A really good project by Amanda Bradley found on behance, its actually a very simple design but its so precisely  laid out it has a very classy feel to it. I wonder how long it took to design because in a way its very simple, I would love to be able to just knock out stuff like this!

http://www.behance.net/AmandaBradley

Bottle design

I got a bit bogged down in my Glava brief so I went to look again at some existing designs. I originally looked at spirit and mixer bottles but the best design by far is for wine bottles and in some ways are far more relevant to my brief. Wine bottles are often aimed at the same consumers I am aiming at (25-35 social and with cash to spare). The bottles also have a classy but often experimental look to them that I want to capture, spirit based drinks look cheap and trashy by comparison.

As you can see I am drawn to the more typographical designs with bold simple graphics, and it is this last one that intrigues me the most as I was experimenting with an idea like this yesterday but it came to nothing, I will have another go because it can clearly be made to work.

And While i'm browsing behance..

...this is a bit good isnt it? A font based on mathematics, free to download as well.

link

Áron Jancsó

link to work on behance :Typography with a Hungarian slant (but its too late to write more just now)

New C4 stings

A nice refresh and very relevant to what I am trying to do for my GoTv brief. I like the way the 3D style motion reviles both the station logo and programming information quickly, but unhurried in feel. A very polished piece of work. Made by http://www.ruddstudio.com/ I will post up more of there work soon because there is quite a lot of quality motion graphic stuff they are making.

(via Creative Review blog )


Channel 4 Branding 2010 from ruddstudio on Vimeo.

Daniel Hernandez type design

I cant fint too much about this guy exept that he is from Chile and is making some interesting desplay typography. The style is very much over the top and exaggerated but all his faces have great detailing and and up to date edge that would make them very usable in design for club flyers, posters or t-shirts etc.

This is Hernandez bold, a very bold and flamboyant slab serif that is designed with many variations for each letter, there is 6 lower case versions of 'a' for example!

This is Roxy, An even bolder slab face far more geometrical in feel. I have seen a few fonts like this in style this year, but this one just seems far more carefully crafted. Its CAPS only unfortunately but for a font so bold, its amazingly still legible in quite small sizes, I think this is because each letter has a well thought out distinct shape. Again it has a great vibrant feel to it.

A few other nice ones as well on behance, all with an element of fun to them
http://www.behance.net/danielhernandez

kyle Poff portfolio

A great portfolio of type based work, (more to be written)

Kyle Poff

Enter the Void motion typographic

I came across this via Creative Review  It starts off quite normal but builds in typographic intensity. An amazing sequence of great type treatments.

Its the titles for a film but I am wondering is this style could be used in my GoTv stings, its direct and arresting, which is what I want to achieve for this brief.

Direction from Alpha Road

I met with Tom from Alpha road yesterday and now have a much clearer idea of the design direction they are after. They are interested in a clean aesthetic with limited use of colour and a strong use of typography.

Tom pointed out a few pieces in some books I brought from him to look at,

These pieces Tom liked both have a smiler colour pallet of golden reds and white, also both use large type.

They are also interested in investigating what format the CD couple be packaged as and I thought this is a great idea to use a poster or large fold out to hold the CD, potentially fairly cheap as well. Down to me now to start designing!

Music Graphics research

I have Just come across the work of Non-Format and it has blown me away to be honest. Usually when I check out a studios portfolio there is only one of two pieces of work I really love but Non-Format have produced a vast amount of amazing work. It is exactly the sort of work I wish I was making, and looking at their approach to various briefs will be an incredible help for my own brief to design for a band.

Just a few of the works that wowed me,


David Bowie poster, nice use of custom type and clever use of mixing desk sliders to represent information.

Milky Disco Three, Again great use of custom type as image

Just amazing, Smoke, rabbit, explosion, I might as well give up now: (click to enlarge)

just a piece of work I liked today

By Ethan Park , Nice idea this for found object typography, its part of a bigger project, and he has experimented a lot photographing different objects as type but this piece was the most successful I felt.

Ministry of sound motion graphics

The first bit of research I did for this brief was finding past motion graphics for MoS. As expected there is tons,



This is a nice concept for a terrible CD.




rave visuals have the right feel but not a very memerably piece




Stunning!




Nice use of colour here, a much more quality, expensive feel to this.

I could go on, I think over the years Ministry has probably used every graphic style and trick there is. They have produced good stuff but some awful tat as well. There has always been a lack of consistancy in the quality of products they allow their brand on to, this is clearly reflected in the graphics.

Engage Mutual Research

Ok this it pretty dry stuff, but I have decided to make a determined effort to actual blog things that I have looked for this brief, We shall see how this goes..

First up, some links. I have been looking at other Mutual insurance/assurance companies websites for some ideas and inspiration and to compare to Engage Mutual's own site

Uk sites

http://www.lv.com/

http://www.co-operativeinsurance.co.uk/

World

http://www.newyorklife.com/

http://www.libertymutualgroup.com

https://www.gjensidige.no/no/0/Toppmeny/English/Insurance

The main thing I noticed was that none of these companies make a big thing about the 'mutuality' This is something that Engage Mutual wants to do looking at the YCM brief. The design of the sites are very plain apart from the LV site. LV has a far stronger branding and logo than the rest. Engage Mutual have used lots colours on the home page, I feel they should stick to the colours in the logo plus black white and grey as LV have done.

Another thing I found: searching Youtube I found a TV advert from Engage. This is sadly the only motion graphics relating to the company I could find.
Its a bit 'daytime telly' if you know what I mean, I wont say anymore.

DVD menu research

I have had a look round the net to learn a little more about putting these together. There is a lot you can actually do in DVD studio but I feel I cant really get to know this in depth right now as I am already learning as much as I can with after effects. Defiantly something to come back to and explore more in a different brief. Anyway this is a good read: http://www.computerarts.co.uk/in_depth/features/dvd_menus  A bit short of pictures but some good insights into professional production.

TCM Idents

For a bit of research I looked at some existing TCM idents, as I plan to base my own on a film season for this channel. They use quite a clean look in all there own graphics. Even better, they like to have text moving around in 3d (even on the menus os the website (http://www.tcmuk.tv/) this is great because I want to use 3d in my own idents and I am thinking these will be mostly type based.



This is one from about four years back, I like how this is technically very complex but restrained in its treatment. Black and white is a bit of a short-cut to making something look classy but it works well here. This succeeds in mixes classic stye with contemporary aesthetics which is what they were after I would say.




This one is a good example of the 3D text thing they like that I was talking about. I dont really like the layered style over the top of this one. I would have left that out.



This is a newer one. You can see they have gone upmarket, almost to the point of being a little pretentious here I would say. Again nice 3D text used in the logo graphics.

For me own I want to add a bit more energy and swagger (it is gangster season after all).

More Kenetic type stuff

Now I have decided to base my Movie Season brief around film quotes I have had another look at kinetit type for a bit of inspiration. I have come across a great blog posting with some awesome examples.
click here

The stand out ones for me are this Alex Gopher vid. Amazing!




I also like this because it is so polished and fast paced, not so origional but done very very well.




I am glad I found this one as well because it is an actual ident for a TV channel, again, fast paced and very well done.