process book and poster

http://www.designrelated.com/portfolio/annathompson/entry/63354

Virtual Store: QR Code

Paper Pop-Ups

Delightful Paper Pop-Ups by Jenny Chen

Portland-based designer and art director Mengyu Chen is currently working on a new comic book and has mocked up some experimental pop-ups of her own design. The ideas and execution are really quite spectacular and I can’t wait to see the finished product. (via tuh dah)


http://www.thisiscolossal.com/2012/05/delightful-paper-pop-ups-by-jenny-chen/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+colossal+%28Colossal%29

'The Forty Story': Pentagram Turns 40, Boasts Charmingly (VIDEO)

Pentagram was founded on June 12, 1972, and turns 40 this year. To celebrate the occasion we’ve created a short film that tells the story of a boy born on the day Pentagram opened and how his life has been tracked (and kerned) by four decades of Pentagram design.

You may not have heard of the design agency Pentagram, but if you've seen a Nissan billboard, a Tiffany's bag or an episode of "The Daily Show" since 2005, you know its work. For better or worse, the transatlantic design consultancy has significantly affected the look of the world -- designing logos (or redesigning ones much to some people's despair), public spaces, and even "new identities" for some of the world's largest companies.

No surprise, Pentagrammers are no slouches at marketing themselves. To draw attention to the company's 40th birthday this June, the London office released a clever piece of self-congratulation -- a reel of Pentagram's most recognizable work set to the story of a fictional boy born 40 years ago. As you watch "The Forty Story," be sure to listen for the sound of ad executives around the world slapping their foreheads at not having thought of this earlier.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/05/24/the-forty-story-pentagram_n_1542845.html

Am I Too Late to the Web Design Party?

Ask a Madman: Am I Too Late to the Web Design Party?

Categories: Designing | Tags: design career, learn web design, learn wordpress, learning html, mobile web.

April 18, 2012 | Speider Schneider | Comments: 1

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I’m a graphic designer just now getting on the web design bandwagon. Am I too late to the party?

For years, my father refused to learn how to set the clock on his VCR. Twice a year (if there were no power failures) I’d get a call from him, asking how to do it. Eventually, he just got acclimated to deducting an hour from the clock time in the spring and summer months rather than try to learn it.

So when my mother bought her first computer, I started screening my calls. But soon enough she learned how to do an email attachment and even set up her own blog—oddly enough—about how to set your VCR clock.

Don't worry, you aren't that late to the web design party.

Some graphic designers have felt left behind by rapidly changing web technologies. At first it was just easy drag-and-drop web design software supplemented by a simple understanding of HTML. Soon Flash and Java scripting became the norm. Then HTML gave way to DHTML, XHTML and HTML5 and so on. Now, putting Dreamweaver on your resume incites snickers from 23-year-old creative directors.

Many of my peers are taking web classes, trying to catch up on needed skills. Some succeed enough to not be laughed at; others just can’t keep up with all the new programming languages and plugins. For the 23-year-olds who grew up coding HTML and build apps for fun, print designers are like the elderly parents who call about VCR clocks. Print designers who have a few more years (or decades) before they retire need to learn some new tricks.

If you confuse PHP with PCP and think jQuery might be something conservative politicians want to outlaw, you may be a little too late to the technology party. To stay competitive with younger, more savvy designers, you’ll need to work twice as hard to catch up. It means not only keeping up with the changes Adobe makes to its graphics programs but knowing about web language developments, learning new software AND having examples to show employers. No one said it would be easy. 

It's never too late to get back on your feet.

In fighting obsolescence, it might seem like there’s just too much technology to digest. So we’ve boiled it down to four main points for you to focus on. Being familiar with all of these concepts is important; being an expert in one of them can help you score jobs and keep hustling.

Learn WordPress.

WordPress makes it easy to set up websites and blogs for clients—and yourself! In fact, the WordPress content management supports the majority of websites started today. You can use a stylish theme to get started, and when you learn some code, you can customize it or even start building and selling your own awesomely designed themes. HOW Interactive’s got a whole series on how to use Wordpress themes, plugins and tools.

Be a presentation software guru.

Believe it or not, there are design companies that do 90% of their business in creating digital presentations. Creatives excel at presentations because of our ability to make beautiful visuals, and clients big and small need presentation material. While PowerPoint is still the gold standard in corporate environments, keeping up with emerging presentation technologies can be a great selling point for yourself. For example, check out this amazing animated presentation made with Google Docs:

Stay on top of new technologies.

From left: a QR code, a Microsoft Tag and a Data Matrix.

If you haven’t seen these crossword-looking things on packaging or posters, you aren’t getting out enough. QR codes are barcodes you scan with your smartphone to go to a web page, video, app or to make a call. The boring black-and-white squares can also be modified with great design and color. New design firms are popping up everywhere to handle the design of these codes. With trial and error, you can still create some really impressive pieces for clients. (But be careful you don’t end up in the annals of QR code fails!)

And it’s been around for a few years, but augmented reality technology is starting to make its way into our daily lives. It’s a way to interact with your surroundings through your smartphone’s camera—the videos in this articleare great examples.

