Sports Team Logos – I Don’t Get ‘Em

Baseball is back on again, and I am a happy camper.  I love watching baseball and I am a die hard Phillies fan; but one thing that has always confounded me was how horrible some professional sports team’s logos are.  There are plenty of terrible logos in all of sports, but for the sake of time and my own sanity, I’m going to focus on baseball.

There are some iconic logos that have come to encompass the team perfectly and should never be touched; teams like the Red Sox, Cubs, and even the Yankees (one time I’ll give the Yankees any credit) have fine tuned the logo and have left it more or less untouched for decades.  Other teams have done a similar thing; they know they have a quality icon but they update from time to time, as my beloved Phillies have done.

Again, I find no fault in this when done well.  But, when it goes bad, oh baby is it bad.

Whether it’s blatant racism (cough cough Cleveland Indians cough), confusing (were saints and blue jays known to be big baseball players?) or just downright silly (the Tampa Bay Rays are a ray of light?) I have to believe they can come up with something a little more creative.

And I’m still not sure what a Met or a Phillie is, but I’d rather be  a Phillie over a Ray.

yes.

yes.

yes.

wha?

[current music - The Beatles - Abbey Road]

My Thumbdrive

This is what happens when I get bored.
 

In my defense, the thumb drive case broke, and that cow was asking for it.

Long live Friday.

[current music: Doug Loves Movies Podcast]

Wedding Planning isn’t stressful ::sarcasm::

I am getting married to my beautiful fiancée, Megan, in September and we are in the midst of planning the ceremony and reception.  I am a fairly laid back individual, and I am easily assuaged (and amused).  However, my usual responses of “I don’t care,” or “Doesn’t matter to me,” don’t work so well in this situation as well as they do when asked about what to eat for dinner.  Needless to say, the planning has been stressful.  To name a few mishaps: our wedding planner unexpectedly died, the hotel where the ceremony and reception is being held forgot to save any hotel rooms for us, the second wedding planner unexpectedly quit and the list goes on . . . But, as if we’re not gluttons for punishment enough, we decided to design all of the wedding stationery as well!

We are both graphic designers, so our hand was pretty much forced; two graphic designers who didn’t design anything for their own wedding would be weird to say the least, right?  So, Megan began designing the Save the Date and the actual invitations, and they are coming along great.  My role is more of a consultant at this point (We know who has the power when it comes to any wedding) and I make a few recommendations when  I am asked.  My claim to fame for these invitations is that I picked out the envelope lining (we’re getting married at the beach, so I thought it made sense.), so keep that in mind when looking at the images below.

Oh, and did I mention Megan is making all the invitations by hand?  Yeah, she’s crazy.

I’ll also update this post with an image of the Save the Date.

 

Form Over Function: good from afar, but far from good.

As a designer, I always strive to make my work visually interesting while functional and relevant to the target audience.  Most people think of function in terms of online or interactive experiences, but on a simpler level, it’s really about getting the concept or idea across effectively on any medium.  From web and interactive, to logos, brochures and even the paper place mats at diners; everything we design is there for a distinct purpose.  In short, functionality is (or should be) just as important as the form it takes.  Sometimes, its easy to lose sight of the functionality of a project and focus on creating something “cool”  or trendy.  Thinking like that is essentially art for art sake; something pretty that doesn’t really say anything.

This is not a complaining, “woe is me” post, just some musings on the subject, so humor me.

The example that brings me to my computer today is something that is outside my skill set, but shows my point clearly, and actually shows how functionality is key in other areas of design as well.  Before I go any further, let me preface this by saying I am not a video game aficionado in any way, but I do follow games that I find interesting (or that have good packaging – old habits die hard; read my post on book covers).  One that I had kept hearing about was Brink: a semi-futuristic dystopia action shooter game (wow, that’s a nerdy sentence).  The visuals pre-launch were spectacular, the marketing (both online and print) was fun and different, and the storyline seemed fresh and interesting.

Come post-launch, I’m left disappointed.  Everything I was hoping for, everything I had deduced from the crisp, clean pre-launch campaign had been wrong.  It is a ho-hum game at best, and it’s all because the focus was on the look of the game, not the functionality.  The opening video draws you in and once you actually begin to play, your lost.  Nothing is intuitive, it gets repetitive and I got bored quickly.  I thought the point of video games was to alleviate boredom?  While its important to create a visually interesting game, its just as important to start with a quality, functional framework.

The point of all this is that you can wrap anything up in a pretty little package, but if the concept or message is weak, its going to come out eventually.

And actually, this is a “woe is me” post because I just spent 60 bucks on a game that I don’t like.

Woe is me.

[current music: Dropkick Murphys - The Gangs All Here]

New Favorite iPhone Wallpaper

Nothing fancy, just a simple Friday post.  Once in a while, I need to change my phone’s background and it inevitably turns into a 3 day process in which I’m constantly changing my mind on what my new background should be.

