Branding

CSA Design - www.csadesign.com

Hatch SF - www.hatchsf.com

160 over 90 - www.160over90.com

Pentagram - www.pentagram.com

Werner Werks - www.wdw.com

Willoughby Design - www.willoughbydesign.com

People you should know

Paul Rand AUGUST 15, 1914 – NOVEMBER 26, 1996- American graphic designer, best known for his corporate logo designs.

Saul Bass (May 8, 1920 – April 25, 1996) - an American graphic designer and filmmaker, but he is best known for his design on animated motion picture title sequences

Alexander Girard (May 24, 1907 – 1993) - was a textile designer born in New York City, USA, Girard is widely known for his contributions in the field of American textile design, particularly through his work for Herman Miller (1952 to 1975), where he created fabrics for the designs of George Nelson and Charles and Ray Eames.

Alvin Lustig (1915-1955) - Lustig is known for his expertise in virtually all the design disciplines, which he seamlessly integrated into his life. He designed record albums, magazines (notably the format and some covers of Industrial Design), advertisements, commercial catalogs, annual reports and office spaces and textiles.

Alan Fletcher (27 September 1931 – 21 September 2006) - "the most highly regarded graphic designer of his generation, and probably one of the most prolific" with a fusion of the cerebral European tradition with North America’s emerging pop culture in the formulation of his distinct approach

Alex Steinweiss (March 24, 1917) - Steinweiss was the first art director for Columbia Records, Steinweiss also designed liquor bottles, posters, magazine, pamphlet, book covers and titles for TV shows.

Charles Ormond Eames, Jr (1907–1978) and Bernice Alexandra "Ray" Eames née Bernice Kaiser (1912–1988) - American designers, who worked in and made major contributions to modern architecture and furniture. They also worked in the fields of industrial and graphic design, fine art and film.

Maira Kalman (1949) - an American illustrator, author, artist, and designer. Ms. Kalman has authored a series of children's books about Max Stravinsky she has done covers for The New Yorker. Kalman is also known for her illustrations for the 2005 edition of the popular guide to writing style, The Elements of Style.

Steven Heller (1950) - With Seymour Chwast he has directed Push Pin Editions, a packager of visual books, and with his wife Louise Fili he has produced over twenty books and design products for Chronicle Books and other publishers.

Now Drinking has a worth wile info graphic

You should check our Fabio Rex's flickr stream. If you need a drink or to make some infographics I think Fabio has got some good reference materials for you. I'm thirsty now.

Setting a Mood

So I have revised the two themes I had talked about before. One if Wrought Iron and the second is American Craftsman. After looking at the imagery I had compiled for both of the original boards I went through and did a second revision befor eI turned them in and found the aesthetic differences and improved upon the original concepts. I am now just meandering about the internet looking at images and articles about chamber music and logos.

Well Why Not?

So one of my classes is FMS 100 or Film for Dummies(Not the actual title) and why not blog about that as well. So out first lecture was watching and a brief discussion about the movie inception. And we have to write a response to the movie and the information we got afterwards. Since I'm in class and it's about to begin I'll add images later.

Is Inception a movie about movies? I would agree, but what we didn’t cover was an over arching theme beyond the basis of the movie. Inception buries its viewer in the levels of sleep and dreams and intends to confuse us about what is reality and what isn’t. The focus of the story is on Cobb a master “extractor” who is running from his past and in the same time he is haunted by it in his sleep. Depending on your interpretation of the ending, Cobb may be the only real character in the movie and the rest of the elements just figments of his imagination and memories. At first Cobb and his partner Arthur are caught in the act of inception, which turns out to be an audition by a rich industrialist named Sato. Sato offers Cobb and opportunity to return to the home where he is wanted for murder.

Inception is the act of planting a thought or idea in someone’s mind and this is what Sato wants Cobb to do even though it is next to impossible. So Inception is a heist film but instead of breaking in to steal they are breaking in to plant. As with every heist film you assemble a team and then go through a series of preparation montages where you learn more about the characters. And we find that Cobb is haunted by the memory of his wife who killed herself. Then with any heist film it is in the commission of their perfect plan that things go awry. The end product is Cobb confronting his demons and ends with him going home with a cliffhanger ending.

