Wednesday, June 1, 2011
The Squad , Percept , Rising Sun Pictures
Percept is a Graphic Design agency that have been operating in Sydney, NSW, Australia since 1997. They were formally known as Eye Scream Graphic Design.
The services they offer can be divided into the following categories: Branding, internet, print and marketing. Branding includes corporate identity, rebranding, and brand naming. Internet includes web design, web hosting and email advertising. Print includes designs, stationary, digital and offset printing, photography and visual communication aids. Marketing includes advertising, collateral design and electronic marketing.
Percept are recognised by a number of jobs such as the Packaging Design community with features in the Dieline, Packaging of the World and Labels Plus, and the Email Marketing community as featured in the Campaign Monitor Gallery and as well as winning an Inbox Award.
Percept have represented in the prestigious Desktop Create Design Awards. They have been twice honoured in the 36th Annual Creativity Awards. Percept has published 42 design projects in various international graphic design journals.
Percept have featured in Oz Graphic and the Desktop Design Directory, the publications featuring Australia’s top design studios.
Percept were Wine label design medallists at Printing Industries Craftsmanship Awards. They are also an active member of AGDA (Australia Graphic Design Association).
Wednesday, May 25, 2011
Frost Design , The Chopping Block , Industrial Light and Magic
Thursday, May 19, 2011
Bauhaus School
The Bauhaus was one of the first colleges of design. It was founded by Walter Gropius in 1919 and was closed in 1933 by the Nazis. The Bauhaus holds a place of its own in the culture and visual art history of the 20th century, and has spread to far corners of the world. One of the main goals for the Bauhaus was to renew architecture.
Founders
Walter Gropius was the man who founded the Bauhaus School in 1919 and was director until he stood down in 1928, when Hannes Meyer became director. He was fired in 1930, and replaced by Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, who was director until the schools close in 1933.
Gropius was born in 1883 in Berlin. He studied architecture from 1903 until 1907. After this he worked in Peter Behrens' practice until 1910 when he opened his own. Around this time he became a member of the Deutscher Werkbund, a group whose aim was to promote creativity in design. He founded the Bauhaus School in 1919 and was director until 1927. He stayed in Europe and England until moving to America in 1937 to take up a teaching position at Harvard. In 1938 he opened a joint practice with Marcel Breuer. He died in Boston in 1969.
Meyer was born in 1889 in Switzerland. he took over as director of the Bauhaus school in 1928, and it was under his Communist beliefs and influence that many of the students followed, thus bringing unwanted political attention to the school. He was fired as director in 1930 by the Mayor of Dessau. After his sacking, he and several students formed a group whose projects included architectual structures and urban planning projects. He travelled a lot after this group was also forced to quit, but returned to Switzerland where he died in 1954.
Mies was born in 1886 in Germany. Before opening his own practice in 1912 he worked for several years at the practice of Peter Behrens, and studied his craft. He designed many buildings, including skyscrapers. He became the director of the Bauhaus School in 1930 and stayed on until the school was forced to close in 1933 by the new German Nazi Government. In 1937 he moved to Chicago where he became the head of Architecture at the Illinois Institute of Technology. He also later designed this Institutes new campus, as well as many structures in his style of open space, steel and glass. He died in Chicago in 1969.
Style
Bauhaus was a Utopian driven school in Germany that believe in changing the world through design. Bauhaus means "build House". Bauhaus movement started in 1919-1933, it's main aim was to bring arts and crafts together to make a better place for people to live in. Walter Gropius the founder of the Bauhaus school was known to say " Form follows function and together let us
desire, conceive, and create the new structure of the future, which will embrace architecture and sculpture and painting in one unity” Walter Gropius http://thinkexist.com
The main influences to this movement was in architecture, future, and in typography. The style is referred to being spare, functional, and geometric. Which appealed to the Western Europe.
The Impact of Bauhaus
In the decades following its end, the Bauhaus had a major impact on the trends of art and architecture in Western Europe, The USA, Canada and Israel. The style became one of the most influential currents in Modernist architecture and modern design. The Bauhaus had a profound influence upon subsequent developments in art, architecture, graphic design, interior design, industrial design and typography.
