The annual AIGA Awards are a little like the Oscars, but with better kerning, bolder eyeglasses, and much less Botox. At this year’s gala celebration, co-chaired by Pentagram’s DJ Stout and Su Mathews of Lippincott, guests were encouraged to wear hats shaped like buildings (make your own with this handy template). I stepped out to lash a cardboard Eiffel Tower to my head and scope out the scene.

From left, AIGA medalists Ralph Caplan, Robert Vogele, and Elaine Lustig Cohen with AIGA executive director Richard Grefé; reveling designers strike a pose in the urbane photo booth. (Photos: Angela Jimenez for AIGA; Denise Ginley and Steven Robinson)

Much like the return of migrating birds and an elevated pollen count, spring brings with it the design industry’s very own prom, the annual AIGA Awards. Last week’s event, entitled Bright Lights Big City and held in Manhattan at the Altman Building, didn’t make use of the pastel ubiquity of April, but instead opted for a deco-inspired architectural theme, where the entire event was set in black-and-white, referencing the Beaux Arts Ball of 1931 in which architects dressed in costumes of buildings they had designed. This year’s guests were invited to design and create hats in the shape of their favorite buildings, bringing some unexpected wit and levity set against the relative severity of black cocktail attire.

However, the focus of the evening isn’t fashion, it is to honor the newest recipients of the prestigious AIGA medal. This year’s honorees were not simply accomplished design professionals in their own right, but together represent four of the essential archetypes of design. Ralph Caplan represents The Observer, following his career as a design author and having gained the unique ability to find perspective and turn that into something informative and enticing. Elaine Lustig Cohen comes to us as The Artist, creating groundbreaking work in typography and illustration, and raising the status of the designer and of design as a whole. Armin Hoffmann is The Mentor, demonstrated by the generations of design students he taught directly, and the enduring popularity of the Swiss style so closely linked to him. Finally, Robert Vogele embodies The Entrepreneur, demonstrating that classic American story of a regular Joe who created a scrappy upstart that became a thriving business and influential design practice. To the younger designers in the audience, it was inspirational—our challenge is how to embrace these qualities in our careers and become the next archetypes of design.

Steven Heller and Milton Glaser bracket a group of AIGA medalists past and present. (Photo: Angela Jimenez for AIGA)

While the medal-presenting portion of the evening was steeped in sentiment and reflection, the mood was generally light, with a strong sense of community. Local firms such as Carbone Smolan Agency and Lippincott brought a large contingent of their New York staff, but designers from across the country were also present, ready to reconnect and laugh, to eat and drink, and to ham up their “team photos” in front of a custom backdrop, wearing cardboard hats shaped like skyscrapers and monuments.

Readers should know that the annual AIGA Awards night isn’t an evening of stogy old designers blowing windy praise and discussing the obscure edges of art. It’s a varied cross-section of our business, a grab-bag of today’s most passionate designers discussing and celebrating what they love.

The other day, I came across a rather comprehensive collection of copycat posters in China, with the layout, photographic style, and general concept lifted directly from Hollywood movies of recent years. Check it out for yourself.

This isn’t me calling out another designer for copying — there’s plenty of that on the web — this is me being puzzled over the apparent lack of home-grown creativity in the Chinese cinema industry. While the entire world enjoys mainstream Hollywood movies, I’m a little surprised to see that there isn’t a uniquely local design sensibility to rally around. For example, a Bollywood movie poster looks distinctively Indian, as does something from the Middle East, Eastern Europe, and Africa. While the typography and photos of actors allow no ambiguity of this being Chinese in origin, I’m curious to see what true Chinese graphic design looks like.

It’s worth noting that this kind of copycat culture is par for the course in China. They’ve long been known to copy cameras, furniture, and clothing, and more recently, cars, restaurants, Apple stores and phones. Without going into detail, we’re also coping with this at work, so I’m learning all about it from another angle.

What are your thoughts? Are we allowed to be inspired by movie posters in creating new ones? Or should designers come up with entirely new designs as a matter of principle. And where are the Chinese designers in all this?

Disclaimer: This is a commentary on poster design. Don’t overreact.

Tim Cook speaking in front of Apple’s updated logo

We haven’t yet seen an official press release from Apple, or any implementation on products, package, websites, etc. so it’s difficult to tell if this is just a musing on a specific presentation, or if this is the new way of things.

The evolution of Apple’s logo, courtesy of Gizmodo UK

The splotchy spectrum rainbow colouring is a clear reference to Apple’s original logo, which fit in nicely to the hippy tie-dyed aesthetic of the 60s and 70s, but had become a bit of a burden by the mid 90s. The two “shiny” ones above show a reference to the product designs of their respective eras, both of which are now somewhat outdated by Apple’s own styling.

In my opinion, the simple outline is still their only logo. They’ve always fallen back on this for single-colour uses, and wherever the logo appears in white against a colour — which is most RGB uses, actually — it’s not given any faux-metallic treatment. This return to the rainbow logo marks a revival of their origins. Does this mean we’ll also see a revival in the desktop arena compared to the recent focus on mobile? And does it also admit that we are now in a post-RGB world where logos appear most often on-screen, and only later in print or packaging?