The Youtube video analysis of Inception we watched labeled each of the characters as different elements of movie production. The video does not address Maul, Cobb’s dead wife though. So using what we discussed in class I came up with a theory of what she represents. If the act of inception is a movie then Maul must be a reference to a prior movie and specifically a failure so Maul is the last Terminator film and Nolan’s failure. Is that a little specific I don’t think so, it wasn’t a very good movie and fear of failure in this medium must weight heavy on the director’s mind and could sabotage a current production.

What is the message of the movie? Well with out the interpretation of it being a movie about making movies Inception asks about the importance of reality. In our day in age we are confronted with multiple worlds we inhabit, School, Work, the Internet and Relationships. These worlds can seemingly exist parallel to each other and some time converge but each instance can feel like that is all that exists. Nolan is challenging the audience to accept that these worlds we inhabit are real and tangible and they are as real to us as we would have our selves believe. We shouldn’t worry about if the reality we exist and thrive in is real to others or not, if Cobb was awake in the end or not he still returned home.

What in the hell is Chamber Music?

Okay I'm going to been quick and dirty about this, A classical for of music for small arrangements. So you could think of this like symphony nano. And this is the more friendly version of arranged music very intimate and creates a dialog between the instruments. So I'm back to what is the target market, I feel I have to figure this out before I move onto a mood board because the mood changes based on who you are catering to. I wish we had the rep come in tomorrow. Back to work, so I'm going with two themes, one I think of as Ethan Allen and the second is Renaissance Festival so now let me present to you some of the core ideas behind these two.

Ethan Allen - Muted pallet that is analogous with one high contrast compliment. Texturally primitive shapes with a low pile rug feel to it(I hate to say burbur but something a little more polished). This is the Volvo/Saab crowd middle class to upper middle class but not part of the mainstream, just a little different. I'm looking at furniture and fixtures(yeah I know this isn't ID) I would like to have an elegance in simplicity and balance of form.

Renaissance Festival - The reason this mood has this title is because of how they present these things in England where it just wasn't happening. This set will be inspired by illuminated letters, celtic knots and victorian wallpaper patterns. The textures here will be flatter and have a feeling of letter pressed ornamentation featuring fine lines an flourishes. The pallet will largely be monochrome except for the addition to tints and shades of red. The will be a much richer feeling concept. The audience here are those that identify with a cultural richness in the European histories.

So after clarifying this I'm not trying to refine my mood boards and should post them tomorrow.

I cannot read.

So can't read what is assigned and forgot to post 3 book covers, but I have them here and ready to go, so lets start with the ugly one just to get it out of the way.

Yeah at first I couldn't read the title or any of the other copy. I'm fond of the pattern but that may be because I have trouble making them. I really question the use of a pattern so large and bold on a cover of a book by Freud and the treatment of the copy is just horrible and next to unreadable.

It's constructivist and that is about all I need. The illustration is sharp and conveys the dark overtones of Orwells work. This si clearly a cartoon for adults and also brings a vintage vibe to this book.

We have complimentary colors and a clearly related image. The First and second read are just the image and the title and I think that's how I think books should be. The proportions are great and the balance with the negative space plays very well with the entire visual.

Wow it's logo-rific

Creative Review is doing a vote for best logo on their blog right now. So if you find that tracking logos down is a pain in the ass then you might find some ideas here. Oh yeah this site is pretty fuckin awesome like core77 but more for graphics and if some one want to get me a subscription to the magazine I will do much for you. And if you find this months issue it's their Type annual so that's cool

And here you go some Logos

So I said I would deliver and I have! Below are some 20 odd logos, not all of them are good but are still good reference. I've found the orchestral music and museums seem to have very simple logos, that are more their name in type than a marque. I've tried to pick the logos in two categories. The first is good design and the second is relation to the client. Something else I found was that many Business in Kansas City could use with a proper logo vs much of the dreck floating around. So the images are not grouped in much of any order just trying to make them fit and legible for print at the same time.

If you spot one you don't know or don't understand just leave a comment and I will adress it in short order. And I'm almost caught up with a blog post a day but I need to keep going to see it through in the end.

Who in the hell is Credo?

