gds savvy

GDS122: Feel The Power

2008-12-04T10:57:00.000-08:00

Source: Communication Arts Design Annual November 2007

This is an interesting ad. It's promoting Niagra Falls on a US mail box. The mailbox's curved surface is a perfect place for this ad making it look more real and more likely to catch the eye of a passer by. Even in your car you'll notice the waterfall. The only problem with this ad is the type is kind of small and it's near the bottom. Unless you had these on every mailbox in the city it'd be hard to catch the interests of people who are in their cars.

GDS220: Paprika

2008-12-02T06:35:00.000-08:00

Source: Communcation Arts 2007

I actually read an article on this design firm in the communication arts maggazine and thought I'd check out their sight. It was actually not much different than a lot of their work featured. The whole architecture of the website is designed with only words and numbers on a plain white background. I took a snapshot of what the hover links on the portfolio page do, which is really interest.

GDS122: Players Only

2008-11-27T11:07:00.000-08:00

Source: Lurzer's Archive Vol 4-2005

I think mothers of little ten year old boys would get a kick out of this creative ad. Playstation uses the habitual walking pattern of game characters and turns it into real life for the game players. But watch out, you might want to steer clear of this path if you're not playing, otherwise you might get knocked down.

GDS220: Glaceau

2008-11-24T06:26:00.000-08:00

I saw this website featured in a Communication Arts magazine. I've seen this website before and despite my distaste for the drink thought that it was designed very well. It's very flash heavy, but its well themed especially with all the water flowy-like movements.

GDS122: Earth is Pissed

2008-11-20T10:56:00.000-08:00

Source: Communication Arts Design Annual November 2007

I thought these ads were a really creative way to get a point across. And yet they're just simple drawings. I like how in each ad the earth doesn't even have to resemble to earth in order for you to understand the message and the relationship with the other objects.

GDS131: Business Week

2008-11-18T10:15:00.000-08:00

GDS220: Studio Apollo

2008-11-17T08:00:00.000-08:00

Source: Communication Arts Interactive Annual 2005

Studio Apollo is a "stereophonic workshop" or that's what they prefer to call themselves. But they create music for commercials and what not. Their site I think is amazing (excluding the background noise maybe). It's all done in flash. I think my favorite part about this site though are the sublinks, which in normal state look like paragraphs of text but in a hover state become readable links. It's a fun site to explore and they have some really good portfolio samples.

GDS122: Because Dogs Don't Have It Easy

2008-11-13T11:04:00.000-08:00

Source: Lurzer's Archive Vol 4-2005

Poor guys. It's so true, they don't have it easy.
I love it when people come up with funny ads that just make you go "ew that's disgusting!" Those always seem to be the most memorable. This is a very similar layout as the Off ads- one large picture, one line of copywrite and one small picture in the corner of the produc being sold. I'm curious to know how effective this ad would be in a magazine, I think if it was a dog magazine it'd be pretty effective. But I think people would remember the ad more than the product.

GDS131: George Clooney

2008-11-11T10:26:00.000-08:00

Describe what it is: It's a movie poster for the movie "Burn After Reading"

Describe its function: To get people to come see the movie.

Describe where you saw it: I saw this at the movie theater on church street downtown champaign.

Discuss the style of the design & typography: It is late modern both the design and type.

Discuss the quality of the artwork: It's really good. They used the font correctly, and it definately looks hand drawn. They used a solid background and silouetted characters.

Discuss what attracted you to the piece: The type really attracted me, I really like the use of hand drawn type especially when it's done in high quality.

GDS220: Edison

2008-11-10T06:16:00.000-08:00

Source: Communication Arts Interactive Annual 2005

This is a site dedicated to Thomas Edison, and pretty interesting one too. The links are placed in a circle/spiral. The main links are in big letters, while the sublinks (which are mostly download pdf links.) The only problem I have with this site are the pdf links. I think there's to many of them and they're too small.

GDS122: Dead Man's Float

2008-11-06T10:55:00.000-08:00

Source: Communication Arts Design Annual November 2007

This was a daring choice for a designer to do, very edgey, but really metaphorical. This novel is about a man who has a stroke and floats half concious in a pool of sad memories. This is an amazing solution for an illustration of a story. I really like how the words of the novel have abstractly and metaphorically become a body of water.

