"Book Nine" and more can be found here: https://theghastling.com/buy/
Friday, May 17, 2019
The Ghastling - Book Nine
A quick look at the carnival themed editorial designs we lovingly crafted for The Ghastling - Book Nine.
"Book Nine" and more can be found here: https://theghastling.com/buy/
"Book Nine" and more can be found here: https://theghastling.com/buy/
Labels:
book cover,
book cover design,
Carnival,
Circus Typeface,
Editorial Design,
Edwardian,
horror stories,
Magazine Design,
The Ghastling Magazine,
vintage typefaces
Thursday, February 14, 2019
War Horn—album cover design process
For the album cover, I started my visual explorations on paper, since I can thumbnail ideas quickly before taking them into Illustrator. I wanted to visually convey the power of a war horn's blast, and after some doodles, I liked how the expanding concentric circles were looking. However, I was feeling it was a bit cliche once I started recreating the designs in the computer.
If I'm ever stuck, I find a solution for creating unique designs is to ask, "How can I communicate this concept differently?" By rattling and opening new doors, you'll be surprised at some of the novel solutions you may discover on the other side.
One option I explored had radiating lines emanating from a central red disc—a simplification of the the front of the horn. The lines imparted a sort of tribal feeling and I like the optical shimmer effect that happened as the thickness tapered towards the center of the composition.
Pushing the idea further, I created a sense of depth and weight as the round red pulse struggled to break free from a radar grid of thin lines. I like the contrast between weights and colours, and how the net bled off the page breaking the borders.
Labels:
Akzidenz Grotesk,
baselines,
Bauhaus,
custom typeface,
grid systems,
minimalist design,
modernism,
Modernist design,
Montreal,
swiss design,
techno
Thursday, January 31, 2019
The Road to Neozon
It's always nice to see designs we crafted making their way around the world.
Anna Tambour's collection of short stories, The Road to Neozon is the type of narrative that throws you into danger, but then saves you like Doctor Who. A highly recommended read, and it was a pleasure to put together for Obsidian Sky Books. Speaking of the Detroit-based publisher, we also crafted their visual identity, as well as filling the book up with lush interior designs.
Anna Tambour's collection of short stories, The Road to Neozon is the type of narrative that throws you into danger, but then saves you like Doctor Who. A highly recommended read, and it was a pleasure to put together for Obsidian Sky Books. Speaking of the Detroit-based publisher, we also crafted their visual identity, as well as filling the book up with lush interior designs.
Check out The Road to Neozon by Anna Tambour:
Labels:
book cover,
book cover design,
branding,
fonts in use,
Quebec design,
typeface in use,
Zig Zag Claybourne
Wednesday, January 23, 2019
Clear and Present Thinking — 2nd Edition
We re-hauled the editorial designs and interior layout for the second edition of Clear and Present Thinking, the popular, college-level textbook in logic and critical thinking.
Here's a few sneak peeks at a few of the spreads!
Clear and Present Thinking, 2nd Edition, is available as a PDF for free, or purchased through Amazon. Visit Brendan Myer's site for more info:
http://www.brendanmyers.net/nwpbooks/cpt.html
Labels:
book cover,
book cover design,
creating grids,
Modernist design,
sans serif,
swiss design,
typography,
underlying geometry,
visual identity
Tuesday, September 19, 2017
Embracing the local colour
In the past, design was flavored by geographical isolation. Aesthetics were informed by the characteristics of the landscapes that people saw on a daily basis, whether sharp mountain peaks, or soft, rolling foothills. Hues from the landscape informed designers' palettes, and all of these factors made it easy to discern design that originated in Germany versus England. With the birth of the International Typographic Style in the 1960s, such clear delineations ended up muddled: influences were taken from around the globe, rather than being cultivated in a bubble.
A question that came to mind recently was this: in these modern, connected times, with endless scroll feeds informing an international aesthetic, what role does local culture play in a design practice?
We live in an isolated forest community in rural Quebec, tethered to the world at large thanks to the miracle of the Internet. As part of our creative process, we study our surroundings, drawing colour swatches and composition ideas from nature. It’s interesting to note that everything we see around us exists because their ancestors were successful when it came to adaptation and reproduction.
