After Thanks Giving I  decided to take the press out for a spin. While the mall were packed on Black Friday I stayed home and played. I had just tapped up the roller rails and was itching to try to print something. I had a linoleum block of a Robot I had carved prior to purchasing the Chandler & Price printing press. Originally, I was planning to build a DIY press with a car bottle jack. Decided that I should do it right and get a real press. So here was my test print. Hope to jump in deep next time and print a holiday card, using my boxcar base.

This texture was found in the kitchen. When I saw it I said, “I need to scan that.” My wife exclaimed, “You’re kidding me.” She knew I wasn’t. I love textures, and I’m always looking for examples to use in my designs. It’s not everyday I get to use rough organic textures in my work. Most of the time I use them in my personal projects. Can anyone guess how this was created? I’ll give you a hint. Trader Joe’s Frozen Croisassants on parchment paper.
 

All my years, born and raised in the bay area, and I never took a trip to Alcatraz. Left my SLR at home for fear of inclement weather (as was reported). The weather was wonderful and I was equipt with my wife’s half charged (My fault) pocket camera. While I still had a charge I was able to take advantage of the great clouds and plentiful textures. Then pushing the photos in Photoshop to add to the drama.

I like to study the history of graphic design. Over the past 25 years I haven’t studied design as faithfully as I would have liked. Recently, I found my old college text book on the History of graphic design by Philip Meggs. To show you how old I am the book is a 1st edition(circa 1983). Think the book is currently in it’s 4th edition. Looking back at all my yellow highlighting I use to like the Russian Constructivist. or maybe I had to write a report. Today, I tend to gravitate to the works of the Modern movement in the U.S. It seems to be the melting pot of design at it’s best.

I came across a 1943 Fortune magazine cover, designed by Herbert Matter . The image was intriguing. It was an abstract view of ball bearings. A black and white photograph with primary shaped colors overlaid. Amazing. When you think of the vision that it took to put this together. This was the days of oldschool prepress. No computer aided design back in 1943. Well, I had to purchase a copy of the old magazine cover and it is now framed and hanging in my office. It’s a work of art. Herbert Matter is a rock star of design. See for your self. Google “Herbert Matter”. There is even a movie on Herbert Matter scheduled to release in 2009. I look forward to seeing that.

I had a designer friend email me the other day. She vented about a recent client. I read another designer’s blog where he let off a little steam about one of his clients. If you’ve been in the business for any length of time you’re bound to have your share of frustrations. But design can’t exist without clients. It’s all about the client and their target audience. Nevertheless, there are those times when you just wonder why you wanted to be a designer.

I’ve joked many times in my career that I sometimes have felt like Tooter Turtle calling out to Mr. Wizard. “Help…help me Mr. Wizard I don’t want to be a Graphic Designer anymore.” Every episode starts when Tooter tells Mr. Wizard he wants to be something like a Spaceman, Fireman, or a Football star. Imagine if Tooter asked Mr. Wizard to be a Graphic Designer.  Mr. Wizard would tell Tooter to be careful. Just like always the misguided Turtle would then magically be sent off to be a great designer. He’d arrive expecting to find a visual communications utopia, a place where you could instantly create art that was ultra creative–Award winning! Tooter’s designs would always communicate the client’s message, increasing sales instantaneously. He would always be the hero. I know now that this place does not exist, but Tooter has yet to experience design with out a solid foundation based on a process. He sets out on his journey, disregarding the creative process, only to find outside variables standing in the way. The design world eats him alive. Tooter soon would cry out for Mr. Wizard to save him from peril. Mr. wizard would say “Twizzle Twazzle Twozzle Two me Time for this one to come home.”

Funny thing, while writing this blog entry I realized that almost every episode of Tooter Turtle could easily mimic life at times as a designer. Example, watch Quarterback Hack and image the opposing team is every obstacle you’ve ever encountered. By the end of the cartoon you may find yourself mumbling for the aid of Mr. Wizard…LOL

Hard to imagine being rescued from budget restraints, approaching deadlines, weak copy platforms and unrealistic expectations. (Hopefully our need to be rescued is never the result of a bad design.) Tooter’s mistake is usually simple; he disregards the effort it takes to be successful at any endeavor. Talent alone doesn’t always carry you. You could have the perfect design solution, be the greatest designer the world has ever seen, standing at the gates of design utopia, and then suddenly pulled back to reality. Design doesn’t happen in a vacuum. We will always have too many variables to contend with to ever be the perfect designer for every client, for every project. So I may jest about crying out to be rescued by Mr. Wizard. Nevertheless, I always heed Mr. Wizard the Lizard’s advice, “Be just vhat you is, not vhat you is not. Folks vhat do zis are ze happiest lot.” I am what I is, that I’m a creative guy, working in an industry I love, doing what I love to do.

I’m not over the World Series fever. Can’t be any happier when you’re a baseball fan and your team wins the championship. Just as the excitement reach it’s peek I realized I’d be with out baseball till next season. Then I realized I had my baseball research project, and I could channel my baseball energies. I have to admit I’ve let my research sit far to long. In 2007 I built a Joomla site to organize and share information on Northern California Baseball history. I decided that rather than update the site to the latest and greatest Joomla version I’d like it to be blog than Content management driven. All I need is an excuse to redesign one of my websites. So I put my WordPress knowledge to use. Actually built a custom design bases on the Thesis template.

With little to no fanfare, I’ve launch a new website for my personal portfolio. I’m trying to remember when I first ventured into web design, it must of been circa 1995. Us the word “circa” and you’re stepping into the wayback machine. I’ve been in the design and advertising industry for about 25 years. I’ve been wondering when I built my first website. I went to wayback machine internet archive to see what I could find. Must of been some where around 1996. Pictured is Meadows Design Groups first website, nothing fancy.

You couldn’t do much back then. The internet started finding its way into the public interest in late 1994. Our first ventures where hand coded simple layouts. We lusted for a WYSIWYG program like Deamweaver. I tested the waters with one or two personal sites. I recall going to a two day Adobe web conference in San Francisco where they gave us (future web designers) copies of their new program — Pagemill. Pagemill released in late 1995. Couldn’t do much in that program. But it was a start.  Back then we thought an animated gif was something to marvel…LOL. Amazing how we continue to have to evolve with an ever changing industry. Heck, that’s what keeps us young. Staying passionate about what we do.

Mdgdesign.com, Meadows Design Group is long gone, but not forgotten. Today, I’m Creative Director for DRB Partners, Advertising Design and Public Relations in San Jose/Silicon Valley, California. Where I continue to design for the web as well as print. Our design services include: Website design, online advertising, eMarketing, and traditional print.

I’m really liking this jQuery stuff. Pretty easy to implement into web design. Nothing beats a good web developer by your side to make your design come to life. Nevertheless, if the budget can’t allow for the web dev and back end help you have to rely on you own bandwidth. Little knowledge goes a long way. Most people have seen the iPad. There is a bit of a wow-factor when you see the touch screen in action. This bit of jQuery code has much of the same wow-ness. It works on my Droid and I think it should work on Apples touch tech products. Touch is cool. There is even a tech term for it – Haptic Technology. Haptics refers to the sense of touch (from Greek “I fasten onto, I touch”).

Above is a sample page layout design that uses “Reel” jQuery plugin by Petr Vostřel.
Design creative interactive web demo page by Ken “izzomac” Camozzi, San Jose, CA

Last weekend my wife and I found an interesting image of an old auto shop at a little shop in Niles, CA. Weeks earlier we found a weathered old book at shop in San Juan Bautista, CA. I’m always looking for exciting ways to show my friends our latest finds. I could just post the image on one of my social networking accounts, but I want to recreate the excitement I had when I found the artifact. So the hunt goes on… online.

The real find of the day was this sweat jQuery effect I stumbled on at Tutorialzine. It’s called “Apple-like Retina Effect With jQuery.” You might have seen, or built similar effects in flash. Nevertheless, this is simple and lightweight. Little knowledge of CSS and the ability to identify a couple of dimensions that need to change within the JS code and you can amaze your friends. As I hope I have. The growing world of jQuery solutions offers visual designers an effective way to enhance their page design, without Flash. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not someone that advocates the demise of Flash. Just like having options.

I’m sitting here at Starbucks, wondering what the heck is going on up in Seattle. I don’t like to criticize other designers’ work. Redesigning a logo for a very visible brand like Seattle’s Best Coffee just doesn’t happen. There has to be a lot of thought behind any new brand marketing program. Well, one would think. I honestly don’t understand the direction Starbucks has taken with their new Seattle’s Best logo. A logo is much more than a pretty design. A logo is a big part of a brand’s identity. This new logo is hard to figure out. I don’t understand why. It seems to have destroyed any brand equity Seattle’s Best may have enjoyed in an increasingly crowded market.

The new logo is very controversial. I’m not the only one who thinks so. Many think it looks like a logo for a blood bank. I have to agree, It does look like a drip into a pool of blood. Starbucks press release states, “The new brand direction will bring a simplified approach to the coffee category in all the ways it will touch the customer.”

The corporate release goes on further to justify the logo elements by explaining:

“The new Seattle’s Best Coffee logo maintains the brand’s historic association with its name and the color red while assembling a number of universal coffee symbols, such as a drop and a cup, in an unexpected way.”

I think they should check their universal symbols manual. Red with a drip equals blood. Black and a drip would say ink or oil. Maybe brown might have communicated coffee. I do think they were right to say they used symbolism “in an unexpected way.” Unexpected does not mean it’s good. You have a better chance of success if you go with what is appropriate. I’m having a hard time finding the logic behind anything I see here. Graphic symbols are very powerful design elements. They can and do evoke emotional response. Take a look at these examples:

Best I can tell the direction is to take Seattle’s Best Corporate. The degree to which this brand identity has been simplified may only work for a corporation like Enron. To the consumer it can feel like a generic product found at Target or Safeway. It does not say quality. It’s cold, and sanitized. What was wrong with the old logo?

The best I can tell the new intent of the direction is fueled by a corporate desire to increase franchising. So this may explain a logo that is more appealing to corporate investors than coffee lovers.

One final note, I feel that this is a push into a market segment that Dunkin’ Donuts has been able to exploit. But did this new logo have to use a similar rounded sans serif font. Seems like a lack of originality. This just doesn’t work for me; this is visibility below the noise. Not a way to rise above the competition. Although, if this was a way to get attention it has done it’s job.