GDS131: Art Chantry

2008-11-04T10:28:00.000-08:00

Describe what it is: One of the Parkland Art Gallery Posters for Art Chantry.

Describe its function: To get people to come see Art Chantry and to come to the art gallery and see his work.

Describe where you saw it: In the C wing hall at Parkland.

Discuss the style of the design & typography: It is definitely Late modern both the design and type.

Discuss the quality of the artwork: Pretty well done, and I think they did a good job at using the motifs from the period including the blocks of solid color and the character style in the middle.

Discuss what attracted you to the piece: Actually Harriet pointed this one out to me and asked me if that was late modern, which I replied yes when I saw the blocks of color and the character.

GDS220: Semillero

2008-11-03T14:36:00.000-08:00

Source: Communication Arts Interactive Annual 2005

I've been looking through a lot of the Communication Arts Interactive Annuals and I would really like to seem some websites with less flash, I feel like I'm in a video game everytime I look at one of the sites they have featured, but who knows if that will happen. Anyways, Semillero is a flash sight, but an interest one, pretty creative, a way different feel to Section Seven or Urbansilo. It is in Spanish (I think) but you can still understand it (the caterpillers are pretty funny). It's a very creative way to display a portfolio, although I don't quite get half the stuff in their portfolio, but that's beside the point (The Energizer ad is a little disturbing). My favorite thing from this site is the paper towel-like texture that's used throughout and the caterpillermen.

GDS122: Fear Not Off Is Here!

2008-10-30T11:03:00.000-07:00

Source: Lurzer's Archive Vol 4-2005

I thought these were clever Off ads. They look like they were real easy to execute. I'm enjoying the simplicity of them. I think the message they're sending is pretty clear and easy to understand.

GDS131: HAPPY HALLOWEEN CHARLIE BROWN!

2008-10-28T10:18:00.000-07:00

Describe what it is: This is a Charlie Brown record recording of it's The Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown.

Describe its function: It's function is to hold the record.

Describe where you saw it: It's one of the hundreds of items in my Peanuts collection.

Discuss the style of the design & typography: This is %100 American Kitch from the over exaggerated cartoon faces to the script and handwritten type faces.

Discuss the quality of the artwork: For Kitch, the quality of the art is amazing especial since it's still loved today.

Discuss what attracted you to the piece: It's Snoopy, come on, what wouldn't attract me! Charles Schulz is my hero, I'm attracted to anything he's ever done.

GDS220: Section Seven

2008-10-27T14:32:00.000-07:00

Source: Communication Arts Interactive Annual 2005

This is an interesting design firm site. I'm quite impressed with the complicated flash they use. I love they're use of large amounts of solid color, but I think some of them are hard to read with the white type, and some of the colors are too bright compared to the other muted colors. Their navigation system is cool, but it gets annoying sometimes when it goes faster than you'd like. I do love what happens when you click on a project, this does make for easy viewing, but again the fast scrolling makes it difficult to soak in the art. Great portfolio samples too, very different. Very interesting site, but I honestly wouldn't visit it too much because I'd get to much of a head ache.

GDS122: African Band

2008-10-23T10:53:00.000-07:00

Source: Communication Arts Design Annual November 2007

This actually looks like an expensive CD case, the paper they used looks very high quality, and the binding looks like it could be vinal. According to the people who designed this CD case, the band wanted it to really show that they were from Africa, which is interesting because at least one of the band members (if not all) is white, so you wouldn't expect them to be from Africa. Although for some reason Aardvarks (which is on the cover) remind me more of Australia or Arizona more than Africa, but it's still a pretty cool cover that I think would really stand out on a CD rack. The CD art actually reminds me of my CD project I did last year; just this big animal with his mouth gaping wide open.

GDS131: Vote For Jimmy!

2008-10-21T10:31:00.000-07:00

Describe what it is: A Jimmy John's button and a table topper.

Describe its function: These are part of a promotional campaign for Jimmy John's, the button was handed out to customers and the table topper sits on the tables at JJ's.

Describe where you saw it: I got these from Jimmy John's.

