As a recent rider with San Jose Bike Party I came across this you tube video about the Bicycle Film Festival and was instantly interested. Not only because of the fact they show different types of bikes but because of the play with type.

What is Bicycle Film Festival? Here it is in their own words.
We bring together all aspects of bicycling to advocate its ability to transport us in various ways. Ultimately the BFF is about having a good time. We have been fortunate enough to include the work of established artists such as Jorgen Leth, Mike Mills, Jonas Mekas, Blonde Redhead, Swoon and Michel Gondry; as well as talented newcomers as part of our programming. Many of the artists who have participated in the Bicycle Film Festival, such as the Neistat Brothers and Lucas Brunelle, are gaining more and more recognition for their work.

Posted on September 25, 2009 by debra   |   Permalink

The NY times had four designers take a shot at redesigning our Homeland Security signals. This is what they came up with.

In the coming days, a Homeland Security task force is to recommend whether to keep, revise or scrap the color-coded terrorism-alert system that has for years alternately panicked and befuddled Americas. The Op-Ed editors asked four graphic designers for their own ideas for a better alert system. The artist provide an explanation of each of their works, and Kurt Andersen, the author of “Reset: How This Crisis Can Restore Our Values and Renew America”, provides audio commentary about the designs.

Read the designers explanation.

Before

Fogelson-Lubliner

Neville Brody and Jeff Knowles

Sam Potts

Paula Scher

Posted on September 17, 2009 by debra   |   Permalink

A poster the recipient completes by revealing spot-varnished type with hands made dirty by handling the poster. This is the first of a series of posters.
Designed by Roland Tiangco

Posted on September 15, 2009 by debra   |   Permalink

Who needs an iPhone dock that can cost $45 when all you need is paper and a printer. Thanks to French designer Julien Madérou you now have this free downloadable template. Go to his website and get one!

Posted on September 14, 2009 by debra   |   Permalink

Lately I’ve been to many baby showers and have seen the traditional colors of blue and pink spilling out of boxes and gift bags. If you’re like me you’ll never want a monochromatic wardrobe for your babies. This is prime time to dress them up in basically whatever you want and they have no choice but to wear it. Now, I don’t mean dressing them up in costume like some cats and dogs just cause you can but making them look like really cool kids with style a la Kingston (you know, Gwen Stefani’s little rug rat).

Wovenplay is this really cool children’s clothes company that uses natural, organic fabrics with hand illustrations that are inspired by children’s costumes. Besides it being really cool and almost vintage inspired I also love the photographs. These are just a few outfits and images that I love.

Posted on September 11, 2009 by debra   |   Permalink

The Westminster crew had a blast hosting the Yipee! networking mixer in our office on August 27th! We’d like to thank the Mountain View Chamber of Commerce and all the young professionals who showed up to take part in the fun.

Above is a photo of the promotional item that we concepted, designed and produced for the mixer attendees. Since we are avid Office fans, we thought it would be memorable to design the hand sanitizer bottles like little worker bees around the ol’ water cooler.

We have two remaining bottles, if you’d like one - follow us on Twitter @:

http://www.twitter.com/westmin951

and just tweet “Westminster Promotions Rules” and we’ll send you one!

Posted on September 11, 2009 by jack   |   Permalink

If you’re somebody who has a love affair with anything social online like Twitter or Facebook this might be one of your new lovers. Just Bought It lets people tweet or FB about items they just bought, where they bought it, for how much and it even has a map with directions for you. Now, you might think that this has nothing of interest to you but remember when twitter first came out? How it made no sense in knowing what your friend or what a celebrity is doing. Now look at it. It can be a powerful tool in marketing, getting the word out on something political or social. I can see a designer making post on Just Bought It about their website and how someone purchased something, or they can announce a sale they are having. Free advertising that is already targeted and you don’t have to do a thing but type.

Posted on September 09, 2009 by debra   |   Permalink

Logos are some of the hardest things to get designed. It has to covey a feeling, attitude and explanation in this one little image. You have to tell the consumer what’s your name, what is it you do and how they should feel about you. While some are huge hits like Apple, Nike and Starbucks you’ll never know what will work. Everybody has their own feeling of what works and why. While I might think the Target logo is clean, simple and memorable another designer might thinks it’s predictable, boring and uninspired.

This is why I like the article from Business Week. They took 4 designers, 7 logos and had them say what they thought worked and why. While I like the idea of getting the experts critique I felt some comments lack a reason for why they felt a certain way. Tell me why you don’t like an element instead of just saying you don’t like. Also, maybe a way of how they would solve the problem will be nice to read. To read how an experts thinks and how they get to a finished logo.

Posted on September 01, 2009 by debra   |   Permalink