So, the other day, while walking to work, I noticed something quite strange. As about 32 cabs flew by me at high speed, I noticed one was not like the others. No, I'm not talking about the occasional off-color yellow that we find on some taxis. This was much more subtle.
Do we all remember this PID post from last year by Christina concerning the new NYC Taxi branding effort? One of the MANY central problems agreed upon by all was that adding the "chunky" NYC (global) brand to the centralized (yet equally confused) "Taxi" brand was creating a horrible mash-up of fonts and weights. Further research in to the branding effort of both the NYC campaign and the Taxi effort shows that there was a lot of earlier design struggle associated with the choice. The "NYC" style was glommed on later- in committee.
And then I see this...
From the best I can derive, this is the "pre committee" version of the taxi logo. It still sucks...no doubt (Baseline? Anyone?). But it's exactly 45% less sucky than the "final" version we see everywhere. I was unable to get an actual photo (the image above is from the NYC Visit commercial which has been running along with this campaign...clearly produced before the "glomming"), but I find this rogue font to be interesting none-the-less.
So the past couple of weeks have been quite a doozy on editors over at Marvel Comics, but for reasons that are a little more complicated than one would anticipate. Just a few weeks ago, particular fans of Marvel went into an outrage over their realization that one of the upcoming issues of 'New Avengers', penciled by artist David Mack was overly 'inspired' artistically. The problem lies in that the artist seemed to blatantly steal the work of another artist in order to lay his panels out, which is what initially took the comic book fans by storm. But aside from the overt swiping of another artist's work, the man himself made a response to the issue, which enraged fans even more. Here are some excerpts to his 'process':
" thought it would be a subversive storytelling device to make each image of Daredevil based on an image of the actual Daredevil drawn in DD by DD artists. He'll look like DD but in the back of your mind you kind of think something is a little strange here. He's stiffer, he's smiling at the wrong
time...maybe in the back of your mind he's more like a mimic of the Daredevil you are used to seeing instead of the actual Daredevil comfortable in his own skin. That’s why I started with that iconic cover image of DD and even telegraphed it by using the similar buildings. You don't necessarily pick up on this immediately in the story, but maybe he seems to act and look a little off...and then when the reveal happens and you go back
and re-read the story, it dawns on you. That wasn't Daredevil at all, it was a copy of him. And that’s one of the reasons, I couldn’t speak on this until the issue came out."
"In this issue I was returning to the character, but
she was now an Avenger. A member of a super team, and
around a variety of super hero characters with a
multitude of abilities.
So I wanted her to be visually different this time. I
wanted her body language to feel colored by the
accents of all the other styles and super moves that
she would have absorbed. Where I had painted her
realistically before and drawn and painted her as a
variety of iconic fine art imagery throughout the ages
that she had absorbed, I now wanted to embrace the
comic book super hero aspect of her, and draw her in a
kind of iconic comic book style and figures. I didn't
want it to be overly glaring at first, but something
that would seem absorbed into her and that you would
catch after the fact. So, like I drew her in
references from my favorite fine art masters in the
past, I referenced her from some of my favorite comic
book artists in this story."
But as you can see in the images I posted above, there's a very thin line between what he mentions and what is reality in terms of one's work in comparison to another's. For instance, and many of you know this artist through posts on this blog, Greg Land has similarly gone through some major controversy for the same reason. Land has become infamous for taking photography and using it almost literally as reference. He, on the other hand, fesses up to it and creates some sexy covers in the process. Below is also a comparison of his work:
On an end note, the issue in question was a spectacularly written issue and played out beautifully. The art a bit inconsistent and the artist put the oddest schnoz on a latina character ever, but it was a great issue.
So PIDers, what are your thoughts on this?
Speak up!!
This one is for u guys. Especially u,
I don't have my camera. It's somewhere else. So these were taken with crappy webcam.
High res pics someday...
If given the chance, how would you re-design the current collection of USD Federal Reserve Notes in an attempt to bolster the dollar's value?
Guidelines:
•The design must remain current 6"x2.5"
•Notes must include: Denomination, "The United States Of America", "Federal Reserve Note", Year, "This Note Is Legal Tender For All Debts Public and Private", "In God We Trust".
•Design one, two, or all the notes. Whatever meets your fancy.
•Security should be a consideration.
•Using any current design elements of the USD FRN is up to you.
•Design both sides!