Discuss the style of the design & typography: The style is pretty modern, definitely a style from the 80's. The typography is a pretty 80's serif font as well.

Discuss the quality of the artwork: The artwork is pretty nice, I would have chosen a different font that isn't the same as their logo.

Discuss what attracted you to the piece: I think the whole political look attracted me, especially their tag line- Vote for Jimmy (for Lunch Today) and the fact that they were giving free bottons away.

GDS220: Urbansilo

2008-10-20T14:30:00.000-07:00

Source: Communication Arts Interactive Annual 2005

This is an interesting website I found, it's a bit full of flash, I thought certain parts of it were really creative, and of course I'm flabbergasted by the skill some people have in flash. One thing I thought was pretty cool was the the art they used for the loading bar, unusual, but pretty creative. The navigation system is pretty awesome too. And the news update is pretty sweet; it takes up minimal space and it's all done in flash. I think I counted three or four ways to click on a link including the click navigation (that's what all the little tags do) , hover navigation (the black bar at the top), and drag navigation (the circle button right above the news text, his lets you navigate to a new tag). Check it out, it's pretty nice.

GDS122: I Will Donate Blood

2008-10-16T11:01:00.000-07:00

Source: Lurzer's Archive Vol 4-2005

I thought this was a really effective ad, very simple and straight to the point. Clean type, not to over powering and the logo also clean and noticeable. I think the message is really strong. There are only three things that bug me about this ad: They didn't put periods at the end of their sentences, which isn't absolutely necessary, but I think it would be a lot more effective with periods; and what's with the random account number on the first ad? I'm not sure why that's there; and where on earth did the find an emaciated child? I don't want to know tthe answer to that one. Otherwise a very well done ad.

GDS131: National City ad

2008-10-14T10:14:00.000-07:00

Describe what it is: This is a bulkmail ad for National City.

Describe its function: The function of this ad is to get people to pay their bills online and enter to win a Chevrolet Malibu Hybrid.

Describe where you saw it: My Husband actually found this ad in our mail, I've been teaching him a little bit about Graphic Design History and when we studied Art Deco I explained to him the motifs and even showed him a billboard near our house that also used the sun rays motif. So when he saw this he left it out so I could see it.

Discuss the style of the design & typography: This very much has an Art Deco feel, it uses the sun rays motif twice and they even use gradients which looks like airbrushing. There are two different fonts, I'm pretty sure the bold is Helvetica, which is interesting because that's the same font their logo uses.

Discuss the quality of the artwork: The artwork is pretty nice, I would have chosen a different font that isn't the same as their logo.

Discuss what attracted you to the piece: Definitely the sun rays and the airbrushed look.

GDS220: Serious Inspiration

2008-10-13T21:09:00.000-07:00

If you haven't been to the Zee Creative webiste I encourage you to seriously look through some of their work, they have a wide variety of clients so it should be easy to find a website similar to what you may be working on. All of their websites have certain elements that are repeated again and again (especially the rounded corners on boxes and the natural curves) so if you like that then you can see how they deal with that with different clients and even if you don't like that kind of thing you can easily use the structure of the template with your own elements. Here are some screen shots of a variety of websites they've done. Even the worst of their websites aren't that bad. When you look through them try to notice the way they handle their pictures and the way they use their lines in each of the templates.

GDS122: Art

2008-10-09T10:36:00.000-07:00

Source: Communication Arts Design Annual November 2007

I thought this was a creative magazine spread, I like how they've taken a common color from the photo and used it to unify the two spreads, and they've even taken a few colors from the girls shirt and used them for the art as well. I love the use of the negative space and the lines they use to direct you eyes. I also thought it was interesting how the captioned the picture, this one actually has two captions, one on the right side of the picture going vertical and one on the opposite page, both I think are creative places to put captions giving the picture the maximum height of the spread.

GDS131: Performance

2008-10-07T10:12:00.000-07:00

Describe what it is: These are two HP ads.

Describe its function: To sell the new HP xw8400 Workstation.

Describe where you saw it: I found these while Googling for pictures for our first project.

Discuss the style of the design & typography: The style is late modern, the designs are really nice, clean and colorful. The colors are flat and the type is hand drawn, all very big motifs of Late design. The design is really clever.

