WordInk » Art direction spectacular

Things Could Be Worse…

Katie — Wed, 28 Sep 2011 00:24:57 +0000

Tuesday is finally looking up! I’d just stumbled across my new favorite tumblr blog (move over English Major Armadillo), Things Could Be Worse. It’s the perfect mix of two-color illustrations, excellent writing, pessimism and absurdity. Just in case you’ve been missing some Edward Gorey in your life.

1.21 Gigawatts of Cool

Katie — Fri, 09 Sep 2011 00:56:51 +0000

You know your teaser campaign is awesome when people want not only your product, but all the other stuff you used to get them to excited about the main attraction. I want these glasses just to have around the house. You know, just in case.

In Logo We Trust

Katie — Tue, 05 Jul 2011 18:04:15 +0000

Politics aside, and boy do I ever mean that. Elections bring sure bring out the designers. And why wouldn’t they? When else do we see the simultaneous launch of tens of new brands competing within the same market, using essentially the same color palette? Plus, no matter what party you’re with, your branding has to be conservative and non-alienating. Basically, it’s a big old design competition with extremely rigid rules meant to take a lot of the fun and creative thinking out of the process. Through great restrictions come great possibility. Or really terrible ones. And so here is our first logo analysis of the 2012 election season. Let the design snark begin!

Six Degrees of CSS

Katie — Sat, 04 Jun 2011 21:33:05 +0000

So I’ve seen this shirt in like a million places all over the interwebs. Pretty awesome, right? So it was only after wandering around on my super talented friend Ashley Dailey’s site Pop + Shorty that I realize that it’s not just a shirt she sells, it’s a shirt she MADE. That’s right. Ashley rocks and I’m one degree away from internet design fame.

For The Win!

Katie — Sat, 12 Mar 2011 15:54:28 +0000

Victory! My former cube-mate cohort Caitlin Garrison and I won a Silver Addy! Ho hum, right? WRONG! We didn’t work for an agency, we didn’t have clients coming to us with cool projects, and we put all of our eggs in one over-worked, over-stressed basket with a single entry. 100% return on investment!

We clawed our way into the competition and I do mean clawed and got a nice little something something to put on our resumes.

Did I mention this was in the middle of our office move and we were literally cutting paper on the floor at 2am because all the tables were gone? Did I mention we had to wait for a contractor to come out and put an outlet in the wall before we could print? Yes, it was that kind of project.

We didn’t win gold, but we were able to hold our own up against big established agencies. Yey for us!

March of the Penguin Classics

Katie — Wed, 01 Sep 2010 01:21:23 +0000

Well that explains THAT. Penguin is celebrating 75 years of being awesome and torturing high schoolers (in many ways, the same thing) and is going all graphic design crazy on their literary classics. Well done.

In other news, if you have yet to visit Penguin UK’s blog, you’re missing out on one of the better corporate blogs on the Web. Much like today’s librarians, you expect them to be all stuffy and uptight, but it turns out that the hipsters were busy taking over the literary world at the same time they were conquering Williamsburg.

Dirty Words

Katie — Thu, 26 Aug 2010 02:44:03 +0000

Fact: Cee-Lo Green is the soul machine.

Fact: Cee-Lo Green can rock a costume.

Fact: Cee-Lo Green has a new song with a teaser music video that’s nothing but text. No chicks, no boats, no Cristal, no ice. Just colors and fonts.

Bonus points for the LACK of Sketch Rockwell font. I think we can all agree on that one.

In related news, the song’s lyrics, title and theme all contain a word that is giving my mother heart palpitations right now and she doesn’t even know it exists. You can find it easily enough on google. Pretty screen shots, full speed ahead!

Update: This version is miles better than the recently released “official video.” You’ll always be the official version in my heart all-text video!

The Great Cover Up

Katie — Thu, 15 Jul 2010 12:33:31 +0000

Remember all those awful Penguin Classics and other books we were forced to read against our wills in high school and college? Remember how painful they were? Now with the wisdom of years I look back on those books and my god so many of them are still terrible, but check out what they’ve done with the covers! All of a sudden, I’m thinking man, this Moby Dick looks like an action adventure I could really get into, rather than some overstuffed tome I somehow avoided reading in high school. Look at that whale! It’s jumping out of the water like one of those great whites on Shark Week! I mean come on! How could you not want to read this book?

And Wurthering Heights! It looks so intriguing and mysterious, like something your cool artsy friend sketched in their binder during math class. It like, totally gets you, and like sucks you in and before you know it you’re entrenched in some mediocre story from the least impressive member of the Bronte crew.

The Frankenstein I read in high school was a mere 100 pages or so–every one of them insufferable. But this, this actually looks cool. Granted the entire book isn’t in comic book form, but all of a sudden I want to know more.

And check out the author bio, even that’s done as a comic. So much more interesting.

I include my BFF Kurt Vonnegut here as well, simply because the spines of these books include a shout out to Vonnegut fans who know that that asterisk isn’t an asterisk at all. Mwahaha…inside joke!

The Stranger offers a side-by-side look at the before and after of Vonnegut’s redesigned books. Maybe it’s because he’s gone to that big clam bake in the sky, but I think using Vonnegut’s own drawings and handwriting is far more interesting than whatever geometric thing they had going on before.

Do you remember the 21st of Mo’vember?

Katie — Wed, 18 Nov 2009 01:15:54 +0000

My mother, who gets the majority of her pop culture education from talk radio and likes to claim she’s “hip,” recently pulled out a shocking bit of on-trend knowledge by reminding me that it’s Mo’vember–the month of mustaches!

As of late, mustaches have been gaining in popularity rank right up there with zombies and ninjas in the hipster cannon of “the now” I’m not certain how I missed this one.

And after getting a look at the official Mo’vember Web site, I can’t believe it’s not getting more press. Their Web site is FANTASTIC and obviously designed by *gasp* a graphic designer. The logo? *Swoon*

And the kicker is that it’s all for charity, prostate and testicular cancer and whatnot. Watch out pink ribbon. Mo’vember is coming for YOU.

In fact, my only real qualm is that there isn’t actually an apostrophe in the name, which without proper context I’d probably read as Mooooovember. If the AP style guide is going to force me to write Web site as two word and capitalize one of them, I’m taking liberties AND creative license with Mo’vember and there’s nothing anyone can do about it.

Keep calm and NOM NOM NOM!

Katie — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 12:03:37 +0000

Remember those adorable “Keep Calm and Carry On” posters? They were like WPA posters, but more minimalist and had that certain British flair that we all know and love when it’s not connected with mad cow disease.

Well, them days are over. The parodies have come and not only have they come with a vengeance, they now come in different flavors to suit your hipster needs!

Holiday Flavor

Indie Rocker Flavor

Tinnovator Flavor

Snark Flavor