So the new U.S. 5 dollar bill is now out in the wild....and it has a HUGE, purple helvetica 5 in the corner...so yeah...get them while they're HOT.
Meanwhile, Colourlovers has a great post rubbing the well-designed money of the world in our faces.
I stumbled on this cool Flickr set from the creators of the Juno title sequence:
We have a new typography expert in our midst, and her name is Tyra Banks. Yes, the expert on Fashion, Models and Talk Shows has set her sights on graphic design. Oh Joy.
"It's fierce, it's thin, and it's in", said Banks late Tuesday afternoon. "What we're seeing in font trends these days is a throw back to some of the earlier typeface fonts of the 1980's. Fat fonts like Arial and Courier are yesterday's news. Today's diva types up her self-involved and boring blog in the timeless and skinny Times New Roman font."
At least we can bet that she does her own research for the show.
Via College Humor
A brilliant short film by Stefan Nadelman.
"Food Fight is an abridged history of American-centric war,
from World War II to present day, told through the
foods of the countries in conflict."
This really blew my mind. From the concept to the amazing execution.
For those of you using Leopard, (and if you haven't already purchased it already) I am going to recommend that you check out CandyBar. Recently updated for the new OS, it is a brilliant program that lets you organize and customize your icons, and dock. In a fit of boredom, i decided to spruce up the laptop since it got boring. So using Paul's latest desktop, CandyBar and one my favorite icon sets called Arcade Daze I changed all my icons into fun pixelated happyness. I hope this artist releases more icons soon for the rest of my applications. My dock is so confused! Still fun though.
Here's a pretty solid collection of those dialog/typography videos that became so popular in the past year:
http://www.alwayswatching.org/features/great-scenes-television-and-film-told-using-only-typography
Peterson's early works for Marvel include a New Warriors annual and a fill-in in X-Factor in 1992[1]. Later in the year, he had a short run in Uncanny X-Men, drawing the title's issues of the "X-Cutioner's Song" crossover.
Peterson left Marvel to join Top Cow, pencilling the ongoing title Codename: Strykeforce. After the title's cancellation, he wrote and drew the creator-owned title Arcanum, before returning to Marvel in 1999 to work on several X-Men spinoff mini-series.
He left Marvel once more to become Art Director of CrossGen Comics[2], but returned for another stint on Ultimate X-Men and the mini-series Ultimate Vision and Strange.
Explanation: An eerie blue glow and ominous columns of dark dust highlight M78 and other bright reflection nebula in the constellation of Orion. The dark filamentary dust not only absorbs light, but also reflects the light of several bright blue stars that formed recently in the nebula. Of the two reflection nebulas pictured above, the more famous nebula is M78, on the upper right, while NGC 2071 can be seen to its lower left. The same type of scattering that colors the daytime sky further enhances the blue color. M78 is about five light-years across and visible through a small telescope. M78 appears above only as it was 1600 years ago, however, because that is how long it takes light to go from there to here. M78 belongs to the larger Orion Molecular Cloud Complex that contains the Great Nebula in Orion and the Horsehead Nebula.
Via Astronomy Picture of the Day
I am always blown away by these sort of pictures of our Universe. If you can even call it "ours." I look at these pictures and think how small we all are in comparison, yet we are still so self-important. But we really don't have much of a choice in that respect do we?
We have three new Desktop Wallpaper designs by Laz.
Scroll down to download these and others.
Hello PIDerz. After almost two years of having the same layout. I woke up this morning with the itch to change it around. I still decided to keep the simple aesthetic but with a little bit more. Keeping the PID colors in the accents and adding some textures. Paul helped with background decisions. He and I are really happy with what came out. We thing it looks more like a pro-blog and its playful. Anyway, hope you enjoy it, at least more than the previous design.
Shal
I know that most everyone whose posted here has had a Moleskin. Well check out this fabulousness. This website offers custom engraving for your moleskin. Some of the examples on the site are beautiful. Its about 37 dollars for the engraving and everything together. I know what I want for my birthday!
via SpeakUp
Fun blog that showcases some fantastically horrible Photoshop Jobs. And if you happen to encounter a horrible PS Job, you can submit it and they will post it. Very entertaining.
via SpeakUp
Jarold sent me this flash that he found on NEWGROUNDS, and i think its pretty amazing. Thought I would share it with you all.
Via Jarold Guzman
The first three are Greek statues from the MET, the last two are extinct mammals from the American Museum of Natural History.
