Penguin Canada recently hired HandsDesign to freshen up the look of the popular detective series Benny Cooperman written by Toronto author Howard Engel. Penguin is re-releasing the 12 books and hoped to have a design that modernized the somewhat dull reputation of the genre.

The Series:

Karin Hands, Creative Director of HandsDesign, describes the inspiration behind the project - a direct quote from DesignEdge – Canada: “I had the idea of a kind of Saul Bass style, as he’s renowned for his kind of detective style movie credits and things he’s done,” says Hands. “I though it fit in quite well, a quirky fun version of that detective feel. The style of writing is kind of a Dick Tracy-style writing anyway where it’s more poking fun at the genre, kind of riding along with it in a fun romp kind of way. I thought I’d do the same with the design by riding along with it and having a bit of fun with it.”

The Series, whole covers:

Each book has an illustration and type design that works for the singular story, but also fits into the group as a whole. What I like best about the cover design, is that you can just tell that the designers had a blast working on this project – and that is always a good thing. You can read more on Design Edge or on The Canadian Design Resource. And just to be thorough, this is what the covers looked like beforehand. (Pun embarassingly intended.) I wonder which ones I'd be more likely to pick up off the shelf?

I've driven past these signs so many times, that I finally had to stop and document them. It's not NY - or even close - but Greenville has a ton of folk-type and vintage signs and I hope to keep adding to this collection.



Gallery courtesy of PictoBrowser.

Debbie Millman has come out with a new book, The Essential Principles of Graphic Design. The book is split into four parts; Essential Principles (type, color, layout, and style), Principles of the Creative Process (visual strategy, research, working with imagery, account management and production), Principles within Disciplines which is the meat of the book–featuring the process and thinking behind many of the best design projects in recent years, and the final section is called Sound Bites–concise thoughts from the contributing designers on all sorts of subjects related to practicing graphic design.

The Principles within Disciplines section is much like a lot of the ‘best of’ books you see on the shelves these days only the projects are better chosen and the peak behind the curtain more enlightening. The reader gets involved in the process behind the Delta Airlines redesign, Target’s ClearRx pill bottles, Martha Stewart’s Identity, and many many others including the VM World Conference 2007’s amazing event branding work by Brian Rea & Nicholas Blechman; a personal favorite. This section could be a book by itself and still be better than most case studies / design annuals.

VM World Conference 2007

Lippincott's Delta Identity Upgrade

The Sound bites are great, but only about four pages. It seems to me that these were little gems thrown out by the contributing designers that although didn’t fit into the final project write-up, were too good to throw away. They feel somewhat like a continuation of Millman’s previous book, How to Think Like a Great Graphic Designer.

The opening 47 pages (the first two sections of the book) are what really grab you. It’s a whirlwind of quick overviews of basic principles we all manipulate when we practice design as well as passionate pleas to pay attention to the importance of each. The articles written by some of today’s best designers are an important read for the beginner, but they are also equally relevant for the pro. The Boston Celtics still do basic layup and ball-handling drills to stay sharp – and these primers are the equivalent for the experienced designer. You may not learn something you didn’t already know, but you’ll be more focused the next time you start a project. Marian Bantjes' rant on primes versus true quotation marks, dashes versus hyphens, and paragraph spacing and indentation is way overdue. Cheryl Swanson’s visual strategy essay provides inspiration as well as a basic recipe for a brand personality. And Satoru Wakeshima’s contribution on account management and workflow is a quick overview of how a design job typically flows through a studio and should be read by every design account person. And that's the just the beginning.

Marian Bantjes on Typography

Millman's Essential Principles isn't so much a textbook as it is a text supplement. It's not nearly in-depth enough to really instruct a classroom on all things graphic design. (And that wasn't the intent either.) However, I would suggest going over the first 47 pages would be a good way to begin a design course and the other 209 pages will become more important to each designer as their career progresses. And if you are way past your student years, you'll find room on your shelf for this book because of the insight shared through three-dozen case studies of high-profile projects. You can read what the author says about the book on her blog here.