So I found this mobile company I had never heard of and the rates are pretty good and then I really wondered who they were. Apparently this it the company you should use for cell service if you feel a moral dilemma in the world and would like to do something but always put it off. Because part of the fees you pay them are donated to different causes that could do the world a lot of good. The only two catches I can really find are that it's a smaller company and so you won't have a lot of in network freebie calls and secondly it's running on sprints network. I'm pretty happy with sprint but many desire and iPhone and so it's pretty much out of the question for those. Here is their website go check it out and maybe I can make enough friends on here that switch so I can get more calls on the cheap.

Did Someone Say Logo Design?

So our first project is to design a logo and identity system for a Kansas City Based Chamber Orchestra called SummerFest inc. So of course our first assignment is to track down 20 logos and make some mood boards and set our target market. Funny thing is I almost went to go see them more than a few times but always had to work. So I'm feeling a little odd because that means I'm in this demographic even though I don't think I am. So I've gathered up a buch of information and images to start constructing the image boards and the logos I've selected I hope can then reflect back on the target market so not only do I know who they are but I have a better idea of what the places they go to feel like.

And logos, I went racing around the internet(in my bookmarks) and found a great little piece on core77 about logo design OMFG!!! Sorry I wasn't really that excited but since this is the internet I feel it necessary to have one of those out bursts every now and again. So it's called "how to make your clients logo bigger with out making their logo bigger" and its by Michael Bierut check it out and you might learn something. So I'll get those boards together and then upload them in short order. I think I might have a little more work to do for VISC 302 still as well.

Sign Here

Okay to start off the more I read the more confusing signs and symbols were to me and then I had a breakthrough of a google search. A sign represents something and a symbols represents something based on association. So with the first example in the reading of an apple it could represent temptation(by association in religious paintings) but at the same time the word is a sign for the fruit of a tree that we eat. So that is about as close as I can get.

Sign

Verbal- Hot, can signifie a change in temperature or the attractiveness of some one.

Visual- Power, this sign signifies that when you contact this position and change it's state it will switch on what ever it is on.

Index

Verbal- Pregnant, signifies that there probably was sex.

Visual- Wedding rings imply there was a wedding(this how ever is not always the case)

Symbol

Verbal-Scream, although it isn't a common thing to write an audible scream symbolizes fear.

Visual- The double loop for infinityis used in physics to denote endless, then again it also hase no begining but lets not get into that.

Continuing Education

So for the longest time I have wanted to learn 2 things, to play my guitar and learn Farsi. So I found out my computer has software I can use to tune and learn my guitar sweet! And now I've secured enough Farsi crap that I can work on that in my free time as well. So hopefully I will make the most of my free time(if I have any) and enrich myself.

Why Farsi? Well it is the spoken language of Iran and being an Iranian American it is something I feel I should know. My Father was always very busy and so I never really learned to speak it. I can understand and speak some and I used to be able to read it in basic form but it is about time I finish this and learn it. Try Easy Persian or Study Persian for free lessons.

Guitar, this thing has been the bane of me. I have friends who play and make money doing so and it has been harder than anything to get them to teach me. There was one attempt but that didn't go so well. I'm pretty stoked about it and after I got rid of a bunch of shit in my apartment I have some space to devote to these studies. I know these are both outside of my concentration of study and what work I want to do but it is my opinion that learning outside your profession can help you in the long run. I don't want to be a one trick pony with out other skills in the closet. And now those that know of what skills I do possess might suggest I'm already equipped better than most, it's never been about that for me though. I want to be better and I'm not concerned with how good some one else is I'm only concerned with my growth. And I wish that didn't sound so egotistical because I don't want it to so this last statement should suffice.

Research

I'm doing my research for Don Quixote and Moby Dick. I've learned a lot about the behavior of Sperm Whales and their biology and history of whaling and the basis of Moby Dick. I've looked at pages and pages on Spanish armor and horses and weapons. I'm hoping this pays some dividends when it come to my sketches and idea for treatment of the book cover. I'm not doing much research for Snuff because of the nature of the book I'm limited what I can look for on public wifi.

