Work the Metaphor

Brilliant ltd


This is a really simple little design for a calendar by Brilliant Ltd. There is nothing particularly spectacular about this calendar but I really like the little people made from the company logo which the calendar is being created for.
In this case, Brilliant have taken the name of the company and just looked at how they can play around with the already existing logo and just add things to it.
The g turned 90 degrees makes a good set of eyes and Brilliant have played on this across the poster, adding items to the side to make them into little human figures.
I think this is a cool idea, and even though it isnt amazingly impressive it is definitely something that catches your eye and makes you need to know what each month has making up their little character.




This is another deign by Briliant, this time just a simple brand identity for an airline. This is a really good brand identity and the logo really speaks for itself. With the logo alone you can already tell what the company is and what they do which is a really good touch and great for the company. The long swooping stroke across the word jet goes right through where a stroke would naturally go on the E and the T, and the upward bend completely represents a jet taking off perfectly. The font is really simple and plainbut it fits well with the context of the image and manages to look quite sophistocated on the orange background (unlike a certain popular budget airline with similar colours) which looks quite inviting. The photograph on this imageis really suitable as well. The woman's eye is looking upwards into the sky which is another representation of air travel and a well recognisable sigouette of a plane is visible in the eye's refelction.
The bright blue, clear sky connotes holidays abroad in hot countries and really makes you want to have a holdiay away in the sun which is obviously great for the business.
Blue and orange dont often work well together when placed next to each other because they are complimentry colours. However by using the gradients of colour and taking advantage of light and reflections in the eye, the whole image is actually really nice to look at. Both colours appear bold and bright because they are complimentry so each colour's attributes are exagerrated because of the presence of the other. The entire image has a really warm feel to it even though blue is theoretically a cold colour.
The use of colour here is really well done and i'm pretty sure that if the colours were just a little bit different then the whole image would fall apart and be difficult to look at and really not advertise the company well.

Work the Metaphor

Thomas Jockin



This is a poster called 'Electric feel'. It is quite difficult to tell at first, but the jagged lines do say electric feel. I quite like this type because it actually quite complex. It took me a while to figure out what it said, but now that I look at it I can't help reading it perfectly every time.
The colours are really reminiscent of electricity when you see it in lightning or in lightbulbs; always a bright flash of white or a dim yellowy glow.
The straight cut zig zag lines also remind me of lightning, especially when placed against the black background.
It is quite a simple text but delivered in a clever way that makes it almost complex.

This is another piece by Thomas Jockin to promote anti-terrorism.
It is quite a shocking image depending on how you look at it, and I think there are a couple f different ways to see it.
The image is very clear and represents a mother and a child. It isn't really possible to tell what nationality they are, but judging by clothes, skin colour and past knowledge of terrorism it is likely that most people assume they are from the middle east asia or a country near by.
The splashes where the ink fades away look to me like explosions. This is the main thing that we all think about when we hear the word terrorist so it is a good signifier. The shocking part is that the 'explosions cover the woman and the childs face, which to me is an indication of the events that occur on a day to day basis in some countries. Even suggesting that such vulnerable people could be in this situation is shocking enough and really grabs the attention of the viwer.
Another way to see the picture is that the parts which are faded are similar to drops of water on fresh ink, possibly tear drops or just a representation of something that used to be there and now isnt.
Which ever way you look at it, the message here is that people like this vulnerable woman and child are killed a lot of the time or are victims in terrorist attacks.
I think this is a really effective piece of work and it does completely grab the viewer's attention.

Work the Metaphor

Lee Gustin


On Lee Gustin's website I found this old poster that I really liked. The colours are quite strange and dont seem to work together too well, I think that the darker red should probably be replaced my another colour to make it more appealing and a bit softer on the eyes. However, I really like the bright pink font in the foreground.
The colour is vibrant and the font is large which makes it stand out immediately fromj the page. I also like the choice of font because it looks like that font you would see stamped down on a folder markd "Classified" or "secret" which dierectly relatesto the title "The secret life of the nude".
I also really like the blue colour which stands out from the page even though it's smaller than the majority of the text. It makes the date and the 2 names really clear and readable.
One of the best parts of the pister is the background image. It's just a really simple colour over one side of the white paper but in context it immediately looks like the contours of a nude body from just below the arm to the hips. This Is really good imagery and still kept really simple and effective.

