Critique

Holiday Boredom Cured

Posted in Critique, Design, Graphic Design, Illustrator, My Work on December 24th, 2010 by bradleymu – Be the first to comment

I’m home for Christmas.  And I’m bored.

So to solve my holiday malaise, a little unsolicited packaging redesign…

Keys Soaps puts out some great products and they’re doing some cool things with their labels.  The ‘Therapy Facts’ riffing on ‘Nutrition Facts’ is pretty clever.  I chose one of my favorite products of theirs and spent the past couple hours before dinner redesigning the label.  Choose a font, make the margaritas.  Retype the bulleted list, grate the cheese.  Resize and center all the visual elements, warm the tortillas in the oven.

Their current logo (the first in the series below) is wrapped around a cylindrical container.  The center column is displayed on the front of the tube.

Their current logo is too busy.  It takes an iconic image (the first aid symbol) and makes it unnecessarily complicated.  There is way too much text, the text that is there is too crowded and a lot of it is redundant.

I understand the desire to hit all the high-points of the product on the main part (center) of the label, but it’s too wordy.  I simplified for better product recognition.

I included the second (and last) iteration because I might be using the same font as a typeface used in a prior Keys Soaps logo in my first iteration. So in the spirit of true redesign, I wanted to include a unique logo design; and also because I’m not a fan of the current typeface in their logo.

In short, I wanted to refine the label, make it less wordy.  The new text on the left side isn’t so crowded; the smaller font size actually improves readability.  The first iteration has a heavy, serif logo typeface contrasted with a thin typeface throughout.  The second iteration has a heavy, san-serif logo typeface contrasted with a thin typeface throughout.  Everything’s in its right place, brand name, product name, brief explanation, product details and ingredients.  The two redesigns are more streamlined.

Here’s my redesign.  And here comes our enchiladas and margaritas.  Enjoy my redesign as much as I’m going to enjoy this meal!

Adios!

Copperplate Gothic is everywhere…and I can’t stand it.

Posted in Critique, My Work, Typography on December 19th, 2010 by bradleymu – Be the first to comment

I’m a font nerd.  I wouldn’t be writing this if I weren’t.  I recognize fonts everywhere.  Futura while standing in line at the Post Office, Helvetica (seemingly everywhere), of course Times New Roman, Comic Sans (unfortunately) and Copperplate Gothic.

Either I’m weirdly tuned-in to Copperplate Gothic because it’s on my mind (one of those weird ‘the universe is connecting us’ kind of things) or it really is almost everywhere.  I saw it recently on the business card for one of the best restaurants I’ve ever been to – I almost offered to redesign their card, doubt that would have been received well.  It’s the font of choice at one of the best coffee shops in Chapel Hill, NC.  It’s on the notice to turn off cell phones at my gym.  Alas, it’s even embossed on the back of my beloved, soft-back Moleskin drawing book…that one hurts.

See, I can’t stand Copperplate Gothic.  And it’s all because of the serifs.  I can appreciate a font’s history and it’s usage, but not Copperplate Gothic.

It’s cartoonish.  It takes the informality of a san-serif and tries to dress it up with ill-placed serifs.  There is a disconnect.  Without the serifs, the font makes sense.  It’s readable, it’s ‘heavy’ and imposing, strong line-weight, wide horizontal axis.  All the requirements for a reliable san-serif type.

But the serifs come off as an afterthought.  Their proportion is out of sync with the rest of the font.  Perhaps Fredric Goudy, the font’s creator, was attempting something new in type design – which I appreciate.  But it’s glaringly wrong.  Either the line weight is too strong or the serifs too small.  The x-height is ‘off’ or the spacing is.

Take a look at the ‘E’ for example.  As a letter, it’s unbalanced.  The balance shifts right, ironically, because of the small serifs.  The serifs don’t exist in harmony with the rest of the glyph.  The bar on the ‘L’ is too long, only to be exaggerated by the blunt serifs.  And where some glyphs have a general rectangle shape they should have a square shape to maintain the aesthetic and vice-versa.

I see all the letter forms and want to chop and trim the serifs.  Copperplate Gothic is begging to be a san-serif; it’s spirit is a san-serif.

I understand why it is so widely used.  It comes off as distinguished, historic, strong and masculine.  It is readable.  But there are so many other options for a typeface.  It’s a shame so many people are drawn to it and it’s so ubiquitous.  It has become the ‘go-to’ font for those seeking something strong, distinguished and readable.  Why not take an extra 15 minutes in choosing a typeface?  There’s the obvious Trajan or why not play around with all-caps Century or Book Antiqua or (ironically) all-caps Goudy Old Style?

Is it so prevalent because it isn’t as stodgy as a Garamond or Caslon, as pretentious as a Didot, as simple as a Helvetica?  Maybe.  Copperplate Gothic certainly exists in its own category.  And while I actually can appreciate Copperplate Gothic as a singularity in the world of typefaces, it sits on the fence too much.  It wants to be a san-serif but is holding on to an older aesthetic with the points of its little serifs.

The Status Quo is the Enemy.

Posted in Analysis, Critique, Design, My Work on November 22nd, 2010 by bradleymu – Be the first to comment

*Posted in my Elon blog on November 21, 2010 in response to 30 Conversations on Design.

To be a designer, does one have to be liberal?  Gone are the days when a designer focuses solely on form or function or fusing the two.  Now it seems designers are uniformly liberal.  Whether it’s Emily Pilloton who currently lives in Bertie County, North Carolina, trying to use design in the classroom to better educate children in a broken education system or it’s Tina Roth Eisenberg who wants to bring clean water to those with insufficient access, designers are progressive.  They seek to change, to empower, to inform.  The status quo is the enemy.

Designer as liberal.  It’s like the chicken or the egg.  Does the profession push designers to a liberal mindset or are liberals drawn to the field?  Or neither?  Or both?

I think it’s both.  I can’t imagine a designer seeking to maintain the status quo.  To enlighten someone or empower someone…it’s like a mini-revolution.  Think about suppressed populations throughout the history of the world that weren’t taught to read.  Their inability to empower themselves enslaved their minds as much as their bodies.  For the suppressors, ignorance is bliss; it’s also irresponsible.

Designers seek to inform people, shine light on their ignorances (either of choice or neglect).

The process of design is the cognitive action of deciding how something should be.  In order to design, one must fully understand what they are designing, how and why it will be used.

From this total understanding comes the knowledge that what they’re designing is more than just form and function, designers understand it’s the ability to educate people.

As I’ve been writing this piece, I’ve been jumping back and forth between “design of product/tangible object and ideas/conventions of thought.”  I realize I’m really speaking to design of ideas, information and conventions of thought. As the Internet takes it’s place in our lives, design comes with it.  In fact, it may be more important than ever. Information must be designed to adequately exist at our fingertips.  But as information is designed rather than simply presented, it’s relevance and power increases.

Designers understand this shift.  As information becomes more ubiquitous, as more individuals can collect and disseminate information, those who understand the weight design can potentially carry see design as a means to an end.

So yes, activists and liberals probably are drawn to design.  And the nature of design requires those working in the field to always push the envelope.  But as a designer must fully understand from every possible angle what he or she is designing, I can’t help but wonder if the term activist or liberal is a mis-label and that those who would be labeled as such, are simply informed.