THE online typography forum, Typophile has launched a redesign of their site. I’m hoping that it is an April Fool’s joke. I’m actually betting that it is, but I’ve been disappointed before (Baseline, anyone?). Can’t wait to come back tomorrow and see the ‘old design. Here's the justification (joke?) for the new look, straight from the site: "Another year has passed at Typophile, and as we are near our 8th year, we have completed another redesign. We moved away from the logo with the 7 animation (no one got it anyway). Also gone is the newsprint inspired design. The white on black text reflects the default state of the screen, where black is white. As we look toward the future and see that print is going the way of the dodo, we have redesigned our identity to include the futuristic electron blazing around the word mark in all of its probabilistic glory." I'm not sure that this is a funny joke at all. C'mon, futuristic electron? Ha.

New Identity: (seen above)

Old Identity:

 

Ah, it’s baseball season again and all is well with the world. I thought it would be appropriate to highlight the new stadium in DC, being baseball’s real opening day (games in Japan and on Sunday night really don’t count.) I had seen pictures of the new stadium before, but I didn’t realize that the surrounding national monuments were the inspirations for the project. It’s a great concept to pull monumental visual themes into the stadium; quarried stone blocks, differentiated layers, a focus on scale and sharp perspective. Nationals Stadium will not be mistaken for a real monument, with it’s prominent use of glass and the 4,500 square foot HD screen in centerfield, but this nice attention to detail give it just enough character to fit into the city. Designed by HOK Sport and Devrouax & Purnell Architects/Planners; it’s also the first LEED-certified stadium in the country. It does look like a great place to watch a ballgame and will no doubt revitalize the area in which it was built. (And for $611 Million, it should.) My only gripe would be for some of the non-architectural elements, like the signage to be more reflective of the overall design and therefore toned-down a bit. That’s asking a lot I’m sure, but I’ve seen where certain towns make McDonald’s and Wal-Marts alter their usually tacky exteriors to fit into the community – so it IS possible. Nonetheless, I can’t wait to cross this off my ‘MLB stadiums in which I’ve watched a game’ list. Here are a few pics below, but if you want to see more and larger versions go here.

Exterior: 

Exterior 2:

Interior:

Interior 2:

Gametime:

Capital View:

 

Hal Riney passed away on Monday, due to complications from a battle with cancer at the age of 75. He helped make the West Coast a creative hotspot – and San Francisco in particular. And although the agency isn’t quite where it was in its heyday, Hal Riney & Partners (now part of Publicis) was responsible for some of the most memorable advertising over the last 25 years. I can recall more Hal Riney work than maybe any other shop during the 1980's - 1990's; Those first folksy Saturn spots when it was launched, Bartles & James wine coolers, and even that 1984 spot for Ronald Reagan. All work that somehow managed to feel personal and genuine. When I heard about his death, I went to the shop’s website not realizing that I would be stepping into one of the best websites (especially for an agency) that I have seen in sometime. Its novel use of the webcam is great and makes you feel like Tom Cruise in Minority Report. If you spend a second and get your position right, it's as intuitive as the wii remote. Very cool site. So, in a time of sadness, there is a glimpse of hope for the shop that Hal built.

I confess that I don’t know too much about this spot except that it is for the SABC, the South African Broadcasting Corporation and that things in South Africa have been pretty tough. It seems trite to say that this spot (or short film?) is clever, which it is, but more accurately it contains a powerful message and is produced flawlessly. Well, not quite completely flawlessly, as it gets a little heavy-handed at the 1:30 mark, but otherwise it's well done. (Can anyone out there shed some light on the usage of the word mzansi at the end?)

I had the opportunity to visit the Met this weekend in New York, though for not nearly long enough as it would take a solid year to give each piece adequate attention. Some of the modern art might be a bit too pretentious for my taste – as I still have trouble grasping the magnitude of a canvas painted solid blue – there was of course a lot of amazing work on display. Perhaps my favorites were the portraits of Chuck Close. I’ve seen his stuff before in books, but his creations really need to be experienced in person. The sheer size of the paintings are impressive and provide a chance to see all the little details – impossible if simply viewing on a page. I watched many a visitor reach Chuck Close’s section and stand in awe, stopping in their tracks. Especially when they came upon the piece called, Mark. (More on that far below.)

Click to read more ...

A former student of mine, is half the partnership behind a nifty little photo search engine called Compfight. Though not affiliated with flickr, it makes great use of their API, allowing users to search the entire flickr library of photos. You can search tags only or all text (simply by clicking the button next to the search form at the top), you can search for images covered by the Creative Commons license, and a user can enable a safe search feature, which is handy while at work. One particular feature of note is the blue bar which indicates that flickr is holding an original photo and when moused on (and briefly held) the bar displays the pixel dimensions. Compfight is quite handy when trying to find an FPO image for a project or to simply see what’s out there in a more user-friendly format. Check it out.

The handy blue bar feature:

 

 

A sample search: stop signs. 

 

Over at TapeDeck.org they have a great gallery of vintage cassette tape designs from recordable audio manufacturers. You'll see some great retro schemes and fantastic tech-writing on these beauties – and all of them are oddly fascinating. I can remember recording mix-tapes on a couple labels in particular. Check them out; the entire collection is graphically gratifying. I pulled a few favorites below.

