The dust has settled since the launch of the London 2012 logo. It’s a design that received criticism from the general public and the design community alike and even now, four years on from its badly scripted unveiling it still has few fans. I’ll state now (like I did back in 2007) that I am a fan (though I do have criticism for the launch and the language used to explain the design concept). The Olympic Games has always been about sports men and women striving to be the best and win medals for their countries, but the games have a major commercial interest too. The world will be watching these games so big brands pay big money to be in partnership.
I designed a logo for a client recently and I thought the idea I came up with was great. The design ticked all the right boxes (or so I thought) but what excited me most about it was it’s versatility. I could see parts of the logo that would really develop the clients visual identity and I felt it would work well across many mediums. The logo worked well big, small, reversed and in full colour. The icon used in the logo could be used on it’s own to enhance branding and create something which I felt was a modern and forward thinking design.
I’ve been playing around with some ideas for a personal typography project. The idea started as a follow on from my infographic project which was a visual representation of my skill-set.
When it comes to skills offering I generally try to follow the ‘James Dyson’ rule. James Dyson is an inventor who is responsible for the Dyson Vacuum cleaner and is an expert in cyclonic separation. Dyson did try his hand at washing machines once but they didn’t really work out so he chooses to stick to what he knows best – airflow. When you buy a Dyson product you know you are paying a little more but getting a well designed product that is built for purpose and to a high standard.
Last week I attended Geek Ninja Battle night in Brighton where the subject discussed was web Vs native design for mobile devices. It was a great night with some healthy debate by Aral Balkan, Andy Clarke, Remy Sharp and Sarah Parmenter on the pros and cons of both practices. A comment that stuck in my head was made by iPhone and iPad UI design guru Sarah Parmenter who described her mums experience of the UI on the iPad. Sarah’s mum was described as not being particularly tech savvy but had been using her iPad for a short time to access her favourite websites. She would manually type in the address into the Safari browser each time until Sarah showed her how to add a bookmark to the site as an icon on the Springboard. Since Sarah’s mum was now accessing the site via an icon she would also instinctively swipe left and right with her finger to try and browse next and previous pages as if using an app. For me, this is a perfect example of a successful User Interface design in that it’s mechanics are instinctive to us humans.
