Gauged

by

 

Studio116-TirePressureGauge

I was sifting through mechanic’s tools in my dad’s garage the other day. I was on the hunt for this tire pressure gauge that I had photographed a while back for a project in college. I wanted to see it again to get some inspiration for a client project I was working on. …isn’t it just beautiful! I love that it’s kind of grungy and worn. One of the reasons that it’s truly beautiful is because you can tell it was made with care; crafted of metal and glass, it’s much more substantial than many modern tools that are “constructed” with plastic and held together with glue and tape.

While I was on this vintage automobile gauge kick, I found this image:

Super beautiful, huh? …I never thought I would be saying that about anything belonging on a Mack truck… Can you imagine the look/feel/design of this being interpreted as a clean, skeumorphic user interface design? …I’m betting it would be breathtaking! …For those who don’t know, “skeuomorphic” is just a fancy term for when graphic elements are made to look like things from the real world.

Creative Freedom …or not.

by


“Not having a specific purpose or goal in mind creatively is like paddling in the middle of an ocean with no land in sight. Where do you start? Who is going to give you approval? What is the product you’re trying to sell? And wouldn’t it have been easier to have just stayed on the boat?”

— Anna of Door Sixteen

The hardest projects for me to wrap my brain around as a graphic designer are the ones where there are no rules; the ones for which “the powers that be” have given me “creative freedom.” These projects are usually things like thank you cards and desktop wallpapers; things that could depict anything. Projects like these seem like they should be the easiest ones; just come up with something cool and slap it on there. But, then my designer brain thinks, “Yeah, sure, but what does this super cool design mean? Nothing? Right. So, go back to the drawing board.” I have a designer friend that would describe this strange inner drama something like this: “Designers are problem solvers and, if there is no problem to be solved, it’s hard for us to know what to do.”

I had this mental battle with myself last week as I was designing for a client. It was something that could literally be anything; I had total “creative freedom.” Therefore, as usual, I was at a loss for what to do. While I’d known about the assignment for over a month, I waited until literally the last day to come up with something. …not my best decision, but it ended up turning out alright. Ironically, I ended up making it mean something. I guess my designer brain just can’t shut off sometimes.

Oddly enough, I was introduced to the blog post from which the quote above was taken just as I hit my “I’m never going to think of anything” moment. The post was written by Anna over at Door Sixteen. You should go read it :). …Anyway, It’s always nice to know that there’s someone else out there going through the same thing. And the post serves as a nice reminder that sometimes you just have to create something and not worry about the consequences. Best case scenario; you end up liking what you created …and perhaps someone else will too.

Culture Crush: More Fraktur

by

So, I hope you aren’t tired of Fraktur yet! …I don’t think I’ll ever tire of it. John Foster who rights the Accidental Mysteries post series on Design Observer scouted out these lovely examples of Fraktur. They are from a beautiful book with the very long title, “The Proper Art of Writing: A Compilation of All Sorts of Capital or Initial Letters of German, Latin and Italian Fonts from Different Masters of the Noble Art of Writing.” The title looks even longer in German, so I won’t go there.

What I find most fascinating about Fraktur is how intricate some of the forms can get. This intricacy is especially evident in these specimens. While looking at these, just try to remember that someone sat down with a pen or brush and ink to create these forms by hand; no Photoshop touch-ups or Illustrator line drawings here. Can you just imagine how long these forms took to make and how much thought went into planning each stroke?

In awesome news, the copyright on this book has expired, so it’s now within the public domain! …AND the entire book can be viewed in PDF form courtesy of Open Library!

Here is another of my favorite pages because I just can’t resist:

Be sure to click on over to Foster’s post on Design Observer to find out why he thinks this book contains an “accidental mystery!”

Mother’s Day 2013

by

Howdy, everyone! I haven’t seen many mother’s day gift round-ups out there this year, so I decided to make my own. They always seem to help me pick a gift when I’ve completely run out of ideas. Hopefully this will help you gift-giving stragglers out there. …Mother’s Day is this Sunday, by the way!

