Wednesday, September 30, 2009

A Designer's Eye: Baltimore Harbor Waterkeeper


This logo for the Baltimore Harbor Waterkeeper's Trash Bash was on a postcard that was in my mailbox a couple of weeks ago. I didn't pay it much mind at the time, but upon further inspection, I found that I really liked that logo that they developed for this event. The logo only measured 2x2 on the postcard, but what really stood out for me was how well the Baltimore cityscape held up at that size. The colors are vibrant, the buildings are recognizable and it remains balanced above the Waterkeeper's organizational logo below it.

I have always been fond of the circular logo, where the text acts as such a visual design element. To me, it gives the impression that the Baltimore Harbor Waterkeepers are protecting the Bay by surrounding and embracing the Inner Harbor. The compass points help to express the idea that the organization is looking in all directions to protect the natural resource. Also, the line that connects the East and West points (and bisects the logo) really ads an element of stability to the piece. It feel like it's supporting the entire city and keeps if from sliding off the rest of the logo.

Even the word "Waterkeepers" looks visibly balanced with the placement of the registered trademark on the corner (similar to where the "W" starts on the opposite side).

Finally, the use of complementary colors (blue and orange) for the text really works for me as well. The blue works to encapsulate the cityscape and the orange really draws the reader's eye to it and, ultimately the name of the event.

Prolific Prose: The Metaphor

While exploring the assigned reading for my Verbal & Visual Rhetoric class this past week, I found one of the articles particularly interesting. It was an article by George Lakoff and Mark Johnson, titled "Metaphors We Live By," and it focused on how we perceive the world through the metaphors around us. I've always believed that we shape the world in which we live by our words and actions, and even though our thoughts, but I never really stopped to think about how that world could change based on a change of perception. Many of the metaphors that we regularly use were prescribed to us by others.

Lakoff and Johnson gave an example of the metaphor Argument is War and used the following statements to back up that claim: Your claims are indefensible; He attacked every weak point in my argument; His criticisms were right on target; If you use that strategy, he'll wipe you out; and He shot down all of my arguments. The words in bold represent words most typically associated with fighting and war, but are being used to describe an argument. How much would our perception of argument chance the metaphor changed to some like Argument is a Dance?

I never realized just how ingrained metaphors have become into our daily lives. They are a part of our everyday vernacular and our thinking. We consistently refer to ideas and concepts in life in terms of more concrete things. Some of the examples in the article that stood out most to me were: She has a fertile imagination; He’s a giant among writers; They gravitated toward one another immediately; and The odds are against me. They all express these intangible concepts—ideas, importance, love, life—in terms with which can more easily relate—plants, size, physical force and gambling—and therefore help to share the world around us.

As designers, I think it's important to understand that metaphor is perception and that when it comes to design, perception is everything. Just because one audience perceives something in a favorable way does not mean that all audiences will. As one of my classmates pointed out during discussion, this is just one more element that we, as designers, must use and and be mindful of in our work.

Friday, September 25, 2009

Show & Tell: Verbal Definition/Explanation

For this week's Show & Tell, I came across an article in Travel and Leisure magazine describing 27 affordable beach resorts from around the world. As I read through then, this description of a resort in Mexico stood out among the other short pieces. The writing is so descriptive that I could envision myself walking up to the front of the inn and almost feel the ambiance within its few sentences. Here is how it read:
From the outside, it doesn't look like much: a weathered brick-and-adobe hacienda hidden down a dusty unpaved side street in Todos Santos, a little beach town 90 minutes north of Los Cabos. But past the heavy iron gates of the eight-room Todos Santos Inn, you'll find a fairy-tale setting in a 19th-century sugar baron's former estate, with frescoes, adobe walls, and beamed ceilings. Netting hangs romantically over antique canopy beds in all the rooms, several of which open onto a fountain-bedecked terrace. Palm trees shade a small pool in the courtyard. Artist from the 16 neighboring galleries gather at night around the inn's candlelit wine bar, which sources bottles from around the globe.
This piece really painted a vivid picture in my mind of a week away from the stress of everyday life. What really drew me to this piece over the other 26 descriptions in the article was the lack of in accompanying image, which really caused me to use my mind's eye to see what I was reading about.

As far as the image goes, I Googled the Inn to find some art to accompany this description and was really drawn into this photo. Its composition is excellent and the details draws the eye throughout the piece. It utilized space well and has just enough contrast in colors to work effectively.

Wednesday, September 23, 2009

A Designer's Eye: Tour du Port

I saw this postcard for the upcoming bike race though the streets of Baltimore and it caught my attention for a number of reasons. First, the use of the different typefaces for the logo and the use of a bicycle's gears for the "Os" in both tour and port, as well as the "0s" in 2009, really stuck home with me. I've done a lot of this type of logo work in the past and am always interested to see different was to use objects as letters.

The second thing that really grabbed my attention was the overall layout. It makes use of opacity and varying sizes of landmarks to create the illusion of depth, which I think works very well in the piece. Also, the use of angles adds a really sense of motion to the image.

What do you think?

Monday, September 21, 2009

A Designer's Eye: Think from the End

I recently found this card just laying around at work and it immediately caught my attention. It was just four simple words with a diagram, but I was instantly drawn to it. "Think from the End," it read. What an amazingly deep, yet simple statement! I read it again and couldn't help but think: could there be a more apt statement for what designers and writers do than this? So simple, yet how often do I actually do it?

It was then, that I picked up the card and turned it over to read what was on the back. The brief explanation that follows only compounded my curiosity even more. The image is a little hard to read, but here is what it says:
"Highly realized people learn to think from the end—that is, they experience what they wish to intend before it shows up in material form. You can do the same by synchronizing with the power of intention."
This statement really made me wonder: what is this "power of intention" and where can I attain it? Is is something you can learn or are you have to be born with it?

This got me thinking even more.

I am definitely guilty of sitting down at the computer and just playing around to see what develops. Sometimes, it's just easier for me to visualize something if I'm
working hands-on. But, when I do take the time to "think from the end," I sometimes find that the finished product falls short of what I had envisioned in my head. In the past, it has made me wonder if others have this same problem or if it's just me. Am I just not that good or a designer? Am I so deluded that I can't recognize the limitations of my own abilities?

In retrospect, I really can't believe that I am the only one to feel this way. In fact, I think that it's the curse of being a creative individual; that nagging doubt that lingers on the edge of our minds. I think that the real power of intention is already within us all and that only a select few ever answers its call...

Friday, September 18, 2009

Show & Tell: Good Food Writing and Bad Food Photography

For this week's Show & Tell, I happened across a great example of not only good food writing, but a great design as well.



The text is a little hard to read, but essentially the piece talks about the used of spices to accentuate the taste food without the use of salt. The layout of the different spices and herbs is really caught my attention, and since I try to do all my cooking without salt, I found the article really intriguing.

As for my example of bad food photography, the piece I found was, in my opinion, distracting from the piece that it was supposed to be accompanying.



The image in the photo is so hard to see because of the extreme focus on the foreground. I left wondering not only about what it was I was looking at, but also what was in the the rest of the image to complement the Chicken with Green Peppercorn Sauce (and the only reason I know is because of the caption).

Both of my pieces we found in the March issue of Cooking Light magazine.