One of the most important contributions of the Bauhaus is modern furniture design. Many chair designs we see today are created in the Bauhaus style - sleek and geometric. Buildings and other architectural structures we see are also influenced by the Bauhaus style. The city of Chicago is probably one of the best examples of this.
Sunday, May 15, 2011
Tutorial results
Wednesday, May 11, 2011
Joshua Davis, Animal Logic, Ansel Adams
Wednesday, May 4, 2011
Giambattista Bodoni, Soap Creative, William Caslon
Giabattista Bodoni was born on the 16 of February 1740 in Saluzzo, Piedmont Italy. He was the son of a printer. Bodoni had done his first studies at the Regio Collegio Saluzzese. He died on the 29 of November 1813 at the age of 73 in Parma, Italy.
Giabattista was known as an engraver, type designer, typographer, printer and publisher. By 1780s Giabattista designed typeface called BODONI and it has been regarded as to be one of the first modern typefaces. He moved on to making another 2 main innovations in type design: he gave a vertical alignment to the sloped swellings in the bowls of the letters that derive from the down strokes in handwriting; he made all the horizontal serifs on the upper and lower parts of the letters very thin and uniform; and he increased the contrast between stems and serifs (Quoted-Art Encyclopedia-Grove Art, Oxford University Press). According to the Columbia Electronic encyclopaedia Giabattista was regarded as one of the leaders in originating pseudoclassical typefaces.
At the age of 18, Giabattista moved to Rome and was employed as a typesetter at the Vatican’s Propaganda Fide printing works; Giabattista had worked for Vatican’s for almost 10 years... After battling malaria Bodoni was hired by the Duke Ferdinand of Bourbon- Parma to organize a printing house this is where Bodoni got to work on a range of specimen books, which were very well received. Eventually Bodoni opened his own printing house called Officina Bodoni.
From 1768 Bodoni ran a printing house called Stamperia Reale, in Parma, Italy. After a while doing this he opened his own printing house called Officina Bodoni. Bodoni's Internet presence is minimal. There is not a lot of extensive information about his life: some can be found on wikipedia.com, linotype.com and other typography websites. His fonts can be purchased from sites such as myfonts.com, fontshop.com, itcfonts.com and adobe.com. Why and what made Bodoni famous Whilst working in the Vatican's Propaganda Fide printing house in Rome, Bodoni impressed his superiors with a willingness to learn, he had a mastery of ancient languages and types. Bodoni achieved an unprecedented level of technical refinement, allowing him to faithfully reproduce letterforms with very thin "hairlines". Bodoni designed and personally engraved 298 typefaces. Bodoni did away with old style letters and introduced a new clear simple type - the modern typeface. In his influential Manuale Tipografico of 1818, he laid down the four principles of type design, which were: regularity of chracters, cleanness, good taste and charm. His master piece was Homer's Iliad. Bodoni was the most successful early proponent of what is referred to as the "modern" typeface, distinguished by a strong contrast between thin and thick strokes. His coldly elegant books where made to be admired for the typeface and layout and not to be studied or read. (Proof reading was not his strong point).
• In his manuale tipografico (two volume works) contains about 142 roman alphabets, numerous script and exotic typefaces and a striking collection of flowers and ornaments.
• Bodoni emphasized the use of good paper and strong ink.
Our opinions of Bodoni Although Bodoni is regarded as a "modern typeface", I feel that Bodoni would be more suited to that of a display font and used sparingly. Although in saying this a combination of his typeface and ornaments would create a very clean piece of artwork. I admire the use of thin and thick strokes throughout his type as I feel that this gives the type a unique definition. Formal yet fun with thick and thin strokes. Bodoni has created a classic type face with letters very thin and uniform; and he increased the contrast between stems and serifs. _____________________
Soap Creative
Soap Creative is one of Australia's leading Digital Agencies. Soap Creative were named number Digital Agency by AdNews Magazine in 2010.
Soap started out with three guys sharing an office in 2002, and have since grown to company with over 50 staff members spread across offices in Sydney and Los Angeles.
Soap describe themselves as specializing in delivery innovative, hight creative ad strategy-focused campaigns across websites, games, content, social media, widgets, electronic direct mail, standard and rich media, viral and metrics and reporting.
Soap creative have clients that include Unilever brands LYNX, Streets, Bushells, Impulse as well as 3 Mobile, FOXTEL, 20th Century Fox, Activision and Marvel.