(Image: Salvado Dali, 1959 Don Quixote)

Not in the clear yet

So I'm enrolled and 2 credit hours under full time I did this thinking that the tuition award I would get would for once cover all my course fees. Well this may not be the case, I'm showing another 550 in fees. Now I went through and did the math and it shouldn't be this much but then again I wish these fees were displayed from the get go. Now I just want to get my w-2s so I can file my taxes and file for next years aid. I guess I'll be stopping by the aid office tomorrow and having a talk to figure this all out. Now I get to fill out grant apps to see if I can get some money to help pay for this junk.

Always remember to keep your shoulders relaxed.

Back to school?

Yeah that may be the case the situation surrounding my return doesn't sit well with me but I have little other option at this point. I am however ok that I have another 2 projects loaded on Behance(they are actually loaded in one). Hopefully I will be finished with enrollment in the morning.

And the snowman cometh

So my last hope for school this semester is me filling out more applications for loans. I won't be able to do this until tomorrow night and that really blows. It's not that classes start on friday no we are getting a winter storm and the peak will be when I need to be travelling to do the applications. I guess it could be worse I could have no hope and just cry at home.

On a brighter note I have added yet more work to Behance, the link hase been posted so many time I will forgo linking in this post. But I will instead add it to the links on the side of the blog. It is really shaping up as a center of all my work. What really sucks is the amount of work I had lost due to computer failure. But I have a shit ton more to add including my screen printing and print making work as well as 2 more books and the work I did for MADP. Yeah they get a link, so I'll be posting on here a lot more soon. Because of all this financial madness I haven't gotten around to getting sketches for the book covers up yet but I think I'll have a chance this week end at least.

PS: I wish blogger would remember how I want my copy formated.

The status of my studies

So this whole fiasco with school has gotten to the Chancellor's office now and I'm eagerly awaiting update on how they can help. So here is what happened so far:

This summer took classes received a notification from financial aid that I needed to sign a document and when I went in I found out that the notice was 2 weeks after the deadline. No prior notifications had been sent to me or brought to my attention that I would need to sign other documents for summer classes. And at my previous schools there was never a need to sign additional documents to allow for the release of summer financial aid.

Oct rolls around and my financial aid award for the fall was cut and I there for had to get an endowment loan to pay for these classes. I have in the mean time tried to find a way to get those pesky summer classes paid for through hundreds of applications for any kind of grant. I was only notified later that the links I had followed were bogus and they were sites getting e-mails for spam.

After much fighting to speak to someone in the financial aid office past the front desk a friend of mine hooked me up with a friend of his who is beyond the fron desk. After much talking my only option would be a private student loan. I read through my options and applied for one and was rejected and I applied for a second and was rejected. Both suggested I get a Co-Signer. When you apply for a loan and you get rejected they can't seem to tell you what happened over the phone or through e-mail you have to wait 4-6 weeks to get their reasons through the mail.

I get the reason for rejection and check my check my credit to find out that there are charge off account listed under my name. A charge off is when a bank or some entity you owe money to sells the collections info to a collections agency, repo men of owed money. Some of these charge offs are from 2004 when I was living in California and still some how listed in KC.

I send in my protests to all the agencies about the false charges and fraudulent accounts. This take 30+ days to get their verdict. Okay so one of the 5 was removed but those that remain are large. So now I have to google the collections agencies to find their phone numbers and call each one and argue it out. The problem at this point is that no one there knows anything. One of the account I find out originates from my bank so I call them and request a fraud investigation and copies of the application(on of the other accounts had no applications on file) I get this 3 weeks later and it certainly isn't in my writing and I take it to the bank to raise more hell.

I swallow my pride and ask a friend to co-sign with me and he says yes. We fill everything out and bam! You are not cleared even with a co-signer they say. WTF and to top it off it will take another 4-6 weeks to find out why.

So there in short is what I've been doing wile I'm in school working on projects and working 4 jobs. Proof that the system will at every turn try to stop you and rape you. I'm just trying to get this shit done so I can continue school. And another funny thing is I'm now on the honor roll but there isn't any kind of grant I can apply for that would help me out because I'm not enrolled in the spring semester.

Here is the deal, set a calendar event once a year and check all three of your credit scores for free on that day and dispute shit that isn't yours because even if you get it removed it can take up to 6 months to have it removed from your credit history. Of course it only takes them a few moments to add something bad, but why in the hell does it take 6 months to remove it we are literally talking a few keystrokes and it should be gone. This whole situation has been aggravating.

