I don’t care what you do — this commencement address by Neil Gaiman, given yesterday at the University of Arts in Philadelphia, is well worth hearing. First off, the man can really write a speech. But secondly, it’s measured and good-humored advice from someone who started off like every other one of us.
(Neil Gaiman, in case you’re unfamiliar with the man, is one of two or three “Great Modern Creatives with Whom I Disagree Philosophically But for Whose Talent and Abilities I Have Nothing But the Highest Respect.” I call them the GMCWIDPBWTAIHNBHR, and they are a rarefied crowd.)
One of my favorite places to view high-end graphic design and branding is iTunes Movie Trailers. Don’t judge. These posters and trailer pages have exactly one chance to make an impression, and they know it. You’ll find some original and quality stuff here, because these studios are spending millions and they want every penny to count.
That said, there’s also plenty of forgettable design that runs on the page. Action movies tend to look like action movies, and you can spot a rom-com or a buddy comedy a mile away. But a little while back, I mentioned that I was surprised by the art direction in the trailer for Snow White & the Huntsman, stating that it managed to promote something at really looked fresh.
On that note, Snow managed to pull the same trick on me again today — pleasantly surprising me with something I hadn’t seen before. Take a look at the promotional image below. You can read it instantly (which makes it very commercial, not obscure or confusing), but the more you look at it, the more disturbing it becomes. Look at the eye on that crow. Raven. Whatever. That is not a bird eye.
Already inclined to be happy with them, I opened their trailer page, and was happy all over again. The stark black-and-white aesthetic continues, with an image that was designed with expert care for the iTunes preview page and no other location on earth. You just love to see this kind of craft go a piece of work.
Look how that owns the page. The trailer page demands a white top and a black content area … but this design takes that requirement and makes it classy, epic, and exciting. I think the key word here is restraint. Instead of filling the promotional images with a lineup of leads, explosions, magical creatures, or what-have-you, they’ve reduced their design to a stark, minimal, and memorable set of images that stand out head and shoulders on the page, while filling them with enough richness of detail to reward closer inspection.
To be clear, this isn’t an endorsement of this movie or any of its leads (none of whom are my favorites) … but it’s a ringing endorsement for the art direction choices made thus far. However the film pans out, this is one beautiful bit of fully-concepted and restrained design.
Okay, the whole Santa Claus shtick was fake, but this is pretty amazing. Disney Research has come up with technology I definitely don’t understand that can recognize a world of touch gestures … and not just on a screen. They call it Touché, and it’s one of the most incredible technologies I’ve ever seen presented in a very un-incredible video.
Watch the video. Be amazed. Also, be amazed that the best application they could come up with was teaching kids not to eat cereal with chopsticks.
Hi there. If you’re reading this, cheers to you! This site began as a mere catalog of stuff I like and is becoming something a little bit more, thanks to growing readership and some things I’m learning on the professional side of life.
Here are some ideas I have to improve my site. I’d love to hear which of these sound like good ideas to you, or really bad ideas, or if you have any other suggestions outside of what I’m already considering. If you can take thirty seconds to make your voice heard in the comments, I’d appreciate it hugely.
My ideas so far:
Focus more on some things (design? branding? music? movies? What do you want to hear more about?)
Focus less on other things (what do you hate when I get into? What do you never read?)
Write more full reviews (of movies, music, etc)
Post more original art
Add a list of suggested resources (for various categories, like design, drawing, etc., with links to Amazon)
Add a small, tastefully-placed ad block (so that I can fund things like contests and give-aways)
Offer prints of my work for sale (would anyone buy any of ‘em? Would you? What would you pay for one of my sketches?)
Link to other people whose blogs I love
Have more regular features (and less total randomness in how/when/what/why I post)
Add a regular feature of interviews with other creatives and/or guest posts from bloggers I love
Never ever change, keep that breathless charm, because I’m lovely just the way I am
Other
If you can take a second to give me your feedback, I’ll send you a chocolate cookie through the internet just as soon as I can cram one into my CD drive. Wait, does my computer even have a CD drive?
Yes. Yes it does. So post your thoughts, and if I can fit a cookie in there, I’ll email it to you.
I posted about this a year and a half ago, and it’s still true today — this little scrap of paper, included in a shipment exactly as shown here, is one of my favorite things I’ve ever seen. It’s poorly sized, written, and laid out, and represents a perfect storm of design innocence.
This is in a box somewhere at home … I need to find it and re-tape it to my wall here at work. I love this piece of paper.
Another day, another surefire bestseller novel fully plotted out. If only I could write. (Insert eye-roll here.)
Anyone out there love writing for young adults but just can’t come up with a good story? Let’s team up. We’ll make a cool two million, split it 50/50, whaddyasay?
Courtesy of Matchstic (who you should really be following, because they’re amazing):
“To design is much more than simply to assemble, to order, or even to edit; it is to add value and meaning, to illuminate, to simplify, to clarify, to modify, to dignify, to dramatize, to persuade, and perhaps even to amuse. To design is to transform prose into poetry. Design broadens perception, magnifies experience, and enhances vision. Design is the product of feeling and awareness, of ideas that originate in the mind of the designer and culminate, one hopes, in the mind of the spectator.”
Paul Rand
Happy Monday Morning thoughts for those of us sipping coffee, cracking knuckles, and clicking Creative Suite icons in the dock.
A living record of what design director David Somerville is looking at, listening to, thinking about, and scribbling on meeting agendas. Please make yourself at home.
This is some good design. (Not to be confused with 
I posted about this 
