I came to a realization today that I temporarily halted the Standout Series for no reason whatsoever. So in the interest of all things web design (I’ve been attempting to redesign my own site which should be finished soon) I came across Digitalmash design, the work of Rob Morris. A seven year expert in the world of web design his 3rd version of his web site was so good and clean that it was copied and hacked only a week after it was put up. His blog readers successfully bombarded the designer of the other site with emails and it has since been removed. Clean and concise design, functionality, and usability are all relevant in every design. His print work is also spectacular. Sharp and crisp colors and a great variety all round out his portfolio. Check out the case study for GLEAN to gain some insight into Rob’s brain. And Happy Holidays to all. May this time of year bring all of us fun design gifts and more work!

I have been shopping around at different sites attempting to build my repertoire of film cameras. I finally retro fitted a battery set-up to get my ELECTRO working. The DIANA+ and the HOLGA seemed to be good inexpensive options and I also looked into a LOMO LC-A. Props to lomography.com for the great micro sites. Then I stumbled across a great design and a great (but unfortunately overpriced) idea. Limited Edition custom White Stripes camera packs. Custom filters, colors, packages, and a mean branding and marketing strategy with a unique web site rounds out a killer package. The only problem I can see is the price tag. Ringing the register at $180 for an interesting set with accessories for each camera included the cost is much greater than the regular cost for the holga color flash w/ fisheye or a diana+ with a ringflash. So you really are paying for the packaging and the total kit with the specialty white stripes incentives. Kudos to ROB JONES for the packaging design.

I’ve been noticing lately (as if it wasn’t being slammed in everyone’s face) this association of Barack Obama with the word socialism. If you are unsure about what exactly socialism is take a trip over to THE CONCISE ENCYCLOPEDIA OF ECONOMICS. They have a complete and thorough account of socialism by Robert Heilbroner a world renown author and socialist that is extremely easy to follow and very informative. I’d also suggest checking out THIS article over at THE NEW YORKER (stupid big city un-American publication) about the topic. People have also been comparing the amazing artwork and campaign materials with early to mid 1900′s political propaganda machines like the communist Russian movement and the Nazi regime in Germany. There is an explanation for this and also a very large difference between the two.

Being a graphic designer I have a strong affinity for posters and large sized visible artwork. Throughout the campaign like minded artists as myself have been producing artwork, posters, and campaign material. Take a look HERE and HERE. What many people do not realize is as artists we search and strive for inspiration. We all study history and we know that powerful images are far more effective than powerful words. Artists often replicate a visual “feel” for a piece to entice a emotional or response by utilizing similar colors, visual effects, and styles. Shepard Fairey of Obey created the original HOPE AND PROGRESS posters. He has long been creating work highly influenced by historical propaganda posters and has since had his style copied by many other artists attempting to establish the same effect. You can watch an interview HERE with Fairey and other artists who assure your their message is positive and has nothing but the best intentions.

Make art and love. Not War.

Being an avid Obama supporter I’ve been looking at all the great, inspiring Obama based artwork that is running and posted everywhere. Thanks to JEFF DOMKE we can all start mass producing them this week and putting them out to the public. Jeff has created a dingbats STYLE font called OBAMABATS, a great little compilation of Obama images easily usable and vector ready. Thanks again Jeff, and thanks to QUIPSOLOGIES once more for bringing something else that is cool to my attention. Get there, download it, make some artwork and post it everywhere. Spread the word. Obama 08

Underconsideration is a forum and network of four different blogs all based on different specific aspects of design. I gave them a shout in my last post regarding the Pepsi re-branding which I located at BRAND NEW, a blog designated for finding and revealing new re-brands and corporate identity restructuring. Bryony Gomez-Palacio & Armin Vit created underconsideration in 2001 and have included SPEAK UP, a forum for design discussion prodded by stimulating and always interesting openings that stem a broad range of responses (us designers as a whole are intellectually advanced when it comes to making a point, why is that?), QUIPSOLOGIES is a blog entirely dedicated to sharing things that are in my opinion just plain fun. Last but certainly not least THE DESIGN ENCYCLOPEDIA is “A growing, collaborative resource that describes, tracks and explains culture, commerce, politics, media, sports, brands – everything possible, really – through design.” (I could have tried to explain it in my own words but theirs are so exact and eloquent). Start clicking, get lost for hours. I literally was up half the night just looking through all of the cool quipsologies tidbits and I plan on trying the coat hanger book holder.

Amidst of the housing crisis and the economy going belly up, somehow (international economy) new york keeps developing and branding these incredible real estate/residence ventures. One company describing themselves as a brand creation and marketing firm is pushing the ideals of luxurious and stylish living in modern manhattan by enticing people to become part of an idea, a lifestyle very similar to the likes of the Acura campaign that I have witnessed periodically. A new breed of young success. Pandiscio does it through simplicity, creativity, and with style that is immediately noticeable. Take notice. I would say note the typography but I would be selling this company exponentially short.

:: Check Out Pandiscio Co. ::

Adobe announces CS

Adobe® today officially announced its CS4® suite sending all the software everyone never bought down the brisk road to the realm of obsolete programs. It seems as though once again Adobe has focused on slimming and simplifying work flows between program. A few notable tools that actually seem useful are the live preflight feature and a new content aware scaling tool.

Apply the revolutionary new Content-Aware Scaling to automatically recompose an image as you resize it, smartly preserving vital areas of the image as it adapts to new dimensions.

There seems to be some overall view changes in many of the programs with an enhanced Live View in Dreamweaver® and interactive PDF previews for Fireworks® Useful? Useless? I’ll let you be the judge and jury for this one. I am completely unconvinced. With a steeper price tag then the last with a $899 upgrade price tag and a whopping $2499 for the complete master collection I would venture to say Adobe is trying to make more money on an already great system with a few minor changes.

:: Check Out AdobeCS4 ::