Computer Arts -julkaisun October 2019 -irtonumeron sisällysluettelo

Arber Racaj is a man who likes knowing the ‘why’ behind his work. This thirst for knowledge about the mechanics of creative design saw him going straight from a degree in design and visual communications into a masters in visual brand design. “And throughout all this time,” he tells us, “the most important lesson that I ever took was on minimalism – learning how to effectively simplify things is the most important lesson for a designer!” Although Racaj espouses the benefits of simplicity in his craft, his work style is quite different. “I like to work on really demanding projects – two at a time if I can. Although it’s a kind of suicidal thing to do, it means that I never get bored or fatigued at work!” Recent work…

FRESH AWARDS ARTISAN by Rose www.rosedesign.co.uk Rose chose eggs to symbolise ‘fresh ideas’ as part of its rebrand of the 16-year-old Fresh Awards. Each year, a different fresh talent will be chosen to design the eggs. Illustration graduate Rebecca Paige went first, creating graphic monochromatic prints to be hand-painted on to each award. SUPER LYAN BARS & RESTAURANTS by Magpie www.magpie-studio.com Magpie’s branding for Super Lyan Amsterdam puts a modern twist on comic books to reflect the bar’s irreverent, playful character, with a series of quirky pin badges on a comic theme used to bind the menu pages together. TIM HORTONS BARS & RESTAURANTS by Turner Duckworth: London, San Francisco, New York www.turnerduckworth.com Turner Duckworth’s playful new visual identity includes a toolkit of graphic icons that celebrate the Canadian coffee…

Anyone with a smartphone can be a photographer now, it seems. Yet just as being able to play three chords on a guitar doesn’t make you Keith Richards, so owning a smartphone doesn’t make you a capable image-maker. Alongside skills in things such as typography, layout and strategic thinking, today’s brand designers need to harness the value of great photography, and know how, why and where to use it. Photography can make or break projects, whether they be packaging designs, brochures, posters, printed promo tools or vast billboards – both in terms of how it’s used on a brand, and how a designer documents their projects. “You can have great work, but if it’s not presented properly, it can ruin the look and feel of the project on your website,”…

DEFINING THE STRATEGY By Searsha Sadek The Tide is a linear park located on the Greenwich Peninsula in London. Parts of it will be elevated, with the rest on the riverside. Eventually it will be 5km long and home to cafés, shops, art and an ongoing programme of cultural events. The first section opened in July, with a launch that included a free art, music and wellbeing festival called Turning Tides. To help create a brand and communicate The Tide and its inaugural festival to the public, developer Knight Dragon approached Droga5. It’s rare to get the chance to build a brand and establish a new destination in London, and our team was inspired by the landscape, the linear park and the project’s ambition. To prepare, we researched developments across…

GETTING STARTED By Andy Culbert Nightfall is a web-based game that the BBC has developed with GoodBoy Digital aimed at eight- to 14-year-olds. Players drop into a digitally inspired world of dreams, collecting Z tokens and battling evil creatures called Nags, who serve the Nightmares. The game’s development was in progress when we came on board, but it needed an identity and a clear and consistent brand message to effectively communicate what it was all about. Nightfall was exciting for us because it’s the first gaming brand that we’ve worked on. However, we’re not sector-specific so it was a matter of having faith in our processes and applying them to a new genre. The design, narrative and environments had been defined, as well as low-poly versions of the characters. However,…

RE-VIVE is a commercial interior design studio founded to with the vision of ridding the world of lacklustre interiors and empower brands, consumers and employees by creating exciting and innovative spaces. www.revivespaces.co.uk Our workspace is in Castleton Mills, on the Leeds Liverpool canal in central Leeds. The Grade II listed former flax mill is a collection of creative studios and SMEs. Restored in 2012 by our neighbours Brookes Contracting, the building is majestic and boasts spectacular architecture, making it the perfect setting for our interior design studio. Being surrounded by over 25 other companies means we have a fantastic variety of businesses in our community that we get to socialise and work with. It’s not always easy running a small business, and being in a co-working space creates more structure…

LAUREN GOODLAND Graphic designer, Parade Design www.paradedesign.co.uk “After visiting Porto in Portugal last year, I left full to the brim with creativity and knew that nowhere could ever top this amazing city. Around every narrow street corner you’ll find a new surprise, from old trams and pretty pastel-shade houses to beautiful azulejo tiles and grand architecture, that even camera-shy people will be having a photo against. To complement the city and its rich history, Porto also has its own brand identity, created by White Studio in 2014, made up of geometric icons in a repeating tiled pattern. It’s refreshing to see such consistent branding that represents so many elements of the place. What really made Porto stand out for me was the enviable night-time culture. After all, what better way…

POTATO PRINTS BRANDING AND TYPEFACE FOR COCKTAIL COMPETITION by Shoptalk www.shoptalklondon.com Chase Distillery produces gin and vodka from produce grown on its Hertfordshire farm. For the Chase Cup cocktail competition held at its Rock the Farm festival, Chase Distillery wanted branding that would convey its values as a family-run operation, so it turned to ShopTalk who came up with this potato-based identity. “At Chase Distillery, everything starts with the humble spud, so we felt it was important that the new brand and identity did too,” says James Wood, ShopTalk’s co-founder and creative director. “We took inspiration from the stencilled potato crates, jute sacks and enamelled signs that can be found on Chase Farm, and devised a unique typeface using potato carving.” The potato prints were refined digitally to create the…

