Seasonal Wishes from Circle...

Circle2011_SeasonalWishes, originally uploaded by Adrian J.K. Shum, CGD.

Wishing you hope, peace, love, joy, and the very best for 2012 (the year of the Dragon)!!!

In lieu of the traditional, Circle has opted to distribute holiday e-greetings (past cards drew from Chinese proverbs, ancient rune translations, etc.). This year's message was written by Robert L. Peters.

Happy Holidays from Circle...

All the best wishes to you and your loved ones for a happy holiday season, filled with love, laughter, and good times!

For a number of years now, Circle has distributed holiday e-greetings (past cards drew from Chinese proverbs, ancient rune translations, etc.).

May 2011 (the year of the Rabbit) bring you prosperity, peace, love, and happiness. Cheers!

Warm Wishes from Circle...

Holiday greetings! May your holiday season be filled with much warmth, love and happiness! Cheers!

For a number of years now, Circle has distributed holiday e-greetings (past cards drew from Chinese proverbs, ancient rune translations, etc.).

COOL! Type Quiz: Helvetica or Arial?

Ironic Sans presents a fun little quiz for the typographically inclined - So you think you can tell Arial from Helvetica? Try it! Through 20 logos originally designed with Helvetica, redone in Arial... blasphemy? Perhaps... but, a fun challenge anyhow.


Feeling up to the challenge? Go and check it out for yourself at http://www.ironicsans.com/helvarialquiz/ - enjoy!

Recommended Viewing | The American Package Museum...

If you're a fan of nostalgia or packaging, I highly recommend that you take the time to visit The American Package Museum... where curator, Ian House has taken his personal collection of early 20th century packages and created an online gallery/archive to share with everyone.


There are some really neat old packages in this gallery, it's interesting to recognize some familiar brands and see how they've evolved... check it out at http://www.packagemuseum.com/ - cheers!

COOL! Car Logos Quiz...

A great little bit of fun, Car Logos Quiz... guess the automotive logo with just a part of it showing. Try it out for yourself, here.


I ended up with 45/50, and I totally guessed on a few of them. ;)

Thanks to Marie-Aline Oliver for posting the link to the GDC Listserve - cheers!

Recommended Viewing | 75 Inspirational Business Cards...

Another great link from Lana in Copenhagen, 'just a little inspiration.' Lana's come across 75 Inspirational Business Cards via Yeeeeee check 'em out, here - enjoy! There are some real nice, creative examples in there with exceptional production value...

Thanks for the link Lana - cheers!

Recommended Reading | Let the (Logo) Games Begin... via Speak Up

There's a great article/experiment over on Speak Up, where Doug Bartow hires four 'inexpensive' online logo design companies, giving them the same visual identity problem, and critiques the results. It's a must read IMO. Check it out over on Speak Up, here:

http://www.underconsideration.com/speakup/archives/005099.html

Thanks to Jean-Sebastien Dussault for sharing this on the GDC Listserve - cheers!

Worldwide Identity – Inspired Design from Forty Countries reviewed by Maggie Macnab on DT&G...

The book, Worldwide Identity – Inspired Design from Forty Countries authored by Robert L. Peters and designed at Circle has received another positive review, this time from Maggie Macnab on DT&G. Here's an excerpt from the review:

There is more to being a designer than using tools to re-form and regurgitate our thoughts. There is more to design than balancing concept with execution. Design is intent: the process of understanding relationships and making choices based on that knowledge.

We make our thoughts real when we put them into the world, and they give us back the world we live in. Worldwide Identity – Inspired Design from Forty Countries is thoughtfully written and concisely edited by Robert L. Peters, beautifully designed by his team at Circle (Winnipeg, Canada), and published by Rockport in partnership with Icograda (the International Council of Graphic Design Associations).

Read the review in its entirety on DT&G, here - cheers! :D

Recommended Viewing | Less Hyphen, More Burst for Walmart via Brand New...

I highly recommend you take a minute to visit Brand New - opinions on corporate and brand identity work (a division of Underconsideration), and read the article (by Armin Vit) about the new Walmart identity , which includes an overview of the logo's evolution over the years... check it out here. Be sure to read through the comments... some of them are ROFL hilarious!

Thanks to Mark Simpson for sending me the link - cheers!

Happy Canada Day!