Earlier this summer, I had the privilege of co-teaching an advertising concepts class at Furman University with Ross McClain, the Associate Professor of Art at the South Carolina institution. (Furman has a beautiful campus located just outside Greenville.) The class was completely enjoyable, the students a lot of fun, and Ross was both patient and supportive of having another voice in his classroom. I hope to be able to do it again.

One day during class, Ross mentioned a typography project that he undertook as part of his sabbatical research. The project tried to interpolate a final typeface from the original typefaces throughout printing history. Basically he chose 20 typefaces, paired them together, and combined them into a single typeface over and over until there was only one typeface left standing. The process worked much like the way a family tree does and the result wasn't meant to end in a useable font so much as it was to see what would happen. A simple video slideshow (which loads fairly slowly,) a few images, and further explanation from the professor after the jump.

Click to read more ...

WebRidesTV recently raced a Mini Clubman against a go-cart, to see if the Mini truly had "go-cart-like" handling. I'm not going to spoil the ending, but the action is actually pretty good and would make an excellent ad. Are you listening Butler, Shine, Stern and Partners? (Not that they do a bad job with Mini.) The first half of the video is more car review - the good stuff happens around the mid-point. (Note: contains mild-language.)

I’m liking this work from Michael Bierut and the Canary Project, that was posted on the buses of Cleveland – his hometown. Riding the bus, for a long time anyway, was something that poor people who couldn’t afford a car or college students did. But this call to be a green patriot gives people permission to feel good about it as well as empowering others to do the same. I also think there is an undercurrent contrasting this type of patriotism versus the ‘patriotic’ ribbons adorning the eye-level bumpers of SUVs across America, though I’m unsure if this was intended or merely happenstance. The design is understated yet bold and implementing the green militiaman sillhouette gives the project the immediacy it deserves, a call to arms as it were. (Images via Pentagram where you can see more samples.) There is also a website, where others can join in and make a poster, get involved, donate or take action in their community in the name of energy independence and climate change.

Be A Green Patriot:

 

 

When I first heard about AMC's MadMen, I was pretty determined not to watch it. Working in advertising, the last thing I’d want to watch is more advertising. But while visiting a friend I caught the first episode and was intrigued enough to buy the first season on dvd a few months later. The packaging (shots below) for the first series is great, coming in a larger version of a zippo lighter – appropriate for the immense amount of smoking that goes on in the offices of Sterling Cooper, the fictitious agency set in 1960 Manhattan. (The zippo sponshorship is brilliant product placement as it's not annoying and becomes a key visual element throughout the storyline.) I’m hooked. The attention to detail in the props/sets not to mention the portrayal of the advertising industry is enough to keep me watching; but the plot and characters are equally compelling. I’m eagerly waiting season two, which begins on the 27th. There have been several articles written about the series, none better than the two posts on Design Observer: Michael Bierut weighs in on the creative pitches and William Drenttel talks about being a madmen himself. But I couldn’t help compare and contrast the agency life as presented in MadMen with my own experience in advertising of about ten years.

Just a few thoughts, with no spoilers.

1. Integrated campaigns. I don’t remember the last time we pitched business without pitching ambient, interactive, and alternative media to go along with broadcat and print. Watching Don Draper pitch an account using only three print ads seems downright neolithic. This underscores how much the industry has changed in the last forty years – you can’t serve your clients with a mere magazine campaign. I can’t help but wonder how they would pitch a new micro-site or how well they’d work with product placement.
2. Presentations. I’ve worked with creative directors who were just as confident when presenting as Don Draper, though none had quite the amount of arrogance. I know they are out there, but I don’t think that approach would work very well anymore. I'm not sure if that’s because clients are more demanding and suspicious or if the industry is simply more transparent. Draper is smooth but not very empathetic in most pitches, with the beautiful Kodak presentation as an obvious exception.
3. The drinking and the smoking. Thank goodness I don’t have to work in an environment where everyone smokes. I think you can still smoke on some floors at Leo Burnett (agency of record for RJ Reynolds), but like most other business – it’s a thing of the past. The drinking however is still very much evident but most often is done not during business but afterwards. I have never seen anyone offer scotch or gin during the day, but we’ve often had a few beers out during a longer client meeting or on Friday afternoons.
4. Dress Code. It’s interesting to watch the creatives run around the agency in suits. This is strange as I don’t think I’ve ever seen any of my creative directors that I’ve worked with wearing a tie; let alone an entire suit. Most often my uniform is a tshirt and jeans. The attitudes have completely changed on this, as the best agencies are usually the most casual. Though a part of me would like the dress code to come back. Maybe for a week. Or just a day.
   
