To whom does design address itself: to the greatest number, to the specialist of an enlightened matter, to a privileged social class? Design addresses itself to the need.
— Charles Eames
Trade Ya.
Submitted by kalis on Tue, 11/08/2011 - 19:44Our company is working with a very outdated image for our tradeshow banner and we have been looking into creating an actual booth that we can use instead. Our current booth encompasses two tables with two different coloured table cloths, stacks of products, and a 3x5 banner which we hang from the pole behind our area. It makes me cringe thinking about it.
We decided to go with Brandstand's waveline and podium conversion kit. We also purchased a shelf tower for product display completely removing the need for tables. I have built several proposals for the booth graphics, and these are two of my favourites. The graphics have been imposed over the catalog images of the display and the shelf system in order to give a better idea of what the final product will be.
Meet the New Extreme
Submitted by kalis on Wed, 10/05/2011 - 11:41I'm working on creating a brochure and a webpage for the new iridium extreme satellite phone. With iridium's release of the extreme they highlighted several new features of the phone and used icons to denote those features on their website and pamphlets. I was charged with creating our own icons for those features.
Voice, SMS, Distress Beacon, Tracking, GPS, Data Tethering, Jet Water Resistant, Dust Proof, and Shock Resistant.
Along with that, I created a banner for the top of the website emulating iridium's diamond plate images they are using in their marketing.
Iconography
Submitted by kalis on Wed, 09/28/2011 - 17:53Icons have recently made their way into my current employer's sights. He has decided that a picture really is worth 1,000 words and he has had me creating different icon sets. A lot of the smaller things that I do never make it into my gallery, so I'm posting this on my blog so you can see what I did all day yesterday.
Set number 1 is land/sea/air. It goes with our BGAN terminals, since you can use them land sea or air supposedly. I didn't think you could use BGAN in the air. Maybe he's just saying that you can use satellite communications, or the Inmarsat network, in the air. Either way, here's land/sea/air:
Along with that, I also created icons for our value added Services. The creatively named: SPS Bill, SPS Mail, SPS Track, and SPS Repair.
Quixote
Submitted by kalis on Mon, 09/26/2011 - 23:01I am an avid scrabble player, a fan of bookworm by popcap, a crossword puzzler, a reader, and I play words with friends when I can't get any of my other fixes. I know off the top of my head that there are no 2 letter words containing the letter C. I know words like qat, qi, burqa, faqir, qanat, and quite a few other words to get rid of pesky Q's Z's and X's (I should point out that firefox thinks I misspelled all of the previous words in that list xD)
I once scrabbled with the word quixote over a triple word score. My opponent quit the game.
With my love of art and my love of words, I find that it was only a matter of time before I fell into the middle ground between the two.
Typography, you are my friend.
Stroke of Genius
Submitted by kalis on Wed, 09/21/2011 - 12:49I just wanted to share this article about the variable width strokes in Illustrator CS5 because the author says everything that I possibly could have about how amazing this tool is. I have been loving this ability ever since it came out, and more and more I'm finding that it helps speed up the ability to make patterns and images by an incredible amount. If you haven't messed with this tool yet and you have CS5 you should definitely check it out.
Design Thoughts.
Submitted by kalis on Mon, 09/19/2011 - 13:08Design is about so much more than just sticking some information on a page. Design is about balance (not necessarily symmetry.) It's about knowing what feelings a font conveys and picking the correct font or combination of fonts for your message. It's about not overdoing it. Design forces you to take into account things that you don't normally think about when you're looking at a printed page. I cringe now when I see a paragraph where the designer just clicked "justify" instead of manually adjusting the kerning of each line. I have become addicted to grids and guidelines. I have learned to minimalize and let the information speak above my design. I will never look at billboards and magazines the same way again.