You could say that soap has a work hard play hard culture, their claim to fame is that they host weekly BBQs, take their entire team to remote locations for Skiing lessons. Each ember has a soap-o-hero alter ego which they get to choose and illustrate them and place on their business card. They say this is great for client meetings and pitches as it sets them apart from other agencies, it also creates a 'tribe" and creates unity among the staff. The culture of the soap-o-hero is extended through the office where they have different meeting rooms " the hall of justice", emergency meeting room " the scape pod" and mystery room "x".
Big gamers and at the moment have three active gaming clients activision, unilever and naughty dog.
This agency is absolutely amazing!
Soap Creative has had many clients over their nine years of business, including a vast collection of widely recognised companies such as 20th Century Fox, ABC New Media, Activision, Ben & Jerry’s, Dick Smith, Foxtel, KFC, Lynx and Marvel.
Soap Creative offer services in screen-based media such as websites, mobile phone applications, tools and games (including online and CD-Rom). This agency has also created tshirt prints for Bubble-O Bill, and a card game called the Meeting Game.
Their work is very clean and professional its very groovy and all the content that I have viewed has all been very awesome, I never felt negative when interacting or viewing the content it was very attention catching and fun. The lynx content was a bit sexist however it is targeted towards men and sex does sell as there statistics show, I wasn’t offended it just didn’t hold my attention as the rest did. They have many notorious clients and deal with a broad medium from games to videos and websites that are all targeted towards a variety of audiences. ___________________
William Caslon
Career:
In 1716 he built his own type foundary in London, which produced some 16 years later his most famous typeface Caslon. He first started out in his business as an engraver of gunlocks and barrels and as a bookbinders tool cutter. He later established contact and encouragement through the printers William Bowyer and John Watts that lead to cutting type punches for various presses London.
In 1720 he designed an “English Arabic” typeface used in the New Testament. Soon after in 1722 he released his first typefaces, which were based on seventeenth century Dutch old style designs and were used extensively in England because of their practicality. 1726 was when the typeface Caslon was first used and soon after it’s release he received loans and sufficient trade, which enabled him to complete the setup of his foundary. Up until the 1780’s there were few books that weren’t printed in one of his typefaces.
In 1735 his typefaces spread all over Europe and American colonies that lead to the font being used to print the American Declaration of Independence. His son William Caslon II soon joined the company and in 1745 became partner and took over the family business after his death.
Achievements:
William Caslon designed a number of serif typefaces in his lifetime, some of which are still used today. The first three fonts by William Caslon were Arabic, Hebrew and Koptic. He also designed typefaces such as Caslon 540, Caslon Bold, Caslon Old Face, Big Caslon, Caslon Open Face, Williams Caslon Text and most likely in any other that has the name ‘Caslon’ on it.
The United States Declaration of Independence was set in Caslon type, which would have to be one of William Caslon’s greatest accomplishments.
The name ‘Caslon’ comes from the 18th Century typeface that was designed by William Caslon. This serif typeface was printed in the earliest English language texts and is also know to the typeface used for the New Yorker Magazine.
William Caslon’s typefaces immediately became popular and were used for many important printed works. Caslon’s type became so popular that the expression about the typeface choice, ‘when in doubt, use Caslon,’ came about.After William Caslon’s death in 1766, his typefaces fell out of favour but were revived in the 1840s, some of which are widely used today.
Biography:
William Caslon was born in 1692 in cradley, Worcestershire, England. In 1706 at the age of 13 he began a seven-year apprenticeship as an engraver with a London harness marker. In 1716 he became a self-employed engraver of gunlocks and barrels, and as a bookbinders tool cutter. In 1721 the society for promoting Christian knowledge commissioned Caslon to cast Arabic alphabets where his font became an instant success. In around 1720 William Caslon founded a typeface foundry called the Caslon Foundry. That foundry became the leading English typeface foundry of the 18th and early 19th centuries. He died in 1766. Caslon is cited as the first original typeface of English origin.
