Randle rambles

Stefan Sagmeister gives a very inspiring talk on why design can make you happy. From one of the TED series of lectures you can access from TED or their Google channel.

Stefan Sagmeister

Simply beautiful Transport for London posters for the 2012 Olympic Games. I don’t think that there is going to be as much controversy over these as there is over the Wolff Olins logo.

Some more information at ministryoftype and by the originator himself Alan Clarke

Whilst doing some brand identity research recently I delved into my book collection and trawled through the traditional avenues, books that most designers will be familiar with including the Los Logos series. I then set about trawling the internet and was pleasantly surprised by the amount of sites dedicated to art of logo/identity design.

I know I have only scratched the surface with this but those that are worth a mention are Logo of the Day, Lo8os, Logolog and Logo Design Love.

As usual with these online collections some examples are good but lot’s are pretty average!

I stumbled across this site last week after reading Johnson Banks – Thought of the Week. Absolutely gorgeous book sleeve design from David Pearson. Before setting up his own agency he was an Art Director at Penguin Books. A must see and I think that I am going to have a hole in my wallet after a trip to Foyles this week!

Small, Medium, Large & EXTRA LARGE typography! Wow!!

I spent my design education really admiring Why Not Associates, their print work and books really were an inspiration. Quite a unique style which has often been copied but never executed with the same degree of skill. I had put them to the back of my mind until this week when I was going through my book library for research material.

I have put the locations of their environmental designs to the top of my list of places to visit.

Some of the most memorable motion picture title sequences recently (think Seven, The Island of Dr. Moreau, The Mummy, Spiderman) have been produced by Kyle Cooper. He is often compared to Saul Bass and his relatively new solo venture is Prologue. Go check it out!

Some exceptional work from Barcelona based graphic designer Alex Trochut. Amazing portfolio of illustration and typography based work for some of the worlds biggest brands. You may not know him but you will know his work.

An incredible amount of consistently good work from design duo Dixon Baxi can be seen on their site. They have just done a great job rebranding UK television channel Five, have completed equally great work for the likes of SciFi Channel, MTV, VH1 and Last FM.

This is certainly worth a look wether your a fellow design professional or a budding graphic designer.

If your having one of those brain ache days or just need a little helping hand with colour palettes then ColorBlender is a great little online tool. Simply input colour references from your design and hey presto a range of complimentary blends.

The great thing is you can save your blends for future use, output to photoshop & illustrator or even email the details. A really versatile free app that deserves much credit.

Beautiful use of 3D and interaction as GE shows us how they plan to update the energy grid and bring it into the 21st Century, Plug into the Smart Grid now! Really great attention to detail in the mini environments, loving the fish swimming in the tiny ocean on the homepage. This months FWA site of the month.