The Logo Board Game

I got the Logo Board  Game for christmas as my big sister knows I have an interest in logos. At firt I thought it's be a bit geeky and somethig that only I would enjoy and would have to pretend I didn't. But it's actually a really fun and interesting game for all the family. 

I think it should perhaps be called the Brand Board Game as it's more about brands than just logos but  'logo' is a probably a more fun sounding word. The questions are about all sorts of brand related things; some are about identifying brands from their logos and packaging and some are about slogans and origins of brand names. There are cards where you are given a clue such as 'Animals' and are then asked to name a brand of boiled sweet for example: the answer being 'Fox's'. Then there are cards where you have to name the box of chocolates from looking at the shapes of the chocolate- definatley a good game for sweets and chocolate lovers. I found it to be really fun and competitive because you get questions that only certain age groups might know and all the questions are about things you could possibly know. You don't need to be clever or full of knowledge, the answers are all around you.  It was also really educational for someone wanting to learn about brands because you learn things abut brands you didn't know before and you can find out some interesting trivia to tell your fellow graphic designers if you want to be really geeky! Do you know what animal is hidden in the toblerone logo? That will give you something to look for next christmas...

Something's not quite CLEAR to me...

I've just come accross this future phone release from Sony Ericsson- a 'futuristic' phone with a see-through screen. I feel like I'm missing something... although it's obviously a new technology, and sounds quite amazing, it seems a little pointless somehow. Why would you want to see through your screen when a screen is there to display information to you. Mobile phone screens can be hard enough to read in daylight as it it but this screen must make it near impossible, unless it uses some kind of light reflecting technology to make the text stand out. I'll have to wait until 2010 to see one for myself before it will be clear to me.

Madonna for Louis Vuitton

These are definately the best looking pictures I've seen of madonna in a few years. Highly airbrushed they might be but who cares. She looks much better airbrushed and the photographs are really stunning. They are for Louis Vuitton's latest campaign for their Autumn 2009 collection. I love how the Madonna appears to glow in vivid colours but the photos have just been made negative in places- an effect I don't think I've seen or appreciated before. It makes the images look quite surreal and dreamlike. I think they're look great as giant billboards if they are used for that purpose.

The MILK Carton

At first I thought this photograph was just a cool typographic ad for milk or an illustration for the work 'milk' but in fact it is real packaging and actually contains milk. When you look closley it makes sense that it wouls actually work and would probably stand up alright too. It was designed by Julien De Repentigny and Gabriel Lefebvre and has the same dimensions as a standard milk carton so it would sit nicely on the shelf next to other brands. The downside is, it would contain less milk and the increased surface area of the packaging would require more materials than a normal carton. Nice idea though..

Cool and Clever Doritos Packaging

I love, love, love Doritos and I love, love, love this new packaging concept by Peter Pavlov! The bendy box design uses the shape of the Doritos in it's structure and also the Doritos texture to decorate it. The packaging looks amazing on the shelf and just makes you want to have one of your own. It's almost like a work of art and would look great on a party spread. The best thing about it is that it stands up and acts like a bowl for easy nibbling and sharing and when you've finished, if (if) you still have some left you can close it with a simple fold and keep them fresh! Genius!

Another great thing about the packaging is, although it seems like a lot of packaging for some crisps, it must be better for the environment because the card would be recyclable, unlike the current foil bags. I hope they actually go into production and aren't just an idea. 

Logo's through time

I find it really interesting to see how logos have evolved over time. In the case of Shell, their logo has always been simply a shell but has got more and more stylized over time until the current logo which is very clean and simple. The name and the brand colours werent added until 1948 for some reason. Perhaps the colours weren't added until then because colour couldn't easily be reproduced until that time.

  

I came across these logos for Lego that feature in a new Lego book. The logo has changed a lot more than the Shell logo. It started as a 3d looking logo with the letters almost like building blocks. 

Next came this logo which looks somewhat like a car brand logo and doesn't look very fun. 

Then came this one which is more childish and fun looking and isn't far off the modern logo. I think it's the one i remember from my childhood too.

The most recent and best is this one in bright red and yellow, black and white. It's much more fun and jumps out at you. It's interesting that the letters are rounded but still suit lego really well despite it being famously square. 

Baggage Belt Ambient Advertising

I'm not wound up easily but if there's one thing that really really winds me up, it's when people crowd round the luggage belts at the aiport as soon as they get there and act crazy, standing too close to the belt like the world is going to end if they don't get their baggage as soon as it comes out! If they jsut stood back and relaxed it would come out just as quick! Anyway, my pet hate makes me particularly like this ad which uses a luggage belt to advertise the Beau Rivage Resort & Casino.

