Minette a Chocolate Brand

February 3, 2012 by jeppestrom

Manic was asked to create the identity system for a soon-to-be-launched chocolate brand. The client had a specific request of “luxury in a conventional way”.

Manic has managed to produce a product of high quality. The watermark is a modified script typo which gives you a feeling of freshness, youthfulness and sexiness. It is very appealing and has the qualities of a strong and resilient watermark or logo design for that matter. It is memorable, simple, elegant with a twist of sophistication and will do well in different media.

Check it out!

As described:

The wordmark was modified from an existing script to look fresh, youthful and disarming. The logo, a hot-air balloon, adds a touch of whimsy. It is also a symbol of freedom; being carefree, autonomous, able to act on a whim — the ultimate luxury for most.

As it was a retail brand, it was important that we created a distinctive mark within a robust identity system that can be refreshed seasonally without being diluted. To achieve that we created a chevron pattern with four seasonal colour palettes, with plans to add more as required.

Contributed by Karen Huang, creative director at Singapore-based Manic Design.

Thanks to Identity Designed

Thoughts on the designer/client relationship

December 20, 2011 by jeppestrom

Thoughts on the designer/client relationship, courtesy of the Design Council. Interesting watch, via Glug.

“If I go to see the doctor, I accept that the doctor has trained, has skill, has experience, is concentrating on one aspect of me. I’ve asked them to do that. What I don’t do is what bad graphic design clients do. I don’t lean over the doctor’s shoulder and say, ‘Could we make that pill a bit larger?’”
— QUENTIN NEWARK, ATELIER WORKS

“A good client has the responsibility to choose the designer that they’re going to work on the project with carefully, and when they get that job right it makes your job a lot easier.”
— LUKE PEARSON, PEARSONLLOYD

“I’m not sure there is such a thing as a perfect client because people are messy, just like I don’t think there’s such a thing as a perfect agency or a perfect consultancy or a perfect advisor.”
— RITA CLIFTON, INTERBRAND

“You make your client a good client or a bad client. After you’ve worked with clients over the years you know how to handle them, from a selfish point-of-view to get the best out of them, but also, to give them the best.”
— EDWARD BARBER, BARBEROSGERBY

“Most clients come to us with no real idea of what identity they’re trying to achieve. They’ll often come to us thinking that what they need is a new logo, that going forwards all their problems will be solved by this new logo, and our response to them would normally be, ‘Who do you think you are? How does your audience see you? How would you like your audience to be seeing you?’”
— NEVILLE BRODY

There’s a full transcript here.

The Design Council also has a resources for designers page you might find useful.

Thanks to David Airey for the heads up.

Wedding invitation the big way

December 6, 2011 by jeppestrom

Local Minneapolis designers Ned Wright and Laura Belle were married a couple months back in a small backyard ceremony. Both being designers, it makes sense that they started their journey as man and wife by collaboratively designing the invitations for their big day.

It might be a bit over the top for some, but I personally like the thought of these two people making this beautiful project and piece of art together before saying yes to each other.

Take a look and thanks to beastpieces!

Comprised of a main invitation card and an additional information card, this wedding suite combines unusual materials and several print processes. The main invitation is an oversized card (7.5″ x 10.5″) of 145 lb French Packing Board we custom duplexed to 100 lb Wausau Royal Complements Eclipse black cover stock. Studio On Fire letterpress printed the text on one side and then sent the piece off for foiling (white and black) on both sides.

The information card was also oversized (10.5″ x 15″) printed on one of our house stocks, Crane Lettra Pearl White 110C. Black ink is used on both sides, with an additional tonal ink used to create visual texture on the outside of the card. Once the card had completed printing it received several score and perforation lines, allowing the RSVP to be separated and returned.

As a special bonus, the couple had a great video made of their wedding weekend that they agreed to share.

Asterisk sign transformed to Superheroes

November 30, 2011 by jeppestrom

The polish designer Filip Lysyszn has taken the typographic asterisk sign and transformed it into different Marvel and DC Comic Superheroes.

Take a look!

By simply tweaking the colours or/and adding smaller features, for example the stretchy arms of Mr. Fantastic or Wolverine’s claws, Filip Lysyszn has managed to create an easy and intuitive recognizability among the different Superheroes which is quite amazing how well it works. Furthermore, you can learn a great deal about this technique and draw parallels to the art of logo design. A few(one) iconic element(s) should be enough to make a strong and resilient logo!

Answers:
A. Spider-Man
B. Superman
C. Storm
D. Batman
E. Iron Man
F. Cyclops
G. Wolverine
H. Hulk
I. Mr. Fantastic

Visit Filip Lysyszn

Thanks to atissuejournal

Dan Cassaro, New York Times Magazine Education Issue

November 22, 2011 by jeppestrom

Dan Cassaro was commissioned to create a a series of stickers to accompany each article for The New York Times Magazine’s Education Issue. He has done an amazing work and created so much awareness and depth to the subject both graphically and communicatively. Take a look at the whole shebang here!