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.