This is while I was on vacation. You don’t know all the strange looks I received while writing this and taking a photo of this. I actually wrote the whole alphabet. I would like to see Photoshop make type look like this, SO BRING IT ON!!!
I want to comment on the state of graphic design. I am not talking about getting jobs I am talking about what I am seeing that graphic designers are doing. From Magazines, movie poster, flyers, etc. It seems that graphic design has been confused with layout artist or template followers. WHEN did this happen and WHY? The WHY I can tell you; Because it is easy. It is easy to follow a template and just layout in copy and text, but takes true skill to think of a concept. Any one can put words on color, but it is the designer that makes it come to life.
I have seen too much of the template designs and it is driving me crazy!!! COME ON DESIGNERS stand up for what is right and challenge us! I would bet money that if magazines where more DESIGNED and less LAYED OUT more people would buy them and keep them and share them.
So, that being said….Colleen, another contributor on this site, and I were talking and she suggested the idea of a REAL TO LIFE layout. So we take our normal 16” x 10” design and make it 16 feet x 10 feet and have to create elements NOT using the computer. SO if you wanted type you would have to draw it or recreate it or even print in out but then put it on your real life spread. If you wanted people in your spread you would have to have people lay in your spread.
The idea of this makes me feel alive and want to try this out. I was thinking of doing a test run and posting photos of what happens. Imagine the possibilities!!
~dzob
I wanted to post something that was more design related ans less rant related. So, this is something new that I have been working on. It is for my digital imagining 1 class, for the text as texture lecture. I wanted to have words, but not have the message lost in the words, so why not have it be in french? What do you think?!?!
I recently posted a comment on facebook about how hollywood is the death of all good design and I thought I would post something here. I started this thought when i saw the avatar poster and it used papyrus! Really! Who was paid to do that poster. You have this nice artwork in the background and then you throw papyrus on it with a glow and a shadow and viola……hollywood poster!
It is not jsut the avatar poster it is a lot of posters that come out of Hollywood. I don’t understand. They are so over the top and mediocre it drives me crazy. There are so many movie posters that use Trajan as their typeface, it is plane laziness.
Take some originality and start to think what the type means and what the poster is supposed to say, not ” what “cool” effect i can put on it. As I was stewing about this I was watching some photoshop tutorials and i don’t get what is going on with design and photoshop. It is like any effect and cool trick is being used and it is seen as good design. it makes me sad:( and more ready to teach good typography and have people not create crap design.
~dzob
These are some photo manipulations that i have been working on. Some video of how they where created are coming.
This is out of brushes
this one I added all the splashes of water to the drums
say hello to the first Lebra ( I put zebra strips on a lion)
Here is what I have gone with or at least what i am thinking about
Option 1:
In my typography class I was showing how you could create a design in photoshop only using type and various brushes created out of the type, so i thought i would make a video of it and post it here.
Below is the finished tutorial and click here to download the psd file if you are interested in seeing how it was done.
Here is the video:
This was for my typography class, but just in case you forgot or never had it here it is. It is a real simple intro on how to slice type and basic movements in illustrator. Linked is also the template that i used. enjoy
~dzob
The full article is below and the design article is above. This is the first idea for this article more to come. Let me know as always
Today I ran my fastest mile pace ever. It was 7:53 for about 5 miles, so that I ran 5 miles in 44 minutes and 25 seconds. That is really fast for me and was very excited about it and had to share it! Even though that my regular pace is about 8 minutes per mile this pace seemed to make me extremely tired and I so exhausted when I finished and came home. 7 seconds does not seem like that big of a difference, but it was!!
What made me push my self and keep going was the music i was listening to. My high school coach, Mr. Link, told us never to listen to music as it will alter our pace and make it inconsistent, or something like that. That is in the back of my head every time a strap on my ipod and put on those headphones.
The music that really helped was some songs by the white stripes (ickey thump and Blue Orchid), Run DMC (Raising Hell (this I listed to 3 times) and Peter Piper) and Bad Religion (21st century digital boy). SO i wanted to thank the music….you guys really helped me through the tough hill at the end. When i said this is enough i must start walking RUN DMC said “king from queens from queens come kings we are raising hell in the class when the lunch bell rings….so loud like a cloud of thunder and lightning so proud to the crowd it is somewhat frightening……and bad religion said…..”i don’t believe it the way you look sometimes……the things you are offering me…… i am a 21st century boy, i don’t know how to read but i got a lot of toys, my daddy is a lazy middle class intellectual my mommy’s on Valium so ineffectual….and the white stripes said “white Americans, what? nothing better to do? why don’t you kick your self out, you are an immigrant to!”
