David Carvalho

Journal

The objective of this blog and journal is to bring some kind of fluidity to the collecting of influential material and research for my design development. The form of a blog allows easy storage of such material and provides the functionality so that the information collected can be commented, and cataloged within a database like environment. This then permits the quick location of referenced material on any given subject thus making idea generating a less time consuming task. This leads to better design outcome making a blog the ideal tool in the graphic design world.

The first place I thought which would be a good place to start creating my new blog was to take a look at existing ones and find out what characteristics that make the blog effective. In searching I came across a magazine spread by Si Scott. This I believed was a perfect fusion of photographic practice, typography and illustration in a well-balanced design piece. I then continued to look at other works of his eventually coming to one that tied into a more eco friendly car design which was wind powered.

With renew ability in mind I continued my search and came across a humorous poster that gave promise of a free lunch. In truth the existence of such a poster is imposable but I think It highlights the “cut out, use, and discard” society which, we are today.

As my search broadened I found more posters, which were in a competition with the “free lunch” design. It occurred to me that despite the other pieces of work being detailed illustrations, this minimal poster won. Looking now at more simply designed work I found the “Keep it simple stupid” poster. Despite the poster having few elements it has simple elegance.

I collected a few more examples of neat minimal designs, one of these being a design consultancy website. In this site there was a good use of Photoshop enhanced images. I then tried to find an extreme example of a realistically doctored photo and found the work of Christophe Huet. His work uses surreal imagery as shock tactics to draw attention.

The next stage on the form of this surreal shock tactic was the realistic work done to promote the Benetton house of colours clothing line. They touched on things such as AIDS, sex and racism to make the shock appeal given from the work become front page news. This making it very effective as an advert.

From that I moved on to look at various treatments of typographic form, the first being a traditional well-known font – then the more rare font. I found the finger print type very interesting, the reason for this is despite the forms not being traditional type and just an arrangement of fingerprints. An aspect of them made them look as if they were letterforms.

Last of all I found my self-stumbling on a truly amazing piece of flash design. The AllYourPrey site, combines good functionality, smooth animation and a bold layout to make a site that’s a pleasure to use and navigate. This shows that a site doesn’t need to look complex to function well.

Doing this blog has helped me to understand that it is a very useful way of organizing research and ideas; it is a method I will use in the future

Allyourprey

The image above is a small snippet from the Allyourprey website. The website is flash based and uses a very simple style and layout but is very original in its design. I think the animations are very clever in the way you shift and scroll through the various images on the site.

Van Beater

Above is an example of some bold illustration by Trevor van Meter (aka Van Beater). I really like the simple style and the way he has given this crazy looking creature character through its expressions. Here is a link to his website to see other examples of his wacky illustrations.

Neville Brody

English graphic and type designer with a devoted following for his anti-traditional views. Studied at the London College of Printing. Art Director first of The Face, a London-based “style” magazine, from soon after its birth, then of the men’s magazine Arena. By the early 1990s he was able, with a straight face, to recommend abandoning typography’s requirement of legibility

Saul Bass

Saul Bass was a graphic designer and Academy Award-winning filmmaker, but he is best known for his design on animated motion picture title sequences, which is thought of as the best such work ever seen.

During his 40-year career he worked for some of Hollywood’s greatest filmmakers, including most notably Alfred Hitchcock, Otto Preminger, Stanley Kubrick and Martin Scorsese. Amongst his most famous title sequences are the animated paper cut-out of a heroin addict’s arm for Preminger’s The Man with the Golden Arm, and the text racing up and down what eventually becomes a high-angle shot of the United Nations building in Alfred Hitchcock’s North by Northwest.

Saul Bass designed the 6th AT&T Bell System logo, that at one point achieved a 93 percent recognition rate in the United States. He also designed the AT&T “globe” logo for AT&T after the break up of the Bell System. Here is an example of the logos he designed.

Gerald Scarfe

Gerald Scarfe was born in London. He was asthmatic as a child and spent much time drawing and reading. After a brief period at the Royal College of Art in London, he established himself as a satirical cartoonist, working for Punch magazine and Private Eye during the early sixties. He has had many exhibitions worldwide, including New York, Osaka, Montreal, Los Angeles, Sydney, Melbourne, Chicago and London, and 50 one-man shows. He has designed the sets and costumes for plays, operas and musicals in London, Houston, Los Angeles and Detroit. His film work includes designing and directing the animation for Pink Floyd’s The Wall. Scarfe has written and directed many live action and documentary films for BBC and Channel 4 and has published many books of his work, including Heroes & Villains: Scarfe at the National Portrait Gallery, which was published in September 2003. His most recent book, Gerald Scarfe: Drawing Blood: 45 Years of Scarfe Uncensored was published in November 2005. Gerald Scarfe has been political cartoonist for the London Sunday Times for 40 years, and has worked for The New Yorker magazine for 14 years. His work regularly appears in many periodicals.