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6 November 2010
6 December 2009
Aims and Goals
Aims or goals is something very difficult for me to imagine, I always live life in the now as opposed to thinking of the past or future, I never saw the point, I can’t change the past and I’ll never be able to predict the future, I suppose the most important thing would be to know people, the more you know and more people who know of you knowing stuff the more useful this all becomes, I would like to produce a lot of personal work whilst doing a commercial based job, the most logical thing to do when I finish uni would be to look at everywhere that has animation, illustration and even graphic design jobs and seek advice from them and possibly network with them.
I suppose I have no clear cut plans as I’m just going to continue what I’m doing currently, enjoy my work and mingle with other people, hopefully whilst I’m mingling they won’t notice that I don’t belong in their presence.
According to Sherm Cohen (animator for such shows as Hey Arnold and currently SpongeBob Squarepants) going to conventions and producing your own comic is a good way for people to see your work, you need to put yourself out there, you can’t get a job if no one knows you exist so I suppose my aims are simple, first I want to get good, then I want to be seen.
1 January 2009
Paul Rand
Paul Rand
Paul Rand originally named Peretz Rosenbaum was born on the 15th of August 1914 and died in November of 1996 due to cancer, he was a well known American graphic designer, because he was best known for his corporate logo designs.
Paul Rand’s education started with the Pratt Institution staring in 1929 and ending in 1932, he then went the Parsons School of design starting at 1932 and ending in 1933 and finally the Art Students League starting at 1933 and ending in 1934.
From 1956 to 1969 and then started again at 1974 he worked at Yale University in New Haven teaching design.
Rand was inducted into the New York Art Directors Club Hall of Fame in 1972.
He actually started his career quite low in the design world part time with simple assignments like creating stock images and various other tasks for a syndicate that supplied graphics to various other companies , magazines and newspapers. Rand managed to create a fairly large portfolio during his work and class assignments which was largely influenced by the German advertising style Sachplakat (ornamental posters) as well as the works of Gustav Jensen. It was during this time that he decided to disguise and cover up his Jewish background so he shorten Peretz to Paul and used Rand from an uncle of his to form his new surname, a friend of Rand’s pointed out that Paul Rand would make a nice symbol of sorts as there was four letters here and four letters there, in a way Paul Rand used his name to form some kind of brand identity out of it.
Peter Behrens notes that the name change was very important as it was his new title and a new persona; “Rand’s new persona, which served as the brand name for his many accomplishments, was the first corporate identity he created, and it may also eventually prove to be the most enduring."
Rand was moving into the forefront of his profession very rapidly, infact in his early twenties he was producing work that was beginning to get international acclaim, notably due to his designs on the covers of Direction magazine, which Rand produced for free in return for being allowed whatever he artistic freedoms he desired.
A lot of his designs were relatively simple in a way but although they were simple it’s clear to see that they work, so really simple designs are really the best designs as they get the messages across perfectly well and just get to the point as opposed to being all fancy, for example the ABC logo is relatively simple in name and form but it’s effective, it’s easy to remember, the font does not offend the eyes, overall it’s a good design as there are no essential problems you can note about it.
The apparel arts cover was slightly more complicated in terms of design as it had more going on, it used coat hangers to mimic some birds I believe, (obviously using coat hangers because the magazine was to do with clothes and various other wares) in a way it appeared to be a contradiction as the background appeared to be snow but the cover was entitled ‘spring’
One piece I particularly liked was his IBM piece where he uses an eye a bee and the letter ‘M’ as it might not have been instantly obvious as to what it was all about, it was a nice clean vector style about it and the colours were rather toned down as to not distract too much but not to get in the way of the eye.
Here is paul rand’s logo for doug evans and partners, to be honest I think there is a slight problem with the full name doug evans as it’s almost symmetrical but not quite, it feels as though both the doug and the evans should be set on a baseline or something, the d in doug is higher than the s in evans which is sorta annoying to the eye, this whole logo feels almost rushed and not thought through enough, however one part I love is the fact that p in partners and the d in doug are both facing the same way, the same exact shape yet we automatically read them as the correct letters, I don’t know if that was done on purpose but if so then I think the design does have some very clever aspects to it, in a way by having the p and d so close together it sorta suggests that doug is also the partner, I’m not overly sure on the plus sign in the middle, in a way it looks too much like a crossfire aim sight, almost as if you’re about to shoot at the logo.
Apparently some people have theories that Paul Rand sometimes tried to add some kind of his own humour in his pieces, for example the Enron logo may infact be a powder keg as the red symbolizes hot, green being neutral and blue being cold, it reminds me of an old cartoon in a way like tom and jerry where you set alight to a piece of rope which then leads to a cannon or some kind of keg.
The yale logo I think is technically good as I can appreciate what he was trying to do there but personally I find it rather ugly, infact so ugly it’s irritating to look at it for too long.
