Alex Cornell is a student at the Academy of Art Graduate Design MFA program here in San Francisco and he also helps me out around the studio with various design and music related things (in addition to being a designer he’s also a ridiculously talented guitarist and a knowledgeable sound engineer).
Recently he brought over a project he was working on to get some critique. Since I never went to school for design it was great to get a glimpse inside the classroom through his project and also very interesting to hear what his professor thought of my input. I had a great time working with him trying to refine the project so I thought it would be nice to have him do a process piece for the blog. I think this serves an apt companion to the Making of Obama post; a good counterpoint written from the student perspective. I am sure many of you were/are design students yourselves so you can relate, seems to me like the professor does a pretty good job of impersonating a client. The following article is his account of the process of creating the piece and working with his professor to complete the project.
Afiler’s Flickr has some excerpts from a book by Ladislav Sutnar aptly entitled How To Show Telephone Numbers On Letterheads. As you may have guessed, the book features various examples of type placement in letterheads. It’s a very nice set of classic examples of a dying art form and is designed by one of the key architects of information design. I’ve always seen letterheads as a great opportunity to get away with being a minimalist in an otherwise standard design scenario. It’s pretty easy to convince a client that clean, efficient design is the answer in the case of a letterhead as most of the page is required to be blank by default. Of course they will probably still ask you to make the logo bigger. View the entire set on Flickr
The prints you see above have all been reprinted and restocked over at The ISO50 Shop. Many were out for quite some time and they usually move fast once back on the shelves, so if you’ve been holding out for your favorites to be in stock, now’s the time.
I often get asked where I get my prints made so I thought now would be a good time to touch on that subject and go into a little more detail about the process. I have all of the small format posters done at a print shop in Sacramento, CA called Blue Moon Printing & Graphics. I found the place back when I used to live in Sacramento and even after moving to San Francisco I still use them as my primary printer. They are a relatively small shop so the service and attention to detail is far beyond anything you’ll find at some of the larger printing companies. I’ve found that personal attention to the output is the key element in getting your prints back looking the way you intended. It’s very difficult to make the transition from what you see on your screen to a printed piece of paper and no matter how well calibrated your equipment is you’re always going to experience a shift in color, saturation, contrast etc. The trick is to tweak the original file and the printer itself to try and compensate for these shifts and it’s important to find a print shop that is willing to work with you through this process.
I have the prints made on a digital thermal press which is essentially a toner-based process. I really like the output of this process because in the darker areas the toner builds up a thicker layer, giving an almost screen-printed effect when viewing an area of high contrast (such as a transition from cream to dark brown; the dark brown will appear to be painted on top of the cream background). The other advantage of the digital press (as opposed to offset) is that there are no plates involved so proofing and tweaking is a much quicker (and cheaper) process. You can adjust the file and run off a new proof in about 5 minutes as opposed to etching new plates and resetting the press as you would in an offset scenario. The only real downside of this process is the format limitation, the prints can only be 12"x18" at the largest. You are also limited to the type of paper you use as the toner won’t adhere to coarser papers; although I like to use a natural tone cover stock which is pretty smooth so this is not a big issue for me. The natural tone stock also has a yellow cast to it so that the yellow range in the lighter areas of the image is boosted. It gives the image a sort of aged, authentic feel which I think takes a bit of the edge off the digital output.
Blue Moon does have a traditional offset press but they just recently got it and I’ve yet to test it out. If you’re looking for a good printer I highly recommend them, and since they can do the whole proofing process via mail it doesn’t really matter where you’re located (my friend in New York does all his printing through them). You can find more information at their website: http://blumoonprinting.com.
I’ll be doing a post on monitor calibration soon in which I will go into more detail about preparing work to be printed and working with color profiles and printers…stay tuned.
Some more brilliant covers from N+M (Naturwissenschaft und Medizin) Magazine. They were designed by Erwin Poell in the late 60’s. These are such incredible examples, not only are they beautiful, but they are no doubt conveying some extremely complex concepts through information design. There is apparently a book covering Poell’s work (via Thingstolookat):
Title: Entwürfe für den Alltag. Typografie, Grafik-Design, Art Direction Author: Erwin Pœll Year: 1992 Publisher: Birkhäuser Verlag Basel ISBN: 3-7643-2758-8
These incredible N+M (Naturwissenschaft und Medizin) covers are from ekusupo on Flickr. They were apparently designed by Erwin Poell but I couldn’t find any more information on him to post along with the images. At any rate, this is some classic design done to perfection. Ekusupo says of them on the Flickr page:
"I share these as one of the best examples of graphic design as a methodic communications system I am aware of. Engaging and varied, as singles or as a set work tremendously well. The inside of the magazine may be considered disappointing if you want more of the same as the cover – but actually is delightful simple. The cover does its job really well selling the contents while the contents is true unto itself."
Indeed, this set is an amazing triumph of design for many reasons. You may recognize the name and some of the images from the Graphis Diagrams book.
A very nice collection of alternative Saul Bass works is up at Citrinitas. I say "alternative" because every time I try to find new images by him, all the same old stuff comes up but there are a few here that I hadn’t previously seen as well as that large version of the Saint Joan poster which I wasn’t able to find until now. One thing’s for certain, the man knew how to use orange. Via DMOGHI from a very nice feature on inspirational poster designs.
Via Grain Edit: "Dutch Type specimen sheet from Lettergieterij in the Netherlands. Most likely from the late 1950s / early 1960s." Another example of great Dutch design, loving these colors
