Van City

    This is something I picked up at the Vancouver Art Gallery. It was free and cool so what the hey. I really like the way they used instructions to make some interesting points. The fact that the only colour on the page are the "instructions" which draw the eye. I like how they used the lines to make it dynamic and movement. The writing makes one want to read and draws the eye in. The logo We:vancouver is bold and sticks out and creates hierarchy. Since this is a poster for a gallery about Vancouver and it's history and how it could improve I can see how the lines almost form a sort of simple road map. I really just like how the whole thing is simple and has a lot of white space.

   I have something else from the gallery but it seems I misplaced it so I have to find it first.

Cheers,
Melanie

Apfleminze goodness

    Haha some more international stuff. This time it's some apple mint tea my mom brought home from Germany. She had brought two teas this one and another, they both are apple something, and both are loose leaf but I opened this one first because it caught my eye. This is definitely the normal bag type for tea, closing with a fold and a tie at the top and the normal triangular shape. but the cool thing about it is the subtle vertical lines that are on the paper which adds a delicate interest to the bag with out going overboard. The label also uses the subtle shapes in the background to draw the eye with out making it an eye sore. This same design is used in the box which is placed at the top as sort of grid placer with the information following the same placement. I also think the use of only one colour, green, helps keeping the information in the forefront. I like the use of only one font too and the use of caps to make the eye go to the companies name directly after the flavour. Good hierarchy (as much as I can tell because I can't read the rest...).

Next time I'll actually get something from Nanaimo,
Melanie


This was on a website my mom's friend sent to her. It's a South African website about pet health care. Might I say that South Africans are weird...

PRONUTRO

    This week we had to find good design. I've been feeling sick so I looked around the house and I found these boxes in my recycling. This is my all time favourite cereal, it's kind of like Cream of Wheat but ten times better. This is what I ate as a kid in South Africa and since then the box has dramatically changed. My favourite thing about this box used to be the little facts on the other side which was in both Afrikaans and English. Now it's just adds and sports things in only English.  

     Childhood memories aside the the design of the front is interesting to say the least. There is a lot of movement in the picture with the cereal in the bowl having swirl highlights which is carried on by the white swoosh in the back and the halftone dots which are also carried on into the background. Even the title and sub heading helps with the movement. The bold title really draws the eye to it especially in the "original" one. The designers had to fit in lots of information with still keeping space which I think they did well. Just from looking at the pictures you can tell it's wheat free, made of corn or something like that and in the case of the chocolate flavored one you can tell right away that is that flavor. The only thing I don't really like about the design is how the title is kerned and the halftone on the bottom which is black and distracts from the title and other information.

anyways hopefully we're back to school soon,

Melanie

The Crystal Goblet by Beatrice Warde

    I partially of agree with what Beatrice Warde says in her essay about invisible text. She is right about how body type should be invisible because the audience needs to understand what the words mean not what they look like. As she puts it "type well used is invisible as type" (1). Meaning the ideas and the conversation the words are visible and not the forms of the words themselves. She uses the wine glass as an example to say this. The wine glass must be invisible in order for the wine amateurs to speculate on the wine its self. Where I do not agree with her is that type in its forms and lines are in themselves beautiful and so should be used just to show off what they really are. The fine differences and subtleties of for example Caslon or Baskerville separate them as their own and I believe that this makes them unique just as any other well made type. Type can show off the meaning of a by just the change to italics or to bold or by colour or the angle among other things. It is the balance of when to show off the beauty or the type and when to show of the meaning of the word that should decide how text be used.

   What I tried to show with my picture was the fact that type should be invisible if the meaning is not important to show through reading it. But if the text is important than the look of the type than it should be readable. If you can see it there is "invisible" text in the background just dark enough that is gives off the meaning of being invisible while still being seen.

"Helvetica Causes War" (apparently)

   So this week we watched a documentary about Helvetica which is the most common type face known to man. There is this big controversy on whether or not it is over used and boring. I know for myself I like Helvetica, it is simple yet in its simplicity there is a certain finality about it. Not only that but it comes with multiple versions of it, bold, semi bold, italic ect. which is nice. In the documentary we were watching, simply titled Helvetica, many views were shown and insights shared, but what really got me thinking was the pictures it had. Helvetica is used everywhere, road signs, corporate logos, pamphlets, billboard advertisements, warning labels, everywhere you look there is Helvetica. Not just in North America but in Europe and where ever they have a Latin based alphabet. It is amazing to me that I never noticed this. The reason for that I suppose is that Helvetica speaks so many emotions, it can be the boss or it can lend a helping hand. Helvetica really can change it's colours to say anything without looking awkward, which can not be said for many type faces.

    For our assignment this week we had to go looking for Helvetica and take a picture of it(which I must say is not a very hard thing to do). So I decided "Hey since the world is filled with Helvetica, why don't I just find as many corporate logos or signs and see how many I could find that have joined the Helvetica band wagon." I started my epic journey at a strip mall down the street from my house. Not to my surprise there were only a few businesses that had decided to go with out Helvetica. To name a few that I could photograph, Staples, Long and McQuade, Superstore, The CAA, BDC Canada, Coast Capital Savings, Pennington's Superstore 14+, and most of the government buildings around the area are all in some way on the Helvetica band wagon. Later I went down town and found that Subway, Shoppers Drug Mart, and Starbucks also uses Helvetica. I find this interesting though, that every logo or advertisement that I came across looks different and really does give you a different message. The government signage makes Helvetica soothing and seem like the business has control of situations. Where as Coastal Capital Savings seems clean and enduring. Even Subway manages to make Helvetica seem playful without ruining the finality of it. That is what I really like about Helvetica, one can play around with it and come out with different meanings. You can mix and match Helvetica and it looks amazing or you can leave it alone and it will still look right. 

Here is some of the businesses I could take good pictures of:

I like how they used the different types of Helvetica here to show hierarchy.
"Penningtons" is read first then the less important "Superstore".

Staples brings in the use of two types of typography, serif and non serif
together to make it more interesting. They also brought in the paper clip idea
into the "l" to make it different.

Coast Caplital is dynamic by not using capitals in the "coastcapital" part and 
then using only capitals in "SAVINGS" then also bringing in the bold font to 
make the Coast Capital readable when it has no space between the words.

BDC is bold so that it creates a contrast between it and "Canada"

Superstore brings in Hierarchy and makes it more dynamic by using 
colour and bold and regular Helvetica to show that Superstore is more important.

Long and McQuade keeps it simple with black but then uses colour in 
"Musical instruments" to bring in harmony with the logo next to it.

Subway uses arrow addons and italic bold to make it seem more welcoming and playful.

Shoppers uses hierarchy with bold and semi bold.