Love Thy Logo

Author: Bill Gardner

Logo design is not brain surgery, but it's about as close as most designers will ever get. Clients place the fate of their corporate viability in our hands knowing if we fail, they suffer the consequences. The logo is but a slice of the branding pie, but it's the slice that defines the feast.

Love it or hate it, everyone has an opinion or a better solution. We'll talk about identity in real time and other times, as it's one thing to know where you are but far better to know how you arrived. This is where the losers come to sulk and the winners come to gloat. Where design truth is splayed open when the curtains are pulled back and where genius and success are certified long before the votes have been cast.

Poster of the Week

Author: John Foster

Tune in each Wednesday to see a new artist and poster design featured on RockPaperInk. The author loves to get his hands dirty while making things and he admires others that do the same. John finds the best posters out there and features them, while also getting details about the person and process behind each new work.

Design Change

Author: Yang Kim

Design faces a continually shifting landscape thanks to new media, technological opportunities, economic pressures, etc. In other words, design ain't what it used to be. At the same time, as designers we know well that change itself can be researched, planned, designed. Designers are in a unique position to make a real impact on this changing world. Design Change explores not only how design is changing, but also how, as designers, we can get better at designing for change.

Sister Raye

Author: Robynne Raye

Sister Raye is a devout observer of all things design-related, with a special interest in design that is born of the hand rather than of the pixel. Celebrating line, color and form that has seemingly sprung from Nature is her…. oh shit, the Sister doesn't care much for mission statements! This is just a column about all the design stuff she loves.

Ask Design B*tch

Author: Terry Lee Stone

Design business isn't easy. Taking care of sales, finance, legal, and personnel issues isn't what most people who dream of a career in design want to deal with. Every design team needs a pragmatic realist who organizes all those bits and pieces, sweats the details, says "no" when it must be said, and minds the bottom line. They save designers' bacon again and again, but they are typically the nudge, the boring one, the meanie, the killjoy — the bitch. Well people, the Design B*itch is here, so you don't have to be. Go ahead and ask for help, you know you need it.

Please send your questions to: AskDesignB1tch@gmail.com

Design Change

Author: Kevin Budelmann

Design faces a continually shifting landscape thanks to new media, technological opportunities, economic pressures, etc. In other words, design ain't what it used to be. At the same time, as designers we know well that change itself can be researched, planned, designed. Designers are in a unique position to make a real impact on this changing world. Design Change explores not only how design is changing, but also how, as designers, we can get better at designing for change.

Fashion Filter

Author: Jay Calderin

How do you write about fashion, without necessarily writing about fashion? Which color is the new black? Who wore what best? What do you need to do in order to look like your favorite celebrity? What constitutes best or worst dressed? Those and many other similar topics will most definitely be off the table. It is not how I think about fashion. Besides, why would anyone want to read those musings from me, when I spend most of my time in graphic tees, western shirts, Levi's jeans and Converse hi-tops? My wardrobe not withstanding, I have devoted my entire professional career and a good part of my personal life to fashion. I know a lot about fashion, but even after all these years I cannot curb my appetite for discovering new ways into and around fashion. That will be the focus of The Fashion Filter. So, bon appétit!

Author: Craig Welsh

Playing With Type

Author: Lara McCormick

Lara McCormick is completely obsessed with type. Seriously. She grew up in Berkeley, California hand-lettering flyers for events. She has her MFA in Design from SVA, and a certificate in typography from Cooper Union. Lara has taught design at the School of Visual Arts and now Chairs the Graphic Design Department at the New Hampshire Institute of Art. Lara's favorite thing is coming up with new and inventive ways to play with, teach, and invent typography.

Her book, Playing With Type, will be avialable for sale in spring 2013 by Rockport Publishers.

Undercover

Author: Timothy O'Donnell

Designing for the music industry sure ain't what it used to be—the goalposts haven't just moved, they've been smashed into atoms. In these disorienting times, where album artwork veers in scope between tiny jpegs and the sprawling canvas of massive, exhaustive boxsets, designing for music is still an arena unparalleled for creative expression and experimentation. It's a discipline that offers a unique opportunity—few industries we design for are as emotionally charged or tied to our identity as music. Sure, people threatened to switch brands over Tropicana's misguided redesign, but would they really have followed through? I enjoy Vitamin C as much as the next person (perhaps not as much as Peter Arnell), but I have my doubts that people are that emotionally invested in orange juice.

And so, welcome to "Undercover," a new column where we'll explore/drool over/argue about music packaging, as well as taking the occasional detour into unrelated waters.

Plat du jour

Author: Yann Legendre

Design Law Literacy

Author: Frank Martinez

Design Law Literacy will focus on legal and copyright issues that pertain to creative professionals.

Friday Feast

Author: Emily J. Potts

Friday Feast will be a smorgasbord of fun tips, recipes, wild destinations, great design and more—all the things designers love!

Higher Learning

Author: Mary Scott

Higher Learning will address all the factors such as social media and the changing communications landscape that face graphic design education. As Bruce Bell, a former student and alum of our program at the Academy put it: "The future of print begins with the iPad." This signals the lessening relevance of printed materials which all graphic designers (or most) have always revered.

To prepare today's students for this future is to teach them to be media agnostics, designers willing and able to deploy their messages, in any medium. Communication platforms have and will continue to change, so will their audiences. Thankfully, the principles governing design translate (for the most part) to digital mediums, such as iPads and mobile devices, just as television borrowed from motion pictures more than 60-plus years ago. Good design is good design whether it is on screen or ink on paper. Creating messages will take the form and constraints dictated by the size and capacity of their technological DNA, and the skill needed to do that with grace, beauty, and style.

Nexus

Author: Jason Tselentis

Nexus explores the relationship we have with technology, by investigating human interaction with electronics such as televisions, cameras, toys, computers, tablets, smartphones, and more. It explores not only the hardware we hold and visual interfaces we experience, but also the systems and software beneath the surface. It chronicles where we've been, where we are, and where we're going.

Design Bully

Author: Tan Le

No more jargon or euphemisms. Let's speak directly, truthfully, and soulfully about design without layers of cushioning or an impenetrable wall of intellectual diatribe. Let's share stories of design and career, and get to the heart of what we love, what we find stupid or infuriating or sad, and what drives us forward as designers and human beings. No more double-speak. There's no need to be a mean bully, but namby-pamby talk just won't do here.

Playing with Color

Author: Richard Mehl

The working title for this column is "there's life beyond black, white and red, but I still love El Lissitzky." If you agree, you'll definitely dig this column. We'll be looking, thinking, and writing about color—taking inspiration from the latest art shows in Chelsea, recent design projects created by students, historical writings of Goethe, Itten and Albers, and (of course) the most beautiful examples of color in graphic design we can find.

Malcontent

Author: Mark Kingsley

Concerning visual culture.

Fashion: Global Voices

Author: Laura Volpintesta

Fashion: Global Voices looks near and far to find fashions, designers, resources, and business models that reach beyond the mainstream for advancement in technology and techniques, sustainable and/ or socially positive impact in the realm of fashion design. The goal is to expose new influences and highlight innovative and creative approaches to design through images and stories, inspiring new forms and further research.

Creatively Curious

Author: Von Glitschka

Life, liberty and the pursuit of clever and inspiring creativity in all it's various forms.