Discuss the quality of the artwork: You can tell that the hands were drawn in illustrator. It's all really well drawn, and you can read to type even though its hand written.

Discuss what attracted you to the piece: I think the type really attracted me, and the flat colors, which all go nicely together.

GDS220: Beartooth Bank

2008-10-06T20:56:00.000-07:00

I failed to mention last week that the GirlScout website was done by a group called Zee Creative base I believe somewhere out west near Montana or in those where abouts. Anyways, check out their site and all their recent webdesigns, they're pretty impressive. Here's another one that they did for Beartooth Bank.

And I think it's really impressive for a bank website. I really enjoy their color pallet they used, which I think reflects the western feel, and makes it feel quite homey, which I think is important for a non nationwide bank. That seems to be something that a lot of banks around Champaign seem to lack. BTW, go to the site and hover over the links, when you do that the link takes on a glow on the upper part of the link which looks really nice, (hint, hint for any of you that need ideas for what to do with your links). I'm also enjoying the golden swoosh in the top right corner, it's nice and relaxing. Also, unlike most bank websites, this isn't crowded, it's very simple. Something banks around here should think about.

GDS122: Almost Too Real

2008-10-02T18:13:00.000-07:00

One great strategy in advertising is to play with people's emotion; whether it be fear, sadness, happiness etc. But the most effective one is probably fear/panic. I found a few ads that all convey some situation in which the viewer may suddenly have a jolt panic run through their bodies. From far away they look almost too real. Pretty nifty way to catch your attention huh?

GDS131: Reeses Candy

2008-09-30T21:45:00.000-07:00

I had to do some digging for this tin, it at the moment is a tin I use for my painting, but I doubt after taking this class I will use it for paint ever again. This is a tin from the mid 1900's or so for obviously Reeses. I find myself liking the Late Modern graphic design more and more. This tin I especially like because, like my cracker tin, it really reflects the era really well. Especially with all those different styles of type! And the illustrations also are really 1920's. Reeses was started in 1919, but I'm not sure when the logo was implemented, it couldn't have been too far after Reeses was started. I really like how Reeses has not changed their logo and I think it would be a shame if they ever did. It's such a unique logo. I think a lot of the logos from this time era are some of the best.

GDS220: Sigh, the cruelty continues!

2008-09-29T20:41:00.000-07:00

I still have some remorse to get over with my Pifi website. This is actually quite a cute website, but the funny thing is there are no cute elements in this website (excluding the picutures of the cute girls). When I saw this website my first reaction (excluding my complete annoyance that yet another website looks great with the rounded corners!) was "oh what cute website" which was followed by, "holy cow they did a good job with the colors and graphics on this page!" Again, this isn't a complicated website quite simple, but with the gradient in the background and the drop shadows and the shadowing of the elements, this turned out to be a pretty good site. But my favorite part of this site is the curve put on the pictures which goes with the the rest of the curves, and to continue the "curvy" theme the stroke separating the pictures is curved also. I think that this element and the color theme is what gives this website a cute thing. What I'm trying to say is that it really is possible to make a website cute with out using "cute" elements (ie. flowers, hearts, polka-dots, puppies etc) which want to make some vomit.

GDS122: Shopping bags

2008-09-25T06:27:00.000-07:00

Here are some really creative shopping bags. What I think all of these bags have in common is that in order to complete the idea of the ad they need a person to interact with the bag handles. I also think it's interesting how different the products are, but they all successfully used the handles of the bag to their advantage.

GDS131: Saltine Tin

2008-09-24T21:34:00.000-07:00

My mother has this exact saltine crackers tin. It's from 1969, right near the end of the Late Modern era. You can see the influence that this style had on the design of this tin. It's simple and plain. You also can see the typographical influence, the curly font and the sans-serif font. Also the quality of the photograph of the crackers gives off it's age along with the color choices as well, dullish, minimal color.

GDS220: The hard cruelty of it all!

