Creatively Advancing into Novelty
“When we disentangle our identities from the civilization’s dominant story, we can begin imagining, embodying, and telling a new story, a story that gives us a deeper sense of meaning, belonging, and purpose, one that helps heal the Earth, our fellow humans, and our fellow creatures rather than destroying them.” –Brian McLaren1 Stories have a…
I’m pretty pumped about these theological/philosophical trading cards my friend Tripp and I have been collaborating on. They’ll probably be for sale sometime soon at Homebrewed Christianity, so collecting them all will obviously be the thing to do (if nothing else they’ll make badass, nerdy bookmarks!). In the future we plan to feature other schools of thought like, Masters of Suspicion, Mystics, Heretics, Early Church Thinkers, Radical Theology, and Queer Theology, for instance, as well as release additional thinkers for Team Process, Team Idealism, and Team Liberation.
“Art is like masturbation. It is selfish and introverted and done for you and you alone. Design is like sex. There is someone else involved, their needs are just as important as your own, and if everything goes right, both parties are happy in the end.” –Colin Wright I had a conversation with a friend…
“In my experience users react positively when things are clear and understandable. What bothers me today is the arbitrariness and thoughtlessness with which many things are produced and brought to market, not only in the sector of consumer goods, but also in architecture and advertising. We have too many unnecessary things everywhere.” The quote above…
Every modern typographer agrees on the one-space rule. It’s one of the canonical rules of the profession, in the same way that waiters know that the salad fork goes to the left of the dinner fork and fashion designers know to put men’s shirt buttons on the right and women’s on the left. Above is…
The graphic above comes from the Occupy Design site where graphic designers, in solidarity with the Occupiers, team up to build a visual language for the 99 percent. If you’re a designer, you can get involved here.
There are numerous ways of interpreting the visual language. Unlike the spoken or written language of which the grammatical laws are more of less established, the visual language has no obvious laws. Each design theorist may have a completely different set of discoveries. … We must not forget that the designer is a problem-solving person….
Q: How do you know when something you’ve designed is successful? A: It’s a little thing, a little Spark that makes something memorable or beautiful or unforgettable. It’s very hard to describe and people have very different ways of describing it. [Alexander] Gilman once came into my class at the school of visual arts,…
Lester Beall was the first US designer to create images that were truly free of European influences. His poster series for the Rural Electrification Administration, made up of simple ideograms stripped of all geometric superfluities, and with unashamedly plain typography, may be considered the earliest example of true American graphic design, modern and free. –From…
Perfect communication is person-to-person. You see me, hear me, smell me, touch me. Television is the second form of communication; you can see me and hear me. Radio is the next; you hear me, but you don’t see me. And then comes print. You can’t see or hear me, so you must be able to…