Are triangles still cliché?

Nahhhhh.

Instagram: robertjameszarske

This is why I rarely do graphic design work for free.

Show this Friday!

Hello friends,

It's been awhile since I've posted here. If you're still following/reading/staying tuned to this blog, I appreciate the loyalty. I wanted to post a flyer I designed for a DJ show I'm throwing with a friend of mine (see photo). I'm really pleased with how this flyer turned out and am also very excited for the show. If you're in the Uptown Minneapolis area this Friday and fancy a fun dance party, join us! We will be taking over the VFW basement and providing a plethora of underground techno rhythms to keep your feet moving and your ears happy. To RSVP, click on the flyer image.

Fear of failure

Insightful words from the legendary graphic designer, Milton Glaser. This doesn't only apply to graphic designers but to all of us. Embrace failure.

Art fart

I'm coining that phrase right now. How many times have you had an amazingly creative idea come to mind at the most inappropriate time? For me this usually happens when I'm driving. Since I commute to school, I spend roughly 20 hours each week driving back and forth which gives me a lot of time to think about things. It's during my commute that I end up having a lot of brilliant ideas that come to mind, most of them come out of nowhere. Unfortunately, by the time I get home I usually forget what I was thinking about or I only remember bits and pieces. This happens more often than I would like so I thought of a name for the occurrence: art fart. See the handy definition I put together below.

I find that I experience a lot of art farts pertaining to graphic design. I have so much going on every day on top of multiple design projects for school, etc., that I tend to have a lot of fleeting ideas at the same time. By the time I have a chance to sit down and work with these rogue ideas, I can't remember what they were entirely, thus, art fart. Think of it kind of like a brain fart but more creative and such. Have you experienced anything like this? Does this make any sense to you? How often do you experience art farts? How do you cope? Feedback is more than welcome.

This year's Pitchfork music fest logo

I really like it. It's an improvement from past years (see below) and has really strong design sense. It's extremely simple but works extremely well. My only complaint/question is; could the three text elements be tied together more completely? The treatment of "Pitchfork", "Music Festival" and "Chicago" almost divides them into individual elements rather than making the entire logo one cohesive element. As of right now the lineup for the event itself sparks little to no interest in me but kudos for moving away from these images:

For a comical opinion regarding the new logo, check out this post on the Hipster Runoff

What young designers need to know:

"Focus on your portfolio, not your grades, that’s the thing that will get you your dream job. Learn your practice. No matter how much you think you know about design there’s always more to know. Know your typography in and out, and upside-down, it's the building block to any good design. Learn how to use your computer programs properly but before that, learn how to design without them. Spend all of your free time looking for inspiration but dont expect to find any because it always blindsides you when you least expect it. Take any design related jobs you can and do every single one to the best of your ability. Even if it’s just a birthday card for a friend, who knows it might end up as a portfolio piece."

This advice is from designersof.tumblr.com, a place where designers can share their work with the blog's 22,000+ followers, get tips, advice, network, etc. I agree with all of this, especially the bits about typography, learning how to design without computer programs, and always looking for inspiration. I am a huge fanboy of typography and type design and far too often I see great designs that would be even better if they didn't lack typographic quality. Kerning is my biggest obsession. I could kern for days so when I see designs with sloppy kerning I just want to scream. Having a vast knowledge of typefaces is essential as well. Helvetica is great but everyone and their sister knows that, branch out.

Designing without computer programs is something that I think is becoming an afterthought more and more with young designers (myself included). I'm guilty of jumping right into Illustrator, inDesign, whatever program it may be, and tinkering with a project from beginning to end without spending much time on sketching or processing outside of the computer. It's something I need to work on and I know a lot of my peers need to work on it as well. We are the digital generation so it's easy to go straight to the computer and plug away but your ideation process will lead to stronger results if some sketches and other non-digital drafts are a part of it.

Inspiration is key and finding as much inspiration as possible always helps with creativity. I try to find inspiration in anything and everything around me, sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't. Like the quote said, look for it often but it will always blind side you. I find that driving is a great time to think of ideas and work things out in my head. Some of the best ideas have come to me out of nowhere during my commute. Always surround yourself with as much inspiration as you can but don't be discouraged if it doesn't come to you right away.

