Tag Archives: Design

The Typography of Alien

A pretty fantastic post about the typography of Alien.

My third post about typography in sci-fi has been gestating for a while now. Indeed, it’s been slowly taking shape – you might say it’s been forming itself inside of me – for really quite some time. I’m delighted to say that it is now ready to burst forth from my allegorical chest, and to spatter allegorical typographic blood all over your allegorical faces. Welcome to Typeset In The Future: The Alien Edition.

Mini-Review: iDraw for iPad

My main work machine is the 2012 Mac Mini. I’ve written before about my transition to a standing desk for health purposes. That said, I do want to be able to use the iPad as a tool to get work done. Having a flexible workflow is good and it would seem a waste, with the increased power of the iPad Air 2, to not utilize it when the need arises. My initial thought was that it would come in handy for editing the html of client websites and yes, that is a breeze with Diet Coda and Transmit. But why stop there? Those were tasks I could also accomplish with the 3rd gen iPad.

In recent days I have also begun wondering if I might not also be able to get a bit of graphic design work done with the iPad. Adobe does not yet sell an iPad version of Illustrator or Photoshop but there are other options available. Pixelmator is the most recent crossover from the Mac. It has some pretty fantastic photo filters and the handy ability to be passed back and forth to the Mac version. It can also export to psd for crossing over to Photoshop when I’m back to my Mac. That said in the little bit of dabbling I’ve done with it I’m finding some frustrating limitations which I’ll likely explore in more detail soon. Suffice it to say for the purposes of this post that those limitations led me to try out iDraw and that has proven to be a great decision.

iDraw has been available for the iPad since the first iPad release in 2010 and there is a Mac version too though I’ve not tried it. Last week I downloaded the iPad version and have been giving it a spin. Fantastic. This is an app I can use to get real design work done. I’ve not yet used it for a client project though that will come soon enough. I’ve done enough with it in a few hours to know what it is capable of. Not surprisingly, it’s not as fully featured as Illustrator or Photoshop but it does have the most important tools and they perform very well. In fact, the iPad handles everything I’ve tried to with iDraw with ease.

I created the example image in my first spin with the app. Shape building, styling with gradients, adding text to a path are all very straight forward. I started with the rectangle tool and then used the pen tool to begin adding new points and then used the path tool to make my pen handle and tip. Apply stroke and gradient and then tweek. As with Illustrator, all the objects are put on one layer but layers are supported and easy enough to create. I used the same process for creating the inkwell. Styles include drop shadow, inner shadow, inner and outer glow. Multiple instances of these effects as well as multiple fills can be applied to each object. Very handy to be able to apply multiple gradients to single objects.

The brush tool is very easy to use with width and smoothing options though I only found the one style brush tip. Will need to investigate. Adding text to a brush stroke is easy enough as is styling that text after adding it to the path. Adjusting the path or moving the text to different points along the path are also very easy. As you might expect, there are plenty of object options such as alignment, path combinations and more.

When you’ve finished you have quite a few options for using and sharing images. Before sending to any of the iOS 8 app extensions for sharing (Transmit, Facebook, Twitter, etc.) you have the option to choose the file size, resolution, and format: pdf, svg, psd, png or jpg.

Don’t Forget the Words

Frank Chimero, The Second Trip-Up:

A young designer is beaten over the head with typefaces, grids, and rules—and rightfully so—but typography can act as a smoke screen. There is so much to learn about the letters that it’s easy to forget about the words. Once a designer has the typographic skills in their pocket, anyone with their head on straight realizes ugly words in beautiful typefaces are still pretty dumb. I tripped over this observation while struggling to make good designs and clear illustrations for idiotic articles and muddled ideas. I then fell into something I’m still attempting to understand: words are the most explicit example of clear thinking.

Poster Design for Los Alamos Beer Co-op

Client wanted a bright but rustic flyer to advertise a beer festival sponsored by her beer brewing co-op. I used several fonts beginning with one of my current favorites, American Captain. I ended the design with something a bit more whimsical and reflective of their current branding and website, Brain Flower Euro. In between, Playball, Oklahoma, and Rockwell. I used a grunge paper texture faded in the background to help create a rougher, rustic feel.

The client was excited about the final result!

Ad Design for Pizzaria

This was an ad for a Georgia pizzeria.The client wanted an old world aesthetic with reds and greens as well as earth tones. A rough paper texture was used to achieve a rustic feel that might be mistaken for an old earthen wall somewhere in a Tuscan village.

Ad Design for JoJo and Sofia

It’s been a very busy 6 months! I’ve not been keeping up with the blog but have determined to make it a priority. I’ll start with highlighting some of my recent work, in particular a series of vintage themed print ads for JoJo and Sofia’s new line of men’s pocket-squares. This is one of two. A lot of fun to do.

Features two of my favorite fonts: Rockwell and Antique Book Cover. Good stuff.

New Website: Castor River Ranch Campground

The folks at Castor River Ranch Campground have a beautiful river-side retreat just 90 minutes south of St. Louis, in the southeast corner of Madison County. The scenery is a picture of comfort and relaxation. The campground is nestled amongst forested hills and open fields, just a stones throw away from the picturesque Castor River. The charming village of Marquand, just minutes away, is home to the Durso Hills Winery, an art gallery, various historical sites and a community performance center which hosts a variety of live entertainment throughout the year.