2008-09-24T20:11:00.000-07:00

So this is a website of a design firm called hardhatcreative in Australia/New Zealand area. It's really well designed, no over crowding, interesting them, two collumn layout, easy navigation, great typography etc. It's a really more-than-decent website that is totally not decked out in flash for once (well it has a little)! Actually, there isn't much to this website, but I had to cry my eyes out when I noticed the background- the rounded box with a drop shadow- it's very similar to how I wanted my Pifi sight to be! And somehow this design made my idea look really good while my actual website looks like crap! I'm beginning to rethink my website, which is probably not a good thing this far along into the assignment, but maybe- somehow I can implement some of their great design into my Pifi website before it becomes a great flop!

GDS122: Going Clean

2008-09-18T19:38:00.000-07:00

Last week Alex and I went to do our semi-annual shopping at Wal-mart for a box of serial and we noticed a few trends that were taking place in the cereal/granola aisle. One of them is shown in the two pictures. Since everyone is going pro-healthy and organic now adays the boxes are beginning to look different.

I imagine that while contemplating on what to do for these packaging some one threw out the idea that because everything is all natural, organic, healthy, and nothing-but-the-plant-in-this-bar that it wouldn't be a bad idea to make the packaging reflect that. They're clean and simple, and most of the products in this category are taking on a white background. They also are using simple pictures and colors at a minimal. The logos are smaller and the fonts are more natural and less rigid and fake.

One thing that would be interesting if it happened is if this trend totally spread through the cereal aisle, everything turning to simple white boxes. And then when every box on the aisle was white, one cereal company, like Cheerios for instance, would swiftly change the color of their packaging on one of their cereals, which would really make it stand out in the cereal aisle! But it's not an idea that would work in practice because, well I'm hoping the designers of the cereal boxes are a little smarter than that.

GDS220: Dvein

2008-09-17T21:26:00.000-07:00

Ok I honestly am not impressed with the photo content on this site, but then again they're movie clips so they're not going to look great in the first place. What I love about this site is the layout. It's simple, contained, and consistent. The pictures are always on the left and the text on the right, with plenty of breathing room. One downfall of this site is the text scroll bar, which every one seems to hate. I don't mind it quite that much and I think that when you have a site that is supposed to be focused on photographs or movie clips than it is on type I think that the text scroll bar is perfectly ok to use, after all it shoves most of the unwanted text out of my viewing space so that I can focus more of my attention on the art, but then again that's me, I like thinks that don't give me headaches.

GDS131: Vintage Raisins

2008-09-16T07:19:00.000-07:00

During my last week of semi-annual shopping for cereal Alex and I ran across this box of cereal, Vintage Raisin Bran! This is the original package design from the 1940's when Raisin Bran first came out (boy those are some old raisins). Altough the box is still glossy but has printed on it the texture of unglossed cardboard (kind of a disappointment, I mean come on, it's not vintage without the rough feel of cardboard!) But notice the bulky type with the hard drop shadow behind it and the mono-color background. Also notice (even though technically it's not part of the original design) the font used for the type "Vintage" it's swirly curly handwriting font! This seems to be a new fad with food products, I've also noticed that Snickers, Hersheys, and minute maid lemonade have gone back to their old designs. Do these vintage packaging do much for the product though? It's quite refreshing to see them, and may bring back fond memories but does it work?

GDS122: Use only what you need-We really know water

2008-09-11T09:00:00.000-07:00

The Denver Water ads seemed to be really popular for research for project 1 so I delved a little deeper into their ads. I think I found most of the ads for their "use only what you need" campaign. I also found a few more ads from their "we know water campaign". Both campaigns seem to both really be successful and really creative, Although the second campaign looks more like it was intended for magazine adverisements, it especially has a lot of detail that you have to look at for a second to catch it all, while the first campaign is very very simple but such a think-outside-the-box ad.

GDS220: Icecream Anyone?

2008-09-10T21:02:00.001-07:00

Ok so if you get past all the fantastic flash and the incredible illustrations, which of course make this site award winning, but what also makes it award winning is the simpleness of the site structure. The splash page is simple, very little text, most of which are links, which are conveniently hidden away thanks to flash. As for the inner page, it's also very simple and clean, again don't mind the protesting bees, they won't sting I promise. But what I really like about this site is that they were able to dazzle it up with flash and amazing illustration and still make it look clean and inviting. Even the type is clean and simple, nothing bulky or bold. The light blue of the type also helps keep a warm, friendly look to it. Honestly, the type and link structure is probably my favorite part of this site, and the protesting bees.

