Helvetica: The Blog Post

I finally watched the documentary Helvetica last night. If you haven't seen it—and are a total design nerd—I'd highly recommend it. The film tracks the origins of the universal typeface, how it changed our visual and cultural landscape and where it's left us today. A flock of type and design gods weigh in with their own very strong beliefs on the typeface, ranging from the embodiment of perfect ecstasy to a criminal representation of design facism.

If you have Netflix (and I recommend that you get that too), you can watch it instantly. So go for it. Right now. Here's just a little taste:

Helvetica trailer

And in honor of the movie, I thought I'd post this piece that sits in our house, made by my roommate, the illustrious and unflappable Nuno Ferreira. (The kerning's a little off, but we'll overlook that.)


Brilliant.

I've seen some dorky things

... but this one is perhaps wins it. It might just be because I identify with this one so much. Behold, KERN the iPhone game.

KERN iphone game demo from Jason Franzen on Vimeo

I just downloaded it a few minutes ago. The design is really clean and somewhat unconventional. It's worth the $0.99 for that alone. (Also, how rad is that vertical Vimeo player? Great for iPhone demos.)

After some clicking, I found that these guys have made another app too. Check out EYE vs. EYE.


EYE vs. EYE iPhone game demo from Jason Franzen on Vimeo

If anyone from the Circus is reading this, I dare you to get this game and challenge Sylvia to a round. I double dog dare ya.

Thanks to Mr. Mind for this gem.

How I ripped off a Korean tampon maker

The story begins about a year and a half ago. D&AD student briefs came in. I saw there was one to re-imagine "women's san pro" items to make them actually bearable design-wise. Worked on the project with Liza Behles and Jeff Krichmar, in the process staying awake for about 82 hours.

The fruit of our collective creative loins was Tempo, a brand of feminine hygiene products designed to be elegantly feminine without the offensive pink and blue and dots and pearls and flowers of all other brands out there. The idea was that each package was a multi-pack, covering a woman's needs for a week. Different stengths were represented by different phases of the moon (the goddess Luna + an indicator of months). Moreover, every box—pads, tampons or bullets—was actually eight individual boxes. All a woman had to do was grab a pack for the day, throw it in her purse and go. They were contained and descrete, resembling cigarette boxes.

As usual, the British didn't see our genius. We didn't win an award or change the world of women's sanitary products. Whatever.

So, fastforward to a few weeks ago. Krichmar's work gets featured on the design blog TheDieline in this post. All the reviews are rave, people love Tempo, blah, blah, blah. Then, just yesterday, two weeks after the original post, a very random comment appears:


Weird. So, Krichmar scoured the internet for any mention of a tampon called Tempo. And this is the only thing he found: http://members.at.infoseek.co.jp/tampon/tempo2.html. (Make sure to crank your speakers up.)

Here's what we obviously stole. (But please, check out that link. Seriously.)


I have no idea what this site means. We're thinking that with the name "Ge" and the site being hosted in Japan for a Korean tampon, there's got to be some connection. Either way, please enjoy the tunes, that troubling animation at the top of the page and stirring passages like the following:

Anyway, the goods mode carried out is the necessaries of the comfort bag to a battlefield, and is quietly borne to the corner of a kindergartener's lunch box, also wanting to make it that it is one article of suitable also for the gift to the direction of that which exists, then was indebted.

Sorry to anyone we've offended by being plagarizers. I hope you can forgive me. And thank you, Ge. I really hope that my creativity improves too.

(But seriously, there really is no way I could've ever come up with copy like that in a hundred million moons.)

Silhouette Masterpiece Theatre

So awesome. More of it over at Silhouette Masterpiece Theatre. Do yourself a favor. Click.

Contagious stuff from 2008

Want to know everything piece of technology/gaming/entertainment/music/design/social media/websites/application/integrated/viral/mobile/outdoors/places/content/green from 2008 that was amazing/mind-blowing/game-changing/surprising/huge/explosive/overpowering/inescapable/breath-taking/jealous-inducing/revolutionary/just-plain-awesome?

Well then. Check out Contagious Magazine's Contagious 2008. Click here to download the whole PDF. It's a great wrap-up to a pretty amazing year. Makes you wonder what we'll do this year. . . .

F AI L

To make things even, here's a typography joke for all you design folks out there.


(via—who else?—FAIL Blog)

A very special logo

Working on some comps tonight, my partner Tim brought up a good point. How messed up is the Special Olympics logo?!



Conversation at the design agency:
- "Hey, the Special Olympics just called. They want us to design a logo for them."
- "Hold on, I just got it. They're all freaks, right? Let's make it a circle of six-armed kids."
- "Yeah, that sounds great. Let's go to lunch."

At least that's how I imagine it went.

Or maybe the Special Olympics is merely a cover for an international ring of spider-people bent on world domination. I kind of hope that one's actually true.

Master Lee

I know I'm little late to jump on the Ji Lee bandwagon, but sooner's better than never.

For those who don't know this dude, Ji Lee is the man. Born in Seoul, South Korea, and raised in São Paulo, Brazil, he attended Parsons School of Design. He worked for various ad/design agencies for about seven years before ending up at Droga5 where he did some great work. Most recently he's moved on to become a creative director at Google Creative Labs.

Beyond that, I've been told he's an incredibly nice fellow by people who know him. His wife is supposed to be a delightful fine artist as well.

So, that tells you who he is. But what's more important is what he does.

This guy is a brain. Simply put. He creates idea that are so simple yet at the same time so brilliant they'll blow your mind.

His projects question our perception of reality or ask us to question it. Clean executions give him a really individual, amusing style that can border on cheeky.