 

       

There have been suggestions to name this little feature of ours, Branding of the week. But, I come from the school of thought that it’s all semantics. Everything that is called branding is also advertising, if you don’t define advertising as narrowly as simply a print or tv spot. I think people feel like advertising is a dirty word and want to separate themselves from it. But it’s also a more honest word – we’re selling something and we’re not trying to hide that fact. Advertising is bad enough, may as well be open about it. But I digress.

The ad of the week, is one of those non-ad, ads. To promote the movie, Horton Hears a Who, Fox has partnered with IHOP (yes, the INTERNATIONAL House of Pancakes) to include a few limited-time offerings on their menu. One is green eggs and ham, seen above, which isn’t exactly for this story, but fits nicely with breakfast food and ties well with anything Dr. Seuss. Nothing ground-breaking here. However, there is another item (among five or six new ones) that is outstanding in it’s disregard for everything culinary and nutritional. May I introduce to you, Who Cakes.  According to their press release, “Who-Cakes, named after the "Whos" who live on a speck of dust, are a colorful stack of IHOP's shortcake pancakes in all shapes and sizes covered with real boysenberry and blueberry glaze, rainbow chocolate chips and (get this) a pink lollipop. Adventurous guests can wash it all down with a wiggly jiggly Beezlenut Splash, a thirst-quenching treat of lemon-lime soda with cubes of floating Cherry and Berry Blue Jell-O®.”  The pancakes are basically sugar cakes, with melted sugar, and sugar bits throughout topped off with a dessert. I have no idea who would order this, unless done so to make an ironic statement of some kind. But, I will say this: it’s attention-getting and very Seussian. Bonus points to anyone who sends proof that they’ve eaten a platter of these delights.

I can't imagine eating this.

 

 

 

I haven’t written a logo critique in quite some time, as the guys over at Brand New do a great job handling those. But I couldn’t resist writing this one up.

The Atlanta Bread Company is launching a new identity – or more accurately – has been launching a new identity over the last few weeks. Gone will be the old American Typewriter logotype and black and gold fields of wheat, and in its place will be what corporate is calling, The Bread Man. (See below.) The somewhat ambiguous shapes are described on the back of a piece of collateral. (Also seen below.) “You aren’t just looking at a new logo. You’re seeing the heart and soul of Atlanta Bread personified by a few simple brushstrokes. So, please allow us to introduce you to the bread man. He’s part global traveler, part old-school baker, part next-door neighbor...” Though this is a somewhat corny introduction of a mark, it sure beats the usual marketing jargon that most often accompanies an identity redesign. At least they are trying to talk to their customers in a conversational manner, I’ll give them that.

Old logo: (Courtesy of Creative Commons license, photo by Dave Malkoff.)

New logo:

New logo introduction:

 

But getting back to the design... I certainly am no fan of their old logo. No love for the old color palette or the typeface. But they had a loyal following and my gut reaction to the new design is that it’s far too close to what everyone else is doing, especially in this category. The hand drawn (but not really) atlanta script combined with the strokes of the BREAD end up feeling too much like one of their main competitors, Panera Bread. (See comparison below.) And although I want to like the bread man, ‘he’ really resembles a few blobs of paint more than a baker holding a loaf of bread. Is the new look more contemporary? Yes. Is it more fitting for a restaurant? Yes. Will it stand out in the category and stand the test of time? Doubtful. It simply looks too much like every other quick-service lunch place. I do think the color palette (an olive green and chili red) is a vast improvement over the old and feels quite appropriate.

Comparison:

 

I understand how these things go. Designers seldom get to produce their vision in its entirety and it’s quite possible they wanted to render an identity that had more southern heritage, more authenticity and more unique characteristics. All of these things would have made the mark better. I can understand how someone could like this redesign (it’s not as bad as say, the recent Xerox catastrophe,) but I can’t help but feeling like the design team missed a perfect opportunity to do something great. Instead it’s ok, in fact, an upgrade from the old. But that’s never the goal of re-launching a national brand. It could have been so much more than ok. I'm still researching who exactly is responsible for the look, whether an inhouse team at Atlanta Bread or an outside agency or studio. More (hopefully a few in-store shots) as I find it.

Sample Packaging:

 

 

The relationship between advertisers and content of major publications is put on display at One Page Magazine. A very simple idea, they’ve overlapped each advertiser’s logo, as they appear on their respective page. My favorite is Vogue (below) which demonstrates how little content the magazine actually contains as well as major fashion companies’ love for large logotypes. Both factors render the top and bottom of the piece as an almost completely black clog. Now, I just wish they’d do one for Men’s Health or GQ – I’m pretty sure it would end up being a field of black. (Seriously, the first 32 pages of GQ are ad spreads for cologne and clothing and whatever else. The table of contents page is on page 50 or something.) One page also does a similar thing with article titles, which is also interesting but somewhat less meaningful. Very cool. (I bookmarked this on friday and forgot the source, so apologies.)

Vogue: 

 

 

Wired: