down with design » News

Lions & Lambs gets Wolda inclusion

Gareth — Tue, 08 Jun 2010 21:16:55 +0000

I am happy to announce that the identity I created for Lions & Lambs Media Group LLC is to be published in WOLDA 09 (Worldwide Logo Design Annual. This is a huge honour. You can see some of the other winners here. Maybe next year we can win one of those awesome trophies they have.

Happy Easter!

Gareth — Thu, 01 Apr 2010 22:14:54 +0000

Happy Easter to all my clients, fellow designers & friends worldwide. Enjoy the short break and I will see you on Tuesday for more design madness. I leave you with a carbon copy of the Turin Shroud that I just found in my attic. I think he is listening to Metallica. DWD.

Social Jibber Jabber 2.0

Gareth — Fri, 26 Feb 2010 01:46:11 +0000

I posted this article about how the “credit crunch” was effecting designers last year so I thought it might be a good idea to give it a little revisit. I got thinking about how the industry has adapted to the challenges brought about by restrictions & the main change that I can see is that the role of social media has exploded.

2009 really was the year that social networking took off in the mainstream. As more and more people jump on the bandwagon, more voices are added to the simmering online stew hence more facebook users to get on your nerves and even more self proclaimed social media experts telling you how to become……a social media expert. (If they were real experts they would know better than to tell you this every 10 minutes).

Everyone, and I mean everyone has something to say, whether it is important or interesting is another matter but they will do a good job of trying to get you to hear it (that’s if they are a self proclaimed expert). And that is perfectly fair. I’m not exactly sure whether social media has directly increased the number of designers in the world, but one thing is for certain, it makes you aware of just how many there are.

There is one interesting trend that I have noticed. The big agencies don’t really “tweet” or “blog” that much, mainly because they don’t have to, they have their reputation to rely on. For smaller independent companies and freelancers the situation is different, social media becomes an avenue for exposure, after all that’s exactly what the vehicle of social media is, a cry for attention. Is this an advantage?

Absolutely. Anything that creates connections amongst people can only be a good thing. When used in moderation that is. However, it can be abused, and I see it every day. There seems to be a new design blog or a new “THE source for inspiration” website appearing every week. I’ve never really understood why some designers can only create by looking at something first anyway. Is that even classed as creativity? Or thinking? That’s another argument. It’s getting to the point of where most of the articles you read give you a sense of deja vu, probably because you read a very similar article on a similar website just a few weeks before.

Ever read a blog post that has no real substance and a fair amount of random words are made bold or are even hyperlinks? I’m sure you have. That’s a cunning tactic to make the search engines squeal with delight when searching for those keywords, it doesn’t really matter if the article is crap, google doesn’t care and neither does the person who wrote it, as long as an increase in web traffic is reached then everyone is a winner baby. So therefore we can sort of work out a formula for supposed social media success in the design world.

Design Company Owner + SEO / Social Media = Increased Web Traffic = More Potential Leads.

And we all know that an increase in leads can increase the chance of a sale. It’s quite simple when you think about it. So what happens now? Do you sit and wade our way through all of the social media trash looking for a real piece of interest or do we add to the madness that seems to be spiralling out of control?

Guest post for www.logofromdreams.com – 85 Automotive Logotypes

Gareth — Mon, 09 Nov 2009 18:21:59 +0000

As a thankyou for recently interviewing me I decided to offer my (amateur) writing skills to www.logofromdreams.com. I find it fascinating that almost everything we own has a logo in some form, and for this article I decided to focus upon the many varied custom typefaces that car manufacturers apply to their vehicles. Each different design has a unique personality.

You can read the post here: Click

Down With Design adopts the word “logo”

Gareth — Mon, 02 Nov 2009 23:53:45 +0000

I was recently shown a new fun initiative to help children who struggle to find the words to communicate over at www.adoptaword.co.uk.

The concept is simple, a £20 donation goes towards helping a great cause and in return you get an official adoption certificate for any word of your choice. As a designer, the decision was easy so I decided to plumb for “logo” which will take great pride on my wall in my office. They have a pretty cite logo too!

Which word are you going to adopt?

Interview With Logo From Dreams

Gareth — Sat, 05 Sep 2009 18:09:56 +0000

The highly acclaimed logo inspiration website Logo From Dreams is currently staging “Logo Designer Week” in which a different designer will be interviewed about logo design for each day. I was lucky enough to take part and was featured on Friday.
Click here for the full list of interviews .

Many thanks again to Sinisa from LFD for giving me this great opportunity.

The Hidden Visuals of Crowdsourcing Brands

Gareth — Sun, 30 Aug 2009 15:44:28 +0000

Perhaps one of my favourite subjects related to graphic design is Semiotics. For those not familiar with the term here’s a quick definition from Wikipedia:

Semiotics, also called semiotic studies or semiology, is the study of sign processes (semiosis), or signification and communication, signs and symbols, both individually and grouped into sign systems. It includes the study of how meaning is constructed and understood.

It’s important to consider Semiotics when developing corporate identities. Does it have any negative meanings? Is there any unwanted hidden imagery included in the design? The aptly titled “The Worst Logo Ever” is an example of what happens when the designer failed to look hard enough.

Whilst writing a recent post I made on the new Pepsi Logo called “The New Pepsi Logo Loves Fat Guys”; I got thinking about the semiotics of recent online brands, in particular those of crowdsourcing design websites. Here are my findings:

99 Designs

Take a look at the 99designs logo. At first glance it’s pretty innocent, but what exactly does it stand for? I hazard a guess that it can only resemble the sketching process, but personally I feel it looks like one of the squares on a Bingo card. This would make sense as entering a design competition is likened to playing the lottery.

Crowdspring

The site that most designers love to hate is Crowdspring, you can see their logo here. The little spring-like character obviously visually communicates the brand name but let’s look a little closer. Could it look like a jack in the box? What does this say about the users of the site? Or the site owners?

Brandstack

The Brandstack logo can be found on their website. Previously known as Incspring, Brandstack has come under fire due to users uploading poor quality spin-offs of already established brands. I think that the new logo definately portrays the word “stack” but what else could it mean? Can it symbolise the current trend of regurgitating brands that look slightly different through slight changes such as execution or colour?

Logo Tournament

Let battle commence in the roman ampitheatre of logo disputes. Seriously though, let’s take a look at the Logo Tournament logo. It may just be me but when I look at a gold elipse I instantly think of money. Could this be a subliminal message to users to try and encourage them to enter designs in the hope of winning a small prize? Maybe.

What do you think of these logos? Am I being too analytical? Or did the brand owners fail to spot these flaws?

Almog Design Branding

Gareth — Fri, 07 Aug 2009 15:12:34 +0000

I was recently comissioned by a web designer/developer to rebrand his freelance identity. Almog Koren, a talented flex designer based in Israel, wanted his new brand to illustrate the meaning behind the name “Almog” which means “coral” in Hebrew. We both decided that a more abstract approach was suited so that it was not completely apparent that the mark was indeed a symbol of coral and the sea, but still had an ocean-like feel. The bubbles in the icon form an arrow pointing upwards which shows that Almog Design uses the latest technologies and offer forward-thinking solutions.

I would like to take this opportunity to wish Almog the best of luck in the future. To learn more please visit: www.almogdesign.net

Brand A Brander

Gareth — Sat, 04 Jul 2009 15:33:13 +0000

I was lucky enough to take part in a branding experiment organised by Nathan of www.cobaltcow.com. 12 designers were asked, at random, to rebrand one of the other participants. I was asked to redesign the logo for Yossi Belki of www.yossigraphicdesign.com.

Each designer was given the answers to the following questions in order to form a design frief:

1. What name should be in the logo?
2. Is there a tagline that should be used?
3. Pick 4 words that explain what you want to portray int he logo.
4. Any specific colors?
5. Target market?
6. Any specific things that need to be included?

For Yossi I was asked to create a fun, retro, 70′s influenced design, so I decided to create a funky custom typeface. The designer who had the difficult task of rebranding my own business was Joshua Geiger of www.nineteeneightyone.com, and I think the design he created was very interesting.

You can check out the re-design I submitted along with the rest of the design solutions over on Nathan’s Blog. Thanks again Nathan for allowing me to take part.

Smashing Magazine Logo Design Mistakes Article

Gareth — Sat, 27 Jun 2009 09:58:09 +0000

Recently I was asked by the popular design resource website, Smashing Magazine, to give my opinion on the 10 most common mistakes in logo design. It was a great honour and I am currently working on some more articles which will hopefully be published in the near future. The most common mistakes read as follows:

1. Designed By An Amateur
2. Relies on Trends
3. Uses Raster Images
4. Contains Stock Art
5. Designing For Yourself Rather Than The Client
6. Overly Complex
7. Relies On Colour
8. Poor Choice Of Font
9. Has Too Many Fonts
10. Copying Others

Your can read the article in its entirety over at Smashing Magazine. I would like to thank everyone at SM, particularly Vitaly for this great opportunity.