Mazda

This is an ad for the Mazda MX-5 Roadster Coupe. I think its a very clever ad; really thinking outside of the square in the design. Fair enough this ad takes up two pages, which of course is more expensive then a one page ad. But i believe it is worth with the uniqueness and interactive qualities behind it. The ad is cleverly asking the viewer to get involved by folding the page to make it look like the car with a rooftop . The art of folding paper is Origami, which has been the main influence in Mazda's design of it's retracting rooftop due to its folding nature is like how a piece of paper would be folded in Origami. Having this ad would be quite successful because the viewer is asked to join in, which would mean it would sustained in their memory. I believe this is one of Mazda's more successful advertisements. The colours chosen are used through out the ad, all following the nice, dark blue used on the car. The first page of the ad is where the main "action" happens with two different ways to view the ad are possible, when turning the page it covers all the necessary information behind the design of the car, giving clear and precise diagrams of the folding process behind the cars roof retraction. The typography used in this ad has an asian type tang to it, which helps support the copywriting at the beginning of the ad stating "the Japanese art of folding paper is called origami." Mazda being a Japanese car also helps to support the Asian feel behind the typography.

Barack Obama

This is a poster advertising a speech by Barack Obama in Germany. I found it when I was researching modern posters which uses the Bauhaus style. As soon as i saw it I was amazed, still am amazed whenever I look at it. Its just so BEAUTIFUL! haha yeah its good. 

I believe Barack Obama wouldn't be where he is now without his design team. Even though the style of the Bauhaus used in this design is 90 years old when this poster was designed, i believe it still has a modern feel to it which is incorporated in the somewhat "shiney" typography which uses gradients quite successfully. 

It uses the American colours so successfully with the majority of the poster, the majority of the poster is blue, but with a splash of rich red which is very strong in the design of the poster. The red is emphasizing that to attend the speech its free for the public.

I believe with the angle and the view of Barack Obama's face really has an emotional and powerful feel with it. As I look at the picture I see Barack as a dominant and inspirational man, just by looking at his picture. I think the typography is fantastic, using different sizes and boldness of the same san serif typeface. 

I want to shake the hand of every member of the Barack Obama design team.

Unknown Pleasures

This is the cover for Joy Division's album Unknown Pleasures. It was designed by my favourite graphic designer Peter Saville. I have always loved this design from when I first saw the cd on the stands at a shop, then of course I bought it. The image originally comes from an edition of the Cambridge Encyclopedia of Astronomy, but the image was originally black on a white background. It represents 100 pulses from the first pulsar discovered, which is often referred to in the context of the album. Without knowing about the  true origins of the design it seems to have movement in the line which seems to represent sound in some sort of "beat" process which I think is a good way to incorporate sound into a visual artwork. I was attracted to the piece because at the time I was looking to purchase a Joy Division album and this was the one that stood out to me the most so I had to but it being a big fan of the band as what I am. 

I believe the design is of very high quality due to the representation of sound. It seems to have formed some form of trademark with Joy Division as many forms of merchandise have been using this design. I think this is one of Peter Saville's best pieces of work.

Solo

This is the packaging design for a Canadian mobile phone company known as Solo. I think its fantaaaaaaastic. I love the use of the broken orange lines which seems to support some form of movement which is incorporated into Solo's logo. The way the phone is situated in the plastic gives the impression that the phone is the centre of communication, communication that of that being represented by the broken orange line spread across the packaging. The packaging seem to follow the two thirds rule used in advertising with the phone in the top third and the description if the contents in the bottom third.

I saw the packaging in a book known as Logo Savvy which covers the developments behind large brands from across the world, being impressed by seeing how this company developed their logo, I though I would write a blog on my favourite packaging by them.

I believe it has strong typography in its logo which has worked well with being incorporated in other parts of the design.

I was attracted to the piece because of an ad which was for Solo but next to the packaging, after being obsessed with the ad for a while i soon became obsessed with the packaging. 

Sigur Ros - ( )

I know a lot of my blogs have been cd covers, but I cant help it when I have been seeing such fantastic design in some of the cds, so I feel i should mention them.

This is the cd cover and packaging for the the album ( ) by Sigur Ros. The name of the album has no letters but is represented on the front cover by the curved shapes. Sigur Ros are from Iceland, their music as beautiful, and sometimes quite haunting but with relaxing ambience. I believe their style of music is portrayed well in the design of the cover. The white and grays are very relaxing to look at, and also has a cold feel to it which is what the music of Sigur Ros makes me feel when I listen to it. Iceland, being a cold, isolated country it is, really is portrayed in both the music and the design. Sigur Ros sometimes make their instruments from organic things, for example, one band member of Sigur Ros found this different stones which when hit with a stick used to play with xylophones, made different sounds depending on the size and shape of the stones. Many of these stones where collected to make an instrument which sounds similar to a xylophone. This organic form of playing music is also influenced the design of the cover.

