Last time we talked about surrounding yourself with design (good or bad!) in order to improve your sense of design and how it’s important to notice the details that makes a design good or bad.
It seems that it would be a wise idea to have a collection of good design to study and learn from. Do you have a folder or file that you keep outstanding design in? I do! I don’t put as much into it as I would like to, but here are a few of my favorite pieces and why I like them.
There is one glaring problem with this first piece: I’m not sure what the company name is! Is it I (as in G, H, I, J, K, etc), or is it 1 (as in 1, 2, 3, etc)? Well, at any rate, I know they serve coffee, drinks and food, so I guess that’s good. The biggest reason I like this business card is because of the way they wrote the phone and fax numbers. They are presented in the way that we say them: the area code, first three digits (prefix) and the last four numbers. I think it would make it easy to dial and not lose your place while looking back and forth between the phone and the card. It also seems like a very trendy place to be. I get that feeling from the font. I also like that the card uses a vertical orientation rather than a horizontal one; that is different from the norm.
This is a Cirque du Soleil desktop. I like the composition in this one, particularly the sense of direction. In western cultures, we read from left to right, top to bottom, so naturally we start in the upper left hand corner. There is a nice open space there to ease the viewer into the layout. Then we come across, moving to the right and we find the logo. We hit the parade of men walking down to the text (the two circles are there just in case your eye tries to wander a little too far, they push you back up into the text). We finish reading the text and make our way over to the pictures. What a nice little trip! The photos also serve to anchor the layout and give it a little weight at the bottom so it feels like it’s finished. We could, however, continue up to the line of men and back through the piece.
I really like Cody Curley’s work. This particular page is a brochure he did for Lumiere Condos. I like this page in particular because it has a very calm feeling. Cody provided ample room around the text for our eyes to rest and the space also serves to emphasize the writing. It feels very sophisticated; it doesn’t need a lot of in-your-face design to make its point. The juxtaposition of the elements in the photo (round spoon, square sugar, round cups) he chose for this layout is also pleasant, orderly and sophisticated.
Annual reports from high end companies, like this one from IMB in 2003, provide many samples of good design. Here is a neat example of the whole composition being one complete piece. There is no separation of text and photo; the text is integrated into and designed to be a part of the image. I enjoy the typography on this page, too. The designers thought about what was important and emphasized that with color, size and style (regular, italic, bold, small caps).
I know Toon from the Estetica Design Forum that I am a part of (which is a great place to discuss and learn about design, by the way). He is an excellent logo designer and Online Secret is one of my favorite logos of his. Toon incorporated the idea of a secret into this logo quite effectively. The beautiful round serif that he used for the text also lends a sense of suave and upscale atmosphere. I don’t know anything about what this client wanted, but that’s what I get from the final result and I can mimic these aspects in a design where I do know what a client is looking for.
Of course we can’t forget about web design among all this print stuff, and for that I turn to Jon Tan’s site. In comparison with many other sites out there, Jon has managed to set himself a part with his sexy use of typography (hey, how would you describe it?). In his About section, he states that “the design grew out of thoughts on Western type and print versus Chinese typography and calligraphy.” I like the clean, no-nonsense layout he presents and how he has found ways to make the hierarchy work almost entirely through typography alone. The sparse use of color also allows its use to make quite a statement; it really stands out when its present.
So those are some samples from my collection of design. What do you think? Want to share some of your favorite designs and tell us about them and what you’ve learned from them?
Thank you for the mention it’s very flattering, I also love the Jon Tan site I’m a fan of the clarity of this style of site, I would also like to mention a similar design style that Brian at Scandinavian Design uses in a lot of his web designs.
http://www.scandinaviandesigns.co.uk/
If you look in his portfolio, many of the sites are of that no nonsense, clear design style much like the Jon Tan site.
