Comic Sans rages on

I just popped over to Henry Sene Yee's blog to see what he's been up to. Turn out he's been up to some design mischief! Behold his new cover—set completely in Comic Sans. And it looks... well, just great.

by Henry Sene Yee

"...People love me. Why? Because I'm fun. I'm the life of the party. I bring levity to any situation. Need to soften the blow of a harsh message about restroom etiquette? SLAM. There I am. Need to spice up the directions to your graduation party? WHAM. There again. Need to convey your fun-loving, approachable nature on your business' website? SMACK. Like daffodils in motherfucking spring...."

Typo Topography

As a fan of Fernando Botero's sculpture, I've been looking for an excuse to create something inspired by his work. And here it is—a blend of stout letterforms and undulating surfaces.

I do like chunky type. This project uses a mix of Teodoria round and sharp available here.

Trust the Future

A typographic exploration based on QC codes. A group called the Black Book activists use these 2D bar codes to combat censorship in England. In the poster, the phrase 'trust the future' can be interpreted as either reassuring or foreboding—a suggestion or a dictate. And what hidden messages do the QC codes provide (as well as obscure)?

I modified and then combined the conspicuously techno typeface Go with QC codes from a free generator like this one.

December: Time for tinsel, toys, and typography!

It's been a bit slow at work, so I've been taking the opportunity to play around with some type. This oh-so-serious piece was inspired by one of my favorite sculptors Naum Gabo (honestly, how can you not love a guy with a name like that!). Read some about him here. The aspects of his work I love are his use of geometric shapes and his ability to define space not by using mass but by employing the edges intersecting planes or delicate line webbing.

Typefaces I used for this piece include Quad Ultra, Agrafa hairline, and Error.

Tree house card

My bff asked me to create a card for her xmas present to her beau. She sprung for a three-night stay in a fancy tree house B&B in Washington state. I guess he really has a thing for tree houses. This was a great excuse to have some fun with typography using a Shel Silverstein poem entitled, of course, "The Tree House."

Weekend in NYC

I had a great weekend in NYC visiting my friends and checking out the city. Here are some pics of things that caught my eye.

Times Square was thrilling. So much light and energy. I especially loved the handcrafted type used on the electronic billboard. Interesting mix of media.

I believe that the blue onesie is the best use of Comic Sans I've ever seen ;0)

The small sculpture is from Tom Otterness's Life Underground (2001) installation which features bronze sculptures emerging from the floors and playing along the ceilings of subway stations. See more photos of his tongue-in-cheek work here. Otterness said the subject of the work is "the impossibility of understanding life in New York" and describes the arrangement of the individual pieces as being “scattered in little surprises.”

What Font Are You?

"Drink from the font of self knowlege..." http://www.pentagram.com/what-type-are-you/

I've been mis(type)cast as Courier. The gall! What font are you?

Finally, a wider variety of web fonts

Yes! The ability to use designer fonts that are search-engine optimized has arrived. Woohoo. This is an interesting business model since you pay for the service monthly based on how much traffic your site gets.

Read more about it here: http://typekit.com

Why do some images show up again and again?

We are awash in images. Think of all the paintings, photos, videos, and screen captures that are made every day. And yet... book jackets can still end up using the same image. Maybe this fact gives credence to the the idea that some images are just better than others——because they continue to resonate with people over time. (Or maybe we designers are just a bunch of lazy copycats!)

So with that in mind, take a look at this great collection of covers:

http://readingthepast.com/gallery/reusable-covers.htm

Even with the exact same image, it's interesting to see how much typography, cropping, and decorative elements can alter the focus of an image.

More copycat covers here:

http://shereadsandreads.blogspot.com/search/label/Similar%20covers
http://therapsheet.blogspot.com/search/label/Copycat%20Covers

Caregiving project

Caregiving is a new genre for me. It was a welcome diversion from our usual business and presentation titles.

The author had one unusual request: no images of elderly people. The book addresses more than just elder care and she wanted to make sure it appealed to anyone who is taking care of someone else regardless of age. The author also mentioned that she loves blue.

The text for this title was surprisingly challenging to work with—something about the way the phrases break—so once I found a type treatment that worked for it I stuck to it! In retrospect, the tone of these may not be uplifting enough (especially the flower comp), but I thought they were worth showing.

Titles change

As it goes with publishing, after I presented designs and the author picked a favorite, the book's title was changed. Luckily the original approach (see it here) was primarily typographic, so the title change did not require a complete redesign.

The main problem I faced with the new title was how to deal with the crashing letters—the capital S and M, and the lowercase g and a. I ended up 'interlocking' them, and interestingly this is now my favorite part of the design.

Presentation Book

This presentation book focuses on brief 'speeches' or soundbites that once developed can be used in a myriad of ways.

The author suggested adding the butterfly to the stopwatch on this first comp to tie in metaphorically to the "butterfly effect".

Civil War comps

This week I've been knee deep in Civil War imagery and typography. My assignment was to design a cover for a historical novel about a young idealistic man who joins the Confederate army to fight for states' rights (and to impress the love of his life). He eventually also falls for his beloved's sister...

Not surprisingly I ran across some pretty gruesome battlefield photos. But I also found some great Flickr albums like this one as well as repository websites such as The American Civil War Photo Gallery.

I did some typographic research as well. Click here to see the MyFonts album I created. There are some really gorgeous fonts in there such as Thorowgood, Old Glory, Shady Lady, Eden, Elongated Roman, and Miss Scarlett.

Finally, here are the comps that resulted from all that research...

Every Project has Its Challenges

Every project seems to have its unforeseen hitches. In the case of the this project the problem was a confluence of the fall season and renovation delays. The author originally envisioned using a gorgeous photo of the front of the newly-renovated house for her interior design book. Unfortunately, construction delays pushed the photo shoot into late November. The flat lighting, bare trees, and spotty snow cover forced us to reconsider the original vision for the cover. Here are the current batch of comps most of which use but downplay the photo of the exterior of the house.

AIGA Poster for Creative Mass Happy Hour

The theme for this Creative Mass poster/email is resolutions. The only copy provided was the details for the event. After considering using some kind of illustration, I settled on a typographic solution instead.

The use of Trade Gothic Condensed is a reference to the gazillion business covers that use it. And I chose the CMYK color palette as a nod to 4-color printing.

...and After(s)

The title will be be embossed with gold foil.