Archive for the ‘Design’ Category
- or a comparison of New Baskerville and Times New Roman
The majority of you, right now, are seeing this wrong. The reason? You probably don’t have the New Baskerville font installed on your computer. That is what I designed this website (and all of my branded materials) with, unfortunately you are probably seeing the inferior Times New Roman. The poor circumstance is a result of the majority of the web is still only able to see a handful of typefaces. The major reason is that unless you are a designer, you probably don’t have any fonts installed beyond what came with your computer. For those that do have extended fonts installed, designers can put a font hierarchy (@font_face) into their CSS code. This basically means that if you have any of the fonts installed that are in the list, it will show the highest listed font you have in your browser. So if you have ITC New Baskerville Std installed, it will show that as the best possible choice. If you don’t have that it will go through the list until it gets to one you have, for most it will be Times or Times New Roman. There are other ways to get around this by embedding javascript and other things that may or may not break the licensing of the font, but this isn’t actually what this post is supposed to be about.
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Tags: comparison, font, type, typeface, typography
Posted in Design | No Comments »
A little while ago I designed some custom social media icons that I now use on my blog and web site. You can see them just below the subscribe links in my left hand sidebar. I had originally planned on giving them away for free, but never got around to it. So now I finally am. Feel free to use this icon package for whatever you like. In the .zip file I have each icon in 3 different sizes (100px, 75px, & 25px) as transparent .pngs.
Get the social media icon set here in this handy .zip file. (209Kb)
Here is an example of the different sizes of the icons:
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Tags: Free!, icons, package, set, social media
Posted in Design, Free! | No Comments »
Not long ago I completed a logo and identity system for a local Thief River Falls, MN business called techWALK. techWALK is run by Paul Mooney, who contacted me for the design work. Click here if you would like to hire me for graphic design work. I quickly sent him my logo design questionnaire so that I could get a better idea of what he required and what his business entails. techWALK is a computer repair and consultancy with no previous branding. His request was that the logo show traits of Patience, intelligence, friendly, understanding, and loyal.
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Tags: business card, computer, consultancy, identity system, letterhead, logo, repair, technology
Posted in Design, process | 1 Comment »
It is a common misconception if someone can make pretty pictures of one kind, they can make pretty pictures of any kind. Unfortunately, this is quite a myth. Though I agree that design is art of a sort, albeit commercial based art, it is most definitely not fine art. Fine art is almost entirely subjective, whereas commercial art, be it illustration, design, editorial photography, etc, has a very specific purpose. Generally speaking, that purpose is to sell the viewer something. It might not be selling directly in an economic sense, but just to get the viewer to read an article. Alternatively, it can be something like user interface design, so that something is simple to use.
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Tags: artists, basics, commercial art, designers, fine art
Posted in Art, Design | 3 Comments »
Just a quick post this week, as my son was born yesterday. Here is a logo concept I made for my friend and collaborator Dean Mehrkens. He is a writer, so I was going for a more graphic interpretation of the old illustrated manuscript style of the first letter on a line. It is also done in a style similar to typical beer brands, which Dean fancies himself to brew on occasion.
Tags: beer, branding, concept, illustrated, logo, manuscript, style
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