SOLIDQUALITY

Stefan Sagmeister has been around for a while and he has always had a storied design career. Stumbling into design and winning over such creative clients as the Rolling Stones and Talking Heads. He has kept his studio small and focused never growing it bigger than it needed to be.

Then he really took the cake with his sabbatical years. He finished his second on this past summer and I only recently listened to this interview of Stefan Sagmeister on Design Matters (player on the Design Observer).

And watched his TED talk here.

Of course it is easy for a rich, successful person to mold their future. Or is it? Is he successful? I would say he seems to have time to work on great projects and with great clients. And financially stable enough that he can take off for a year and resume his business upon return. Is he an anomaly? What of his personal life? Does he have a family? Does he just try to keep it private? Do I ask because family is important to me and influences my decisions. Ultimately, it is less the design accomplishments I admire and more the resolve and focus to do and accomplish exactly what your heart desires. And it isn’t an easy feat. I assume that is why he has determined that he needs to take off every 7 years.

Apple Computers is suing Austraila’s Woolworth’s for logo infringement. The new logo does have a vaguely apple look, but I think it is borderline on infringement. Woolworth’s is in the food/grocery store category in Austraila, so having food in the logo makes some sense. I just wonder if folks would really be confused. I guess time will tell. There is some indication that the brand has gone into mobile phones, so I guess there is some crossover, especially if they sell media currently like movies and music. Read about it here.

To be really honest I kinda like the Woolworth logo. Has a sense of freshness and the green makes it feel leafy. W is incorporated in a approachable humanistic way.

As Roger continues to win/almost win all the majors, he is showing signs that the ride is almost over. How can I tell? The decided up tick in the branding of Roger and his apparel.

Lacoste and Perry before him, Roger has learned that the branding is best started while you are on top. The ‘RF’ is huge on the clothing and why not his is by far the biggest thing to hit tennis since…since…Sampras. Pete didn’t really have a personality. Roger not so much either, but there is a certain coolness that comes across the court but now in his clothes.

The logo, I think is quite nice. It has an air of familiarity while staying modern. A modern traditionalist if you will. Almost as if he is trying to class up tennis after years of Agassi and over grunting teenage girl players. A sense of class and luxury/wealth. For the longest time tennis meant wealth. Gold trim and details being that sense of luxury to the clothes as well as signaling the gold standard of a true champion.

NYTimes has a good article on this topic here. Forgive me if my post sounds like the Times piece. I had actually thought about posting about it before the Times, but alas they are pretty savvy people there.

Consistently one of my favorite blogs and resources for all things design, is the Design Observer. They recently went through a redesign and for the most part I like it.

First, I would say they did a good job of adding more of an aesethetic to the site. Before it was really bare bones, which is usually fine for me. I like sites like Craigslist and Google. But now that the new design is here, I’m glad it is. It has enough design to feel still stripped down compared to other sites but a new flair that says “this is no longer the small time.”

Second, although the design/style is better, it is very hard to navigate. Partially in the sense as far as I can tell, because they are mixing old content with new.  A lot of their articles are evergreen type stuff, so generally that’s ok. Its just that previously, the focus was on recently posted items. Now that they have a vast library of great articles I guess they are trying to showcase the breadth and depth. But as an avid online user, I feel a bit lost by not having that ‘date posted’ up front. I’m not sure if the content is relevant before I read it. I guess I just need to learn that all their content is relevant and not to sweat it. (I did learn since that the main article is new, but they neglect to post the date on the main page. I like seeing the date.)

Third, the observed link section on twitter. Ok, twitter is an interesting feature and a social organism, but frankly, I am too old and cranky to learn a different way to talk about the same stuff, just because the new way is new. I mean technology is going so fast we hardly have time to vet whether it was a good idea to begin with before it is superseded by a similarly useless medium.

Anyway, go here now.

Recently I became a Contributing Editor to a blog dedicated to cataloging the vernacular typography of NYC. The blog was started by Jason Powers and Matthew Anderson. I know Jason from working together at AOL.

I have to say it has been a real pleasure to have an outlet or those found moments of design glory. Silly type all over NYC that hasn’t really been appreciated now has a home. I am very glad to be apart of it and will do my best to contribute quality finds from around town.

I have pretty much depleted the blocks around work so soon I will have to branch out. Send me an email if you have any suggestions. Check out the blog here: nyctype.com

I never had a formal design education. I picked up something here and there in college, mainly the software. It wasn’t until my first job at a magazine did I meet folks who had a more formal design knowledge. They made me realize how much I didn’t know. So I had set out to try to learn some of the history of design especially looking for folks that I could use as virtual mentors. People who had strong convictions about their work and whose work held similar sensibilities to mine.

Paul Rand became an obvious choice for me. I still feel I need to learn more about him but the way he worked with clients and ultimately ending up teaching at Yale really peaked my attention. Realizing all the iconic logos from my childhood where created by him brought him to historic proportions in my imagination.

So why do I think my work is like his? Well, I think we are both pragmatists. We work with the basic elements that a client has already and try to make them new again. Our solutions are mostly stripped down and usually only include the bare essentials to communicate whats desired. Simple, compact but high impact. I still need to work on the high impact part.

Recently, one of my favorite blogs, the Design Observer, posted a link to a Paul Rand website that has a catalog of his writings and other material, all posted online. Reading these now, after working in the industry for a while now, really is serving as a wake up call to get back to my roots, if that is even accurate. I guess rather to get back to the original reasons why I choose design in the first place.

What is that reason? Well I guess I would say because its fun. And I always liked seeing myself in the context of a larger story.