The Bubble Project


Univers Revolved



Word as Image

Redundant Clock


That last one is awesome. It makes me laugh every time.

Anyway, this a very small taste. You really need to pop over to Lee's site at pleaseenjoy.com to see everything. Make sure to check out his independent projects. That's where the gold is. Really brilliant stuff.

Enjoy the inspiration. Now go do something.

We're doomed.

DESIGN FAIL

A fire alarm designed to trap people's wrists when tripped. It was intended to cut down on false alarms, but I'm thinking it probably just cut down on alarms.

Seeing (red)

Death Match collaboration done with designer Krichmar and writer Liza Behles:

Challenge: Design a 10-card series for Hallmark's (red) series that benefits AIDS work in Africa.

Solution: We created a series of cards around the philosophy/tagline "Sometimes a little something can mean a lot." Each card is a celebration of some seemingly small aspect of life that holds a special, if often overlooked, significance in its own right. The cards are also physically small--3-1/4" by 3-1/4"--to mirror the smallness and ease of the sender's gesture. Their copy reflects the humor of the target market—smart, fun, a bit silly and certainly not sappy. By incorporating the word "red" into each line the brand is also linked to this idea that a little something can mean a lot; a portion of the revenue goes to fight AIDS in Africa.

Homeless Vets Posters

As part of the first ever One Show student design brief, I worked on two posters for the National Coalition of Homeless Veterans. (Additional credits go to writer Trey Tyler, art director Billy Simkiss and photographer Bobby Prokenpeck.) Click to enlarge.

"Today, 26% of all homeless in America served in the armed forces before being deserted in our streets."



"'The flag should never be embroidered on anything designed for temporary use and discard.' - United States Code, Title 4, Chapter 10, Section 8.

After they risk their lives protecting our nation abroad, many soldiers are left for dead in our streets. Today, veterans make up 26% of all homeless in America, and each day more and more join the ranks. We owe them better. Learn how you can give back to those who have already given so much by visiting the National Coalition for Homeless Veterans at www.nchv.org."

Well Done Annual Report

Via adgoodness, here's a really fun idea for an annual report called Well Done for the Croatian food company Podravka, produced by creative agency Bruketa & Zinić.

Blank pages printed with thermo-reactive ink are filled in with content after being wrapped in tin foil and baked for 25 minutes. COOL.


Maybe this technology could be used for something else? Maybe a cookbook? Frozen dinner ads?

Someone brought up the question of environmental issues--the unnecessary use of energy. Does that bother you or is the idea just so sick it doesn't matter?

Get Tore Up

Peep this sick graffiti from Portugal. Using the environment against itself.

More on Alexandre Farto's site.

Cover up.

The wide-spread availability of image-editing and layout software has made design an easier and more democratic process. Of course, that doesn't change the fact that there are a lot of shmucks out there that think they can design while still possessing the skill-set of a common earthworm.

Fortunately, those same people also existed before Photoshop was around and were making some sick album covers in the '60s through '80s that we can still enjoy today.

Discover more love here.

Logo design, or, the importance of designing your own identity

I can't take credit for this. My man Krichmar discovered this today.

This here is a lesson in why you design your own unique logo and don't just cop a typeface. Or, it might be a lesson in how to make your design stretch and make money from sucker clients off zero work on your part. Not sure yet.

Either way, I present the following two logos for your consideration:

&

Hmmmmmm . . . .

As Krichmar put it, "Somebody messed up."

The Great Guac-Off

Here's a little poster I designed for a guacamole competition that some friends and I are putting on. An homage to the vibrant culture that brought us that wonderfully delectable, green dish that we all cherish so dearly.


Also, if you're serious about your guac, you should check the party out.

Os Mutantes

This is a project from my Design Concepts class. (Yes, I'm a writer, but I want to learn as much as I can about art direction/design/photography/life as I can.) We were to design a special event and then invitations to go along with it.

My event was a reunion concert of the famous Brazilian rock band from the late '60s and '70s, Os Mutantes (The Mutants). Their music combined contemporary psychedelic rock with their bossa nova and samba root. They even mixed languages, usually singing in Portuguese but also sometimes including English and Spanish. The entire aural experience was a youthful, eclectic explosion of energy, noise and revolution. Clearly this did not sit well with the oppressive military dictatorship in control of the country at the time, and the band often had to dodge being censored or exiled. Despite becoming inactive many years ago, Os Mutantes received much recent attention due to praise from such art rockers as Kurt Cobain, David Byrne, Beck, Of Montreal, Stereolab and Devendra Banhart.

For their supposed reunion, I designed a two-night event: The first night, Os Mutantes host an intimate performance for 300 or so influential indie musicians at the Allen Room of the Lincoln Center in New York City. The following evening they play a free concert in Central Park for the general public. The series is entitled "Revolução Now!" The name alludes to their perchance for mixing languages while also addressing the theme of the event: revolution. Obviously revolution was a very real thing to the band and the Brazilian people 35 years ago, but what can revolution mean to us today? Do we still revolt against anything? Should we? The event's tagline is "Our weapon is our voices."

Influential musicians in New York City receive what appears to be a miniature gun crate. Inside the crate they find a tape recorder. When the message is played, they are prompted to think about what revolution means to them and record a representation of it on the tape. The tape is sent back in a return envelope provided as a form of RSVP. During the concert, some of these responses are spliced into the band's performance to create a collective art piece.



For the general public, painted and aged gasoline tanks are left on street corners in the city. The teaser phrase "Revolução Now!" and the date are the only visible information. Hundreds of matchbooks lie around the base of gas tanks, and when a passerby picks one up they are provided with information about the free concert as well as a nice take-away.