You don't have to hightail it to the desert like a nomad to get inspiration (though thinking about it, doing so sure sounds pretty). Your neighbourhood's architecture and charm are real expressions of humans bringing order and joy to their environment. That impulse right there is pretty much the definition of design, so if you take what you observe around you and reflect it into your work, you can achieve that objective posture that so many Modernists sought: moving the ego aside, you can submit to the universe and become a perfect conduit to natural Order and Truth.
Labels:
Colour,
Colour Theory,
constructivism,
geometric,
Josef Müller-Brockmann,
minimalism,
modernism,
Modernist,
objective,
poster,
Quebec,
sans serif,
swiss design,
visual identity
Wednesday, August 2, 2017
Farm the World Visual Identity
Farm the World is an endeavour geared towards teaching people how to grow their own food and medicinal plants in whatever space they have available to them, anywhere in the world. The site hosts articles about growing techniques, tips about heirloom and organic seeds, recipes, and herbal medicine-making tutorials, and offers products such as apparel, bags, and even art prints to help fund both the site, and its future seed box subscription program.
As the endeavour was inspired by both the Great Depression era and WWII "victory gardens", we created a visual identity drawn from rustic, vintage images and typefaces. The typography was actually based on rural signage, like the lettering found on milk crates and farm equipment.
Colour inspiration was drawn from nature photos (a tomato held against the sky, leafy greens juxtaposed against compost-rich soil), with an overall aesthetic that speaks of wholesome self reliance and healthy foods.
All art prints and apparel are available via Farm the World's Society6 page.
FarmtheWorld.org
As the endeavour was inspired by both the Great Depression era and WWII "victory gardens", we created a visual identity drawn from rustic, vintage images and typefaces. The typography was actually based on rural signage, like the lettering found on milk crates and farm equipment.
Colour inspiration was drawn from nature photos (a tomato held against the sky, leafy greens juxtaposed against compost-rich soil), with an overall aesthetic that speaks of wholesome self reliance and healthy foods.
For the botanical bags, we used vintage illustrations to evoke the imagery used on seed packets from the 1930s.
There's also a series of bags, art prints, T-shirts, tanks, and hoodies that are solely typographic (on FTW colours), and use the typeface featured in the logo and website header.
All art prints and apparel are available via Farm the World's Society6 page.
FarmtheWorld.org
Labels:
bags,
botanical,
branding,
Farm the World,
Farm the World branding,
FTW,
FTW branding,
Great Depression,
shirts,
Society6,
type,
typography,
vintage,
vintage typefaces,
visual identity
Thursday, April 6, 2017
Sugar and Pith
We were approached to update the visual identity for a California-based, small-batch apothecary company called Sugar and Pith, and it was a complete delight to delve into the aesthetic they were looking for.
The client was hoping for an Art Nouveau type of look without too much fussiness, and since the items she creates are based on seasonal ingredients, the identity system needed to be such that she could create her own labels as needed.
The answer to that was to use a warm, hand-lettered typeface with Art Nouveau-inspired botanical ornamentation.
Larisch is a hand-lettered design by the Austrian calligrapher and teacher, Rudolf von Larisch. The original was used for the title page of the 1903 edition of Beispiele Kunstlerischer Schrift (Examples of Artistic Writing). The typeface has an attractive, casual set of caps of even strokes with rounded terminals. Except for the terminals, it is similar in style to Kunstler Grotesk.
The designer (Larisch) taught lettering at Kunstgewerbescule (School of the Commercial Arts) and Akademie der Bildenden Kunste (Academy for Visual Arts), both in Vienna, and the care and craft he put into his work is evident in the type's warmth and humanity.
Aren't these labels sweet? We were lucky enough to get some samples of the products themselves and they really are fabulous.
Sugar and Pith display at a local farmer's market.
Labels:
apothecary,
apothecary branding,
apothecary labels,
Art Nouveau,
Art Nouveau design,
branding,
graphic design,
Larisch,
Rudolf von Larisch,
Sugar & Pith,
Sugar and Pith,
visual identity,
visual identity system
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