Designers Don’t Read…Enough

“The cliché that designers don’t read—aside from being insulting—is, however, entirely plausible since graphic design(ing) doesn’t really require reading, or so word on the street goes. But this is a rather threatening misperception as it challenges our intellectual, cultural and critical commitment. In addition, it categorizes us as an intellectually bankrupt superfluous bunch. Yet the claim is not entirely without merit, because graphic designers don’t read enough—about graphic design, that is.”

From Armin Vit’s essay on AIGA website. Read the entire essay from here.

— Emre

Catherine Zask’s Paris Diderot University Identity Manual

Here is Catherine Zask’s Paris Diderot University identity manual that you saw today’s lesson.  You can download from here.

Paris Diderot University Identity Manual

— Emre

The perils of teaching graphic design in the land of the Shapeshifters

I suggest you to read this post by Elif Ayiter since you are learning graphic design in “the land of the Shapeshifters”. It gives great insight as to why we in Turkey suffer from the absence of a solid visual tradition and why people brought up in Turkey (that probably includes you, students of Sabanci University) have to work harder in order to train their visual “taste”.

— Cem

Ale Paul & Script Typefaces

Alejandro Paul, aka Ale, is an Argentinean typographer, type designer and teacher who currently lives and works in Argentina Buenos Aires. His obsession for packaging and hand lettering have instigated the design of over 50 script typefaces at Sudtipos. Most Graphic Design education students are taught to avoid using decorative and script typefaces. This is simply because of the overly used and cliché types that the operating systems (MAC OSX and Windows) can offer. However, when a “good” script type, like many of Alejandro’s typefaces, are used appropriately and intelligently the result can be very successful and original. For instance take a look at the catalogue he designed to promote Semilla “The Top Ten Albums by Semilla Records“. There, he collaborated with a photographer and found a wonderful ground to promote his typeface with images.

onur

Tea brand identity

Very successful brand identity package example from Mind Design.  See all the works from here.

— Emre

Michael Bierut: 5 Secrets from 86 Notebooks

“Renowned graphic designer Michael Bierut claims that he’s not creative. Instead, he likens his job to that of a doctor who tends to patients – “the sicker, the better.” Digging into the 86 notebooks he’s kept over the course of his career, Bierut walks us through 5 projects – from original conception to final execution – extracting a handful of simple lessons (e.g. the problem contains the solution; don’t avoid the obvious) at the foundation of brilliant design solutions.” From the99percent.com

— Emre

Negative space in logo design

Here are some successful examples of clever use of negative space in logo design.

— Emre

Paula Scher on Creativity

These are Paula Scher’s words from How to Think Like a Great Graphic Designer by Debbie Millman, illustrating why you can’t create good design without looking at a lot of other stuff:

I have a pile of stuff in my brain, a pile of stuff from all the books I’ve read and all the movies I’ve seen. Every piece of artwork I’ve ever looked at. Every conversation that’s inspired me, every piece of street art I’ve seen along the way. Anything I’ve purchased, rejected, loved, hated. It’s all in there. It’s all on one side of the brain. And on the other side of the brain is a specific brief that comes from my understanding of the project and says, okay, this solution is made up of A, B, C, and D. And if you pull the handle on the slot machine, they sort of run around in a circle and what you hope is that those three cherries line up, and the cash comes out. (…) I allow the subconscious part of my brain to work. That’s the accumulation of my whole life. That is what’s going on in the other side of my brain, trying to align with this very logical brief. And I’m allowing that to flow freely, so that the cherries can line up in the slot machine.

If you don’t know who Paula Scher is, you should include her work to your list of things-to-look-at.

— Cem

Brand New

Brand New is a blog where Armin Vit and Bryony Gomez-Palacio write their opinions on new branding solutions, mostly logo redesigns. You might learn a lot from there, not by taking everything they say as absolute design rules (they’re just opinions however professional they are), but by discovering what kinds of little things are obsessively taken into account in design and branding.

— Cem

Graphic Exchange

Hello all,

Our grad student Cem found this website http://www.graphic-exchange.com/03identity.htm. I suggest everybody to check this website and see some good visual identity solutions. Especially, pay attention to the “family” concept of the design products, how things work as a whole and individually.