Work the Metaphor

Justin Thomas Kay

This is a font designed by Justin Thomas Kay for a kids clothing brand called 77KIDS.
I think the font works really well in the hand drawn scratchy version. The slightly scrawled, uneven look makes it look like it was actually drawn by a child and yet the spacing and structure of each letterform is perfectly legible and creates readable sentences. The font is quite similar to a stencil which also relates to children and the letters make no attempt at being script or joined up just like a young child when they have just learned to write.
I think this is a really good, simple way of representing children. Even if you did not know what the font was for, you could still guess that it was something to do with kids.
The vibrant colours in the background make it look like a childs book which teachers them letters so they work well within the piece too.
The more I look around at different design work, the more I find that a lot of the most successful pieces are the simplest pieces.

Work the Metaphor

I was just looking around the internet and found this design for a cafe on ImpDesigns.com:


It is a design for a cafe that is supposed to give the cafe a feeling of power with a modern flare. To me this looks like a logo for a physics laboroatory with a spoon and fork stuck on it. I don't think tht this logo works at all and it doesn't make me want to go and visit the cafe or eat anything. Nothing in the logo suggests cafe or nice food or even nice drink except for the small spoon and fork which do not stand out from the rest of the logo.

Work the Metaphor

Shaz Madani

I am really impressed by the work of Shaz Madani.

This is the first work that I saw of Madani. Aside from any subtle meaning in the image, it is undoubtedly a seriously impressive image aesthetically. There is something really satisfying about the clean cut corners and the number of layers and the perfectly formed leaves and letterforms which makes it really difficult to look away from the picture. In fact it makes you want to have it in front of you at this moment so that you can flick the pages examine the smoothness of it all.
This is a piece of work for Arctic Paper which is basically a group that concentrate on creating high quality creative design with a thought for the environmental impacts. Oh and they love paper for some reason.
The image is really pretty clever in what it says and the way that it's been created. The new leaf part of it is clearly to do with 'turning over a new leaf' which everyone knows as changing for the better. In this sense the leaf part of it relates to changing for the better and the actual leaf-like paper which it is consturcted from. In a similar way the turning over part of the type is to do with chaning for the better and also relates to turning over the pages of the clearly layered piece of work. Some of teh leaves are also making a peeling effect to relate to the turning over.
I think that this is a message about changing consumption habits or maybe just about being aware of the environmental ffects of your life.

This is a small commisioned piece for an article in the New York Times. This is really interesting and effective typography. The word toxic is always a negative thing which brings ideas of danger and death and discomfort and Madani has captured this really well in the type. It is probably most intersting because of the entire composition of the short phrase in that it isnt a font at all and each letter is unique, even repeated letters. This makes it look much more like an image than a word which I really like and I think it works really well.
The murky colour seeping away from the black looks really poisonous and is quite uncomfortable to look at. It appears really chemical-like and the way it seeps outwards from pure black gives the impression of a solid letterform dissolving violently. It is clear that full perfectly formed letterforms were used originally and manipulated and edited to create this effect.
i think it works really well at expressing the sickly toxic feel. It definitely looks like the letters are dangerous and I'm sure that you'd keep well away from them if they were physically infront of you.

This is a really simple part of a campaign called 'Man or Mouse' which is designed to persuade people to spend less time in front of their computers and more time doing things in the real world.
It really simply shows the word ONLINE cut in half. I love the simplicity of the image and the way that it is cut probably at the exact point where the word would start becoming illegible and unreadable. The simple black on white is really bold and there is no choice of where to look but directly at the word.
I think it is really simply saying cut the time you spend on the computer by half. It's really simple, the online is litterally cut in half so it's almost an order (not a persuasion or advice).
The font used is clear and bold and the whole image is straight to the point.

