CUDO PRO SHOW - And the FIRST PRIZE AWARD goes to.....

CUDO PRO SHOW

Today I went to Indi Go Gallery to see the CUDO (Champaign Urbana Design Organization) PRO SHOW, an exhibit of graphic design pieces by professional designers in the local area. It was quite impressive and enjoyable! 

I apologize for the quality of the photo and the description. However, I wanted to post the winning piece, which is really pretty cool. The illustrative design is brilliantly clever and the message is really easy to read from it. So simple, yet it probably took the designer a LONG time to get the shapes and curves just right. I like the typefaces he chose - simple, easy to read, modern but classy. It's definitely an eye-catcher! 

It has some elements of Swiss/international style - straightforward, to-the-point, simple, abstract (somewhat), symbolic, only the totally necessary elements are there. The only thing I can think of that isn't really typical of Swiss style in this poster is that it's pretty much symmetrical. I love the simplicity, the minimalism, the stark contrast. There were a lot of really great posters and other pieces of graphic design, though, and it's hard to say how they chose this for the first place award, but I think it's deserving of it.

The show closes this Tuesday (Oct. 29), so if you haven't had a chance to see it, better hop to it if you don't want to miss it!

Humane Society Logos

I was at the Champaign County Humane Society yesterday with my mom to help her look for a cat to adopt. Happily, she found one and will be taking her home tomorrow! 

For my typography class we are designing a wordmark along with business card and stationery set, and I'm designing mine for an organization for which I sometimes volunteer called Mobile Mutts Rescue Transport.

The combination of these two thoughts going around in my head got me looking at humane society logos online, so I thought I'd blog about them. Some are really good and some could use a little help. It is interesting to see all of the different ones out there and look at them through the eyes of a novice designer. I can't discuss every one of these, but I will talk about a few of the things I see as I compare them.

One thing I'm noticing as I look at them is that almost all of them have the words HUMANE SOCIETY as the largest print. That's a good idea in terms of hierarchy. They should be the first words you see. The logos all have some kind of illustrative element, usually of a cat and dog, sometimes other animals, sometimes hearts. Some of them are just too busy in terms of the illustrative elements.

The Bay Area Humane Society is trying to do too many things. Making the As look like mountains or rooftops is just a little too much. The heart/paw print with the toe prints also looking like water drops is too much. I think a good solution would be to just use the heart and nix all of the other cute things.

The Coppell Humane Society has a really sweet illustration, but I think it's still a little too busy. Maybe just the cat and dog looking at the heart without the rays shining out. Also, maybe Humane Society should be the largest words, but COPPELL lines up nicely with HUMANE SOCIETY they way they have it.

I like the Humane Society of Harford County logo. It's balanced, hierarchically correct, and the rather simple line art used for the heart with the dog and cat heads is nice. It would also work in just black on white.

The last one I'll talk about is the Champaign County Humane Society redesign. The older version is the black and white one below the other one. It looks outdated. The animals and the text don't have nearly as much of a modern look as the new one, which uses clean, flat silhouettes of the dog and cat, sans-serif all cap font with the top and bottom letters perfectly aligned through careful tweaking. The new one also depicts a dog that has more of a pitbull look, which is the look of the modern mutt these days. The CCHS redesign is actually the best-designed, most modern looking of all of these logos, in my opinion. I'm not crazy about the dark green background, but it's ok. I think the second best is the Harford County logo. It's not that the others are bad; in fact some are quite good. I'm just trying to look with a more critical eye.


I can't wait to see Peanut tomorrow (my mom's new cat, who will be renamed I'm sure)! I'm happy to see so many humane societies and rescue organizations out there; unfortunately there still aren't nearly enough, and over 6 million perfectly adoptable dogs and cats are euthanized every year in the U.S. just because of space issues.

So here's my public service announcement: Please spay and neuter your pets! And, don't breed or buy while shelter pets die! Adopt, volunteer, donate, rescue, spread the word about the millions of homeless pets in this country! THANK YOU!

TRAGIC KINGDOM

I love album cover art, and in my music collection I came across a No Doubt CD from 1995, the cover of which I think is amazing. This was a super-successful record, one of the best-selling albums worldwide. Before taking this graphic design history class I knew the cover art looked "retro," but now maybe I can try to identify what they were going for in terms of graphic style. I don't feel I'm nearly knowledgeable enough to accurately analyze or interpret it, but I'll give it a shot.

To me, the cover has a 1950s advertisement feel. It's a quirky blend of their own unique style as a band (a mixture of ska, pop, punk, new wave, reggae, rock, hair-band guitars, white-boy funk, disco, party-bounce, and the unmistakable vocals of Gwen Stefani) and various elements and motifs from a number of graphic styles (loosely interpreted), including a tad of Art Nouveau (the circle, the beautiful woman, the gold outlines around the letters) and maybe some Early Modern (sort of a photomontage approach, some images that may be seen as unsavory or shocking, like the flies and bug-eaten fruit), geometric shapes, sans-serif type for NO DOUBT-maybe it's Avant Garde?). I'm finding that analyzing something like this is a research project unto itself, but it's pretty interesting.

It does have a variety of elements that, when combined, project familiarity, quirkiness, retro-feel, beauty, playfulness, and a little bit of darkness. I still enjoy the music from this record, and I think one could even use the same terms to describe it. Anyone ever heard it? :)

MONEY AS ART

Paper money. Sometimes dirty and crumpled, sometimes clean and crisp, these pieces of paper (which are used less and less with the increasing use of credit and debit cards) actually incorporate interesting art and typography on them. Yes, graphic design. I'm intrigued by the history. I hadn't really considered before the fact that money (bank notes) have been a very important form visual communication for two centuries, and really is an art form in itself! It's something we just take for granted because it's ubiquitous.

The first three images are from an exhibit in Princeton that demonstrated how "an effort to thwart currency counterfeiters in America's Colonial period spawned an outlet for creative expression that remains vibrant to this day: money as art." http://www.princeton.edu/main/news/archive/S29/25/25E44/


This bank note, from 1829, is a beautiful piece of art. I have never thought about who actually creates the images that appear on money. As it says below, American painter Asher B. Durand was a major figure in bank note art in the U.S. in the 1800s. The layout is somewhat awkward to me, but the contrasting typestyles are interesting, and all of the important elements are clearly visible.

Older still is the shilling note from 1763. It shows how illustration was put on Colonial currency to prevent counterfeiting and also to be beautiful aesthetically. Again, the contrasting typestyles are apparent, and also the decoration is quite ornate. 

From the same exhibit, this is an example of European paper currency from Czechoslovakia (1929), and guess who designed it? Poster designer, Aphonse Mucha! It's absolutely gorgeous and typifies the art nouveau style with its organic, symmetrical, ornately decorative motifs and design elements filling up every possible space (even the female form in profile). It's so fun to look at money from other countries. I used to have a collection of coins and bills from different parts of the world that my dad would bring back when he traveled. I don't know what happened to it, but I used to enjoy just looking at it, touching it.

OK, so finishing up with some humor: I came across a website called Geek Tyrant http://geektyrant.com/news/2011/6/7/must-see-pop-culture-money-art.html which has a page dedicated to pop culture money art, such as this five dollar Spock bill! At the bottom is says BOWL HAIRCUT. Check out the site for a few laughs if you like this one. I got a kick out of it. :)

Next time you look at money up close, just check out the details, the fonts, the artwork, the design. I'm a little cash-poor at the moment, but next time I have a bill in my hand, I'll examine it more closely!