I like the ups logo as it feels like they’re important, like a security badge or something official, like they’re the officers or some alliance that you can easily trust, I also like the fact that the package is above the word ups, almost as if to say look up here’s your package, it’s a very non offensive logo and could still easily very much work in any era, so they’d be no need to ever drastically change it other than to give it a little bit of modernising with all the fancy cool effects we can produce today.
Paul Rand originally named Peretz Rosenbaum was born on the 15th of August 1914 and died in November of 1996 due to cancer, he was a well known American graphic designer, because he was best known for his corporate logo designs.
Paul Rand’s education started with the Pratt Institution staring in 1929 and ending in 1932, he then went the Parsons School of design starting at 1932 and ending in 1933 and finally the Art Students League starting at 1933 and ending in 1934.
From 1956 to 1969 and then started again at 1974 he worked at Yale University in New Haven teaching design.
Rand was inducted into the New York Art Directors Club Hall of Fame in 1972.
He actually started his career quite low in the design world part time with simple assignments like creating stock images and various other tasks for a syndicate that supplied graphics to various other companies , magazines and newspapers. Rand managed to create a fairly large portfolio during his work and class assignments which was largely influenced by the German advertising style Sachplakat (ornamental posters) as well as the works of Gustav Jensen. It was during this time that he decided to disguise and cover up his Jewish background so he shorten Peretz to Paul and used Rand from an uncle of his to form his new surname, a friend of Rand’s pointed out that Paul Rand would make a nice symbol of sorts as there was four letters here and four letters there, in a way Paul Rand used his name to form some kind of brand identity out of it.
Peter Behrens notes that the name change was very important as it was his new title and a new persona; “Rand’s new persona, which served as the brand name for his many accomplishments, was the first corporate identity he created, and it may also eventually prove to be the most enduring."
Rand was moving into the forefront of his profession very rapidly, infact in his early twenties he was producing work that was beginning to get international acclaim, notably due to his designs on the covers of Direction magazine, which Rand produced for free in return for being allowed whatever he artistic freedoms he desired.
A lot of his designs were relatively simple in a way but although they were simple it’s clear to see that they work, so really simple designs are really the best designs as they get the messages across perfectly well and just get to the point as opposed to being all fancy, for example the ABC logo is relatively simple in name and form but it’s effective, it’s easy to remember, the font does not offend the eyes, overall it’s a good design as there are no essential problems you can note about it.
The apparel arts cover was slightly more complicated in terms of design as it had more going on, it used coat hangers to mimic some birds I believe, (obviously using coat hangers because the magazine was to do with clothes and various other wares) in a way it appeared to be a contradiction as the background appeared to be snow but the cover was entitled ‘spring’
One piece I particularly liked was his IBM piece where he uses an eye a bee and the letter ‘M’ as it might not have been instantly obvious as to what it was all about, it was a nice clean vector style about it and the colours were rather toned down as to not distract too much but not to get in the way of the eye.
Here is paul rand’s logo for doug evans and partners, to be honest I think there is a slight problem with the full name doug evans as it’s almost symmetrical but not quite, it feels as though both the doug and the evans should be set on a baseline or something, the d in doug is higher than the s in evans which is sorta annoying to the eye, this whole logo feels almost rushed and not thought through enough, however one part I love is the fact that p in partners and the d in doug are both facing the same way, the same exact shape yet we automatically read them as the correct letters, I don’t know if that was done on purpose but if so then I think the design does have some very clever aspects to it, in a way by having the p and d so close together it sorta suggests that doug is also the partner, I’m not overly sure on the plus sign in the middle, in a way it looks too much like a crossfire aim sight, almost as if you’re about to shoot at the logo.
Apparently some people have theories that Paul Rand sometimes tried to add some kind of his own humour in his pieces, for example the Enron logo may infact be a powder keg as the red symbolizes hot, green being neutral and blue being cold, it reminds me of an old cartoon in a way like tom and jerry where you set alight to a piece of rope which then leads to a cannon or some kind of keg.
The yale logo I think is technically good as I can appreciate what he was trying to do there but personally I find it rather ugly, infact so ugly it’s irritating to look at it for too long.
I like the ups logo as it feels like they’re important, like a security badge or something official, like they’re the officers or some alliance that you can easily trust, I also like the fact that the package is above the word ups, almost as if to say look up here’s your package, it’s a very non offensive logo and could still easily very much work in any era, so they’d be no need to ever drastically change it other than to give it a little bit of modernising with all the fancy cool effects we can produce today.
4 March 2008
First post
Yay I've made a proper blog and it has a witty title, (well as much wit as my limited brain span can provide) as most of the people viewing this blog will know I'm a graphic design student at college, next year I intend to do a BA hons in animation which I'm very excited about.
But right now I'll leave you with this:
But right now I'll leave you with this:
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