Banksy + Simpsons = Awesome

Some know of my love of street art but I would say most don't. This blew my mind and I wanted to share it. Also here is a link to the NY Times interview about the Banksy opening for the Simpsons. And in other Banksy news he has dodged the bullet a second time on Ebay as an auction claiming to be selling the identity of the super secretive street artist was pulled for a second time. And if you want to know more about that here you go.

To Design in the 3rd dimension and to be a student.

I just uploaded even more work onto Behance and the 2 pieces I did are in my top ten works that I enjoyed to make and would love the chance to remake better. I really would like the opportunity to make more thing that exist outside of the computer and come off the page. I enjoy graphic design I just wish people could interact with my work more and perhaps change the work by their own presence. Static work in this day and age is almost elitest because it's saying here is my idea look at it it is better than you and you have little or no say in it.

Ok I don't exclusively feel that way about design but I think that some designers might understand what I'm trying to get at.

And now I'm eagerly awaiting news of the 11th hour nature. I may be back in school but I don't know as of yet but my fingers are crossed but my hope are no higher than they were yesterday. If I can that wold be great and life would be wonderful and blah blah blah. It's almost as if I've spent so much time planning what I would do if I couldn't go that the prospect of continuing is disappointing but then again I can't really say until the new final word comes in.

Wow

So today I have distributed a 12pt Univers Med. and uploaded 2 projects and this is my second blog post(size doesn't matter). I am really hauling some ass. I think it's either time to read, eat or sketch. Tonight I hope to post about the sketches I'm doing for the book covers and talk about some of my design concepts.

Oh and guess what your simple fonts make peoples brains break, or I guess you could say you just don't remember as well. My description sounds better but you can read about it here! And if you prefer to read something less technical try this.

The Magic of transparent concrete.

So I found this article the other day. Basically it amounts to concrete that is structural but at the same time lets light through. There weren't any picture with the original article but I found some in the link above. It's pretty awesome and kinda mind bending. It's like that indicator light on the front of your MacBook Pro that flashes to let you know you're in standby. The better thing about this concrete is that it isn't just a bunch of little holes like on your MacBook Pro.

Pretty cool stuff, I now want a sun room made out of this stuff so it looks like a bunker(and I guess would act as one too) but I would still have light from outside. Okay How about we use this stuff for highway dividers and illuminate them? Re duce the glaring overhead lights and it would look like TRON. Another use is embedded lighting in structures like bridges or sculpture. Honestly I can think of tons of things I would do with this stuff and some LEDs. So if you're in the market to buy a crap load of this stuff and want to send some my way do it right now and I will blow your mind.

More Behance

So I've just updated my Behance with 3 more projects and I'll see if I can get another up before the night is out. I have done some sketches for my book cover project and I'll see how that goes, I'll probably upload those onto Behance and start a project so I can keep an up to date progress of my work there.

Right now I'm working on the concepts for Moby Dick and I have to say I'm sitting on the egde of the obvious but I think that is the best jumping off point. Also I'm not going to be afraid if I use icons that might seem obvious because maybe some of them are good and that it the reason why they get reused. It's a book about a giant white whale and there is a guy named Ahab and it might be a little ridicules to eliminate the option of a whale or a salty looking dude.

And now onto Flavors.me, so at first it showed my Behance work and now not so much. So I will scour the web for a fix and if I find one before it magically fixes it self I'll post the solution right here. And speaking of Flavors.me here is mine again.

Books

So even though I am being kept from school I think I'll still do what work I can. I know the first project is a book cover and we were told to choose three books. So I went down to the library and picked up 3 books.

Moby Dick by Herman Melville

This is the story of a man, whale and obsession. I first read this book when I was 8 and it is one of the best stories I have read to date. The characters are rich and well developed and the meaning through out the book are clear but not blatant. If you haven't read this book you should have. This isn't a book about the hunt for a whale this is about a man forcing destiny and searching for greatness and revenge.

Don Quixote by Miguel De Cervantes

The epic of a Man caught up in fantasy and very little sanity. The man known as Don Quixote lives to read about chivalry and knights and his obsession soon becomes he world. Caught up in the idea that he shall become a knight and fulfill his chivalric responsibilities fighting giants and saving the wek all in the name of his love. The problem is none of this actually exists apart from the apparitions in his head. Even so no more a noble soul has existed. I have never read this book and as I began reading it a few days ago I'm hooked I don't know if I should laugh or weep for the characters.