The strategy was based on a key insight, that travellers arriving at the airport welcome a bit of calm (unless they are the crazy ones). The belt was transformed into a swimming pool complete with swimmers, to represent the  tropical pool at the resort. Apparantly it totally changed the way people acted around the luggage belts which sounds like a great result to me. The only bad thing about it is the fact that a lot of it would be covered up when the luggage comes out.

myPANTONE app for iPHONE and iPOD Touch

Now apparently there's no need for a PANTONE swatch booklet when you can have one built into your phone. With myPANTONE a new app for iPhone and iPod Touch, users have access to a variety of PANTONE color libraries and the ability to build color palettes and share them with colleagues and clients. Sounds like a great idea but as many people have commented about it: how can it possibly work if all monitors, screens and printers are calibrated differently? This is the reason we use the printed PANTONE swatch booklets in the first place. I'm not sure it will be of much use really but some of the features sound quite nice like being able to take a photo and colour pick from it to create pallettes etc.

Use Hearing Protection

I was watching a documentary the other day about the record label Factory Records and it was really interesting, particularly when they talked about the design side of things. They talked about a poster design that has become somewhat iconic and I remembered that I had recently seen a rip off of the poster on a flyer for a local nightclub.

It's amazing that a poster that such a simple poster design is still being copied 30 years later. 

Factory Records was a Manchester based british independant record label and they used a creative team; most notably record producer Martin Hannett and graphic designer Peter Saville, which gave the label and their artists, a particular sound and image. Peter Saville is responsible for designing the famous Factory 1 poster and he said he got the idea from a safety sign in a factory that he would wak past everyday at work. With the club being called factory he thought it was relevant so he decided to use it. He had no expreience is designing club promotion posters but designed probably the most famous poster for a club event ever.

The original design still looks modern now.

I Love the 80's revival

There seems to be a revival of al things 80's at the moment and I'm loving it. Apparently its due to the recession, but I'm not sure how that would effect music and fashion. Perhaps because its cheaper to stay in fashion by ripping the arms off an old denim jacket or cut a pair of Jeans into shorts than buy new clothes. But 80's fashion is in more than ever before, since the real 80s. Popstar's clothes, hair and makeup is more daring a la Lady Gaga and La Roux, and the electric sound 80s music is back. 

  Yesterday my dad introduced me to the band, Empire of the Sun. I gave it a listen on Spotify and I loved it straight away as it sounds so 80's and I love anything 80s. Can't really explain why but everything was just cooler in the 80s. What I also loved straight away was the album art work and I thought I've gotta look at that more closely. 

Empire of the Sun's Walking on a Dream album cover

Their artwork reminds me of movie posters form the 80s and after looking the artwork up on the internet I found that the idea for the album artwork came from the band members themselves after beng inspired by movie posters by Drew Struzan who is responsible for the posters of such films as Back to the Future, ET, Indiana Jones and Ladyhawke. Back to the Future is my favourite film of all time and the posters are timeless classics. I love the graphic style in which you can't tell whether the image is a painting or a photograph. They look almost like they are painted with an airbrush.

The Empire of the Sun album cover also reminded me of Michael Jackson's Dangerous (1991, not quite 80's but close enough) album cover, my favourite album cover of all time. The photo montage of futuristic buildings, animals and a dark night sky gives it a sci-fi fantasy feel as does the Dangerous album cover. The members of Empire of the Sun are also wearing regal/military clothing in the style of Michael Jackson and Adam Ant in the 80's. The Dangerous cover features crowns and animals wearing regal clothing. Both covers are beautiful pieces of art that you could look at for ages and not see all the details.

Another artist taking inspiration from the 80s in her image, Album artwork and music videos is Ladyhawke. As I mentioned earlier Dan Struzen deisgned the poster for the 80's film 'Ladyhawke', from which Ladyhawke took her stage name. Her music also sounds really 80's: a sort of mix of electro and rock.

Ladyhawke movie poster by Dan Struzan

Ladyhawke'e album cover is done in a very 80's style with a watercolour painting/coloured pencil drawing and handwritten type and clashing colours. 

I love the dreamy music video for My Delirium which is animated in watercolour paintings and looks beautiful, like a storybook illustration coming to life. 

Stills from Ladyhawke's My Delirium music video.

It reminded me of the well known video for A-HA's Take on Me in which a comic book character comes to life. They both appear s to be animated using the stop-start technique which is very 80's.

I hope music artists continue to be inspired by the 80's in their music and in their artwork and music videos.

Summer Coca-Cola Cans

I'm addicted to coke anyway, but these summer Coke cans would encourage me to drink coke even more often.  They are a range of special designs released over a few months this summer in the USA and express the relevance of Coke to the summer. The designs are really simple, using classic symbols of summer in the classic red and white/silver colours. The coca-cola logo is, on most of the designs,  obscured or warped but because it's such a recognisable logo it doesnt matter and shows how strong the brand is.