Posted: April 13th, 2010 | Author: Jennifer Farley
This is a long over due post. Two weeks ago I went down to Galway for the Irish Blog Awards (which were really great fun) and for a photowalk had been organised for the same day (which was also good fun).
The prop master for the day was Fran Hollywood who brought along a giant polystyrene iPhone on the photowalk and later provided a foam coffin, headstones and mini coffin trophies to the winners at the Blog Awards. Fran is the founder of Made In Hollywood, a company which specialises in designing and creating 3D objects in polystyrene foam.
Fran gave me a BIG polystyrene version of the photowalk.ie logo that I designed a few months ago and for which I want to say a big public thank you. Much of my graphic design work is for clients that I never actually meet in the flesh, so after the design is finished I rarely see the final printed work, so to get a giant photowalk.ie logo made out of foam was very, very cool and it’s taking pride of place in my office.
This is me with Fran and the logo towards the end of the night. (I’ve had a fair few drinks at this stage thanks to the excellent Ladies Tea Party where the wine was flowing and the fact that Captain Morgan’s rum sponsored the Blog Awards. Oh and because I like drinking Guinness too.)
Made In Hollywood are Ireland’s best foam designers and if you haven’t seen the kind of thing that they create take a look at their portfolio. I had no idea of the kind of work that can be produced using polystyrene – everything from architectural and garden features to logos like photowalk.ie to giant promotional pieces including amazing chocolate bars.
Everything you can see below is created by the team in polystyrene.
So thanks again to Fran for the superb logo and if you’re looking for some interesting marketing and promotional materials please check out Made In Hollywood.
Filed under: All, logo design | Tags: Graphic Design, logo design | 4 Comments »
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Posted: March 25th, 2010 | Author: Jennifer Farley
If you’re interested in Letterhead design, Letterheady is a Tumbler site devoted to very cool old original letterheads from people as diverse as Johnny Cash to Hitler. Some of the designs are minimalist to say the least, while others have the most elaborate designs that nearly take up half the page. Here’s a few I picked out as favourites, but there’s tons more over on the Letterheady site.
Walt Disney Productions 1938
Nikola Tesla Company circa 1900
Churchill 1940
Jim Davis 1987
Elvis 1965
Chester Gould (Creator of Dick Tracy) 1962
Charlie Chaplin Music Publishing 1916
Gene Autry The Singing Cowboy 1949
Converse 1932
And finally, not leaving much room for writing …
Walcker Orgelbau Pipe Organs 1892
What do you think of these old letterhead styles?
Filed under: All, Graphic Design | Tags: Graphic Design, Letterhead Design | 4 Comments »
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Posted: March 14th, 2010 | Author: Jennifer Farley
When I was growing up I remember lots of old Penguin paper back books being around our house. They were mostly my Dad’s books but I used to like looking at the covers. I had no idea that the covers were designed by someone, all I knew was that some were appealing and some looked very boring to me.
This one here on the right is one that I remember and I think it was the big orange sun that I loved. I gravitated towards the more colourful covers which were often made of simple shapes. I’m still very much attracted to that type of design now.
So years later, now as a designer, I have more of an appreciation of the genius that is the grid layout on many of the Penguin book covers, In 1946 German typographer Jan Tschichold was appointed head of design and devised rigorous design templates for all Penguin’s books and also accepted illustrated covers for some books.
Inspired By Penguin
Last year, illustrator M.S. Corley created some absolutely wonderful Penguin inspired covers for Spiderwick Chronicles and Harry Potter and Littlepixel designed 39 Album covers in the classic Penguin style.
And so to my own efforts. As part of my own “create something new everyday” quest which is really more of a weekly thing, I decided to take a few well known cartoons and design Penguin style book covers for them. It keeps me off the streets 
Betty Boop
Bugs Bunny
Captain Caveman
Foghorn Leghorn
Hong Kong Phooey
Popeye
Books About Penguin Covers
Last year I bought the book “Seven Hundred Penguins” which is a nice thick showcase of Penguin book covers, one cover per page. It’s a great source of inspiration and a nice one to have in the book case.
Links
If you’re interested in Penguin book cover design there’s tons of great info out there. Here’s a few links you might find interesting:
The Penguin Blog (Design Posts)
The Penguin Blog Covers On Flickr
Things Magazine Pelican Project
Penguin & Pelican Book Cover Set On Flickr
Design Museum – Designing Modern Britain
Allen Lane Wikipedia
Jan Tschichold
Jan Tschichold Wikipedia
Reading The Cover
Excerpt From “Penguin By Designers” On Creative Review
So any cartoon character you’d like to see on a cover?
Filed under: All, Book Cover Design, Design Stuff!, Graphic Design | Tags: Book Cover Design, Cartoons, Graphic Design, Penguin Books | 6 Comments »
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Posted: March 6th, 2010 | Author: Jennifer Farley
If you’re into sports cars AND graphics, you might be interested in a new hardback book about both of those things called “Go Faster: The Graphic Design of Racing Cars” by Sven Voelker.
The book discusses how numbers, stripes, logos and colours are not just thrown onto the car “willy, nilly” (official design term, ahem) by the marketers, but rather strategically placed by teams of designers.
The book has over one hundred example of racecar graphic design as well as a number of blank models on which you can imagine your own designs.
Here’s a few images from the book.
Images from Top Speed
Filed under: All, Graphic Design | Tags: Cars, Graphic Design | 2 Comments »
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Posted: March 2nd, 2010 | Author: Jennifer Farley
The Daily Drop Cap, if you haven’t seen it before, is a blog set up by typographer & illustrator Jessica Hirsche. She posts (almost) daily a new hand-crafted decorative initial cap which you can use for free in your personal blogs to make them even more lovely. Thank you to Jessica for making such beautiful typography available.
I’ve picked out a few of my favourites, click on the image to go the link for that letter and instructions on how to use it in your web page:
These are just a few of my faves, there are absolutely tons more on the Daily Drop Cap site.
Filed under: All, Design Resources, Typography | Tags: drop caps, Graphic Design, jessica hirsche, typography | No Comments »
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