GDS131: Fresca?

2008-09-09T19:57:00.000-07:00

I know, when I saw it too I at first thought it said Fresca, but actually it's a political campaign board which very much has the qualities of a soda can: bright colors, bulky type with a stroke and shadow, and of course th familiar dots from the color that you see on cans. I saw this yesterday while I was driving Alex to work and just had to snap a shot it. I don't know if Barb Frasca intentionally tried to turn her name into a soda (I'm hoping that was the idea), but it makes for a great, ad because it's different and unexpected.

We're so used to seeing politcal ads stuck in people's yards millions of them killing the grass with their hideousness. And all of them are red, white and blue! Not to sound un-American but after 200 years, those colors just get hideous, over used and way ugly on glossy yard signs. So this was quite refreshing, and after I got over my stupor of my misidenifying, I found it quite funny.

GDS122: Irresistable?

2008-09-04T19:58:00.000-07:00

As good as the idea of this billboard is, it took me a second to recognise what the product name name was because, well it's kind of small. Is that bad? Most likely. If I'm driving in a car I would barely be able to catch the picture and by the time I could read the text I would've driven past the billboard before I could catch the brand. So what's more important in this billboard? the really creative idea or the brand? I think it's the idea, but the brand could use a little boost.

GDS131: Feel the Vibes

2008-09-04T19:23:00.000-07:00

This is the logo sign for Vibes Performance Car Audio on N Prospect Avenue. I used to see this sign every day when I went to work at Jimmy John's. This is actually a pretty new sign, less than a year old. If you're familiar with where Vibes Performance is then you'll know that Vibes Performance is behind Good Vibes. I used to always mix up the two until Vibes Performance put up this sign. As far ans the style goes it's very much 80's punk. Their old sign used to be just the punk font, the sound waves or vibes is new to the sign. I like this logo but I don't particularily like where the type "Performance Car Audio" has been placed. It seems a bit too cramped and doesn't help the idea of vibes flowing when it's cramped.

GDS220: Republican vs. Democrat

2008-09-02T19:15:00.000-07:00

Honestly, who would you vote for based off their website? Forget politics, policies, empty promises, hard hitting speeches and just examin the designs. Based on their designs who would you vote for president? For me I'd have to say McCain's site wins, browse through the site and you may or may not agree with me, but notice how well the grid system is used. There's a lot of information on that site and the designer(s) of the site did a really good job formatting the site to cleanly organize all that information, the graphics are great, everything is visually solid in it's place. Now, Obama's site is pretty good too, nice and simple and clean, but there are some spots that drive me crazy because it's a terrible use of white space! Also, there are some visual elements of the site that don' t line up correctly giveing it an unstable look. But hey that's me! What do you think?

GDS131: i like art T

2008-08-27T12:14:00.000-07:00

We all love a funny duck every now and then, but what about an artistic duck, or even better one who paints female ducks nude! This is an Art Coop shirt bought at Art Coop. I bought the shirt because I absolutely loved it; a perverted duck with a beret and paintbrush. The "i like art" below the duck is in Cooper Black font which stands out boldly with the duck. The duck is actually just a hand drawn duck which definitely reflects an artist.

GDS122: Mr. Clean

2008-08-26T11:23:00.000-07:00

This has got to be one of the most creative places I have ever seen an ad, and how effective it is too! Although you won't want to linger too long on this ad, or you may get hit by a truck, but I think this ad successfully communicates the product and the message between the time it takes you to notice it to the point when you're jumping out of the way of that truck.

I'm beginning to wonder how they kept this clean, unless when they painted the one line for Mr. Clean, they painted the other lines a dirtier white. At least that would have been an ideal solution.

GDS220: Spanish Cobra

2008-08-25T14:10:00.000-07:00

The Spanish Quarter

This is a site done by Cobra Creative, it's filled with amazing imagery, interesting music, and lots of Flash, but the Flash isn't the reason I like it. If you take the time to explore the site I think you'll agree with me that this site's structure is really good and constant throughout the whole website. There are many elements of this site that I would love to learn like the pop up links and the fancy text boxes.