Happy Canada Day everybody! Enjoy the national holiday... cheers!

OGC Logo... WTF?

The UK's Office of Government Commerce recently revealed their new logo... to the amusement of the males on staff. Tilt your head 90 degrees to see why... read the original story here - cheers!

Thanks to Oliver Oike for posting this to the GDC Listserve.

Recommended Reading | Small Caps

There's a great little article by Alec Julien over on the i love typography blog about small caps. I would definitely recommend that you take the time to read through the article, it's quite informative and I'm sure that you'll learn a thing or two you didn't know before. Check it out here - enjoy!

Via i love typography.

COOL! Short Video on YouTube about Typography and Font Design...

As a follow-up to my 'Fontastic Fun' post, check out the above (made for TV) YouTube video short on typography and font design featuring interviews with Steven Heller, Jonathan Hoefler and Tobias Frere-Jones. It's a rather basic overview but, worth watching anyhow. Check it out on YouTube here.

Via Drawn! - the Illustration and Cartooning Blog. Cheers!

Recommended | Icograda Launches New Website...

Icograda, the international council of graphic design associations and a partner of the International Design Alliance, recently launched their new website. The redesign of the Icograda website was a collaborative project between Icograda's IDA partner, ICSID (International Council of Societies of Industrial Design) and Vancouver, Canada based Ion Design and Smallbox Software. The website will be an invaluable resource for staying up to date on international design news, as well as being a massive resource of feature articles, case studies and research reports. Check it out at http://www.icograda.org/ - enjoy!

About Icograda - The International Council of Graphic Design Associations (Icograda) is the world body for professional communication design. Founded in 1963, it is a voluntary assembly of associations concerned with graphic design, visual communication, design management, design promotion and design education. Icograda promotes communication designers' vital role in society and commerce and unifies the voices of graphic designers and visual communicators worldwide. The vision, mission and core values of the council are collectively embodied in the statement 'leading creatively' and manifested through our members' diverse activities to use design as a medium for progressive change.

Watch Helvetica: The Movie - ONLINE NOW!

If you haven't seen it yet, you can watch the Helvetica documentary film online now via Google Video here - enjoy! Via Computer Arts Daily, via Best Documentaries Online blog.

UPDATE: I just got off the phone with Gary Hustwit (who was very pleasant), it appears that the video was uploaded illegally and Google Video will be pulling the video from their servers shortly (I had a suspicion ;P).

If you're still interested in watching the film, I suggest that you look into purchasing the DVD. Visit the Helvetica Film shop at http://www.helveticafilm.com/shop.html - Cheers!

Recommended Reading | LogoLounge.com's Logo Design Trends...

LogoLounge.com is an online (paid-subscription) resource of logos (over 60,000+). There have been a number of LogoLounge books published in the past few years by Rockport Publishers, I believe they're on number four now... anyhow, take a look at the logo design trend articles by Bill Gardner. To learn more, visit http://www.logolounge.com/ - Cheers!

'Chinglish' - Lost in Translation...

2008 will be an exceptionally exciting year with many major events taking place around the world. One of these would be the Beijing 2008 Olympic Summer Games. As I'm sure that you're all aware, the Chinese have been preparing for the event for some time now (they made the news for being well ahead of schedule years back), part of these preparations is ensuring that english translations are incorporated into store and navigational signage systems.

Sadly, that is where the trouble begins... Chinese (Mandarin) is a rather complex language built out of individual characters/symbols which can represent multiple meanings depending on how they are vocalized. Enter 'Chinglish', which generally is the result of rigid machine translations of Chinese to English, often with humorous results. The picture above when correctly translated actually means, Loose Dried Fruit. There's a great article about this lost in translation problem, with more examples here.

If you think its an isolated incident, think again... check out the 'Chinglish' pool on Flickr. Some of these are ridiculous... enjoy!

WTF? C.I.A. "Terrorist Buster" Logo...

No, the above is not a parody... it is an actual government logo. What were the C.I.A. thinking? I'm sure that they've gotten a lot of criticism for the design... you can read some of it here.

Typophile Film Fest 4 (Opening Credits)

I love typography and I love animation. This video created by the BYU Graphic Design students and faculty, is an excellent example of how cool animated type can be... check it out here on YouTube - enjoy!