactive content that produces visually rich results is fun! Who visited the site and DIDN'T plug in their info to see what kind of ID came out the black, oily hole? I did and the ID sucked...but it was fun, still.

Most distressing to me was the overt linkage to HP's products. It brought the whole discourse down a notch and made it feel like shameless marketing. "Oh, we only design on genuine HP 'slick willy' white graphic design papers and so should you!"

On the list I particularly enjoyed the Periodic Table of Brand Elements. Clever, fun, easy, bingo.

On Nov.06.2007 at 01:07 PM
darrel’s comment is:

"While the easy 5-step process to creating passable letterhead is a potentially destructive gimmick, serious audiences will quickly observe that the identity they were offered is nowhere near as accurate as those that Paula herself is responsible for."

One could argue that anyone going to HP for a brand identity would never be a customer any professional graphic designer would likely have anyways.

And I guess that's OK. Nothing wrong with giving the world better templates. But Paula Scher being 2 degrees away from Logoworks just seems...dirty.

On Nov.06.2007 at 04:57 PM
Andrew’s comment is:

If you think it's not only going to get worse from here, you're mistaken. Did you try that template out? It's so completely slick and easy to use, its scary. http://names-n-brands.com

On Jul.31.2008 at 06:44 AM