After days of deliberation (not kidding) I’ve made my choices:

 

for behind the apps                               the lock screen

I know, its fascinating.  Just humor me, please, it’s been a long week and I’m getting ready to meet my old friend – Sam Adams.

Happy Friday everyone!

Spec work – good or bad?

I was recently talking with a fellow designer who works as part of an in-house design team that creates marketing collateral for multiple “clients” within the company.  Anyway, as we were talking, it came up that the owner of the company just found out about sites like 99designs.com, which are essentially sites that get spec work from many designers.  The owner is now considering outsourcing a part of the design’s team workload to sites like these.

I have friends that partake in spec work often and I wish them the best of luck in doing so; but on a personal level, I can’t bring myself to do it.  I feel that spec work gives clients an unfair advantage over the designer in the way that they are getting much more than they are going to or willing to pay.  When hundreds of designers submit designs for one logo for instance, the potential client can view every single entry and then will only pay for one design.  Most people don’t enjoy working for free and would balk at such a request.  Now, every client has right to find the best designer for the job, but doing so under the guise of a democratized freelance website seems shady to me.

On the opposite side of the coin, even though the client may see hundreds of submissions, who knows how many are a designer’s best work?  If I were asked to do something for free with little chance of compensation, I would try to get the work done as quickly as possible – which usually doesn’t turn out to well.  Good, cheap and fast don’t often go together.

But this also highlights the major problem for young designers just out of school: if agencies want a designer with 3-5 years of experience, how am I going to get a job and gain 3-5 years experience?  Its not fun, but every designer faces this problem and there are opportunities aside from spec work.

Though I can understand why clients would be drawn to spec art, I find that the bad outweighs the good for everyone involved.  Clients are paying for work that may or may not be top notch by people who may or may not be designers, while designers are being asked to do their job (a skill they have spent time crafting) for little or no pay.  Both sides can come  out feeling jilted very easily.

Some may call it the democratization of design, but I think of  it more as the marginalization of design.

</end preach>

[current music - Green Day - Insomniac]

Infographics – Step Away From PowerPoint

I’ve been working with a new client recently and most of the art I will be creating is information based, or infographics.  As I was explaining some ideas I had, a look a fear and confusion covered my client’s face.  Unsure (and slightly nervous), I asked what the problem was; and the answer was interesting.

Seems this client (and more people than I realized) assume informational graphics need to be boring in order to get the point across.  But this is 2011!  Why does anything have to what it’s previously been?  To say that informational graphics have to be boring because they were in the past isn’t a valid argument in my book.  So, after a short conversation (and several rounds of the client sending me what they ‘wanted’ via powerpoint) I was able to show them what I meant, and they were blown away.  Of course, I can’t show anything yet because the info is very hush hush super top secret (not at all, really).

The point is, info graphics no longer need to stay within the realm of PowerPoint and pie charts; if you can entice your audience with visually intriguing artwork and immerse them in the information while doing so, then you’ve got them right where you want them.

Below are some great examples of effective info graphics.

  

How to pick a vanity plate

no.

says "HIMAINT" = high maintenance

yes.

says "SAS-KWCH"= Saskwatch

Thank god it’s friday.

[ current music: Frank Turner]

Just Launched: Intelli-media web site

Recently, I’ve been working on the redesign of the site for Intelli-media, a Philadelphia eLearning company that is now making the shift to an Interactive agency model.  After some brainstorming we had come to a concept that the client and myself were both exited to see.

So, in just over a month, we created the concept, shot the images (ourselves; my hand and face are in the site somewhere!), designed, tested and launched Intelli-media’s new web presence.  On top of the tight deadline, we were limited in the examples we could use since much of what Intelli-media creates contains confidential company information.  Oh, and on top of that, the budget was super tight, so I had to make a temporary soundtrack for the demo reel with Garage band.

It was hectic and at times frustrating, but a lot of fun too.  Check it out at www.intelli-media.com

i love gotham, and i don’t care who knows.

As a designer, I have certain “go to’s” when I’m working on a new project.  They tend to change or vary over time but one has not in some time – my love affair with gotham.  Yes, this is going to be a nerdy typography post, and I apologize (not really).

Created in 2000, it was intended to show geometric structure and masculinity, it was actually commissioned by GQ magazine to be a new font for them to use.  And I guess those are some of the reasons why I like it so much; I find it sleek and modern, plus it looks great in gray (another “go to” that I can’t help trying).

Gotham has made the rounds in recent years too; most people will recognize it from one of two major campaigns – President Obama’s 2008 election campaign and Conan O’Brien’s new show,CONAN.   I’m also not sure (I could double check to be sure, but where’s the fun in that?) but I believe gotham is the font used for the films INCEPTION, Moon and looking at my lunch, it may be the “classic” in the Coca-Cola Classic.

So, what are your favorite fonts?

If anyone says comic sans, I don’t think we should hang out anymore.