If you're on Tumblr I recommend following designersof.tumblr.com. It's a great outlet for displaying your work, getting feedback, and seeing what other people are creating all in a less formal setting.

Words to consider

Some phrases I live by and chose to stylize:

As a designer I think these phrases are vital. You truly must create and create often to challenge yourself and grow. You must also remain authentic and set goals as well as reach those goals. If you are not authentic you are not harnessing your full potential. Without goals, where is your work going? It's one thing to make something that just looks cool or aesthetically pleasing but if you don't have a goal in mind or a reason for what you're doing then it has no real value. These phrases apply to any number of disciplines, not just art or design, they can benefit all of us.

A new perspective on kerning

From typecastcreative.co.uk (Sept. 21, 2010):

There are lots of tips on the best way to perfectly kern a piece of type. As with all design, kerning can be subjective, but some is just plain right or wrong. One trick that stuck with me was from the esteemed Maggie Lewis who was the Head of Typography at J.Walter Thompson for many years. She was fondly nicknamed the “Queen of Type” by the industry. I had just finished college and was pounding the streets of London meeting as many agency Type Directors as I could. I was quite nervous about meeting Maggie, but she was fantastic, gave me lots of critique without making me feel I was on a hiding to nothing and was generous with her time. She paid particular attention to the kerning on my layouts. Before the mac, headlines were usually set on a typositorand were cut up by skilled paste-up artists, even to the point where serifs might be shortened to create a better space between characters. Something that can and should be done in Adobe illustrator today.

Anyway she said the hard thing about kerning a word is that you know what it says, and so the subtleties of bad character spacing aren’t immediately apparent. She suggested turning the type upside down, that way you don’t read the word, you merely look at the shapes the characters make and the space that’s created between them. On the computer you can even flip the word as I have done above.

It was a great tip, and one I still use today.

Spare time design: self promotion

V. 1

V. 2

Type.

I Thought I would share a little bit of what I have been doing in class these first few weeks... Here is some typography work I did using Illustrator. The quality isn't the greatest after converting to jpeg format but you get the idea.

Here are some monograms I made using my initials in Helvetica manipulated in Illustrator:

Next I did some tinkering with the words "disruption" and "expansion" to show literal meaning, some more successful than others:

Lastly, some more word form work using the word "Typography". We needed to choose a word pertaining to the class and typography seemed like an obvious choice but proved to be quite difficult to execute. The word itself is already literal in regard to its definition but I think I managed to come up with some fun variations:

Pepsi design fail? Coke design win?

I found this and got a laugh out of it.


Maybe it's just my graphic design side coming out but I think it's humorous that Pepsi keeps trying to reinvent their logo so much while Coca-Cola never has. I will give Pepsi credit to their most recent logo update however because it is pretty darn sleek. Also, if you never noticed, the white ribbon on the new Pepsi logo actually comes in different sizes depending on the product it is placed on (regular on Pepsi, thin on Diet Pepsi, and bold on Pepsi Max). Creative!

Graphic design gold

Justice has an amazing video for "DVNO" which shouldn't be new news to you but I stumbled on a really interesting article about it today. If you notice, the video is comprised of numerous graphics and logos, many looking similar to actual TV channel logos or company logos from the 80's. This article at The FontFeed dissects nearly every scene/logo of the DVNO music video offering explanations of font styles and references to real logos. There is a lot of graphic design and typography jargon in this article so if you're not into graphic design technicalities just ignore it. What's really cool is seeing each logo from the video and the comparison that follows. They even offer Youtube links to some of the comparisons including some of my favorite references to the old HBO ident and Stephan J. Canell Productions. I highly recommend watching the video first below and then reading the link, not only is the video amazingly crafted but it's more fun to read the analysis when you have seen the video rather than relying on still shots in the article.

Justice - DVNO from Freedom Record on Vimeo.

Check out an interview with Justice in this link as well if you're curious about the concept behind DVNO.