Joe | That Design

Ferris Bueller’s Day Off 2?

Joe — Mon, 30 Jan 2012 15:39:27 +0000

On 26 January, the YouTube account ‘ChuckaChucka2012′ uploaded a video titled ‘Coming Soon’ It features Matthew Broderick (Ferris Bueller) opening the curtains saying “How can I handle work on a day like today?” over the top of one of the main songs from the movie Ferris Bueller’s Day Off (1986). It stimulated a lot of excitement around the internet and even I, personally was really excited for what could be a second Ferris Bueller Film. The video has the date 2.5.12 which is the 5th of February in American format. This date is also the day of the 2012 superbowl. Eagerly awaiting the unveiling of the full trailer, I then came across this video today which will no doubt go viral within the hour. Right now, it’s at 307 views. It has been uploaded by Honda and is the full length version of the previous 10 second trailer. Straight away my heart sank as I realised there was no new movie coming out; just another advertising strategy that is benefiting from viral campaigns.

I had previously questioned whether a second movie would be successful or not but either way it didn’t stop my excitement for what was coming. I guess we’ll all just have to carry on as normal and for those who were fooled by it, chin up.

Busy Days Ahead

Joe — Mon, 05 Dec 2011 01:10:43 +0000

The blogs of That Design have been looking a little sparse of late, but don’t worry! We’re still here, just working a lot harder than usual at the moment as we all prepare for our first major hand-in of our final year at University. As with most students, we end up working right to the last minute, but I like to think it’s with the intent that we can get the best of our work out and available with the only thing stopping us being time itself.

I’m planning on creating some seasonal graphics for That Design in the next couple of weeks which you will get to see soon as well as some designs for 2012 coming soon!

For now, have a watch of this well-made music video from an 8-piece crew of School Pupils TA9 that is sure to go viral over the next few days. I saw this earlier and it only had 645 views but as I’m writing this it has 2,198 views. I think it definitely has essence of the Mac generation of bedroom creatives. By that I mean, the type of people who have become well skilled in a creative processes such as music and video and have been able to create a well polished piece in a not-so-professional surrounding.

It’s also hilariously fantastic. Well done lads!

Mini-Newspapers Printed Daily – BERG Little Printer

Joe — Tue, 29 Nov 2011 16:02:54 +0000

BERG, a design studio based in London have today announced a product they’ve been working on for the past year called Little Printer. “Little Printer lives in your front room and scours the Web on your behalf, assembling the content you care about into designed deliveries a couple of times a day.” Running on a new cloud service called BERG Cloud, this little device has the ability to print out some of your most important and fun daily activities that you would usually use your smartphone for. Things such as your daily agenda, news headlines and even fitness statistics from Nike+. It looks like a really unique opportunity to return to having printed media for many daily tasks that are now occupied by our digital selves on the morning commute. Being encapsulated in a small format means that each daily printout can be stuffed into a wallet or maybe stuck on the fridge for all to see.

Here’s how it works:

You have your Little Printer sitting in your home or office, it connects wirelessly to a small box connected to your router and is controlled remotely by an app on your smartphone (Only iOS and Android are mentioned at the moment). The App is used to control what items you would like to printed out for you and at what times in the day. There’s not a great deal mentioned as to what settings can be made but I’d like to think that you could create profiles of different printouts that you’d like. For example, a morning commute that would include the days headlines and a couple of puzzles such as sudoku or crosswords as well as your day’s agenda, or maybe a social networking printout that would display your most popular activity on Twitter, Foursquare, Google+ and Facebook. Maybe even a weekend profile that could have the sports fixtures/results or league tables along with a featured list of programmes to watch on TV?

Little Printer will be available in 2012 and you can subscribe directly to BERG to have more information delivered to you directly as they announce it.

