Play the Kerning Game

The Kerning Game is about creating readable, attractive typography. You drag letters and attempt to make it as pretty as you can. hit "next" and compare yours to the "best". Play this game to hone your kerning skillshttp://type.method.ac/

Every year, eComm hosts it's annual media festival known as eMagine.

eMagine logo

 Unfortunately, I was unable to get off work and ended up spending the evening making ice cream for 7.35/hour. If I was able to attend however, as I was last year, I would be able to tell you of all the amazing projects created by our department's remarkable talent. Oh well.

"the horror... the horror..."

Saul Bass is a legend of graphic design. His minimalistic concepts and clever use of negative space to tell the understory of a movie were hugely influential. I made several movie posters that were inspired by his legendary style.

heres one

heres another

Both of the films above have dark, ominous tones. I attempted to bring these feelings to the forefront of my posters by intentional usage of color. Apocalypse Now is about the human cost of war and the psychological effects it can have on its survivors. I chose to highlight this by using red as the primary color. The other objects- the palm trees, sun, and helicopter- are meant to primarily indicate setting and are mostly incidental. Children of the Corn is more of a guilty pleasure, but I still felt like it's themes of violence and... corn could be easily expressed through color and texture.

Here are some things I've learned about the Google logo today,

this was the original Google logo.

Even before that, the original name of the company was BackRub. This was it's awesome logo.

In times of great tragedy, the characteristically colorful logo is replaced with a white version.

This is the current logo. 

  

Nerman

On a recent trip to the Nerman, I was exposed to many diverse "genres" of art. One of the featured exhibits was Dylan Mortimer's Illuminate series. Try as I might to appreciate the first exhibit I saw that day, this interactive display was nothing but tasteless religious propaganda. I couldn't find anything redeeming about this exhibit, and it left me with extremely low expectations and a bad taste in my mouth.

What I love abut art though is that it can make you feel any wide range of emotions. After being totally disappointed by the tasteless shlock of the first exhibit, the next thing I saw caused a completely different reaction. Allison Schulnik's gorgeous Skipping Skeletons was a haunting melody full of contradictions. Thoughtful and elegant, this piece was certainly a highlight for me. 

The other main exhibit was Kaws' Ups and Downs. This exhibit was abrasive and bold and, while in retrospect I've come to appreciate that part of his work, I was immediately turned off by the whole angry, urban aesthetic. Then I realized that this is exactly how the artist wants me to feel. It's quintessential punk rock vibe stuck with me and forced me to think about it for weeks to come, which I suppose is probably the point.