Every now and then you come across something so brilliant that it jumps out and demands your attention. When I was recently introduced to the concept of ‘cinemagraphs’, I had one of those moments. Read more…
Quite. And life is better with beautiful design.
I rarely get really excited about packaging these days. In fact, apart from Apple, Boden, Innocent and Jane’s Addiction’s Cabinet of Curiosities I can’t really think of much that has grabbed my attention in the last few years.
And that’s why when I received my vinyl wall graphics from Blik through the post I almost jumped for joy. Gorgeous package design fizzing with witty copy and a fab product to boot… pure joy from start to finish. Read more…
As my third week at Red C draws to a close I can only look back and wonder how it’s gone so quickly. Nonetheless after relocating to Manchester, finding a new flat, and establishing an acceptable groove in my office chair, I thought it was about time ‘the new boy‘ contributed to the agency’s ‘We Like’ page.
So I thought I’d share the work of the satirical sculptor Maurizio Cattelan, (like you do). To say I’ve been a fan would be a bit much but I can definitely count myself among his many admirers.
Back in 1995 I saw a film that simply blew my mind. The film was pretty good, but the thing that blew me away about it was the opening and closing credits. The film was the thriller Se7en, and everyone I knew who was into design at the time was instantly inspired by it. It was from this point I began to take more notice of title sequences in films, which soon introduced me to the work of Saul Bass and Stephen Frankfurt… who created the superb title sequence to ‘To kill a mockingbird’.
Fast forward to today and I have to confess I still love a good title sequence, in fact sometimes it feels that the actual title sequence is better than the film (as was the case with this title sequence from the movie Sahara). So it’s probably no surprise then that one of my favourite places to visit on the web is the fabulous site www.artofthetitle.com.
At Red C we love letterheads. Which is probably a good thing since we’ve designed quite a few over the years. In some cases, a letterhead is the first thing that many a customer or client sees when dealing with a business, so having one that is aesthetically pleasing, impactful, memorable and professional is incredibly important. It’s safe to say, though, that designing a letterhead for a business is relatively a straightforward design challenge.
So imagine, for example, if instead of a business, we were tasked with designing the letterhead of say… the leader of the Third Reich. Or maybe a scientific genius, a film director, an animation company, a master magician or the Prime Minister. I wonder how we’d go about designing then.
When I was a kid I used to absolutely love spending time on the sofa, headphones firmly stuck to my head, listening to a wide variety of LPs that were stacked in in the corner of our living room. I’d spend hours listening to a wide variety of music staring intently at the album covers as the music drifted into my ears and allowed my mind to create stories influenced by the pictures on the album art in front of me.
Now… I’m not going to confess what albums I used to listen to as a child, although am sure if my sister read this she would happily divulge the musical crimes of my youth (Mr Roboto by Styx may appear in that list of crimes), but one of the many album artists that had a profound impact on my imagination growing up was the incredibly talented Storm Thorgerson.
Saul Bass was not only one of the great graphic designers of the mid-20th century, but also the undisputed master of film title design. With a career spanning over fifty years – which included collaborations with Otto Preminger, Alfred Hitchcock, Stanley Kubrick and Martin Scorsese (among others) – the work he produced was consistently innovative. While always of the moment, Saul Bass’ work is as relevant today as it was fifty years ago as it continues to appeal to the audience’s emotions and intellect. Read more…
Negative Space by Noma Bar
Can a picture really paint a thousand words? Well, yeah, if Noma Bar designed it. A modern-day master of the ‘less is more’ approach to design, Noma’s ingenious use of negative space gives his work a startling subtlety that creeps up and smacks you between the eyes.
Throw in some incisive wit in his creative handling of current political and cultural issues, and you’re looking at one of the most prestigious designers of the minute. He’s hot stuff. And once you’ve seen his work, you’ll know why. Read more…
Confession time. After a week striving to produce fabulous concepts and design work for our clients I sometimes like to unwind by looking at fabulously bad concepts and design. One of my favourite places for this is a wonderful blog called Awful Library Books, the brainchild of Mary Kelly and Holly Hibner, a pair of public librarians from Michigan who catalog the outdated, weird or just completely insane books gathering dust on library shelves across America.
We’ve had some pretty big books in reception over the last couple of weeks, so thanks to Tracey Gibbs and her fab collection of photography books… we have a tiny one this time. But don’t let the size fool you… these photographs are as amazing as any of the ones you may have seen in those big books!
Mick Williamson makes small, intimate photographs; with an intuitive feel for light, contrast and texture, he captures the fleeting moments of everyday life, finding beauty in the smallest scenes and details.
