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When the LogoLounge authors reviewed 27,000 logos for the compilation of their fourth book, they noticed several trends. On the whole, designers are moving away from artificial highlights/Photoshop tricks and moving toward a more clean + vivid era.
The image about showcases four of the trends -- foldover letterforms, fine line drawings, flourishes (which have been around for quite some time, so I'm surprised to see them still in play), and jawbreakers. See all the 2008 trends on logolounge.com
Tis the season for superfluous list-making. The compulsive yet COMPLETELY fulfilling need to list the most inconsequential items of the past year does provide some interesting results. Take SLATE Magazine's Review of Illustrations. Simple, humorous and NOT numerically ranked.
Sometimes an experience isn't interactive and is PURELY aesthetic as in this experimental animation using icons and illustrations from nature. And sometimes an experience is best seen and not written about, just like this one. Sure it could be better if the user caused something to happen within it, but the show is tantalizing and captivating nonetheless. Check it out.
Aside from the animation I do like the transparent nav panel that collapses on the left. I have been trying to do something like this at AOL for the last 4 years though our research shows that if you want someone to click on something it is best to expose it.
By: Peter Rivera
A map specialist who works in Illustrator and Photoshop, John Grimwade is the Director of Information Graphics at Conde Nast's Traveler and Portfolio magazines based in NY. I found this video interview with him quite interesting. Two thirds of the way in he starts to discuss the future of interactive graphics. I think he is right.
His personal website has a great collection of his work. I am always amazed by designers who can take impossible piles of data and turn it all into simple and cohesive information graphics. Bravo.
John really believes in the power of "a pencil" over processor-based technology. I tend to agree with him on that score as well.
He will be speaking at the VizThink Conference in January in San Francisco (tagline: "are you a visual thinker?"). This one sounds like a killer alternative to the 1000th Web 2.0 conference there. This is what the conference organizers have to say about him: "his speciality is wayfinding maps and diagrams: helping people navigate complex spaces." Perhaps I can commission him to do an info-mural of my life lately. Or perhaps we can ask him down to speak to us?
His personal website has a great collection of his work. I am always amazed by designers who can take impossible piles of data and turn it all into simple and cohesive information graphics. Bravo.
John really believes in the power of "a pencil" over processor-based technology. I tend to agree with him on that score as well.
He will be speaking at the VizThink Conference in January in San Francisco (tagline: "are you a visual thinker?"). This one sounds like a killer alternative to the 1000th Web 2.0 conference there. This is what the conference organizers have to say about him: "his speciality is wayfinding maps and diagrams: helping people navigate complex spaces." Perhaps I can commission him to do an info-mural of my life lately. Or perhaps we can ask him down to speak to us?
By: John Kilpatrick
Filed under: aesthetics, conferences and events, illustration, inspiration, "wish I had done that"
Created with Admarket's flickrSLiDR.
I wanted to attend the Seed conference in Chicago, but couldn't get away from the office. Based on these amazing notes from Mike Rohde from the conference, looks like I missed a good one.
There are some really good themes I caught in the notes. It's worth a quick moment to read. I really like the quote "forget about the valuation of facebook."
By: Rich Foster
The Key Experiences team recently launched the My Favorite Artists widget on the Facebook platform, you can select your top 10 for the list of a 100 artists from AOL Music. This is our first outing on the Facebook platform, but this definitely takes a lot of the thinking and customization we put into all the widgets we produce and delivers a great experience including photo and videos in compact form factor.
We are now working on an AIR version that will be desktop based and will include all artists on AOL Music. These smaller vehicles are great ways for us share our content creating a more intimate relationships with our users with content that they choose to engage with.
These widgets are free and if you have a Facebook account add this to your profile page, it's free, customizable and fun. For more information and to see a full suite of the desktop and web based apps click here.
By: Rich Foster
After many years of very well written purely typographic ad's (ok so they did use a light bulb a few times) the Economist has gone for an illustrated approach, I think AMV BBDO, London did an amazing job of keeping the integrity of the brand but offering a new spin on the execution."The World Revolves Around The Sun. The world revolves around the sun. Not the British isles. The Economist"
"100 000 Brain Cells". 100,000 of your brain cells die every day. Make sure it's not from boredom. The Economist"
"Know Everything. You can't know everything about everything. But you can give it a good go. The Economist"
"Six Years Old. Because it isn't only 6 year olds who don't want to be left in the dark. The Economist"
"Dissection. Good if you're a story. Bad if you're a frog. The Economist"
"Follow The Herd. Looking for the herd? It went thataway. The Economist"
By: Rachel Been
Filed under: beautiful things, culture of design, identity design, illustration, process
The simplistic website colr.org offers a new way to create color schemes.
Use your own image on the web, or upload a random image from flickr, and colr.org will extract the photograph's colors to compose a personal scheme.
This is a great tool for interior design, painting a house, designing a website, or even making a more appealing birthday invitation....
Use your own image on the web, or upload a random image from flickr, and colr.org will extract the photograph's colors to compose a personal scheme.
This is a great tool for interior design, painting a house, designing a website, or even making a more appealing birthday invitation....
Filed under: beautiful things, culture of design, illustration, inspiration, photography
Looking for a bit of inspiration and your morning coffee just isn't giving you a buzz? Nice To Meet You (www.ntmy.org) is a new world-wide design community Web site sponsored by Media Temple (www.meadiatemple.net) with continuously refreshed links to design news, hot sites, and design portfolios submitted by its members. You can also scribble your random thoughts on the community board, check out where in the world other people on the site are located, and, when you sign up, you get your own little blog page to add your own news to the service.
At first glance, the page is a bit cluttered and hard to follow, with large images that don't appear to be clickable (the mouse pointer doesn't change), even though they are, and tiny text captions which you can't tell whether they go with the image above or below. Now that my gripes are out of the way, I have to say that the content is diverse and cool. That with the community aspects makes this site one to return to when you get stuck for an idea.
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