The typography used on the covers is nice with the "( )" is a die-cut to look at the cover underneath whereas the typography of the "Sigur Ros" is written as if someone wrote it with a pen. It think the design is of very high quality due to the perfect style of design to represent the style of music.

I originally saw it in a cd store, and my love for the band made me buy the cd.

Pixies - Doolittle

This is the cd cover for the album Doolittle by the Pixies. It was designed by Vaughan Oliver and photographer Simon Larbalestier. One of the songs on the album is called Monkey Gone to Heaven which is represented by the monkey with the halo. The numbers "5", "6", and "7" are included on the cover because the part of the lyrics included in Monkey Gone to Heaven say "If man is 5, and the devil is 6, then god is 7."

I first saw the cover years ago when I bought this album, ever since i have bought it, not only I have loved the music but also the photography through out the cd cover and the booklet. 

I really love the Grunge style used in the design, it has a real rusty feel to it. The use of typography for the "5", "6", and "7"is clever with using Helvetica printing blocks to represent the numbers. 

I believe this work is of high quality due to the clever photography and use of typography to represent songs. 

I was attracted to this piece because I love the band plus the style of the CD cover

The Deaths of Ian Stone

This is the heading for the movie "The Deaths of Ian Stone." It is a horror which seems to be emphasized in the typography. It has a very grunge look to it and somewhat looks like blood splatter, which is what I'm sure the designer is after. I saw it quite recently when my dad sent me the dvd in the post, and after enjoying watching the film I found the typography of the film's title very effective. The typeface as quite a tall sans serif which is emphasized by the grunge look and the contrasting colours. Even though the grungey look gives the typorgraphy a dirty look it still seems quite clean and precise, this supported by the san serifs and the contrast between the colours and  the white background. I was attracted to the piece because im a big fan of horror movies and grungey style of artwork, so i guess these two together seem to work really well and I think its just fantastic. I have always been a fan of red and black used together to represent anything dark and scary.

Vast - Music For People

This is the album cover for "Music for People" by the band Vast.

Ever since I first saw this album in the year 2000 I was not only impressed by the music but also the design of the cover and the typography. I find the image on the cd cover of the flower and the snake to be quite powerful, snakes are sometimes seen as quite evil creatures while flowers are seen to be beautiful so seeing them both together is quite a contrast.

The designs function i so portray the music, which I think it has done successfully. Vast's music is a mixture of quite heavy rock and ambient strings,  so the image of the snake and flower seems to be i visual example of this noise.

I originally saw the album in a cd store and I decided to buy having known how fantastic Vast's music is. 

The album cover is well designed with the simplicity and the colour of the typography. Im a huge fan of the typography behind "Vast." I love how parts of each letter isn't visible yet it can still be easily read, this has fascinated me since I first saw it. It is my most influential form of typography to me. I was attracted to the piece because of the music and the great typography.

Mining (Heroic Realism)

Every time I look at design which has the Heroic Realism style, I have a quiet chuckle to myself. I just guess I see the Heroic Realism style as really corny because it portrays an unrealistic, over exaggerated way of communicating to the public. At first glance, when I look at this design I see some arrogant miner who sees himself better then everyone else. But taking into consideration the aspect of having the miner faceless gives the impression that the miner "can be you." The radiating light behind the miner helps support the miner being a hero as such which enforces the company being the "Top Gun in Mining."

The ad is for the mining tools company known as C.R. Kennedy. Which actually took me a while to figure out by looking at this design. The badge on the helmet states the companies name, or the end of the text. Originally I thought this ad was advertising a mine site, but it is actually for tools and surveying, so the design has failed on that sense. I don't like how the design has used lots of little arial photos of multiple mines as the background, to me it looks quite cheap. The silhouette of the miner, I believe is the only good design in this advertisement, because of its simplicity, and how it is still easily recognisable. The typography is quite easily read with the slab serifs, and the colours are chosen well with it working well with the colour of the helmet.

I originally saw this advertisement in an Australian Mining magazine. 

Kill Bill

This is an advertisement for the movie Kill Bill 2. 

I thought this advertisement is fantastic how it literally thinks outside the square.

As gory as it seems i think to blood splatter is really effective because Kill Bill is quite a gory film.

Its function to to make viewers actually want to see the movie. People who are a fan of Quentin Tarantino's movies would appreciate this ad because of his gory style in his film making.

I saw it on the website "www.inspirationroom.com.

The style is quite out there, how the blood flies off the advertisement and over the street. Unfortunately i can't see the typography but  it uses the 1/3 rule with lots of white space around it.