This particular round-up is for the mom’s who are being health conscious by eating healthy foods, but also like a little treat every once in a while. …doesn’t everybody?

For the health conscious part of this post, I included some supplies for mom to carry her homemade, healthy lunches to work with her. Both the lunch bag and reusable baggies are actually DIYs, but you could always go purchase some cute supplies as well. As for the desserts, I included two chocolate-y delights. I recently discovered the spiced molten chocolate cake recipe on The Kitchen Paper blog, so I can’t vouch for its goodness yet. …although it looks delicious; I can’t imagine it not being good. The red velvet mini cheesecakes, on the other hand, have been a favorite recipe of mine for a while. I can tell you they are always a hit! …I usually leave out the red food coloring though; I feel like it makes things taste a bit artificial… But, if you’re a red velvet loyalist, add it on in there!

Fear of Failure

by
Studio116-MiltonGlaser-VideoCover

Milton Glaser on the Fear of Failure; Watch it on Vimeo

One of my graphic design professors once said that sometimes the craziest ideas are the best. These are the ideas that might initially promote boisterous laughter and a, “That’s stupid!,” by a committee of critics or that guy you always meet in traffic on your way to work. I’m pretty positive that Henri Matisse was talking about this stage of the design process when he said, “creativity takes courage,” because it truly does. It takes guts for designers (or anyone, really) to put their ideas and craft out there for clients to judge. Sometimes they judge it fairly and with tact, sometimes they don’t. Sometimes it will be judged by people who know what they’re talking about and sometimes they won’t have a clue.

As Mr. Glaser mentions in this video, the fear of being judged by others is often what leads to the fear of failure. We assume that if we fail, if that crazy idea doesn’t turn out to be the best one after all, people will judge us and our work because of it. …and they will. But, in reality, people will judge us and our work no matter what. They’ll criticize the work because it contains the color pink; they’re least favorite color, don’t you know. …or because the design doesn’t “pop.” In these instances, it’s simply best to meet the client in the middle. If they don’t like pink; try blue. If there isn’t in enough “pop;” spice things up a bit.

Sometimes, though, clients will turn the opportunity to criticize a designer’s work into a personal attack on the designer. Though it may be hard at first, it’s best to ignore this type of criticism. It’s not constructive in the least because it doesn’t do anything to improve our work. It also doesn’t give us any perspective on how to make our work more pleasing to the client.

But, before we ignore all the criticism that comes our way, it’s best to remember that, more often than not, it’s meant to be constructive. It comes from a place of honesty and from people who genuinely want to improve our work. As a designer, this honest and constructive criticism is the kind we want to hear because it teaches valuable lessons and helps us grow.

Vintage Goodness

by

Just some vintage goodness to get you pumped up for the rest of the week. Robert Redford on a dirt bike, James Dean learning some ballet, and Audrey Hepburn doing some shopping with a baby deer. How awesome is that!? …be sure to click through the images. They link to even more great photos and a nice bit of information about them.

robert-redford-motorcycle

Robert Redford; via The Selvedge Yard; photo by Orlando Globey ca. 1972

A Nice Little Moment: Juxtapose

by

This mirror is amazing! It would be amazing on its own, straight out of the box. But, the juxtaposition it creates with its environment is what makes it truly special and memorable. This juxtaposition is definitely a nice little moment.

The classic architectural elements of the room in which this modern mirror is hanging could be described as elegant and formal with its rounded moulding and decorative carving. It could even be considered somewhat soft when compared with the harsh, sharp angular forms of the mirror. While these differing qualities make for a stark contrast, the room and the mirror still coexist wonderfully well. To go all type nerd on you, the classic interior is to the modern mirror what an old style serif typeface is to a modern sans-serif typeface; the perfect complement.

Here is what I would wear if I were kickin’ it in this room:

MirrorOutfit

1. Top 2. Pants 3. Necklace 4. Clutch 5. Pumps