thank you, steve jobs

as of, what, not quite an hour ago, steve jobs is no longer with us.

this makes me so sad, but i have never even been in the same city as him. i think it just says something about how much of himself is in everything he's worked for. steve jobs has been responsible for a massive part of my communication, my livelihood, and even my life, ever since my mother stayed home and did freelance design when i was a baby. 

i've got this half-baked philosophy of the computer as a soul, that my macbooks know me in each moment as well or better than anybody, and that all my thoughts and energy and work don't bounce off a shiny screen but filter in and dwell in the machine, making something alive and holy. apple computers have been a part of my life since i can remember, and as crazy as it may sound, i think that feels like family. 

i think steve jobs walked at the forefront of something incredible, straight into the incomprehensible, solving problems nobody had ever asked and making things that are not just enriching, or even necessary, but, when used to their fullest potential, literally extensions of ourselves. just as i have an external hard drive for when i need to drain some of the chaos from the top of my macbook, my macbook is there to back up my hopes and dreams and passions and all the rest. it's like an external hard drive for your soul.

insane, right? but it makes a little bit of sense, to people who live like me, not tied to but sometimes cradled in a computer. somebody made that. somebody made that possible. made it possible to carry your soundtrack, the soundtrack for your whole life, with months straight of your favourite music, in your pocket. made it possible to see and hear and touch and interact with things we might never get close to otherwise. things that might never have even had a visual form otherwise! things that might never even have existed otherwise.

steve jobs didn't change the world for people my age. we have no frame of reference. he was instrumental in making our world what it is. i'm so grateful for everything he's made possible. i think we all are. i just hope he knew that, how so many people owe him so much about themselves, who they are, what they do, where, how, and why. everything will keep moving forward, apple included. but steve jobs is going down in history as a man with his hands shaping the right now.


“almost everything–all external expectations, all pride, all fear of embarrassment or failure–these things just fall away in the face of death, leaving only what is truly important. remembering that you are going to die is the best way i know to avoid the trap of thinking you have something to lose. you are already naked. there is no reason not to follow your heart.” steve jobs

union station!

despite my devout love for union station, i just realized i have yet to blog about this project.
next on the narrative in sound and motion dockett is an interactive timeline, using both linear and nonlinear (user-controlled) elements, about the history of union station for their 100 year anniversary. my partner for this project is erika g and we've done a lot of thinking and sketching but i haven't scanned any of it in, yet. we also recently got to visit union station itself and speak with the c.e.o. which was really exciting. we received a compelling oral history of the building, and if he had been selling it, we would have bought it. (that's how good a speaker he was!)

the way this project is arranged is such that each partnergroup has a different decade, and put together, all ten groups make up the whole century of union station. everybody from the forties onward feels slighted due to lessening rail travel, but our decade is a little unique: we have the 1990s, wherein union station was actually literally closed down until 1999. this means we've had to take a slightly different route with our concept, and our timeline is less about the things happening in union station the building and more about the politics and shifting social climate outside. there were many arguments, activism, and steps to be taken before union station finally reopened, so we're focusing journalistically on that angle of history rather than the literal whats and the whens. more about the hows and the whos!

i think we're both pretty excited about this project, so i know it'll turn out well. and i love partnerwork. i feel so much better about design when i can go in with a buddy. it's just like spelunking! much less dark and empty and terrifying when you aren't alone.

koenig, the first baby steps

our next project in type three is a redesign of a book about pierre koenig, architect. we have raw text and a big folder full of .tifs, and now we're off, trying to make a book that, in a few weeks, we can get printed off of blurb.com to have for our very own. today's first tiny step was to bring in text-dominant spreads to look at some basic typographic systems. things to consider were: using a grid!, how do the fonts for the body copy, title, subtitle, captions, pull quotes, and folios all relate to one another? contrasting faces necessito, but gracefully, not clunkily. i learned today that apparently none of my typefaces contain small-caps, which may make things rather more difficult for me in terms of (at the least) my numbers. all of these have faarrr to go, but here's where i've started:

package design inspiration

here's some package design inspiration i've collected before and during the thumbnail sketch stage of the package redesign project. i've been trawling design blogs, and this is some of my favourite stuff for a variety of reasons including the overall design, the typography, the concept, the color palette, and rendering style, and the copy itself.

find & share: packaging

brand: suave

product: men body wash

target audience: men who recognize their own need for washing, and the occasional (or frequent) woman who facilitates the washing of a man.

mode of appeal: ethos by way of dale earnhardt junior's recommendation.

experience audit: i liked the subtle curves of the bottle, and the color seemed appropriate. the colors are certainly the loudest aspect of the current design. the consumer pops open the cap and sniffs it almost immediately. there is factual information to be found on the back, but it is secondary to the front. this looks very similar to most soaps and shampoos for men.

