Ploafmaster General

Because nothing says conspicuous consumption quite like gold-flecked granite. In your CAR.

Ah, the iconic Xerox logo...40 years old, and still conveys a strong identity of technology in the realm of the printed word.

Until today. BEHOLD! Before you is Xerox's new dull identity, conveying something more like, "Hi, we're an upstart Silicon Valley tech firm in 1997 with no business plan! Would you like to buy some stock?"

I couldn't help but notice the serious similarity between two unrelated banks' individual logos (pardon the line at the base of the Provident graphic - it's part of the image from their site):





Besides similar shades of blue and type that in both cases seems to combine lines and curves, the most obvious similarity is the chamfered-box look of each bank's symbol. Each shape is made up of what appears to be four pieces wrapping around a central point with four void spaces around the outside. [*] I'm not a graphic designer or a branding specialist, but that's what it looks like to me, and the similarities were so obvious.

I don't know who designed which logo first, but it appears that one followed another. I'd be interested to know more.

*Edit: Originally, my blind and backwards self indicated that Provident's logo resembled a lower case "p" and "b", but Phil pointed out the error of my ways.

Thinks that animation could make this week's Layer Tennis a bit more interesting than usual...

When the First Tier Webnerds (FTW?) grab hold of something, I see it spread around the Interwebs in a hurry. It happened briefly with Field Notes, prime lenses, and gender/ethnic representation in the field of web design.

Today, so far, I've seen two references to Lokesh Dhakar's site. Even though I don't want to be an information also-ran, I figured I'd share my favorite part of the site, particularly for the sake of those two or three readers that don't check out the same 30 websites a day as me and the rest of the tech set.

Back in August, Lokesh created a series of nine coffee infographics that are best view together for comparison. Below is my poison of choice, the cappuccino:



As you can see, the pics indicate the general composition of various espresso-based beverages, and with a heavy dose of style, I say.

Even though I'm not impressed enough with Tumblr to make full use of it in place of my blog, that doesn't mean I'm not playing around with the app.

Today I noticed a really sweet detail, too. Check out this strip of icons below:



Now look really close at the top and bottom edges of each in the line. Do you notice how the top of the leftmost icon and the bottom of the rightmost icon aren't torn? Do you notice how every other torn edge of the seven icons match up with the adjacent icon's edges? The icons appear as if they started out as one thin strip of paper that's been torn into seven pieces.

Pretty clever, huh? I think the icons already look clear enough and nifty, but this extra touch shows me that they were designed with care.

I saw this clever bookshelf on Design Within Reach:



The Opus Shelving System is inspired by a variation on the ancient Roman building technique of Opus Caementicium. This shelf reflects Opus Incertum, particularly.

I was fascinated by the different styles of wall facing, and particularly that it seems the bricks and/or stones are pressed into cement as the wall is constructed. This answered an interesting quandary for the Romans:

...for all its advantages, concrete had one major defect: it was unsightly. Once the wooden formwork was removed, it showed an ugly surface. In the beginning, its use was mainly restricted to substructures where noone would see it. Practical-minded as the Romans were, they solved the aesthetic problem by covering, or surfacing, concrete by another material which they deemed visually more satisfactory.

-- Roman Concrete by Professor Fikret Yegul, Department of History of Art and Architecture, UCSB

I'd say my favorite of the variations is Opus Reticulatum (or net-like work) where pyramid-esque blocks are pressed point-side into the cement to form a diamond pattern. You can see a great example here from Flickr user Angela Loporchio:

There's another fine article at A Brief Message today, and the piece about "making stuff" as a component of the design process is accompanied by delightful cutouts (Fabric? Paper?) of stuff-making tools.

There's a nifty article about the redesigned five dollar bill over at A Brief Message.

Personally, while I think the new five-spot looks fugly I believe it's a step toward more visually interesting (and useful) currency. So many other countries have a number of difference color schemes to their money that make different value bills easily distinguishable.

Of course what I'd really like to see is a variety of bill sizes.

A Brief Message has an interesting take on Olympic Games identity.

As a side note, I really like the use of different color links rotating throughout the piece in the order of the rings of the IOC logo.

Trident gum doesn't usually freshen my breath as I'm more an Orbit fan.

Yesterday, however, I grabbed a pack at Target to try out a new flavor (Wild Berry Twist) and noticed that the packaging had changed dramatically since last I chewed their wares. You can see an example below courtesy of Flickr user SoopahViv:



You'll notice arched line below the glue spots on the lid - this, as you may suspect is the foil. only that arched portion adheres to the lid, so when you open it for the first time it pulls the foil open for you. No little cellophane strip to tear the package. No shredding the foil every few pieces. No plastic sleeve to keep the whole thing fresh until you buy it. And the red you see in the picture is more of a card stock than paper, so the whole thing holds up quite a bit better without squishing the contents. Judging by the date of upload on the picture, it seems that Trident has been using this style of packaging for a couple of years now.

I like that a lot of thought seems to have gone into the design of this package - sure, it's colorful and eye-catching - it has to be to please the folks in Marketing. But the actual functionality of something so humble as gum packaging is oft overlooked - relegated to the old stand byes such as blister packs and paper wrapping.

The gum itself, unfortunately, could use a little more thought :-)

Most folks who know me actually don't know that I was a hair's breadth from going to college for a creative major rather than something technical such as engineering (originally) or information systems (eventually). Well my illusion that engineering would be an easy route to working as an inventor led me along the tech route, leaves me occasionally pining for a crack at something more creative such as photography, film, and graphic design.

Today, my artistic inclinations got the best of me and I purchased a book on typography. Specifically, I purchased Gavin Ambrose and Paul Harris' text, The Fundamentals of Typography:


I don't know whether this is a fantastic entry-level book or not, but it seems to cover a broad range of concepts. Explanations are often printed in such a way that illustrates the concept which I hope will prove as helpful as it appears.

So hear goes nothing...if I actually read through this book and still feel hungry for more, I'll probably dig into a book on color theory next.

So last night I was sitting on my sofa, alone in my apartment, when it finally struck me. I figured out the redesign for this website, and in my excitement began drawing it out on a piece of plain printer paper.

Whether or not you've been in my apartment, I'll explain the concept: Valerie and I have this really cool sculpture/relief thingy that her grandfather gave us. It's a scene of Salerno, Italy, right on the docks, and is made entirely from pieces of cut sheet brass and heavy brass wire. Absolutely awesome, and I hope to do it justice with my site redesign, however long it takes (yeah, maybe even a year...I'm that amature).

I hope to start hammering out the structural design first over the next few weeks as I dig through my books on PHP and a borrowed book called Designing with Web Standards by Jeffrey Zeldman. After that's straight, I'll start hashing out the appearance using the magic of CSS (that's to make it look pretty!).

Anyway, now that the creative block is out of my head, I can finally say with confidence that the redesign is officially underway!