With such an iconic logo, the design industry looks to Apple as a bellwether for changes in identity design. But without Steve Jobs, will the company maintain their design discipline for clean, elegant layouts? Or will they run and go wild with their logos, adding drop shadows and bevel effects like every other crappy client who ignores the guidelines?

We shall watch with interest.

via Computer Arts and Gizmodo

Today I begin a new job. I’ll be joining MakerBot Industries in Brooklyn, spearheading their design and branding efforts.

download .mov

I don’t usually talk about my own employment issues on this site, but I think after so much time, it’s worth speaking about a few things:

It is only a slight exaggeration to say that I’ve been looking for work for 6.5 years. Since finishing grad school in the Fall of 2005, I have been, almost continually, seeking full-time work here in New York. During that time, I’ve been through the full gradient of unemployment, from full-time staff, to multi-month contract, to short-term rescue mission freelance, to working-from-home, to downright out of work. Frankly, it’s been a beast, and I’m incredibly relieved to be joining a firm once again in a full-time role.

With every new job, it’s a big move. New people, new commute, new company, new energy, new everything. It’s going to be a lot to get used to, and to adjust to. Coming from the freelance/independent lifestyle, I’ll have to get used to wearing shoes all day, ironing clothes again, packing a lunch, and not being able to play with my cat in the middle of the day. I’ll have to once again represent myself as an employee of a company, and not as a business owner myself. It’s definitely a lifestyle shift, but one that I’m welcoming.

I don’t really need to mention it, but of course it’s nice to have a salary again, with a benefits package and vacation time. Those concepts have all but escaped my mind having been freelance so long. (in fact, when I was full-time all those years ago, I never took a vacation, so I literally have never been on a vacation where I was still getting paid from my job.)

Gotta run for now, but obviously more will follow. There’s a ton of reflection and philosophising to do regarding work and life and careers, but for the moment, I’ve gotta get on a train and do it.

I don’t want to get ahead of myself, but I will definitely announce what’s going on — most likely in a video — so you’ll be in the loop. You can probably infer what’s happening, I’m not the first designer lately to hint at an announcement of this kind.

The point is, I’ll have to wait to pick up the website project for a little while until things get settled. Sorry. But stay tuned, it will happen. I swear it!

download .mp4 / watch on YouTube

It’s been a tough few days. After working to style the theme which will eventually be my new site, I realised that I was in danger of losing those customisations if the theme were to update. The solution is to create a Child Theme, which works as a sort of sandbox where I can modify to my heart’s delight without worrying about the original theme files.

That whole adventure of creating a working Child Theme was ridiculous. I lost the whole weekend stressing over that shit. I accidentally deleted my site and had to roll back from a nightly backup (thankfully my host keeps such a thing).

In some ways it seems I chose my theme with haste. Some more in-depth research might have led to finding a better theme to start with — something that is equally robust underneath, but more designed to be customised and messed with.

I’m going to proceed as planned for a few more days, but possible reboot my entire effort if this theme proves not to be a match.

Don’t forget, you can see the design in progress by heading to StolenDataTapes.com. Leave a comment in this post or on Twitter using the hashtag #redesign

But I’m interested to hear what you are all doing? Did you get your site’s finished? Make progress?

I’m trying to get this thing to a presentable point where I can publish-and-iterate. Sorry it’s been taking so long. I feel bad.

Don’t forget, you check out live progress over at Stolen Data Tapes. Feedback always welcome.

Drive

The Artist

The Descendants

In the last video, I talked about a testing site, and I’m gonna let you guys in on it so you can see the site evolve live. Check out stolendatatapes.com to see the new site in progress.

I spent most of my efforts thus far decomposing the theme and figuring out how to adjust it. That in itself is quite an effort, but now that I’ve got the workflow sorted I should be able to make some good sweeping adjustments in short order (after all, I’ve done this before.)

The site layout is pretty much sorted. The header and footers are mostly the way I want ‘em, but the main content is very much in progress. And of course the typography will change a great deal. Having the entire thing in Helvetica makes it look tragically like a template.

What do you think? Colours, layout, use of whitespace? Let me know your thoughts in the comments.

download .mp4 / watch on YouTube

I took a big step in my redesign process — I installed a new WordPress installation with new theme on one of my dormant URLs which I haven’t previously used for anything. This URL, which I will reveal soon, is one of a number of .com domain names which I own, simply because it’s a clever name, or maybe because I concocted some cool future plan which has yet to come to fruition.

The reason for this is mainly to create ease in testing. Allowing me to live-test the new theme will give me the closest simulation of how the new theme will react when I port it over to this site. It will allow me to use the same FTP authoring tools (Coda, Transmit, etc.), and troubleshoot any database and WordPress issues.

So far, I have done some basic work on the template, exploring how the authors built it, and figuring out how I can bend it to my will. This actually takes a bit of care, because there’s logic involved in deciphering how someone else built the theme. I have yet to get deep into the CSS styling, and so I will withhold showing it off for a few more days.

There is an adage that “web design is 90% typography”, so I want to make sure the type looks purposeful, in typeface selection, scale, and colour usage. That’s gonna take a while.

So how’s your site coming? Tweet using hashtag #redesign or interact by leaving a comment.