No Doubt Logo Design

Have just submitted this to No Doubt’s band logo competition! Check out more here, and vote if you like!

 

Kylie – White Diamond

Digital design and superimposed concept for the packaging of my alternative, ballad Kylie album – White Diamond. Have just ordered some cd digi trays to attach on the inside of this cover (which I think is going to be a card fold-out). Experimented further with combining the fragmented Kylie imagery with my white diamond logo, and the existing white diamond type.

Oh, and in case you wondered, the track listing’s;

White diamond,

Made in heaven,

The crying game,

Put yourself in my place,

Where the wild roses grow,

Stay this way,

You are there,

Finer feelings,

Everything is beautiful,

(Instrumental/intro to Somewhere over the rainbow)

Somewhere over the rainbow,

Flower,

I believe in you,

Dreams,

If you don’t love me,

You’re the one,

Stars,

Better the devil you know

(They’re all either album tracks, b-sides, unreleased ballads, previously performed covers or alternative ballad versions of hits, a couple of which I’ve envisioned)

Categorising People – Exhibition Piece

The final exhibition/show piece for my project on stereotypes and categories of people.

Categorising People – Campaign Branding

As part of my final major project on stereotypes and the categorisation of people, I decided to explore creating a campaign – allowing me to be able to group a variety of outcomes I have been developing into a clearer body of work (in the same way I’d been questioning the process of defining people – I didn’t really want to define a single outcome for my work, which had developed conceptually in a number of directions).

Inspired by the origin of the term “stereotype” – a printing process, I decided to explore ways of reproducing a kind of branding, probably logo, that would tie in nicely with my theme. Inspired by my research into categories, boxes and categorising tick-lists, I developed a bold, confining square (or box) image as a representation of the act of stereotyping – (that being the image that some of the work I had developed used overlapping images of people, denying their identity) – which, with my intention of questioning and, hopefully, breaking some of these ways of categorising, I visually broke. The broken box logo worked pretty well, but the process of stamping the logo created quite a more interesting kind of image – one that wouldn’t ever be identical. Conceptually, I kind of like the fact that, like people, the identity of my campaign was changing and subtly varied (once you start to consider it more closely, at least).

Belkin – Branding by Wolff Olins

Browsing through some different branding projects and logo designs, and once again I’ve come across another Wolff Olins design that I’ve become a little obsessed with. This is probably the least conventional identity for a technology brand I’ve seen (though maybe not aesthetically – it looks sleek, modern and technological for sure – the dots of the icon do feel like a familiar technological image) but the combination of the stylish image and the concept behind it communicates really well.

One of Belkin’s main approaches has always been to design people-inspired products, and so the branding, though essentially being used to promote technology, is based around this connection between the company, the people, and the products – with the technologically styled human image, possibly the cutest character-based logo I’ve ever seen. (Just saying that I feel incredibly guilty for the Panda – well played WWF.)

Check out more of the branding project here.

xWare Branding – Sebastian Gram

Just came across this branding project by designer Sebastian Gram in Denmark, and just love seeing the development sketches for the logo design (too many glossy, finished logos in design portfolios, in my opinion, account to the preconceptions that logos are just whipped together and made pretty). Though some conceptual development would make it even more interesting (if there was a whole lot), the logo drawings are quite powerful have a clear modern, technological feel, and a nice rather abstracted typographic feel. Well applied across different forms too, the CDs and website especially.

Vikunja Tracks packaging concept – Niklas Hessman

CD packaging is one form of graphic design I really love (and is probably the expensive reason behind the fact I’ve never even touched itunes), but can easily fall into the range of conventionally dull. The plastic casing, I hate, and the feel and print of carboard instantly give a sense of quality. And then there are the visuals: in my opinion to often falling into the trends of A) uninspiringly plastering an image of the band or artist on the cover, as if they’re more important than the music (which, most of the time, they are) or B) trying to replicate obscure, abstract cover images that possibly reflect the abstract, ephemerality of music and the difficulty in translating it into visuals, but doing so in a watered-down, not-quite-conceptual enough way that just ends up looking pretentious.