View more from the BERGCloud blog
@BERGCloud

VIB 15 year Anniversary Event Branding

Joe — Sun, 20 Nov 2011 22:12:12 +0000

I came across this amazing project on Behance recently and I thought it was definitely worth sharing with everyone. At first glance, you may take a look at the photos and think, ‘Wow these are some pretty slick chalk illustrations!’ But then when you look further into the project and watch the video that goes with it you’ll see how it’s taken to another level altogether…

For the 15th anniversary of VIB, a life sciences research institution based in Flanders, Belgium, the creative studio Coming Soon took control of branding the whole event that they were holding in a truly creative manner. Using nothing but chalk and a huge blackboard they were able to create a really striking and informative design throughout the whole collection of media and signage. I absolutely love the detail of the chalk drawings and the precision that they have achieved with their typography and illustration. I personally, would really struggle to wash them off the blackboard based purely on the fact that they are massive pieces art individually, yet the team at Coming Soon seem to get on with the task at hand without hesitation (though they do have a handful of beautiful photographs documenting the process and finished pieces). The style of using chalk drawings on a blackboard may be classed as a bit of a cliché when paired with an educational and research based organisation but I think in this particular instance it work’s exceptionally well for the brand.

I think my favourite part is how this ties in with the website navigation. The header section of the site is a background layer video and the navigation is literally drawn in front of you. Take a look at the website here.

You can also view the video documenting the whole process below:

coming-soon.be

@comingso_

We’ve Officially Launched!

Joe — Mon, 14 Nov 2011 14:42:35 +0000

That Design has been around for a couple of months now, but our website was always *Under Construction* and still very much in a testing space which is why we took the decision to make an official launch as a way of saying “We’re here and we’re ready!” Along with that, we also each made a poster that would commemorate the date of November 11 2011. You can view the launch page and posters gallery by clicking on the screenshots below.

“Where is That Design headed?” I hear you ask. Right now, I can’t really give a straight answer. It’s something that is growing and will continue to grow as time goes on. Of course there is also the dream that one day it could become a fully fledged studio space but let’s not jump the gun here. The site will no doubt change and improve with new features and web technologies being added as well as the continuation of the blogs with posts from all of us.

All I can say is that I’m excited to see how far things can go!

TYPOLondon 2011 Saturday Roundup

commander — Tue, 25 Oct 2011 19:03:42 +0000

As I mentioned in my previous post, I was on my way to TYPOLondon for Saturday’s events at the University of London thanks to a free ticket passed on to my tutor from Colin McHenry, which I am massively grateful of! This post is going to be a roundup of all the posts about the lectures that I went and saw as well as some background information on the designers themselves.

TYPOLondon was a collection of lectures held over the three days (Thursday, Friday and Saturday) from the 20-22 October of this year, “featuring A-list speakers from the world of typography, information, graphic and digital design, brand experience, film, animation, publishing and education.” It’s been held in Berlin for the past few years and this was the inaugural event for London. I was only able to get a ticket for Saturday’s events, but from what I have gathered from the people I have spoken to; Saturday was the favourite day of events so I’m glad for that fact that I was able to enjoy everything on offer. Logan Hall, in the Institute of Education at the University of London is pretty sizeable lecture theatre and appeared to max out with the seating on almost all of the lectures that I saw there.

TYPO will be returning to London next year as well as also having conferences in Berlin and San Francisco. Stay up to date with their Twitter.

You can view all of my posts with the links below:

Marina Willer – Branding and Spaces

Jeff Faulkner – Extraordinary Machines

Morag Myerscough – Belonging

Dan Rhatigan – How I learned to Stop Worrying and Love Bad Type

Toshi Omagari – Creating Linotype Didot

Nadine Chahine – Engaging with the Middle East

Bruno Maag – Collaborating Types

Julian Zimmermann and King Bansah – The King is Customer

Jonathan Barnbrook – Virus

Chip Kidd – What Are You Doing Here?

TYPOLondon 2011: Chip Kidd

commander — Tue, 25 Oct 2011 18:15:57 +0000

Quite possibly the funniest lecture I’ve ever seen about anything typographical or design related came from the great New Yorker, Chip Kidd as he closed TYPOLondon 2011 in the Logan Hall.