This is a cover design for The Hospital Club's magazine. It is based on the theme of this issue which is "Don't". Again , this is a really simple idea of representing the word don't without using the word and incorporating imagery which reminds the reader of other relevant things.
It shows the word DO! with a large red cross straight over the top of it. Everybody knows that a large red cross over something means "don't do this". By not DOing you something, you DON'T do it. The red cross creates images of no smoking signs and traffic signs and hundreds of other visual representations of being told not to do something.

This is a piece of work called "What is a pound worth?" about the materialistic world that we live in. This a realy clever piece of graphic design and is really relevant to the mailshot brief. Madani is almost insulting the recipient or at least forcing them to look at their life in a different perspective for a while. Madani has taken the really litteral route in this idea by saying that a pound coin is litterally only worth 3p in the metal that comprises it.
He uses "you're being ripped off" in a litteral term aswell by making the user actually rip the paper to see that sentence. It is also clever in the way that a recipient might be expecting something nice in the envelope which relates back to the materialistic view of the world.

This piece of work is called 'Tootpaste is Pointless". It is about how there are other ways to keep your teeth clean instead of the ordered ritual of tooth brushing twice a day. I think that the posters are bold, but I don't really like the imagery. The poster on the right has really bold imagery and there's no doubt that you couldnt help but read what it is about, but the apple looks more like a monster than something you should be eating. I think it could have been effective just to simply have an apple with a few bite marks out of it or something more playful than the huge teeth actually on the apple. Saying that, it is clever how Madania has clearly created the image of an apple and teeh and yet all he has used is block of white and a starnge white circle to give us the image.
The simplicity of the posters and the imagery makes them really playful and the rd and green colours are a brilliant representation of an apple. The green poster could incorporate an apple under the writing with a bit out of it so that the "bite me" has soimething to relate to and then the poster would have context and be able to work on its wn without the red poster.

Work the Metaphor

Kevin Lucius


Kevin Lucius is a designer/artist from the US. I think it's his style of photography, illustration and type that drew me to look into his work when I first saw it.


This piece is called 'Immigrants'. It has a really interesting composition in the way that the type and the photograph are positioned clearly in the foreground in different places in the frame and yet because of the opacity it's really difficult to tell which is closer in the foreground. Because of the type is blue in the greyscale picture it stands out more and becomes the main foreground just because of it's colour. If it was grey as well it would probaly sit exactly in line with the photograph, mayb even behind it.
The photography is really interestingly edited aswell because it has a really low contrast between black and white. There is actually no black in the image, it's all different shades of grey which are quite similar and give the effect of a really faded image which is where the image gets the very aged style to it. Couple with the old clothing and black and white photography it is clear that the image references history. You can't say for sure but it is very likely that the image refers to the US, not only because of Lucius' background but because the globe is positioned between asia and the US and the family in the photo are clearly white.
The type is really bold in what it is saying but is given transparency to make it fit with the old feel of the image. The colour almost gives it a link to the present and the past so that the viewer understands that the context of it is based around the past and present.
Also, immigration is a big problem in a lot of countires in the world so the image is definitely based on contemporary issues.
I think the poster is basically saying that everyone in America is an immigrant because they are not the native people of the continent and they should cut immigrants some slack and not being so close minded and judgemental.
I think it portrays this meaning really well and really strongly. It's just subtle enough that you don't understand it at a first glance but it is bold enough for you to be struck by it and read into the image a bit more to understand it. It is so clearly addressed at you that it makes you take a step back and examine the way you think about immigrants and morals. I suppose it could be argued that the black and white photograph is kind of metonymous with the past and history as a whole.