5. Women. The woman at Sterling Cooper are looked at as second-tier people. They are secretaries and paper-filers and none of the important jobs at the agency are filled with women. I’d like to say that this still isn’t the case, but I simply haven’t seen many women in the creative departments of the agencies of today. Women have made more grounds in the account executive roles, but not so much in creative or management. Maybe that is changing.
   
6. Art Department. The art department was secondary to the copywriters. The ideas came from the writers and the art directors simply slid the layouts under the door. Yikes! Today, the writers and art directors usually work together on the ideation and are more of a team throughout the creative process. I’m glad that I wasn’t an art director at Sterling Cooper, working in the dungeons.

Packaging Shots:

 

Be sure to check out the title sequence for the show too. It’s quite well-done and worth watching on it’s own merit.

 

 

 

Something funny to end the week. I believe this spot is about a year old (or maybe a touch more), but somehow I must have missed it. It’s for Altoids chocolate-dipped mints and was produced by Butler, Shine, Stern & Partners in Sausalito, CA – or at least that is my best guess. We were reviewing some directors’ reels this afternoon and when we got to Biscuit’s Tim Godsall, the director, we came across this beauty. It’s not the most intellectual of spots, but it sure made us all laugh out loud. And here’s the magic words, “I wish I had done that.”

Just so you see it. I'm not saying it's good or bad, just that it's an interesting example of participatory/immersive advertising.

Apparently, a billboard in London posted by Chevrolet created quite a scene recently. The billboard featured A new Chevy Aveo, and was covered by 20,000 pennies to promote the 769,500-pence asking price. Not so surprisingly, once pedestrians took notice the billboard didn’t last long – it took only 30 minutes to be completely stripped bare. Much like a Chevy Aveo. (That's a joke by the way.)

Carscoop quotes Chevrolet's Les Turton: "There have been some great car adverts before, but none that has stopped traffic and actually put money back into the motorist’s pocket so this is certainly a first. We’re glad we’ve topped up lots of people’s wallets, purses and, in some cases, rucksacks, but it would have been nice for the billboard to last a little longer than 30 minutes.”

Try that stuff in the states and you'd have a riot on your hands. We'll wait six days in a line outside a gas station just for a chance to win a $10 gas card.

Via Autoblog via Carscoop.

Here are some pics:

 

 

 

A little late on this one, admittedly, but it’s always an important award to review. The 2008 winners of the TDC² contest are up on the site and this year’s winners are more global than past years – or so it seems. There are a couple arabic winners to go along with a few other non-latin faces, all worth checking out. It's great to see such an international vibe to the winning entries. I always have a personal favorite, and this year it’s Presidencia by Kimera Design (really the work of Gabriel Martinez Meave) out of Mexico City. This is a great find, because it lead me into their website, which led me to their type website, which has a lot of unique type-related information and links. I love that they have sketches of their process to review, in addition to a slew of great custom type families at which to gawk. I’m more than happy to help this work get more publicity and I love going down a link trail to find such good stuff at the end.

A sample sketch:

 

 

An early sketch of Lagarto, a favorite face from Kimera:

 

 

Full type specimen of Presidencia, the TDC² 2008 winner: