Aurelian Design News

Like many blogs, I've settled into a slow cycle of new postings.  But that doesn't mean things have been slow at Aurelian Design.

Recently clients have included an activity center (designs for gift cards, rack cards, and direct mail cards), a non-profit (logo and invitation designs for a fundraising event), and some website changes for an engineering company.

When not working on graphic design projects, I'm helping the Arts of Kenmore as a new Board member.  Their big art show is at Bastyr in late June.

FYI Poster Contest Entry

Here's my official entry to the 2012 AIGA "FYI is a Poster Show" contest. You can see a higher-resolution version here.

I'm working on a recreation and historical map of northwest King County (Shoreline, Lake Forest Park, Kenmore, Bothell, Woodinville).  If anyone has suggestions for particular sites to include, please comment or send e-mail.

Product Illustration

I've put up another example of a product illustration done entirely with "vectors" in Adobe Illustrator. No photographic elements are included in this illustration. Because it uses vectors and not bitmaps, it can be re-sized and not lose any detail.

Handmake book design and construction

The marbled paper design below was for a book design and construction project. Just about everything was done by hand. The end product is shown below. The rough steps involved are listed afterwards.

Here's what it took:

• Write the text.
• Setup layout in InDesign. Type and edit the text.
• Select and add pictures to the layout.
• Print signatures (groups of pages) in booklet order. I printed them on 24 lb. laid paper. I ended up with three signatures of three sheets (twelve pages) each. Also save two extra blank sheets for the end papers.
• Tear the pages to size. This gives a rough, handmade look.
• Fold the signatures and the end papers.
• Sew the signatures of the book block. Describing this process could be a separate post.
• Glue on the mull to the spine of the book block.
• Sew two headbands onto some extra mull in two colors. Glue them onto the ends of the spine.
• Glue on the end papers to each side of the book block. Perhaps this should have been done before gluing on the mull, but it seems to work out.
• Cut the spine and cover boards from some 2mm paperboard.
• Design the cover marbling pattern in Illustrator (see post below). Add title block on front cover and spine area. Printed on the same linen paper used for the pages (not ideal for a heavily used book). Trim.
• Glue spine and cover boards to the back of the cover paper.
• Fold over edges of cover paper and glue.
• Glue the end papers of the book block to the inside of the cover boards. Done!

Marbled Paper Pattern in Illustrator

For a book cover design, I came up with a marbled paper pattern, entirely in Adobe Illustrator. A sample of the pattern is shown below.

One nice thing about doing it this way is that I used 9 global color swatches in Illustrator. If I ever want to use this again, but in a different color scheme, I could change those swatches, and I'd be done. Even the blotches are based on the swatches, so they would update, too.

Infographics

Today's Infographic from Aurelian Design:

How To Tell If You Should Be a Graphic Designer

Step 1. Does your closet look like this?

New Aurelian Design Brochure

Aurelian Design has a new brochure.  You can download a PDF on the Home Page, or send me your name and address (US/Canada/UK only please), and I'd be happy to send a printed copy to you in the mail.

Illustration

Here is my latest illustration, which is also up on the Illustration page of my web site.

Seattle Illustration and Graphic Design

You can click on the image there to see more detail.

New Aurelian Design Business Card

Since it never knows what type of event it will be invited to, it comes in both black and white:

The white card is actually printed on thin semi-transparent plastic card stock.  It looks better in person than in a photograph.

Review: Seattle's Best Coffee Logo

Can you smell the aroma?

Many have already commented on the new logo for Seattle's Best Coffee, which is now owned by Starbucks.  My immediate reaction to it was negative, but I thought I'd wait a few months before making up my mind up on it.

Now that some time has passed, my view is still the same.  Aesthetics are a part of graphic design, but more important, perhaps, is communication.  And what does a quick look at the new crest-type logo say, or not say?

To me, it says "cheap product."  This is a very different first impression from that given by their detailed previous logo.  Unadorned text and graphics look more appreciate for a discount product.

And it doesn't say "coffee" to me.  This is not helped by staying with red as the primary color in the logo.  While that might work for the previous logo, with its old retail sign style, it loses any remote sense of context here.  What's the first thing you think of when you see red and a drop of liquid?

Overall, a big failure, if coffee is still your main product.