SO thanks you!
~dzob
Here are the other comps
Here is the video tutorial for the typography brush thing that i posted last week. I am getting together a step by step tutorial, but that takes some time, so it will come a little later. Below is the video and a link for the brush file.
Brush Files: brush_turorial4.zip
Here is a new design. It started from a gift that I gave a friend recently. I changed it to say typography. I am goign to try to do more because i really like what is going on with it and everything that went into it. Later i will post the individual layers and how it was created. Let me know what you think
In this tutorial I take a text treatment and make it using masking, etc and turn it into a brush and than make a design out of that. It is amazing what you can achieve with brushes!
Here is an article that I wrote. Below are some spreads that i designed to go along with this article. If you are taking my type class you will see some of these again. Some are better than other. Let me know what you think:)
good typography is becoming extinct and bad typography is the disease. how many times have you seen bad typography win over good typography and do nothing about it? this has to stop! corporation and average joe are taking over the design and creative industry and we have to stop it from spreading. corporations do not want to try anything that is interesting or creative. why? FEAR! they are all afraid that they will fade away and nobody will remember them. they are afraid to make the average person confused. because of this they never will push the idea of design. to them it is making their boring ideas “pretty” or “have some pizazz” or making it “sexy”… and if i hear one more person tell the designer to “make it pop” i will go insane!
The reason that logos are so annoyingly big are not because the designer wants them that way it is because the client (who doesn’t know any better) says “can you make it bigger.” and every designer or creative director rolls their eyes and says sure! in the heads of most designers they are saying, sure, you without the formal training or the knowledge that if i make your logo bigger than all the type has to change and be re kerned so that it all fits together. the person who knows the best about the subject is being turned into a technician.
Designer start to become immune to this disease and start making the logo bigger to start with and than the type becomes bigger and soon they are part of the problem and not part of the solution. we need to re-train the designers and owners of design firms to stand up to this disease if we ever want to cure it.
There are so many reasons why people and designers are perpetuating this disease and adobe is the main cause. Yes that is right i said adobe! they added drop shadows, inner glow, outer glow, bevel/emboss, and all the other pointless over done and over worked cheesy gimmicks. If they were never there we would not have this disease running ramped through our society.
I was asked the other day in one of my classes, “Did i make the same mistakes as us, did you also have this handle on design and type, etc” and the anwer is no! I was not always as crazy as I am now. I made the same mistakes, I even used papyrus. 
That is right i said it, I used it. I am not proud of it and I am currently seeking counsling.
The reason I harp so much about type and design and really forcing my students is because no body gave me that advice or direction till I was at graduate school. Being at pratt institute really changed my whole portfolio and design view. My portfolio went from disaster to master….well maybe not master, but a lot better. I don’t have the old files before pratt, but I do have my pratt stuff that i will post. I would even change some of that work, now if I had the chance.
Also living and working in NYC really made a difference. It is really influenced how I look at design and what I do with design. I don’t have a clean approach anymore and never want to again. I did clean for corporations for 10 years, now when i design it is beyond that, texture, crazy type, etc. One last thought; pratt really drilled type into my head and that is what all designers need.
I will post some of the pratt files later. I have to find where they are:)
~dzob
This is a great website, www.typeisart.com. It deals with creating art from different parts of typography. When you get there hit begin and start placing the differet parts. You can scale and rotate the type. It really is cleaver. You can also save it and look art what other have done. Try it out!
This is a new design that I have been working on. Just thought I would post it too see if anyone has any comments:) This is for nothing. It is desgin for design sake.
I found this at my gym and it made me stop because it was so bad. See how many design rules this breaks, in a bad way.ENJOY!
How cool is THIS? Click on the image to see the time lapsed video.
On this post i would like people to post design that they have worked on that use just typography and color. I would love and explanation of why you did what you did.
Apparently they are changing the typeface on some highway signs to clearview. They are also changing the way the type is being displayed from upper case to lower case. We will see how it looks. Below is a sample taken from http://typographica.org/000931.php#000931
I don’t know how i feel about this look. I would have to see it while i am driving. I am concerned about it being in lower case and not in uppercase while i am driving. I like the typeface in general.
What do you think?
Misprintedtype.com is a great website for inspiration, brushes, and typefaces run by Eduardo Recife a talented designer. I ahve been a fan of his style for a very long time and thought it was time to pay tribute. I tell all my students to visit his site and now i am telling all of you to as well. The below image was created using only his brushes and typefaces. Thank you Eduardo!