Snuff by Chuck Palahniuk

Wow how do I sum this book up? Okay so lets talk about the author for a moment. Chuck Palahniuk is more of a researcher than a writer he lives the lives of many of his subjects and then set about writing. His prior works are well known and well received. His writing is graphic and violent and I would say it would be hard to find a compliment in any of his books that isn't almost completely undone by what follows it. When I met him years ago he talked about his interests and methods and where he gets his ideas and well I found it a little scary(that should say something). So now onto the book. You follow four characters involved in a record attempt at consecutive sexual partners(Gang Bang). As is the case in Palahniuks books his characters are fraught with flaws, so most of the story is the lead up to their participation in record attempt. There are twist and turns and it is a surprisingly quick read.

Being well connected

So I now have a Flavors landing page and I'm uploading more work onto behance and my linkedin profile is getting close to being complete. So the website I'll be pushing this point on it my flavors account where you can easily view my twitter, behance, linkedin and my blog http://flavors.me/mdrezaiekhaligh. It's not bad for free but I'm hoping in a short time I'll upgrade my accounts and then I'll be connected even better.

So about school, I'm not going back this semester. I'm really pissed off about the situation but I have to accept something and just keep pushing forward. I'll write more on the circumstance of my absence which are for the most part external forces acting on me and have nothing to do with grades or any interaction I've had at school. I have had a lot of support from friends and family and staff but there isn't much that can be done at this point other than keep going I guess.

I don't care who you are set a yearly alarm and on that day get al three of your credit reports and scores, dispute what isn't your fast otherwise you'll end up in my situation up shit creek without a paddle.

I have decided that this year I would like to have 365 blog posts this is inspired by last years ring a day and this years sketch a day by Amuck Design also on twitter. I hope I can just keep up and make some posts to make up for the last few days of nothing.

A world without words.

Can you imagine a world were the written language is in pictures and everyone understands them? Pictograms are nothing new but interaction, graphic and industrial designers have for the past few decades tried to come up with a solution for the language barrier. We have street signs and way finding signs like those used for bathrooms, but as we develope more of these "universal" icons we are developing a language and now we may be coming ful circle in development. Maybe the Egyptians used pictograms because of the span of their empire and just couldn't be bothered with writing out the name of the Pharaoh in each dialect and language?

Yeah that is probably a bit of a stretch but hey we may never know. But what we do know is TheNounProject dedicated to creating a visual language of icons. Their mission:

"sharing, celebrating and enhancing the world's visual language"

Sounds alright I guess but they are a long ways off from completion and right now I believe they are rasing funds for the project to continue and they will eventually take submissions and that sound alright by me. I'm working on my icon for Bourbon and Coke Double, when I can just flash that baby at a loud bar and get my drink with out a word uttered I think the world will be a better place.

(image is a capture from thenounproject website)

First sketches.

So here are the first sketches of the process book for the semester I'm looking to have it post bound and I'm going to begin doing some digital mock ups and make a dummy or two. So I began with an outline of what needs to be covered allotting a page count to each section and working out how many total pages I would need. I went on and sketched out a dummy to work out the spreads and then made an actual dummy of one section with other pages like the cover page and title and table of contents.

I see this as a chance to explore some ideas I cam up with diring the semester but wasn't able to execute because of time. I used the idea of a pull out or centerfold style spread on my second process book in VISC 204 and I have made a pop up book in my drawing for design class. So I was thinking of an exploration in those directions as long at it would add to the book and wouldn't just be fancy crap for no reason.

I'm also looking for a design style or aesthetic concept for the book so I just threw down a few quick ideas and let this simmer in my head these last few days. Tonight I plan on further exploration of these concepts and research into other options. I really want to be able to make one section and replicate it for each project and then only do tweaks and modifications to enhance the visual hierarchy. I do know one of my objectives is a simple and compact design.

When looking at size solutions a landscape 8.5x11 seems to be the best compromise reducing the footprint of the gutter and increasing the total printable area. I am open to other sizes and formats, but I think from my experience this semester this first option will prove to be the best fiscal/design compromise.