I’d never seen a talk from him before but had seen pieces of his work online and in books. I would never have guessed just how brilliantly eccentric and ‘fabulous’ he would be though! Opening with a story of his new mantra which he acquired from an overheard conversation in a lunchtime queue at KFC in New York. “I was standing in line at lunchtime, in the Kentucky Fried Chicken off Union Square. I was in the back of the line, at the front there was this skinny little guy who was ordering – I would like 3 buckets of 21 piece original recipe chicken please.” “The woman behind the counter snapped – Is that for here or to go?!” “Excuse me? How the HELL would I sit here and eat three buckets of 21 piece original recipe chicken. Here. By myself.” To which the woman behind counter did not miss a beat and said “BITCH. I DON’T KNOW YOUR LIFE!”

Chip recalled of a story he learnt at School with a simple explanation. Show or Tell. It means to either show something, such as a photo of an Apple. Or to tell something, such as the word Apple. But you should NEVER do both. This is calling your audience a moron.

Simple but effective solution. This continued onto the work which he has been doing for the past 25 years, book covers. He told stories of his relationships with the clients and the authors and in the particular case of Jurassic Park, his tough dealings with legalities. The cover for Jurassic Park had a picture of a part-complete skeleton of a dinosaur drawn completely in solid black ink on a white background which text around the side.

This cover was successfully produced through the company Chip was working for and the rights to all the work was bought by the publishers in the off chance that they may make something else from it. As the work was completed during Chip’s day job and not through his own freelancing, he was unable to call in any legal action when this happened.

Throughout his story of Jurassic Park he sounded nothing but helpless and lost. Thankfully, he has done extremely well and has become one of the most successful book cover designers of the 90s. He told many more stories of his relationships with clients about designs in his usual hilarious manner including a particular book called ‘You Better Not Cry: Augusten’s Christmas Stories’ by Augusten Burroughs.

Unfortunately this cover was not actually chosen as the publishers thought that it looked as though Santa was showing the little girl his penis. As if the guns weren’t anything to be worried about. Chip carried on with other ideas including a collection of photos of pets wearing stupid festive hats.

Again, this idea wasn’t chosen and to Chip’s shock, they revealed that they had solved the cover in-house. This was the new cover. Penis and all.

Chip ended his talk discussing his current work on a Batman graphic novel that he is working on with illustrator Dave Taylor, called Batman: Death by Design which will be available next year.

TYPOLondon 2011: Jonathan Barnbrook

commander — Tue, 25 Oct 2011 18:05:29 +0000

With his font foundry ‘Virus’, Jonathan Barnbrook took us on a tour of his work and the thought process that he has developed within the typography side of his business. Having set up shop in 1997, it wasn’t until 7 years later that Jonathan first started selling his fonts to the world. “Style is a virus. If we didn’t need style, we’d only have one typeface”. It is quite clear that the fonts in the Virus collection are made by Jonathan for Jonathan. He is not someone who is driven by money or by political correctness and this is totally apparent in his type design. Having named a particular font after a serial killer and created a series of letterforms that represent this, it is no surprise that he has received his fair share of complaint letters over the past few years.

I got the impression that Jonathan is a bit of a rebellious character that always wanted to make something for his own amusement and point the finger at the general public for buying into consumerism and globalisation. Why the hell not? If we all worked for someone else and never for ourselves we’d be in a miserable state. Top marks to Mr. Barnbrook for coming up with a system that allows him to constantly work at his own accord.

The lecture was fairly relaxed and enjoyable to see how he looks at the rest of the world, whether he’s fighting a war that doesn’t exist is another question, but at least he’s having a great time ranting at the rest of the world.

Also take a look at his other work on his studio site Barnbrook.

TYPOLondon 2011: Julian Zimmermann and King Bansah

Joe — Tue, 25 Oct 2011 16:35:53 +0000

There was an actual real life King at TYPOLondon. Yes, a King. There had been quite a following generated over Twitter for this event and was predicted to be one of the most popular lectures of the whole series. It sure was indeed! Packing out the Logan Hall, Julian Zimmermann and King Bansah put on a brilliantly hilarious show. I didn’t quite know what to expect before it all started but Julian set the scene well with an opening 10 minutes about who the King is and what he did, before the King himself came out onto the stage.