BBC TWO WINNER BEST OF SHOW, COLLABORATION, CULTURE, ENTERTAINMENT SHORTLISTED PUBLIC SECTOR by Superunion www.superunion.com BBC Two has a long heritage of commissioning stimulating, provocative programmes. However, its progressive, risk-taking reputation had faded over the years. Putting stimulating programming back at the heart of BBC Two’s identity, Superunion’s innovative branding system curates the experience between programmes, turning the whole junction into an extended ident. Each trailer is assigned one of 25 ‘moods’ – such as ‘escapist’, ‘intense’ or ‘anarchic’. These weave together into a seamless narrative, leading viewers on a journey of discovery. The agency collaborated with a selection of top animators, including FutureDeluxe, Aardman, The Mill and Mainframe, to develop 25 mood-based animations. While they vary in style and tone, all of these animations feature the exact same curve…

Our starting point was to focus on the baddies. There are six that have been given out-of-game representations: Grunt, Charger, Berserker, Assassin, Spawner and Nightmare. Four hero characters were also developed for different stages of the gameplay. We prioritised the customisation of these characters – such as the ability to add upgrades, new skins, outfits and weapons, – because it was a key demand from play testers. Although the game is all-digital, the same principles for creating game box art were applied, but the demands on out-of-game characters have changed a lot. We had to give them more definition and personality, but also consider how they would appear in a multitude of spaces ranging from social media to billboards, always with a digital-first perspective and incorporating everything from animations to…

“I’m an art director and specialise in UI design (user interface design) for feature films and technology. I work at a design and visual effects studio called Cantina Creative in Los Angeles, and I live in the north-east of the city. While the actual groundwork of Anomaly Detected started back in January, I’ve been working on bridging interface design and art for a few years now. This project is an ongoing collection of graphic abstractions inspired by our interactions with technology. The aim is to document the advancing dialogue and coexistence between user and interface. Creating contrast between abstract grid systems and primitive graphic elements helps me illustrate to our unstable relationship with technology. These compositions represent humanity’s never-ending quest for innovation. I also use reflective materials as a tool…

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MCDONALD’S HIGHLY COMMENDED BARS & RESTAURANTS by Turner Duckworth: London, San Francisco, New York www.turnerduckworth.com With around 37,000 restaurants in over 100 countries, McDonald’s has built a powerful brand that’s instantly recognisable all around the world. Operational consistency has proved key to the success of the business, but conscious that its global marketing efforts had become inconsistent and fragmented by comparison, the fast food giant turned to Turner Duckworth to redress the balance. McDonald’s campaigns have historically focused on individual product stories, rather than differentiating the overall brand. Turner Duckworth developed a dynamic, contemporary design system that champions gold as the primary brand colour, and finds joy in small, witty details on a global scale. MANDELA AND ME HIGHLY COMMENDED CULTURE by B&W Studio www.bandwstudio.co.uk Commemorating 100 years since the…

When it came to promoting this year’s Brand Impact Awards, we wanted to grab people’s attention with an awesome visual that would be impossible to ignore. So we naturally turned to Zach Lieberman, a Brooklyn-based artist, designer, teacher and computer programmer whose code-based work utilises technology to create spectacularly playful and joyous motion graphics. The fluid, celebratory and colourful graphic he created for us was suitably jaw-dropping (you can see it on the BIA homepage, at www.brandimpactawards.com). And it’s typical of the projects that have won him such plaudits as the Golden Nica from Prix Ars Electronica and the Interactive Design of the Year from The Design Museum, London. We caught up with Lieberman to discuss why coding is like print-making, how students can reinvigorate your creativity, and whether what…

1. SPEND QUALITY TIME TOGETHER “I feel proud that we’re able to run a happy, productive, ambitious design business,” says Matt Baxter. And that’s about making every hour working with each other matter. “We enjoy the time we spend together in the studio,” he says, “and we have a pretty healthy studio culture that means we value our time out of the studio too.” 2. WORK SENSIBLE HOURS A good work-life balance is crucial, believes Baxter, so keeping to sensible hours is a must. “And I think we’ve proved – if it still needed proving – that you can deliver award-winning creative work which achieves its objectives and makes your clients happy without driving yourself into the ground with overwork.” 3. PLAN EFFECTIVELY Boutique studios are more intimate, but that…

The point of Turning Tides Festival was to launch the new space, so the aim of the posters was to express the brand that we had created but also – very importantly – to create intrigue. As such, the whole design process was about balancing being informative and arousing curiosity. In addition, we created a brand principles document outlining how the brand works, including a breakdown of the layout approach seen in the posters, and in the wider brand animations. It included an approach to photography, the website, signage, iconography, the hoardings at the development and merchandise.…

NEURONS AND BRAIN REACTIONS This route explored how the brain reacts when you’re sleeping and dreaming, paying particular attention to the heightened neurological activity experienced during a nightmare. Soundwaves, brainwaves and neurological patterns informed the graphical language, and we considered letterforms that were blurred and distorted. LIGHT AND DARK The space between light and dark is where good and evil live in Nifghtfall, and this route drew on the visual effects that were created when light and dark interact with one another. We experimented with chiaroscuro, focal points, gradients and the intriguing patterns created by light and shade and how this could weave its way across the Nightfall brand identity. HORROR STORIES Our final concept was born out of fear and scary movies. We developed each direction for a range…