Prepare for the mobile web. 

Oh, to have been in the forefront of this technology a few years ago. It’s no secret that making just one monster app like Angry Birds will let you retire. Two will let your whole family retire. Three popular apps, and you can buy a better family! 

But responsive websites (ones that work just as well on laptops as they do on tablets and on smartphones) are the real future of mobile apps. It will take some training for a print designer but having a creative eye is the key to being a superstar of this technology. And if you aren’t ready to design for the mobile web yourself, justbefriend some developers!

There are many avenues for creatives to follow to stay on the forefront of technology. It takes hard work, dedication, imagination and the passion we all feel by being creative. Catch up or get left behind—the choice is yours.

Party detrius photo by Ben Seidelman; party lawn chair photo by Erich Ferdinand

ADC Young Guns X

ADC Young Guns is the only global, cross-disciplinary portfolio competition that identifies today's vanguard of young creative professionals, age 30 and under.


Call for Entries to ADC Young Guns 10 is now open! 30 or under? Check out the rules and entry instructions, then register and login to get started.


The regular deadline for entries is May 8. See all deadlines and fees here.


Questions? Take a look at our FAQ page or email info@adcyoungguns.org.

Mohawk Paper: branding + promotion

Mohawk Connects the Dots

Established in 1931, Mohawk, a fourth-generation family-owned business, is the largest privately owned manufacturer of fine papers and envelopes for commercial and digital printing in North America. Mohawk employs over 580 people and operates three paper machines in two mills in upstate New York and two converting facilities in New York and Ohio, with warehouses around the U.S.. Popular paper brands under Mohawk’s portfolio include Superfine, Navajo, Via, Beckett, and Strathmore. Last week Mohawk announced a major reinvention of their business to “thrive in today’s digital world” and today marks the launch of a snazzy new website designed by Hydrant and developed by Avatar, as well as the introduction of a new identity designed by Pentagram partner Michael Bierut and associate partner Joe Marianek.
Disclaimers: I worked for Michael Bierut at Pentagram. When I worked there I worked on Mohawk projects. Joe Marianek sometimes contributes to Brand New. Mohawk is an advertiser on UnderConsideration (starting in May). I know many of the people involved in the brand/marketing side of Mohawk. In other words, I have so much conflict of interest writing this review that you would think my pockets are lined with cash. But after six years of writing reviews I believe I have established I am fair. Lastly, all the visual assets arrived last night and there is no contributing writer up at 5:00 am, like me, to cover this identity on the same day it launches. Anyone who finds a problem with all this: deal with it.

The launch of MohawkConnects.com is the customer’s first introduction to Mohawk’s vibrant new brand designed by Pentagram, Mohawk’s primary branding agency for more than two decades. Michael Bierut, who leads the Mohawk brand team at Pentagram said, “The logo is a monogram for the name Mohawk. It’s based on the letter M, but it’s also constructed to evoke the papermaking process and the printing process, both of which involve paper going around cylinders,” he said.

The logo also speaks to the basic idea of connection, which is what Mohawk paper is designed for, “Whether it’s for a small book of photos featuring your niece and nephew or for a giant global corporation — it’s about communication,” said Bierut.
— Press Release

The old logo, also designed by Pentagram in 2002, was an attractive wordmark based (or perhaps purely, I can’t remember) on W.A. Dwiggins’ Metro. Nothing fancy but nothing earth-shattering either. The new “M” icon seems to take its cue from the open-legged “M” in Metro to create a lively visual element that manages to capture many of the press release talking points, from connectivity to paper-making. To me, it looks a tad more like a commercial printing company logo than a paper company because of the cylinder approach and the color overlays — it’s not an altogether bad thing, since a big bulk of Mohawk’s paper goes through big ass printers. The icon is attractive and punchy, for lack of a better word and, in contrast to the previous logo, takes prominence over the company name, now subtly typeset in House Industries’ Chalet. I’m not convinced if it needed to be set in all lowercase — the icon already conveys friendliness and the uppercase “M” would have balanced out nicely with the “k” in the end. The icon looks best when it’s in multiple colors as opposed to a single hue and definitely better than the single-color, stroke version which starts to look more like something out of a kids toy box. Nonetheless, the logo is a charming new asset to deploy anywhere from paper reams to the web.
As a bonus, the logo animates well and it even has a sound mnemonic. See it (and hear it) here.

Display type: Chalet, all caps only.

Text type: Sentinel.

Ream.

New Mohawk Product Selector by Michael McGinn Design Office. Photos by Alex Tobin.

In application the logo proves to be a playful element that can be blown up big really nice and it makes those color overlays stand out. The use of the medium weight of Chalet doesn’t feel like it works very well with the big bold patterning. It tries to take on a spare European feel but, to me, it starts to look cheap and generic and, instead of creating a pleasant contrast, it goes against the all lowercase use of Chalet in the logo. Overall, there is good potential in the identity and there are dozens if not hundreds of applications to experiment and take the elements in different directions (perhaps even elevating Sentinel to more of a display use).