Rant over, and this packagaing design, in contrast, is fantastic. Designed by Niklas Hessman (portfolio here), a student and designer in Sweden, this packaging was a concept for the band Vikunja, who have a well established band identity – a bold logo, and clear colour scheme, which is definitely worth checking out on their website. Integrating this identity into the packaging was really well done – the colours (although already established) work really well together, and the CD itself is espcecially striking. The inner fold of the casing has to be my favourite part – using the logo form as inspiration for the folding of the packaging works incredibly well. The concept behind the track listing, intended to be handwritten and varied with new recordings, is quite interesting, and plays with the convention of album releasing, and justifies the packaging’s focus on representing the band and their identity rather than an album theme, though I’m not sure how well it would work in terms of longevity (and considering my dislike of special edition, “let’s add a cover or two” album rereleases).

Definitely worth checking out his portfolio.

Campaign identity and advertising: Kony 2012

It’s a campaign that’s more or less exploded on the internet (viral advertising done really well) with an incredibly powerful piece of film (the creative minds behind the film project have definitely done their job well.) Although there has been some criticism of Invisible Children, the charity behind the campaign, regarding how financially accountable they are, the wages of their leaders, and their true role and motives as a charity. Admittedly, the film (which can’t have been an inexpensive make) is so fantastically constructed that it may come across as exactly that – and the rather dominant role of Jason Russell within it comes across as a little vain and pompous. So maybe the charity itself isn’t as ethically transparent as charities should be, but maybe the charity isn’t what’s important, but the message (though whether the charity agree with that can be seen to be questionable). And communicating the message well is one of the key elements in any kind of campaign – and I have to say, though not quite as refined as some forms of advertising campaigns, the designs behind Kony 2012 do stick in the mind.

The logo, first off, is great. (The upside down triangle/hierarchy chart specifically), the communication of empowering the people a bold concept, and wonderfully executed and explained in the film. The following posters also have some conceptual merit – the historical reference to dictators, and the connotation of the current danger through the use of the red (though, stylistically, the clear Obama inspiration is maybe a little distracting from the concept, and could be considered attention-grabbing rather than anything else). The combination of party logos in the second piece is great (I believe the Republican and Democratic mascots – sorry for my British naivety if I’m wrong there!).

The video is definitely worth checking out, if you’ve managed to evade it so far. Either way, the message is clear, and good, and the campaign has done well to maintain that.

Design Agency: Kent Lyons

With quite minimal and clean work, simple typography with a clear helvetica-atmosphere, and limited colour schemes, at first glance of the design work of agency Kent Lyons, it’s difficult not to appreciate their clean, pleasing aesthetics, but equally easy to place their work within that corporate, minimal graphic design box. It’s fair to say, I wasn’t entirely sure I’d have a lot to say about their work, and it took some real consideration to really appreciate their portfolio for any sense of uniqueness. The first design that stood out to me was the branding of Film London – a stunning typographic, conceptual logo that I’d fallen in love with once. It’s always nice to find out the designer behind a piece of design I’d glanced at once, but recalling it inspired me to really look at their work in a more intellectual light – and I realised just how wonderfully conceptual a lot of their work is.

Two of my favourite typographic pieces within their portfolio are the “Rmeixes” CD-packaging (the clever typographic element of which is only emphasized by the pleasing, minimal aesthetic), and the “competitive edge” element in a London Innovation leaflet design, which utilizes the form perfectly to play with concept. The agency’s skill with packaging and book-making perfectly accompanies their conceptual and heavily typographic, minimal design work – creating some really interesting work that generic, minimal, corporate work.

Designer: Thomas Østerhus

Another contemporary designer I’ve come across for inspiration –  Thomas Østerhus, a norwegian graphic designer (portfolio here – definitely worth checking out just for the welcome image, even.) Really nice typographic work – some great aesthetics, and some really powerful concepts as well – I’m not entirely sure why, but I was a little captivated by the “word of mouth” piece, as well as “form”. Some really nice branding/identity for Bella Centre as well – like the less fixed use of the arrow logo image, used across different forms and combined with photography (but without the London 2012 logo/MTV logo changing logo-fill cliche)