I was attracted to the piece because I like the movie and appreciate how the designer of this ad really thought outside of the square.

EGG!

Who couldn't love these eggs? To open your fridge everyday to see a bunch of lovely eggs smiling up at you is just one of those finer pleasures of life.  Yup its sad.

But I think its fantastic, its certainly appeals to a family like audience, because Im sure little kids would love seeing all these little eggs with their healthy green smiles.

Its function is to see eggs, and I believe it is successful at that, because as we all know, if the eggs are happy, the chickens are happy!

I saw it one day in woolies on my grocery run.

The design is quite nice, has a farmy type  style, and the egg on the front has a piece of grain hanging out of its mouth which implies that they are grain fed. The typography looks like a nice quick handwritten style.

I believe its quite high quality, because I have never known and egg company to be so successful in the design area.

The smiley face on the egg is was attracted me to the design.

Sony Bravia Ad

Copy this link to watch the clip as is doesn't seem to work at tafe------ http://www.sony.com.au/article.jsp?id=3649#watchBravia at 1/3/09 at 1452

then click on the large "bravia" word on the left, and select "watch bravia drome"

This is an ad for a new 200 hertz television by Sony.
I think its a fantastic ad because it uses the style of the first motion animation and encorporates it into the latest technology in television, and also I enjoyed watching the ad because Kaka is such a great football player.
The purpose of the ad is to enforce the smoothness of the rate the new Bravia screen refreshes.
I saw it on SBS one morning when I was watching Champions League Football, so I suppose that was the ideal time to put it on the television.
I quite like the choice of colours and the cinematography used in the ad, the metallic red really showed the modern side of the dome. The cimematography helped show what the dome is doing and also the emotion coming from the crowd.
The dome cost over 40 million to make, but i belive Sony will make the money back in sales no problem with this successful ad.
I was attracted to the piece because of the football theme to it and the music, but until i realised what the significance of the dome was, I really appreciated it more.

recieved from
http://www.sony.com.au/article.jsp?id=3649#watchBravia at 1/3/09 at 1452

Coles Tomato Sauce

I hate this label.

well mainly Coles' idea of having people on their products telling you how great or what they like to do with the product of which they have their irritating face on. 

It's meant to be a tomato sauce bottle label, and the tomatoes next to the person are a give away. The function of the design on the label  is to get people to like the tomato sauce, but i feel thay fail to achieve that by plonking the "you'll love" before "Coles' Tomato Sauce." I dont need the company to tell me what im going to love or not. Then my eyes scroll down to some person telling me what they like to do with the product or how they like it, what I really want to know is if the product is good or not. And the only way im going to find out if it is tasty or not, which is why Coles' designer should just make the label look tasty, not irritating. I saw it in Cole's down the sauces isle (funny that!) 

As much as I dont want to point out anything good about this design, I think the typography is good, its a nice sans serif typeface which is quite easy to read. And i suppose the colours do work well, its just hard to notich these nice parts of the design when some lady is standing in the way showing you her chips.

Quality?  Crap! 

The really irritatingness of the design is what attracted me to it

Power, Corruption & Lies

               1890

Fantin-Latour, Ignace-Henrei-Theodore

Power Corruption, & Lies, 1980, Peter Saville, New Order

The cd cover of New Order's second album, Power Corruption, & Lies is designed, by yet again, my favourite Graphic Designer, Peter Saville.

I may be biased towards the cover because of New Order being one of my favourite bands. The painting on this cover is a reproduction of a painting, "A Basket of Roses" painted by a French artist known as Henri Fantin-Latour. The colours in the top right hand corner of the cd cover is a colour-based codes which says the band's name. The same code is used on a number of New Order's cds.

I first saw the design when my brother bought me the cd for my birthday a number of years ago. No typography is used in this design whatsoever. I see the design of being very high quality with the meaning behind the code-based colours to represent the bands name. I am attracted to the piece because i really appreciated how Peter Saville used the an 1890 painting in the art work and the unique way to express the bands name and of course its also because I love the band, and the designer.

Peter Saville's Fac 1

Fac 1, Facotry Records, Peter Saville, 1978

Fac 1, designed by Peter Saville, is the most significant piece of work which influenced me to pursue graphic design as a career. This poster was designed in 1978 for a record label known as Factory Records. The colours used enforces the industrial atmosphere of a factory environment. 

The statement "use hearing protection" is a common sign to be found in an industrial area where loud machinery is used. It is applied in the poster to imply that the sound system at the record label is loud. The typography used can also be found on signage used in an industrial area. 

I discovered this poster when I watched the film "24 Hour Party People" which is about history of the record label Factory Records. I was attracted to the piece because I just loved the way Peter Saville used industrial colours and typography in the design.