Parco Spring

This is a design composed by a Japanese artist that I do not know much about quite honestly. However, I love the colors and images used within the poster. If I could I would hang this as a poster in my room (notice the peacock at the lower right hand corner). To me, the environment portrayed looks like something of an enchanted forest, because what normal one has flamingos climbing tree branches. The color pallette the artist used really sparked my attention, the teal blue, forest green, and light pink are not your average colors. Since my Design Principles class I have started to notice and appreciate how artists place items ever so carefully in a visual piece to make it appear random, even though he/she carefully picked each animal or foliage. In this case, I believe this principle applies. I found this piece in the book New Girly Graphics which is an archive of mostly Japanese design and in a different language. Fortunately, aesthetics can be adored without all the descriptions.

Tribal Book Cover

This is the book cover of 54th Annual of American Illustration, designed by Marcos Chin. For his design called Textile he won a gold medal. He was inspired by photos he saw in a book called Natural Fashion: Tribal Decoration from Africa by Hans Silvester. What I like about the book cover is the various designs of patterns used for the neck piece. Believe it or not this piece was hand crafted. It is a design that fits appropriately for the kind of book this is about which is illustration art.

Istanbul Culture

The above is a design by Kari Piippo as a poster project for International Istanbul Graphic Design Week. I chose this piece to blog about because I just vacationed to Turkey a couple of weeks ago. Upon my visit I stayed in Istanbul for a few days as well. I can say this poster design, entitled "Istanbul as felt by...", and Istanbul is perfectly represented here. The country is known for its wonderful textiles and textures of fabric are very rich. Also, Istanbul is the only city which is located on two different continents, being Asia and Europe. The pattern within the silhouetted man is a perfect match to the fabric I saw at the bazaar. Also, the deep blue color is represented everywhere in Istanbul, it is also the color of the evil eye. Which is a good luck charm everyone hangs in their rearview mirror. I found this example in the book Nordic Graphic Designers.

Maze Coded Type

The above is a firm's foldout card celebrating Christmas and New 

Year's, designed by Nikolaus Schmidt Design in 2011.  The foldout design is a less traditional approach in comparison to a standard card. At first glance I thought what a great idea to use a maze as a design element! Not until I read further into the description article did I realize it spelled out the greeting "merry christmas and a happy new year". The idea of the coded message is unconventional and not your ordinary holiday card. In fact, white on a black page in this way looks futuristic. Nonetheless, in aesthetics and as inspiration the foldout succeeds. I found the design in the book Design/Paper. 

Future Under Crying Kids

The poster above is a photograph of a crying kid manipulated by the designer for a Tokyo exhibition in 1995. Seiju Toda, the designer, modified the picture in such a way to dramatize children's anxiety over their future. This is an example of bad design. The kid does not look anxious about his future, to me he is alien like and he might have laser eyes. Also, the name of the campaign is Future Under Crying Kids. Notice when the words are abbreviated it turns into...well you know. Something the designer probably did not even notice since the design firm is based in Asia. I found this piece in the publication On Edge: Breaking the Boundaries of Graphic Design By Karen D Fishler. 

Zimbabwean Trillion Dollar Flyer

The image above came from the publication The Best Advertising and Design in the World By D & AD Annual. That right there should tell ya this is a pretty genius design. In order to understand and appreciate why I chose this page out of the 589 pages in the whole book. Its a rather large book. Anyways, the paper notes was the form of "cash" in Zimbabwe until Mugabe made it worthless. Now, the Z$ trillion note has been turned into flyers by printing the campaign right onto it. Which the night before they did not even have the money to cover advertising charges. The powerful and supreme idea used Mugabe's own creation against him. 

Say It Loud

The above pieces are not from the same client, meaning all of the wardrobe pieces are not all the same brand. However, the theme is the same through out the whole collection- "Say it loud". What the photographer, Torkil Gudnason, wanted to portray was culturally loud and diverse pieces that viewers lust for. By using the vibrant colors and combining them together it says cool yet unusual. Gudnason decided to crop off pieces of a mannequin which is an interesting approach since most fashion ads use human models. The mood of the fashion ad says contemporary with its super enriched photography and bright backdrops with oversized white type. I found this publication in Vizz  Outrageous Visual Communication By Adrienne Weinfeld-Berg.