Another movie title sequence for Digital Typography. I have no idea what this movie would be about. I lifted the title from a creative prompt on Sketchophrenia
July 2, 2009
Her Dark Wings movie title
Jade Falcon movie titles
For Digital Typography, we were told to make animated movie titles. Here are titles for a campy 70’s-style ninjas vs spies movie called Jade Falcon.
June 28, 2009
CATAN: Seafarers advertisement
In Digital Typography, our final project was to create a two-page spread, a poster, an ad, and a web banner. This is my ad, peddling an expansion for the board game Settlers of Catan. I took the image of the game and the body copy from the back of the box, but I reproduced all the other elements myself. I was particularly proud of this piece; it looks just like something that Mayfair Games themselves would publish.
CHANGE for America
This one popped into my head as I was falling asleep one night. I thought it was amusing, but when I presented it to the class, everyone seemed to think it was meant to be serious.
Two Page Spread
A two-page spread for my Digital Typography class. The photos and body copy are credited in the image, though I don’t recall off the top of my head where they originally came from. The headline typeface is Belwe, a readable but idiosyncratic Celtic-style font.
Two page spread
MoBe: More. Better.
One more from Graphic Symbolism. Our first project was to develop a logo for another member of the class. This one is for Molly Beth McAdams. She had been toying with using the first two letters of her first and middle names as a company name. She’s a playful, casual kind of person, so I added the tagline “More Better.” Not only is it a fun little phrase, it’s also a promise: Molly will deliver more, and it will be better than the competition. I built the font myself in Illustrator. Since I wasn’t getting graded for that, though, it contains only the glyphs you see here. Building an entire font is a lot of work.
MoBe: More. Better.
101 Asian Fusion Grill
A logo for the 101 Asian Fusion Grill in the Cherry Creek neighborhood of Denver. I’ve never eaten there, but I looked at their website, and their current logo is plain awful. This one uses a simple chinese decorative element and a simple, elegant typeface called Maiandra. The numerals come from a different font that I can’t identify since its name is in Japanese kanji.
Logo for the 101 Asian Fusion Grill restaurant
Japanese Tea Logos
So part of the curriculum is a class called “Graphic Symbolism.” To me, that implies learning how images communicate ideas, and how to use that to say something without having to outright say it. Like the red objects in the Sixth Sense, always present whenever there’s a clue about what’s really going on. Red being the color both of blood (and thus death) and of the supernatural. Instead, it was a logo design class. It was a really good logo design class, but that still didn’t make it terribly relevant for a visual effects student.
Anyway, one of the assignments was a set of related logos for a beverage company. Most of my classmates naturally designed booze logos. Here are four logos based on famous Ukiyo-e woodcuts by Hiroshige and Hokusai, and one based on an image imitating the Ukiyo-e style by another acquaintence from the Cartographers’ Guild, Michael Tumey, aka GamerPrinter. Incidentally, he runs a printshop servicing roleplaying gamers, so if you ever need a map printed and/or laminated, look him up at http://www.gamer-printshop.com. The prices are reasonable, the prints are superb, and the lamination is adequate.
Back to the point. Hibiki-An is a real company, but these aren’t their actual products. They are actual traditional Japanese teas, though.
A set of matched logos for an importer of Japanese teas.
And in case you’re wondering, the tea used for the tea ceremony is matcha.
June 24, 2009
Trying out a new format
As my content has increased in quantity and complexity, I decided that my old management approach was insufficient. Hopefully this bloggy format will allow more efficient (and timely) updates while allowing superior navigation of the content. To get things started, here’s a sample from my Digital Typography class.
Single column layout with images.
As I recall, the objective was a simple layout with a headline and subhead. I chose a modern-looking sans serif font for the headline, accompanied by the very readable Times New Roman for the body copy. Some people say Times is overused and thus avoid it, but it is used so often because it is effective. It is readable at small sizes, and it is very familiar, making it ideal for large quantities of copy where the focus should be on the information, not on the design.