Branding an organization is primarily an exercise in getting to know a person. When I am tasked with creating a visual identity for a company or organization, I try to get to know—on a personal level—whoever is the main decision-maker for the company. Usually it’s the president, sole proprietor or in some cases, a board [...]
Technology has its good moments and it has its bad moments. Pardon my anthropomorphism and generalization. Some of Technology’s highlights: Eli Whitney’s Cotton Gin, the telegraph, the telephone and its evolution into telecommuting. The personal computer, internal combustion engine, digital versatile disc (DVD), iPhone. Some of technology’s low points: early automobile airbags, ENIAC (early computer), [...]
They say the only constant in life is “change”. Well, I’ve got nothing but nickels over here, so change is on the way. For some time now, I’ve only been posting portfolio items to this website, and in fact I’m quite behind on that too! I have discovered the allure of Twitter to be very [...]
I wanted to point out an invaluable resource for corporate identity designers, as well as any artist interested in how art converges with communication. The name of the website I’m speaking of is called Brand New. On it, an experienced designer critiques new logo releases and regularly comes out with breaking news regarding corporate identity [...]
This is a highly-debated and ever-evolving topic of discussion. The question, ‘‘What’s the best web host?’’ has to be one of the most often asked questions on internet discussion forums around the world. The answer that is always given is ‘‘There’s no one right answer. Your needs determine the best host.’’ What that translates to [...]
Having been the new kid on the block, I know what it feels like to begin making your way in the world of professional artistry. So, I wanted to take a moment here to give a shout out to a good friend of mine, and up-and-coming artist Gabriel Leake.
Gabriel and I collaborated on a project [...]
My brother is a full-time pastor, as well as a web designer. He runs a great blog called Live.Awake, over at www.bencotten.net. He’s doing a blog series entitled A Pastors Guide to the Web. It’s a five part series, with the final portion penned by me. He asked me to weigh in with the pastors [...]
Eric Gill was an artst, calligrapher, stonecarver, sculptor and typographer living in England from 1882 until 1940. He grew to be a highly respected stonecarver and letterer during his lifetime, and produced several still-famous typefaces, such as Gill Sans, Joanna, and Perpetua, among others. The British Broadcasting Corporation has used Gill Sans for it’s identity [...]
The way I always begin a logo or identity design project is in the purely conceptual arena. What is design without purpose? How can we as designers communicate something if we don’t understand our message? Therefore, the first stage must be some sort of interview – either by actually speaking to the client, having them [...]
You might have been wondering what I’ve been up to the last week or two, and the answer is: Logo comps! Woohoo! The part of the design process that is the most loved and most despised by designers. This is the beginning, experimental phase where you sketch, create, erase, sketch, create, erase, then suddenly an [...]
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A brief, focused history of Mountain Dew’s can designs. I’m not including varieties, such as Code Red, Live Wire, Sport, Diet, promotional designs or extra large designs. The first ever can designed for Mountain Dew, before it was owned by Pepsi:
And, here’s the redesigns of that product package until 2009, again not including [...]
That’s right folks, Tropicana (and by extension Arnell design group) are receding from the newly released branding effort as a direct response to a lot of negative feedback from formerly-loyal customers and negative reviews from Design blogs (no kidding!). The only precedent for this is Coca Cola’s retraction from the “New Coke” campaign in the [...]
One of the most crucial questions to ask when designing a new corporate identity or any of it’s constituent parts is, “What of the old identity still works? What needs to stay, and what needs to go?” Often, a company already has a strong brand presence or a large customer base, and therefore needs to [...]
Hey gang,
Sorry about the blogging silence here recently. I’ve been quite busy with some time-critical projects. The good news is that I’ve been busy! The bad news is that I haven’t been able to put as much time into writing new posts. I’ve got some thoughts brewing that should prove helpful to a lot of [...]
Pepsi has done it again! They seem to be hell-bent on overhauling their entire product line to be clinical and minimalistic, while poaching the ideas of others. First I’ll post an image of what Tropicana’s old carton design looked like. Remember the good old days when you see this – back when food products looked [...]
Bittbox is hosting a giveaway of several copies of Swift 3D, a great 3D animation and modeling application. If you’re into 3D modeling, or want to be, it’s worth a shot! The rules follow:
All you have to do to enter is leave a comment.
Only comment once.
3 winners will be randomly chosen and will receive a [...]
Greetings, subscribers!
I’m switching over tsd’s RSS feeds to Feedburner today, so you might have to resubscribe.
Thanks!
Joseph
You’ve probably noticed at your local grocery store or gas station that Pepsico has come out with a new corporate identity. It’s clearly an attempt at an evolutionary (vs. revolutionary) change, with a similar color palette and predominantly blue background on the flagship product, Pepsi. I think it’s a bad identity. Find out why after [...]
I’ve discovered an awesome design resource, right under my nose! I’ve been using iPhoto to organize and share my photos for a long time, and had even ordered a softcover book of some of my nature photographs back in 2002. However, I just finished a wedding album for a client of mine using iPhoto’s Photo [...]
I had fun with this one! You can see a detailed description of the design process in my portfolio. I wanted to tie together the current fascination with Battlestar Galactica’s remake on the Sci Fi Channel and the still-raging retro futuristic design trend. Obviously, there’s a big James White influence here, though I used a [...]
What an interesting election. I have to say as a designer that I loved seeing how good design played such a prominent role. One of the McCain camp’s greatest failings was bad design. They never were able to put out a good visual identity, starting with Optima as their logotype, which nowadays is used only [...]
The news today in the design community is buzzing about Steve Jobs, Apple and the MacWorld Expo. For the first time ever, the great Mr. Jobs will not be giving the keynote at the Macworld Conference and Expo next January. For all of you who don’t use a Mac, you may not know how big [...]
Have you guys seen this stuff around? The space-age futuristic look is coming back into style. It was pretty big in the 1980’s, so I guess we’re coming into that 30 year cultural cycle when styles come back into fashion.
I really get a kick out of this new wave of futuristic styles. Maybe it’s because [...]
Well, it would be my pleasure! As much as I love being an artist and creating beautiful things, I need to make money! I like to say that no job is too small or large. Whether you just need a logo refresh, or a full scale corporate identity with new logo, letterhead, business cards, television [...]
VISIT THE OLD PORTFOLIO
I’m changing things up around here, moving toward a blog format instead of just a portfolio. I’ll still have my work here as a portfolio, but instead of just the images, I’ll be posting articles about the work, diving into my thought processes, and maybe even doing a few tutorials. More after [...]
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