This is a really great logo design again by Kevin Lucius. It's kept really simple qand only uses a few colours to make it clear and neat. The black and white have a high contrast to make type and image stand out and make the type easily readable and the red and orangey yellow are pretty similar colours and really close in the colour spectrum which makes them easy on the eyes and gives off a warm calming feeling (kind of like a hot cup of coffee in the morning). The choice of colour is really good and well thought about; the red on its won would look much more sinister on the large amount of black background because it would connote blood and death.
The type is really clear and bold with a relaxed feel because of the slightly curved edges of the characters. It is clear that this sign is not of dire importance or anything to be stressed about. It's something comforting.
The font is changed on the word Cafe to a hand-drawn style script font to suggest a bit of elegance and it's a reminder of more fancy little french cafes.
The main thing that stands out is the rooster because it is the only actual symbol on the image and it is really well chosen. Everyone clearly relates the rooster to sunrise and early mornings when a rooster is known for making a lot of noise. It's a really simple image with no detail at all but hasjust enough to perfectly represent the rooster and the morning time. The outward expanding beams of yellowy orange represent the sun low on the horison behind the rooster, again linking to the idea of a morning and all linking in to the cafe name "Morning Brew".

This image is much artier than many pieces of contemporary graphic design because of its use of seeminlgy random shapes and styles like the circles in the background which I can't really place as having any purpose in the image. But this is still a really great way of representing an idea without using any words except a title; "New Fashion". This is another piece by Kevin Lucius.
I think it is trying to relate new and old just as with 'immigrants' but i'm not entirely sure why.
Aside from this, there are some really good methods of communication. I'm pretty sure that the image is litterally trying to say that new fashion has nothing to do with the way something looks but is completely driven by what people say is fashionable. In fact the televison could be a representation of the media, meaning that magazines and television are the things that tell people to wear certain clothes because they are fashionable.
The link to the past with the old style of imagery could be to do with the moment that this type of "new fashion" began in history but it isn't completely clear.
I really like the way this is laid out in the frame, it is clear that we are not supposed to focus on the woman as a whole but only really her body and the bright red bold clothing that she is wearing.

emotionslive.com

emotionslive.com homepage

Website design and logo design by Emotionslive.com

Emotionslive is a website designed by and featuring the work of "Mike". The website stuck out at me mainly because of the homepage featured at the top of this page. The colours and gradients and shapes across the page make it stand out a lot more than many wesbites and the smooth, ordered style makes it quite obvious that it is a design wesbite. The website also standsout because it has such a variety of styles and design in the portfolio.

justcreative design

Series of print design by justcreative design

Digital Mash

"Love Problems like Ice Cream" print by Rob Morris

SuperKix brand identity by Rob Morris

Digital Mash version 3.0 homepage by Rob Morris
This website is really intersting and has recieved a lot of positive feedback. It uses flash animation and interactivity to give it character and bring it to life. The head at the top is animated and can be changed to do different different things.

Deeks cafe brand identity by Rob Morris

Rob Morris is a digital designer from Australia. All the work featured in his online portfolio is digital, photography or digital print. He is a well renowned designer and places himself as from the "modernist school of design". He has a simplistic, clean style to his work.
Morris creates a wide variety of work from print to website design but interestingly he has several of his own self-imagined designs with no third party comissioning the design. I like this about the portfolio because it seems more personal and it shows that his passion for graphic design is not based around the money or the fame but rather the actual design. If he was not recieving any work or being paid i'm sure that he would still be designing on his own.

imjustcreative.com

Various logos by imjustcreative.com

imjustcreative is a logo design company that gives brand identity to companies around the world. This is a very different style of graphic design to the designers I have listed so far, but it is a really important one for the graphic design industry. Designing a logo for a company is important because it has to represent the company somehow in what they do or their aims but it also has to be visually appealing and memorable for it to be worth while. The logo has to give a company identity so that you can see it somewhere and know exactly what company it represents and why it is there.
You can see that the logos designed above are neat and well arranged. It is clear that a lot of different parts of the logo have been thought including colour, type, stroke and texture.