Toon,
No thanks needed. You have a strong sense of what makes a good logo; you deserved the mention (it was hard to pick just one to show!). I enjoy the ones you share on the Logo Sauce site and on the forums. Had you seen Jon’s site before I mentioned it here? I only discovered it a couple of weeks ago. Thanks for the link to a site with a similar style. Gonna go bookmark it. It’s wonderful to see good design (finally) taking over the web :)
I have seen the ‘Complex Type: CSS Fix, ClearType Miss’ post before on Jon’s site I think from either Digg or Stumbleupon
Toon,
Ah yes, the typographic folly. You should see what it looks like in Internet Explorer 6! It’s scary!
I really like Cody’s work; that Interior Luxury piece is beautiful, and it demonstrates that design need not be complex—a good quality image/photo, lots of white space, good colour palette and good typography—all gracefully hanging on a simple underlying grid.
John Tan’s site is very nice too—and he lives in Bristol, so he can’t be bad.
Johno,
I really like Cody’s work, too (obviously). I was shocked to find out how new he is to the industry. He’ll be on the cover of all the graphic design magazines in a few years, I’d wager! Oh yes, you love your grid, don’t you. Hehe
Hey, I live next to a street named Bristol. Does that mean I’m not bad either?
Had you seen Jon’s site before now?
Hi LaurenMarie,
Thanks for mention and the generous words! I think that typography and content is the cornerstone of good design and you’ve got some great examples here.
Jon,
Glad you’ve enjoyed my examples. What do consider good design? Any favorites you look to for inspiration?
Wow! Hi!! You’re most welcome for the mention. I really love the simplicity of your site. It’s quite elegant
Hi Lauren
Just checked out Cody’s work after seeing you and Johno raving about it, great stuff. I always envy people who can produce beautiful layouts, for myself I find pure layout really difficult, I find t much easier when you have a big concept and a layout is secondary.
Tara,
I know how you feel. I think layout is one of my favorite aspects of design, but I still struggle with it!
Who’s work do you admire and look to for inspiration?
I am afraid I am really bad on designers names but a couple of books I really like are 1000 type treatments and 1000 graphic elements. They are packed with inspirational design.
Tara,
I have those on my Amazon wish list. Perhaps I should bump up how soon I get them! The greeting card one looks interesting, too. I’m a sucker for stationary and papercrafts. If money wasn’t a factor and I could choose any area of design, I would create handmade cards.
I hadn’t heard of the greetings card one - another one for my list too then
, looks like there are a few other new ones to the 1000 series too - retail graphics, icons and symbols - I wonder if they are as good?
Wow! I had no idea you posted this because I hadn’t checked the stats of my site since December 16th.
Thank you for the mention! I had no idea you were going to put my work up, but happy you did. It’s interesting to see how other people pick apart a spread, but yours is quite spot on for why I made that spread the way it is.
As for the magazine covers, maybe designing a few… but a feature?! One can only hope =S
PS - Cody Curley
Johno
Oh my friend, if you only knew how much I love grids. It’s a very very close second to Typography.
Thank you both for your kind words! I will be uploading a newer portfolio (almost the same one, but with a few more pieces and a different layout) during the New Year holiday,
Cody,
It always comes as a nice surprise to see someone linking to your work (oh eek! Sorry about misspelling your name!! Fixed now. At least I got the link right!). If my analysis was correct, then you did an excellent job at communicating exactly what you intended! It’s always a good feeling when someone understands and takes away what you want them to 
Looking forward to that new portfolio!
I guess you should subscribe to my blog then
I don’t use any feeds =| If I did, then you would be in there! I only read a small amount of blogs, enough to keep it bookmark limited.
I’ll send over an e-mail when I get the folio up!
Thanks again!
Cody,
Well I’m glad you include my blog amongst that very elite list of blogs you visit! I post M,W, F if you’d like to know so you don’t have to keep checking back every day!
Wow! No feeds at all? Your life is probably much simpler and less stressful because of that! It’s overwhelming to come to my reader after a week of being really busy and having 200 unread posts
Interesting article!
I don’t think I have specific examples, but some things that pop to mind that I’ve recently come to love are: space; grids; simplicity; colour (good use of, sometimes sparing use of); attention to detail (for example, this comment box only has top and left border when not selected, then it gains right and bottom, so you know it’s selected - cute).
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