survey says: "well, that guy loves it. and he has nice hair. shampoo. refreshing. blue. men. gradient." (it isn't shampoo.) & "dale earnhardt jr. looks constipated. that's offensive. it says refreshing. it's blue, like they always market to guys. and silver. which they also always market to guys. it's boring. it's suave body wash."

brand: westcott

product: geometry math kit

target audience: moms and dads purchasing school supplies, the kinds of kids who buy their own school supplies.

mode of appeal: ethos by way of teacher recommendation and westcott's age as a company.

experience audit: i was drawn to the foldover package with the snap. this package is noticeably, awfully, bland. the consumer flips it over, and then unsnaps it and experiences the inside as well, pretty rapidly.

survey says: "a plus! it's plain. blue and grey. very dull. it's a geometry math kit with a drop shadow. it lists angles. it's got a ruler and protractor." & "it's informational. it's boring. it's math. it's covered in numbers. it's blue and silver. sterile, scientific. it's a geometry kit. it's got a compass."

brand: whiskas

product: temptations

target audience: cat owners, particularly those who want to treat their cats but don't want their cats to get fat.

mode of appeal: pathos by way of cartoony narrative.

experience audit: this package is very loud with ridiculous looking cartoons on it. the bright yellow with those drawings are quite potent. the consumer flips it over quickly because the front read doesn't take long. neither the front nor back are terribly informative, although they both contain some level of information. these are a little floppy, so you have to be careful to stand it upright.

survey says: "friendly, comic. it's bright. called temptations. there's only one photograph of the treat itself, everything else is illustration. it's crunchy outside and soft inside. it's food, but i don't know for what." & "looks like a dog. the treat is crunchy outside and soft inside. it's yellow, bright, offensive. these are cat treats. it's got speech bubbles or clouds or something. i don't know why. it's by whiskas, it's called temptations."

brand: heaven

product: red devil shorty

target audience: cigar smokers, particularly new, who want a nice cigar but don't want to smoke all of it.

mode of appeal: pathos by way of mythology.

experience audit: this label is beautiful. i'm drawn to the narrative form in the tiny, perfect image. the consumer automatically smells it as soon as they've admired the label. there is no additional information given on the individual cigar. perhaps on the box instead, given that its intended context is in a box with a set of its own, or at least surrounded by other brands of cigars.

survey says: "red squiggly lines, little image that i couldn't quite process. has people. a cigar. it says red devil. cherry something on the bottom." & "it's a cigar i guess? called the red devil or something. very nice little illustration. packaging seems warm and inviting, which is good for a cigar. cherry flavoured? not a lot more experience around it. has the barcode. i wanna open it."

brand: self expressions, a division of maidenform

product: the i-fit bra

target audience: ladies with a bra cup size between an "a" and a "d" who feel that they may need some level of additional padding and lift.

mode of appeal: logos by way of infographic. 

experience audit: the dainty little infographic really drew me into this package on that small pink label. the colors are bright and poppy. the consumer turns it around and holds it to their chest to inspect if/how it might fit. given the bra's shape and hanger, the back of the label doesn't reveal any necessary info. the infograph is somewhat novel but other than that, this fits unnoticeably in with all the other bras and  labels.

survey says: "this looks comfy and soft, it's purple. (n/a.) this is an a-cup, because it's circled. it's got an obnoxious pink 'new self expressions' thing. the tag has a girl in her bra on it." & "it's got a happy girl in a bra. she must be happy because her boobs look nice. the label is pink. it's called i-fit. it's pretty boring. there are diagrams of the padding."

folly ads

 

these are my first three attempts at a newspaper ad utilizing the imagery from my poster. as i understand it,  when a poster gets chosen, that designer then must work out two other touchpoints for their mini-campaign: a newspaper ad, and a billboard. i chose to work first on newspaper ads. tomorrow, we find out whose posters are chosen. scary!

final peter nero!

here is where my folly poster has ended up! i'm really pleased with it. i was having a lot of trouble with type, and my imagery was just a little too flat and unfinished. i completely redrew all of my images to include better detail and specificity, and to heighten the angles, allowing my type to integrate more effectively and more interestingly. 


on a less formal note, the most exciting thing about my choice to use a bird imagery is how many different reads there are for its meaning. i began with the metaphor of piano keys being related to birds, and in this, you can see an allegory of music spreading its wings: music taking flight. then, there's the speed and agility of a bird, the lightness of its movements like a master's hands across a piano keyboard. there's also the read (my original intention, back in the rhetorical matrix) of the literal magical transformation from instrument into dove, this ability nero has to make magic from music. the dove itself, of course, is wrapped up in its own connotations as well: it's a stately bird representative of peace and love. the pianodove, then, is a symbol of the flight of music, the magic, when played by an artist as talented as nero, and the powerful good that can come from it.