Appawently…

OK, so there isn’t a single easy answer to what designers and marketers can do which will save the planet, but I’m pretty sure this isn’t helping. I must be getting a piece of junk mail a week from Virgin Media since they put their magical cables down our street.

Other offenders are LoveFilm who constantly persist in harassing me to join even though I am already a member, and British Gas, who have sent us 3 boxes of low energy light bulbs whilst raising our bills at the same time by a staggering amount. Barclays are also so desperate for me to take out a loan with them during a time of economic meltdown, that they send me an envelope full of tripe at least once a month which I promptly tear up and recycle.

Maybe there really is no hope.

Bryan Edmondson came over to the studio this week to talk about his work at SEA design. They’re just over the road in Farringdon so he didn’t have to come far. It was great stuff, lots and lots of the achingly beautiful design work which they are known for and maybe just a little too much Helvetica. They do a great deal of work for paper company GF Smith, which every designer is probably familiar with but still looks lovely every time you see it…

And a wonderful logo type for a bar called OQO, based on cocktail glasses from above…

…loved this identity for Sansaw which flexes with all the different tree sillhouettes. Bryan told us he doesn’t like things to stay the same as he gets bored easily.

Their work for screenprint studio K2 is another example, with a different usage of the logo shapes every time.

You really should visit their site and check out these projects and more at a larger size. It’s always sexy stuff. Meanwhile, here’s something which isn’t on their site yet, a lovely new screenprinted poster for GF Smith which Bryan gave away to the person who asked the most interesting question.

It wasn’t me.

Saw this in the pub last week and realised I was potentially stood in the wrong place…

While the world mentally says goodbye to war, famine and injustice while they wait for President Obama to start work, I’ve noticed that all that speculation during the Democratic campaign has proved sound. Obama IS a Mac, and so is Joe Biden too.

I wonder if Barack will be ringing up Al Gore for some Keynote tips?

Photoshop in real life. Lovely attention to detail! Apparently it’s part of an ad campaign for something called CS4…

Seen over at Swiss Miss, originally uploaded to Flickr by wandaaa, so you can see it larger over there…

I don’t really know exactly what this is but I like it.

Globo Logos from Julien Vallée. Thanks to Afonso for the link.

What can I say? The general design opinion online seems to be almost totally negative. While I do think they’ve missed a trick by contrarily not doing a Coke and just stripping it back to a beautiful essential mark from their history, I have to be honest and say I like it. It’s easy to criticise it on a blog when you’ve just got your graphic design degree, notice it looks like Korean Air, say it’s just like everything else these days, HOW much? etc etc… (yawn) It’s not perfect, but it’s clean and simple, it’s new and fresh and it’s got some honest to goodness shapes and form. Relax everyone, it doesn’t have to win a D&AD you know.

It won’t last forever by any means, but what does these days? It’s brave and time will tell how it works. Adding dynamism to the logo is great, varying the thickness of the white stroke is a good idea, I just wish it looked a little less like a builder’s bum crack. (Is that just me…?) Apparently it’s a smile and there are varying versions of it, so in the true tradition of the 21st Century, the logo alters and flexes in use.

I love the way it is fat for the Max stuff, normal for the regular product and then thinner for the diet version. It’s also unfair to tag Pepsi with the current ’spit-shine globe’ logo epidemic that’s going round, they’ve always had one, so they’re allowed. And besides, they’ve flattened it and removed all the Photoshop wizardry which has blighted their cans for the last few years. It’s progress for them at least.

One thing that people aren’t talking about much (the bum crack is getting all the press) is the type. I think I’ve seen it before, and yes, it turns out I have.

I like it, although I wish they hadn’t shoehorned the wiggly line from the old logo into the letter e. Less is more remember?

It’s also worth having a look back at the rich logo heritage that they could have chosen to investigate. I wonder if they went down any of those roads?

Of course this is all academic anyway. As every good Back to the Future fan knows, Pepsi is ultimately destined to redesign again, and will look like this in 2015…

…around the time Pasta Hut change their name back.

Good luck America, don’t screw it up.

Chuck Westbrook (Do you think he’s American?) has a great idea for getting good blogs noticed by people who want to notice them. It’s kind of like one of those pyramid selling schemes Lynne Faulds-Wood told us all to be careful of in the 80s, but it’s for blogs and it doesn’t want you to end up bankrupt.

Basically, check out Chuck’s idea over at his blog, where everyone will loyally read a neglected blog for two weeks. After the two weeks are up, another blog gets the spotlight. Nice idea, now fingers crossed they’re not all rubbish…

Noticed by the ever on-the-ball Kyle Steed, image from Demotivators.