design – Page 4 – Alphabet City Press

16 May 201416 May 2014

Warning

This is not the sort of warning you see every day. The novelty of the message caught my attention and tickled my funny bone, but the same words printed more formally in, say, Franklin Gothic or Times New Roman, would change the tone completely. Handwritten in chalk, framed with uneven knocked together old timber, and the serious message that parents need to watch their kids in the play area is delivered in exceedingly good spirit. The message is not the full picture though: the choice of blackboard and frame is obviously well thought out to fit in with a design aesthetic, as is the placement on the background of scarred and scrawled-on brickwork which has been left in its original state.

10 May 20141 May 2014

Mechanics’ institute

Mechanics’ Institutes, established in Scotland in 1821, were formed to provide education in technical subjects to working men. They also housed libraries which aimed to provide an alternative pastime to gambling and drinking. The first Australian Mechanics’ Institute opened in Hobart in 1827, followed by the Sydney Mechanics’ School of Arts in 1833. In Victoria, more than 1200 Mechanics’ Institutes were built, including this one in Leongatha, which operated until 1982 and played an important role in the development of the local community. The building itself, containing a Public Reading Room, Members’ Room and Billiard Room, is notable for the construction of the walls, which are made from river weeds covered in plaster, a technique unique to the area. Also notable is the sign, the individual letters full of life and character.

7 May 20141 May 2014

Tender expressions

Tender means gentle and concerned or sympathetic. To tender is to offer or present something formally. I can’t make up my mind which I’d like this to be. Is the pictograph around the mailbox meant to be a kindly and welcoming smile, or merely a way to draw attention to the slot in which the tender expressions should be posted?

16 April 201416 April 2014

Warning

I suppose this warning is somewhat effective because it made me stop to look, but everything seems, proportion-wise, just a little out of whack. Small dinosaur catches a plane mid-flight, just for fun, oblivious to the flames on its back; the written warning—door blows open/shut in the wind—is small enough to require reading glasses and seems unrelated to the plight of the dinosaur; and both are rendered superfluous by industrial-strength door hardware. Regardless (or because of) this, the shapes and textures of paper, plastic, wood and metal, hold great appeal to my aesthetic sensibilities!

31 March 201431 March 2014

Neighbours

The juxtaposition of these numbers is quite dramatic: the brass serif 623 on brick, the grey metal sans serif 621 on a concrete rendered wall. Both have plenty of character and the blocky shadow of the 621 is particularly striking, although it’s hard to say if the angle of the sun had any influence on its design. I especially like that such different styles can exist side by side, as neighbours.

26 February 201423 February 2014

White arrow

The FedEx logo is the best logo ever. I still remember the first time I saw that white arrow, the one that’s hidden in plain sight. I was working in-house for a book publisher when a parcel arrived from the US containing a piece of artwork I had commissioned for the project I was working on, an illustrated book about Ancient Rome. Midway through opening the parcel I stopped dead in my tracks: I saw the logo as I had never seen it before! The remarkable thing is that, in an office full of designers, no one else had ever seen it either. I’m not the only one who think the FedEx logo is brilliant. Designed by Lindon Leader in 1994, it has won a swag of design awards, and is used in design schools to demonstrate the effectiveness of negative space. Leader’s design philosophy centres around simplicity, clarity and understatement, where less is more. To create the FedEx logo he used a combination of Univers 67 and Futura Bold, morphed until the arrow was just so.

17 February 201413 February 2014

Chemist

I like the hand-drawn, and to observe the decisions that have been made in order to render writing x onto surface y. This chemist window is part of an old building, although I don’t know how long the signage has been there. Great care has been taken to curve the gold, tooled and drop-shadowed letters, yet the crossbar of the H doesn’t quite follow the arc. I particularly like the fullstop, more diamond than square, and that the size of the letters proved more important than fitting the whole word within one pane. The ABC of the printed poster in the window is Lithos Bold, an Adobe typface designed by Carol Twombly in 1989.

12 January 201411 January 2014

Shoes

There was nothing special about the shoe shop, but the illustration on the awning brought a touch of lightness to an overcast sultry afternoon. This row of feet is so expressive! Here they are, lined up and ready to step out to the local dance hall to shake a leg, tango and two-step, jitterbug and charleston, jive and mambo. What I like most is how a small touch like this speaks volumes: the illustration itself imparts personality, but more importantly, someone has paid attention to detail, and as a result the everyday is enhanced.

10 November 201310 November 2013

Fresh kings

Of late there are more smart boards and tablets than chalk and blackboards. Only yesterday I saw an iPad on the counter at the butcher where once upon a time there might have been a hand-scrawled specials board. I am heartened by this handwritten blackboard because the very impermanence of the chalk implies that the information changes, reassuring me that the catch is more likely to be a daily one. Today, though, my friends and I are having prawns for lunch.

8 October 20136 October 2013

Four posters

I love this row of posters. They work on every level: they are colourful; they tell you everything you need to know in a logical order; they are free from superfluous embellishment; they are eye-catching and completely no-nonsense with their made-to-fit bold sans serif type; and they evoke memories of that pre-poker machine time when live music at the local pub was not the exception to the rule. Who wouldn’t want to check out the Shy Guys and the Lonely Boys, middy of whatever’s on tap in hand?