Caslon’s font is characterized by its short ascenders and decenders, bracketed serifs, moderately high contrast, robust texture and moderate modulation of stroke. The Caslon’s typeface has become one of the most famous typefaces in the world today. The first copy of the declaration of independence was printed in Caslon. There are many typefaces that have been derived from Caslon’s font in existence. Caslon’s type is now considered a good, readable type
Thursday, April 28, 2011
Wednesday, April 27, 2011
Neville Brody and David Carson
Neville Brody was born on the 23rd of April, 1957 in London, England. He studied Graphic Design from 1977 to 1980 at London College of Printing, and at the Hornsey School of Art. His influences include 20th Century Avant-Garde design, and Russian Constructivists El Lissitzky and Alexander Rodchenko.
Neville Brody's online presence is very vast. Information about him and examples of his work are on many websites such as researchstudios.com (which he founded), designyatra.com and even on the Mac section of the Apple website. There are also interviews avaliable to watch online on vimeo.com. His vast collection of fonts, including Insignia and Blur, appear on many websites that are available for download or purchase, such as identifont.com, fontfont.com, fontshop.com, fonts.com, itcfonts.com and myfonts.com.
Neville Brody's work has been deemed uncommerical as his work often puts heavy heavy emphasis on safe and tested economic strategies as opposed to experimentation. During the punk rock fase in london he was almost thrown out of college for putting the Queen's head sideways on a postage stamp design, which beganhis design career of questioning the rules of society and design.
Brody largely made his nam through his revolutionary work as Art Director for the magazine "The Face" in 1980 when it was first published. He has pushed the boundaries of visual communication in all media thorugh his experimental and challenging works. He also designed (with others) the coporate identity for the House of World Cultures in Berlin. He was one of the founding members of Fontworks and there designed a number of notable typefaces. He also co-produced FUSE, which is a project that is a published collection of experimental typefaces and posters which challenge the boundaries between typography and graphic design.
He has published two books and have a combined sale of over 120000 copies and had over 40000 visitors at his exhibition in London before he started touring.
David Carson
Born September 8th, 1952 in Corpus Christi, Texas, but moved to New York City four years later.
Carson was a high-school teacher before he was a graphic designer.
First actual contact with graphic design was made in 1980 at the University of Arizona on a two-week graphics course. He attended San Diego St. University as well as Oregon College of Commercial Art. Later on in 1983, Carson was working towards a Bachelor of Arts in Sociology when he went to Switzerland, where he attended a three-week workshop in graphic design as part of his degree.
Carson was also a professional surfer and in 1989 and qualified as the 8th best surfer in the world. His career as a surfer influenced his designs along with his various wolrd travels.
David started his own business called David Carson Inc and has agencies in Del Mar, California and Zurich Switzerland. He lectures all around the world. He is well known for his photography and graphic design pieces but has ranged out into other mediums e.g. directing commercials and videos. He has also written many Books including The end of print, which has been the best selling Graphic design book ever written to date and has appeared in over 180 magazines and newspaper articles. His website www.davidcarsondesign.com/ is very basic with no side links. This website is focussed primarily to focus on the body of the website and not the headings. Because he moves around a lot he needs to work in a mobile work studio.
Famous for pushing the boundaries of design he is considered one of the most famous graphic designs on the planet (as described by creative review magazine). Carson is famous because he has influenced graphic design immensely through his use of type, approach and technique, which does not follow “traditional” graphic design standards. Many designers changed their methods and based their style from Carson’s work, which they consider “new” standards. He highly regarded for this but also through his use of combining photography and typographic elements, he manages to communicate both idea and feeling in his designs.
David Carson utilises grungy typefaces mixed with imagery that when combined create a complex image. I feel that his work appeals more to the younger generations. His images, from a distance display more of a form than a function at first, it is only when a design is inspected closer that the form and function begin to even out. But after examining several of Carson's works I found one particular work that continued to show up. This particular work was a piece of typographical art which read 'Don't mistake legibility for communication'. This work clearly shows us how Carson feels about his work. He does not believe that the design must be simple and easy to read for the message or idea to be conveyed. He tries to draw people in closer to his works so that they can carefully extract the message themselves.
This idea has both pro's and con's. The pro's for this are that it draws people into the design so they can further examine it and get the message after looking at it for a period of time. The con's would be in the case of people simply walking by and glancing at the image. The design is far too complex for someone simply walking past to extract the idea.





















