Film Review - helvetica: the movie

A movie about a font, would bore most common folk but for a designer it is something fabulous. The cream of the crop in the design world all appear to pay tribute to it's beauty or to hate on it. It is EVERYWHERE so it is hard to ignore it's impact.

Is it beautiful because it is neutral? Is it beautiful because it is multi purpose? Is it perfect? These are some of the questions raised in the film by (preapre yourself) Paula Scher, Stefan Sagmiester, David Carson, Designers Republic, Neville Brody & Erik Spiekermann. It has the son of one of it's makers looking over all of the tests before it became a finished font. The full movie is on youtube, which is where I watched it & I reccomend that you do.

4.5/5

shattered (sh dooby)

CMYK a colour scheme I should use more, it can produce a lot of interesting ideas. Breaking Glass was a good idea that Nick Lowe had it some point in the late 70's and thats what this looks like in my opinion. Messing around with various shapes and colours lead me to something that looks like a stain glass window shattering into oblivion as well as into a million pieces. Chaos and design as two things that should go hand in hand in my humble opinion.

Love Is Love

Love is love, imagine being told you can't love the person you love more than anyone in the world simply because they are of the same sex as yourself. Love is all you need, the Beatles were right. Many people daily are feeling the effects of homophobia; verbal abuse, Physical abuse as well as sexual abuse and it's not fair. Society has come along way but it still needs to go further. No one should have to suffer because of love. It is universal, we all feel it for various things and a significant amount of people feel it for others. I love Music and Graphic Design and Cherry Bakewells. I love my friends; some of which who actually suppressed who they were through fear of homophobia.

I have lots of causes that are close to my heart and I want to promote them through my blog. Click and Share and we can promote equality in society. STAMP OUT HOMOPHOBIA.

Can Your Pussy, Do the Dog?

The Cramps, Psychobillies first proper heroes. The band who fused together B movie themes with the raw power and energy of rock and roll to make a beautiful noise. Not many people can say that they have heard of Lux Interior or Poison Ivy or claim to of seen the stunning live performances that they were capable of. If you haven't heard them, do it it now and proceed to answer the following;

1. Can Your Pussy, Do the Dog?
2. The Bird, is the what?
3. What is it She Said?
4. Where Do I Get My Kicks?
5. I Was a Teenage W_______?

Once complete please observe these marvelous posters displaying the visual, style and cool the band had. Trusty Helvetica proved to be a useful tool, given it's many variants in weight and density. The Photos are sourced from Various online resources but all feature Lux and Ivy on stage being amazing.

Everything is a Conspiracy

 I am skeptical bout everything, I source every like on Social media to see if it is from a REAL person or just a spam account used to generate more likes or comments. I have become more skeptical in recent years about who is ruling the people of this earth. In an age of wiki leaks and Secret services it's hard to take things as they come. So when  had the chance to design for an album about this very interested. It's a home grown project but that makes it no less credible.

The iconography of war first came to mind when this was brought to my attention. hence some parts of the design depicting war. I feel very passionately about the mistakes that the UK made to go into Iraq. The monoo chrome style came very much out of the punk politics and fanzine culture around that time. Saying stand up and have a voice, Print your message using the cheap photocopiers and a pen. The display typeface is Helvetica but the other one is called Karton and it looks like the font Crass (the Band) used to use.

Look Dad, I Design

 

Designing for the funniest, Non Commercial but absolutely brilliant band had to be a hard task. They've been hard at work since the post punk years and have made a number of classics without the recognition they deserve. I give you Half Man Half Biscuit. My Papa put together this compilation of all of their "No Tunes"and it is great listen. So I was enlisted to design the cover and insert. Typography was the best option as the approach they have to design is one that is intentionally quite terrible. The Colours are from the Football Club Dulka Prague because one of the song they have is called "All I Want for Christmas is a Dukla Prague Away Kit"which is a classic. The Font is Helvetica in case you hadn't noticed. The Title itself is a play on the album titles that they have themselves, who's names range from Four Lads Who Shook the Wirral, Some Call It Godcore and Achtung Bono.

It's a simple design for the most complex of bands. 

Give'em a listen if you haven't already.

Smiles

It is possible to say that one of the best British bands of the past 25 years are Spiritualized. The music from this band varies from the spiritual and almost religious to the very loud noise rock feedback sessions. So for those who have not listened to any of their music, do it, Buy "Ladies and Gentlemen We are Floating in Space" and listen to it in full.

Anyway, a compilation of their greatness was put together by my father and he wanted a front sleeve as well as inserts and back cover doing for this album. So being a big fan of the discography, I hopped to it. The lead singer during gigs prefers to sit and play his guitar so this was a beautiful image to start, I thought a silhouette of this image would look pretty sweet. I decided I had to keep the design in the sty;e of their designer Mark Farrow (a design legend who has worked with the like of the Manic Street Preachers and Pets Shop Boys). Below is the front in which this silhouette features; the name of the album is from a tribute video to the band.

 

The back cover proved to be more difficult to do as their was no obvious inspirational ideas or images until I came across a nice live shot in which displayed the large screen normally set behind the band. This particular pattern was very simple and worked really well in this context so I used that. editing it to be the same colour as the front.It links to the front as well as they are both inspired by live shots.

Fathers Day

 So Yesterday was Fathers Day and as you may or may not know that on any occasion like this it is designers job to do a card for the appropriate occasion. For my dad I chose to do a bit of rhyming and a bit of typography. Perfect combination. After all of these years of borrowing his records I thought it would be the perfect to pay tribute to his awesome collection. I think he liked it.

Motown in my Town

I was offered by a friend, who had been offered a poster design job, to try out some designs my self to see what I could come up with. So I came up with these six very original designs for the brief that was requested. It was for a Motown and Soul night based in Carlisle, England. My thinking was to get the great giants of those genres into the posters. I went with monochrome images on the basis of soul music is either black and white. He/she is in or out of love (this was the case with many early Motown singles). I am a big fan of soul music and I am really pleased with how these turned out. I am certainly hopeful that these will be used.

A Present of Typography

The Wedding Present are just one of those great British bands whose refuse to quit. They have been active for many years and they still have the capacity to fill a decent size venue. They are independent of any of the big record companies which is evidence that you don't need them to survive. For all of these reasons they have had a big impact on me (that and they played a flawless gig in front of my very eyes).

To return the favour, I made these typography posters to demonstrate some of David Gedge's best lyrics. Each Poster features Lyrics from the best song on the album (in my opinion) and in one form or another a version of the album sleeve. These were self initiated designs but have sent them to the band but no feedback has been given.

highlights part 2: Typography

Typography is something that I have never explored before coming to uni. I had no prior knowledge of it what so ever apart from font choice was important. I wasn't told which ones were good but knew that comic sans was bad. I have since been taught that;

• Garamond
• Didot
• Baskerville
• Times
• Futura
• Helvetica
• Univers
• Gill 

are all top notch quality fonts. I will never forget this. The amount of bad typefaces outways the good by 95% to 5%. Type is something I have explored more and more throughout the year. Above are the pieces from the 2nd type project of the year. They are poor examples of good type but I count them as a milestone.My typography improved and below is the my best marked piece of type that was featured on the course blog. It was called premier league typography.