I’d love to have the skill and vision to create work like this…

design work life » Simon Ålander Hand-Lettering: “Design Work Life: Cataloging Inspiration Daily
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Simon Ålander Hand-Lettering
Simon Ålan­der, who is cur­rently study­ing at Hyper Island, clearly has a pen­chant for hand-lettering. His port­fo­lio is over­flow­ing with var­i­ous styles, includ­ing these few favorites.

http://www.designworklife.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/06/simonalander_01.jpg

(Via Design daily news.)

What should someone appreciate when seeing a logo?:

Building a brand isn’t the easiest task in the world or the most important; a well-established brand requires a great deal of time and money. The tremendous effort of obtaining a serious brand, when this is successfully finished, is rewarded and the profit is huge. The examples are numerous in our global economy, but everyone should know that in this process a small element plays a big role.

A logo is a small graphic element, which may contain words, letters or/and shapes. Regardless its structure, a logo is the entity, which makes the connection between the clientele and the company/website who own this. In accordance with the previous statement that means a logo is very important; personally I believe it’s true 100%. It is unfair, but usually people don’t have the time or the opportunity to check the quality of all the products in this world and as a result they apply a superficial judgment; a logo can be the construction upon which people base their opinions.

The specialists who are building logos are called logo designers and anyone can find them inside of the freelance job boards. They are numerous, but definitely there are enough people who have no acknowledgement about logo design. This article is written especially for the potential clients who didn’t care about logos until this moment and at the moment need one but it may be a pleasant lecture for any designer in order to refresh some basic principles.

1. A logo must be versatile

Initially a customer wants a logo for his website – nothing unusual and the creator of it doesn’t have any restrictions related to the logo-the happiest case. Although, after some time (years or months, really doesn’t matter) this client considers beneficial for his affair to put the logo on a banner, thus we must have here a print version. Unfortunately in many cases this version doesn’t look as good as the online one. Trouble might arise here.

To resume and to obtain the conclusion of this situation is pretty simple: a logo must be versatile, it should look the same in the header of a website, on a banner and even on a T-shirt. It’s a sign of professionalism. My advice for any potential buyer of a logo is: think twice before saying that you need a logo only for a website.

2. The king is always in black and white format

This point came as a completion of the previous one, but because it is very important, it needs a special treatment. Always, a quality logo will look appealing in a black and white format. It can be regarded as a prolonged versatility but it hides another impressing fact. In the most cases a black and white format emphasizes mostly the concept of the logo and not the graphical realization. There are trends, which are coming and leaving and any designer should pay attention to these to keep a logo updated but the concept of a logo remains and it must be eternal.

On the other hand, a black and white logo will be always on trend and consequently won’t be a mistake to make it using no colorization.

3. Simplicity is great

A simple logo isn’t a wrong one, but still many people (some of them logo designers) are circumspect regarding this concept. Their problem is related to the feeling of unfinished project when someone is seeing a simple logo, however here is another great advantage: a not very complicated structure is more easily to remember for ordinary people. A powerful logo is one that is known by the entire community and under these circumstances what is simple is amazing.

Studying the logos of the global recognized brands this premise is set solid, nothing more than three colors, one or two fonts, simple shapes. I believe the collection below is pretty enough:

Unless you aren’t convinced by the grandeur of simple things then study the statistics and the conclusion will be the same.

4. Originality makes the difference

An original concept of a logo puts the owner in a special light and usually the advantages are immense. The logo should be considered the graphical representation of the people behind it and in a world full of opportunities and possibilities to stand apart is difficult but profitable. Having a common logo is equivalent of nothing to say or being a decent provider in an ocean of other more colorful solutions.

5. A memorable logo is the base of a successful brand

If someone sees a logo and after a few days remembers it, then the graphical work deserves its money. The purpose of a logo is to make in the mind of the folks the connection between the owner and a quality service/product and a memorable logo is the start in accomplishing this task. The big problem is how to effectively create a wonderful & memorable work? The answer is based only on talent and a lot of work.

Finally, there is another point which may sound unprofessional but in practice it is: a logo should be liked by the client, he is the one who decides if the respective creation is suitable for him or not.

This article has been written by Daniel Pintilie a freelance writer working for for Go-Globe.com,
a Shanghai web design company that provides web design solution in Hong Kong,Sharjah and Middle East.

Yahoo! logo and an early Yippies logo – Boing Boing:

Looking through the huge stack of FOIA-revealed 1960s-vintage FBI documents on the Yippies (The Youth International Party), I spotted this logo used on an early flyer. I wonder if it was an inspiration for Yahoo’s logo, created thirty years later?

Yahoo’s was designed by Organic, Inc. in 1995, and refined a few years later to use the Able typeface (also used in the Harry Potter franchise) Able, from foundry T26. The typeface was designed by Marcus Burlile, who was not born until the 1970s. I’ve got emails in with Organic and someone I hope is the right Mr. Burlile to ask if they were familiar with the old flyer.

I have also asked the remaining Yippies if they used a time machine to appropriate Jerry Yang’s design genius.

The whole flyer is posted below. Anyone know the score?

wtm4-final.png 6740×4768 pixels.

Gil Scott-Heron

Opus & The Air Groupies

So, at long last, my true talent has been discovered and I have finally hit the big time, BIG TIME! Soon I will be sipping champagne off the belly of some nubile young thing on some yacht somewhere seriously exotic while hoards of paparazzi, and as a result – the world, look on in deep envy!

At least that is the idle hope.

A track of mine, Hosepipe Ban, has been played by legendary Irish DJ’s The Chillage Idiots on their XFM radio show and I have to say, it is a deep, deep serendipitous honour to have my airplay-cherry popped by these guys, because way, waaAAAaay back in the day I used to listen to these guys all the time in my dingy, horrible, student flats in Dublin.

They inroduced me to the likes of Autechre and Black Dog and others from the Warp label and many other awesome artists. I had so many of their shows taped on Maxell C60 cassettes. And, believe it or not, had pangs of pity leaving them behind in the Big Move to Australia.

Unbelievably chuffed and honoured to be part of such an epic and rarefied mix.

Now, if I could just lift this TV through that hotel window I can finally say I have arrived.

This is a great spot in Sydney, the beginning of The Rocks area, one of the oldest and most atmospheric places in the city. Great food, and even better pubs. Pricey but that’s because it’s touristy. Well worth it though. The view from the rooftop bar of The Glenmore Hotel is what made us stay in Sydney instead of the planned move to Melbourne.

A fascinating collection of all the original tracks that the Beastie Boys sampled from throughout their career!

The definitive Beastie Boys sample source collection | Music | Lifelounge.