Togbe Ngoryifia Céphas Kosi Bansah Was born in Ghana, where his Grandfather was King of the Hohoe region. In many parts of Western Africa, Germans had made settlements and created civilisations to which they were noted for their discipline and organisation. It was because of the German mentality that Céphas’ Grandfather and Father decided to send him to Germany to learn a trade and start a profession to earn money for the family back in Ghana. In Germany he became an apprentice at a garage and learnt to be a car mechanic as his main income. However, he also worked as an entertainer singing and dancing at events such as weddings and even on TV a number of times. Things were running smoothly until one day he received a fax to say that his Grandfather had died and that he had been selected to be the new King of Hohoe, Ghana. Bansah had to make a swift return to his country and take on the new role as a King. It was revealed in the lecture that he was chosen to be King rather than his Father or his eldest brother because of the simple ruling that in Ghana, you cannot have a left-handed King. Céphas Bansah was right-handed and therefore was the first in line who was eligible to become the King. It seems pretty ridiculous but it’s more of a qualification than the rules that we apply to our monarchy. As his story developed we all began to realise just how unique King Bansah is. He’s such an open and friendly person with an amazing sense of humour and entertainment that just throws smiles on everyones faces.

“It’s not easy becoming King” he states as he mentions the amount of work he has to do to raise money for the 206,000 people that he has to support in Ghana. He still works and lives in Germany and has endorsed many products and toured as a Royal figure throughout Germany, opening stores, kicking off football matches with legends such as the “Kaiser himself, Franz Beckenbauer” and still entertaining with his singing and dancing. King Bansah couldn’t speak English so throughout the whole lecture he was being translated, but half the audience knew the German language anyway so the room was divided into two sets of laughter which made for an even more entertaining experience. Such as when he explained the story about when how he opened a chocolate store in Germany that produced “white and black chocolates”. “I tried to only eat the white chocolate so I didn’t bite my fingers”.

So how does this relate to Graphic Design at all? Well, Julian Zimmermann went to the King to gain research on him as he was going to write his thesis on his lifestyle as a King working from Germany for his Masters degree. Further down the line, Julian approached him again to design an identity for him so that he would be taken more seriously as a King. They worked together for quite some time and traveled to Ghana to get some first hand experience of what life as a King is really like. The two realised that the image they were looking to create was something of an exotic identity that was split between being royal as well as entertaining.

This progressed into a excellent identity that was printed on matt black with gold ink and even had a royal seal that could be stamped onto official letters. Follow some of the pictures to see how it all developed.

Just look at that signature! It’s actually a well thought out and logical signature that represents his family and his Kingdom along with his lifeline of ups and downs.

King Bansah is also working to build a design and crafts School in Ghana that has multiple workshops for areas such as textiles, typography and even a workshop for car mechanics. You can see more of what the King is doing on his website.

I’ll end with a video that I found of one of his singles titled ‘Konig Bansah African Party’.

TYPOLondon 2011: Bruno Maag

Joe — Tue, 25 Oct 2011 16:28:20 +0000

After a quick break for lunch it was time for Bruno Maag of Dalton Maag to hit the Jeffery Hall stage with a few of his current interns. This was a talk that I was very much looking forward to and once again, TYPOLondon delivered with a well rounded lecture on the creative processes around typography. This lecture was much more informal than the others as Bruno made comments about his work and then divided the hour into sections from his interns and generated discussion on the stage about their methods and needs as a designer of fonts.

Once again, a big chunk of the lecture was about creating typefaces for regions other than the western world. One of his interns described the process for creating a Hebrew and Thai version of their Ubuntu typeface, which is an open source project which deals directly with the users in an online community in order to make a successful font. The project is very interesting in general and is available to download from Font Squirrel and Google Web Fonts.

Bruno also discussed his work with Nokia to create a typeface to be used as the complete package for the Nokia Pure, including print work, packaging and display based type. Once again, it was a great insight to see the level of detail that is required to complete such a huge task typographically.

Finally, the group explained their current plans to create a typeface to beat up ‘The other font’. That font of course being Helvetica. They feel as though Helvetica is flawed with design problems and want to make an utterly Grotesk typeface that will not become a laughing stock of the future. Bold words, but I have faith in them. The Font is called Aktiv Grotesk and you can try it out over on their website Here.