The CRRC has been built with a quality experience in mind. All of the RV/Campsites are spacious and are furnished with picnic tables, stone fire pits, septic, electric (30 – 50-110 amp) and spring- water. They offer canoe/ kayak/tube out fitting and a shuttle service for float trips.

I enjoyed working with Jon on the web site. He was careful in his direction and provided me with all the materials I needed to get the job done. Most importantly Jon and Mary are great business people that value excellence and doing a job right, values which always make a project worth doing. The end product is a delightfully laid-back website which not only informs potential guests of all that CRRC has to offer but does so with an authentic, rustic style.

Why Design

design |dəˈzīn| noun

1. a plan or drawing produced to show the look and function or workings of a building, garment, or other object before it is built or made: he has just unveiled his design for the new museum.

  • the art or action of conceiving of and producing a plan or drawing: good design can help the reader understand complicated information | the cloister is of late-twelfth-century design.
  • an arrangement of lines or shapes created to form a pattern or decoration: pottery with a lovely blue and white design.

2.  purpose, planning, or intention that exists or is thought to exist behind an action, fact, or material object: the appearance of design in the universe.

verb [ with obj. ]

decide upon the look and functioning of (a building, garment, or other object), typically by making a detailed drawing of it: a number of architectural students were designing a factory | [ as adj. with submodifier ] (designed) : specially designed buildings.

• do or plan (something) with a specific purpose or intention in mind: [ with obj. and infinitive ] : the tax changes were designed to stimulate economic growth.

Design is something I’ve thought about off and on for at least 20 years. I have no formal training and for many years the best that might be said of my efforts is that they were informal. I dabbled in it to the extent that I was often making flyers, zines and a couple of community newspapers. I also dabbled a good bit in gardening and permaculture and so it might be said that my thoughts on design were not confined to just thinking about page layout but how out-door spaces might be arranged. At some point around 1999 I began playing a bit with relational database design using FileMaker Pro which is design on several levels. An easy to use database must have a logically designed, functional interface which is, preferably, visually attractive. If it is to perform well it should also have a solid design underpinning the use and arrangement of fields, tables and layouts.

In addition to these kinds of dabbling I also began designing websites which was yet another kind of interface design which needed to be both functional, logical and aesthetically pleasing. I’d not planned to focus on website development, no plan to engage with it on a professional level but that’s what happened. I enjoyed it and it seemed to be something which took on a life its own, one which I greatly enjoyed.

In 2008 I leaped into a new realm of of design: Permaculture. I’d dabbled before but this time around I spent a good bit of time familiarizing myself with the principle of Permaculture design and put it to use around my homestead.

“Permaculture is the conscious design and maintenance of agriculturally productive systems which have the diversity, stability, and resilience of natural ecosystems. It is the harmonious integration of the landscape with people providing their food, energy, shelter and other material and non-material needs in a sustainable way.” – Graham Bell, ‘The Permaculture Way’

The challenge of Permaculture is that the design, at it’s best, is created at a variety of dimensions: horizontal, vertical, width as well as temporal. The relationships created with Permaculture design are dynamic and must take into account not just beneficial (or antagonistic) plant relationships but also the flow of energy accross a landscape: Water, solar and wind should all be accounted for and not just in the present moment. If I plant a food forest I need to plan for a future change in available sunlight at ground level. A line of trees or hedgrow can alter the wind, providing a future windbreak for plants or trees sensitive to wind damage. The list goes on.

“…design is a connection between things. It is not water, or a chicken or the tree. It is how the water, the chicken and the tree are connected. It’s the opposite of what we are taught in school. Education takes everything and pulls it apart and makes no connections at all. Permaculture makes the connection because as soon as you have the connection you can feed the chicken from the tree.” – Bill Mollison

What I enjoy about design is that it is a process of creation that, when done well, can make our lives better. Counter to this, if it is done carelessly it can cause significant damage at large scale. No doubt, forseeing the long-term consequences of design is not necessarily an easy task. Consider the modern practice of designing towns and cities around the automobile. A great deal of damage has been done the details of which are beyond the scope of this endeavor but many books have been written about the social ecological problems of automobile centered design.

Another example might be the design of modern, large-scale farming. Whether we are talking about the raising of cattle, poultry or food crops, our centralized food production systems have caused a variety of serious environmental and health problems. Scaling down such systems requries entirely different approaches to production with short-term problems but many long-term benefits.

Design is everywhere. From our systems of food production to social spaces to government (which is, after all, a form of political design) to the arrangement of our office work spaces to our devices to the apps that run on them. The last book you read? Your favorite magazine? The operating system on your device? All very carefully designed, some more carefully than others. If design is everywhere, if it has such an important impact on our lives, it’s probably worth considering. The more aware we are of design the more we can appreciate it and even and put it to use. Design is a part of life.

It is my intent to use this space to explore design. From web design to food forests to office space to logos to anything else of interest. My intent is to explore ways in which design can be beautiful, sustainable, resilient, functional and more.  I’m a proud amateur and jack of all trades, master of none so this exploration is not just about sharing what I  know but also what I am learning.  Come along for the ride why don’t ya?