Blogs

I spent an inspiring four hours watching the making of Blade Runner at the weekend, and as a designer, what really stood out for me was the designed world that Ridley Scott and his art team created. Every detail is lovingly attended to and it creates such a seamless and immersive landscape. While it is a bleak dystopia, it is graphically lush, and I thought I'd share some of the logos from the documentary. I couldn't find any better examples on the the web so apologies for the ramshackle shots, but hopefully you get an idea.

Take a look at this poster for the new Michel Winterbottom movie, The Killer Inside Me. Why is Jessica Alba’s name directly over Casey Affleck’s body? And why is his name the closest to Kate Hudson, and Kate Hudson’s name the closest to Jessica Alba? This makes no sense.

Two basic laws of design are being ignored here: Proximity and Pattern.

A selection of Vintage Logos from some old adult movies. Some of these are absolutely fantastic, I love the glow in Angel Burns and the nice Paramount pastiche - surely one of the original Adbusters? You can see more here. If you like this you should aslo check out the Justice 'DVNO' video. 

To Haiti with Love had just launched, where for just £1 you can send a beautiful digital postcard from the likes of – among many others – David Shrigley, Cass Bird, Anthony Burrell and even Tinder + Sparks. So far so cool.

June 2008 and the country is up in arms. The official logo for the London Olympics of 2012 has been released and has been derided across the nation. 50,000 people sign a petition to get it changed and MPs have put forward various motions in the House of Commons requesting the same. Stephen Bayley calls it “lazy and inept and completely without energy,” and in one of the more creative critiques, author Tom Lutz thinks, “...it represents the multicoloured vomit sprayed across the capital's pavements at 3am on your average Sunday morning.” The Sun even claimed the logo gives people epileptic fits (actually it was the flashing release video that gave people epileptic fits, but “Flashing Images Triggers Epilepsy” doesn’t really have a news element). People from around the world send in their alternative logos using the jagged elements of the London one, including a man sitting on a toilet, sex acts performed by Lisa and Bart Simpson or, in a more literal sense, the shapes were amended to spell out the word S H I T.

Recently I appeared in BBC1 show, High Street Dreams with Jo Malone and Nick Leslau, and I thought I’d take this opportunity to talk a little about my contribution to it. I barely appeared on the screen but some of the work I did became a important part of the episode. The show itself has a very good focus on branding and packaging and it was great to be involved as a graphic designer in the project.

The FedEx logo is brilliant/The FedEx logo is Rubbish
The FedEx logo is a masterpiece of modernist design. Not only is it unapologetically clean and bold but the arrow, formed in the negative space between the 'E' and the 'x', is a brilliant graphic device and a clever piece of subliminal advertising.