Vikings Logo

I have liked this show for a while but I've never really appreciated the design they used for the show.  Art nouveau was just covered in my design history class a few weeks ago and I can see a bit of that in the font design for the big V.  Art nouveau was partly influenced by celtic designs and floral designs both of which are present in the design.  This is very representational of not only viking design but art nouveau as well.  The function of this design is likely to promote and advertise the show to obtain more potential viewers.

Vintage pencils

A few years ago I got a few sets of vintage pencils as a gift for Christmas and I just love a lot of the very old fashioned fonts and design styles shown on many of the cases here.  There's a little bit of Victorian influence on some as well as Art Deco for some of the typefaces on a few others.  These are the real deal, they were made back in the day when they still used lead which is not common to find in drawing pencils anymore, very happy to have these.

Cycling Frog

Creative and well executed illustrations are something I always stop to look at.  I found the image in Communication Arts Magazine and it looks to me like the entire piece was done in Adobe Illustrator.  Note to self practice more with Illustrator, I want to be able to draw something like this sooner or later.

Richard Grefe

 

Balraj Chana

http://www.printmag.com/web-design/balraj-chana-ui-designers/

I found Balraj Chana through Print Magazine and spent a good while looking at his designs and really grew to appreciate how much clarity and sensibility of placement his designs have.  His use of color to either emphasize or create subtlety is clearly well thought out because some of his designs incorporate a lot of highly saturated colors but he seems to balance them very well and they don't ever become to jarring or confusing.  I would say Balraj has clearly got a good handle on color usage and how to apply it where it matters.

This is a design Balraj worked on for an interactive educational web game

 

Gaming Logos

Art vs. Design

This to me has a certain Dada feel about it.  Its' deliberate obscurity is fascinating and the repositioning of the art itself feels like a very Dadaist thing to do.  There's a lot about this that I appreciate because the person who wrote this makes a very good point written in the smaller print and I do really like the way this design is laid out.  But I also like art in almost all its various forms (few exceptions may apply) and this seems like a deliberate B***h slap right in the face of art in general.  The function of the design seems to voice the designer viewpoint on the art vs. design argument.  Me personally I appreciate both design and art.  They both have their place and to shun one and only acknowledge the other in my opinion limits ones creative horizon.