Ben Tour

"Cold 2" Ben tour

"Blood 2" Ben Tour

Ben Tour is an illustrator and figurative painter. he uses a variety of applications of paint to create his work, and is most noted for using a large majority of female characters in his paintings. His illustrations of the female form are incredibly anatomically accurate, most especially the facial structure of his subjects. His use of perspective and different angles is really interesting and makes for much more dynamic facial contours than many other artists using human form. The bold use of colour brings the characters to life and expresses a lot of emotion over the ultra realistic shape of the faces.

As far as I can tell, Ben Tour is an artist and illustrator far more than a designer. However, I think that his style gives a really genuinely original feel to his work and could easily stick out in the graphic design industry if given the chance.

Vault 49

Coca-Cola Advert by Vault 49

'Smoke City All Stars : Smoke City Album Covers' by Vault 49

Vault 49 is an internationally renowned graphic design company who produce work for high profile clients around the world. They specialise in a mixture of photography and illustration but are also well known for work with type. I really like their style of design because they can use a really simple looking style that produces a massively complex and detailed result. They also seem to have a really effective understanding of colour in terms of vibrancy and tone to express different meanings and add a strong ambience to the work.

Dave McKean

The Brotherhood - 'Elementalz' CD Cover by Dave McKean

"Cages" Issue #5 by Dave McKean

"Anthropomorphik" Calander by Dave McKean

Dave Mckean is an English illustrator, Comic illustrator, photographer and graphic designer and uses a combination of these in his work. I love the creepy, disturbing style that a lot of his work takes on and the mixture of photo editing and graphic design is quite similar to that of Bill Sienkiewicz.

Bill Sienkiewicz

"Adult Swim" DVD cover Illustrated by Bill Sienkiewicz

Bill Sienkiewicz is an American illustrator most known for his use of drawing, inks, collage and other things that are not often found in comic art and his use of combining several different techniques in one image. I really like this style and it influenced alot of work in my last year of A level Art. The different use of textures and materials in one picture i a really aesthetically pleasing thing to see and it has made Sienkiewicz really well known throughout the world and hlped win him a lot of awards for his illustration.

"Voodo Child: The Legend of Jimi Hendrix" Illustrated by Bill Sienkiewicz. Published by Penguin USA

"Electra: Assassin" Illustrated by Bill Sienkiewicz. Published by Epic Comics, Marvel Comics 1986.

Frank Quitely

"The Sandman: Endless nights" Published by Neil Gaiman and DC Comics 2003. Illustrated by Frank Quitely

Frank Quitely is a comic book and graphic novel illustrator from Scotland. He is a large influence to alot of my illustration work because of the high quality of the illustrating that he does.
The name "Frank Quitely" is a play on the phrase "Quite Frankly" and isn't his real name at all. It was actually a name that he used to stop his family from relating any of his work that they might see with him for fear that they would be offended or disapprove, but the name stuck and he uses it for all his illustrating. He begun his career illustrating for lesser known comics and a couple of self published works but moved on to working for Darkstar and working on things like X-Men and Batman. I've never known Quitely for his work with the comic book heroes style of book because it isn't really something that interests me. Instead, I actually found him through a collaboration with Neil Gaiman in a 'Sandman' story called 'Endless Nights'. I immediately loved his style of illustrating and the way that he lays out each page so interestingly. His attention to detail is really impressive and his characters have a really human character about them which a lot of comic style illustrators fail to achieve. Unlike a lot of comics, his work in this 'Sandman' book didn't have frames to break up different aspects of the page. This creates a really appealing soft gradient between different parts of the page and makes each look more like a work of art than a comic book story.

"Batman & Robin #5" Illustrated by Frank Quitely

Frank Quitely recieves quite alot of unnecessary criticism for his work because of the methods he uses to create his illustrations. Instead of using india ink to outline his pencil drawings like older style comic artists, he uses a computer to scan the image and then gives it the outline style using software like Photoshop.
I don't honestly see why anyone has an issue with this. In my mind it sounds like an easier way to produce the things that he wants to in a primarily digital age.