About Design

A few weeks ago the Church of Scientology launched a new line of books and recorded lectures on CD. There are 19 new books and 11 modules of CDs.

They are released under an overall banner called the Golden Age of Knowledge and Basics which you can learn more about on the web site.

Now I am writing this post from the viewpoint of design and lettering. The book covers, the color, the design and the interior design of these books is spectacular, I cropped a couple of parts from the covers and included them here.

The rules of color harmony have been adhered to exactly, the lettering is real smart - keep in mind that these books and lectures were released in 15 languages. So instead of doing custom lettering for every title in 15 languages what they did was select fonts and combine them into neat lettering.

The book quality is great, all digitally printed hardback books, even have thumb-indexes.

Then comes the CD modules. They’re sort of aerodynamic plastic modules that hold smaller modules within them and transcripts and glossary of same size.

The image above is a front shot of one of the books and one of the CD modules. It’s not really a descriptive shot – mainly artistic but gives some idea.

And check out the web site. It’s got a better shot of each of these books and modules plus a description of each. And enjoy the Flash graphics.

The images here are (in sequence) from, Advanced Procedures & Axioms book and the Thought, Emotion and Effort lectures. Then it is the cover art from the brochure (which you can see on-line) and the image on the bottom is from the Dianetics 55! book and the Unification Congress Lectures.

Enjoy.

[:-]

note: These books are read in a specific sequence, the presentation here is not per that sequence.

The Amazing Photography Series

I just noticed that the links to Jean Michel Berts’ blog are down for some reason.

He has another site with a great series of slideshows of his work which you can check out here:

http://www.jeanmichelberts.com/berts-photographer-paris.html

I got some of the Paris photos which are posted here:

Eiffel Tower black and white and amazing light show.

Is this Pont Neuf? Well it’s an amazing Bridge in Paris.

Berts does it again with Amazing Photography of New York

Note that the picture is wider than the post so click on it to get the whole thing.

I’ve decided to post on every new photo that JM Berts releases. They are pretty cool.

It’s funny to think that this is the same New York that’s covered in graffiti.

Well enjoy the photo and check out his site for more photos they’re cool.

[;-]

New amazing photography by JM Berts

I just saw that Jean Michel Berts has published another one of his amazing photos. It’s Paris again, Place Vendome – the jeweller’s square in Paris.

The dramatic black and white skies and the shining lights are totally capturing.

Well done Jean Michel for another impressive picture.

I can’t wait to see them available as posters!

See my other post on the Amazing Photography he did in New York and other pictures of Paris.

Just heard a track from the new Arctic Monkeys Album

  This is the new cover of their upcoming album. Looks like nothing but actually there’s a whole story to this, but I’ll go into this shortly. I just heard one of the new tracks on radio this morning. Sounds pretty good. A little harder than their last album it seemed to me. But a single track on radio is a little early to judge the album. I am quite excited to get it when it’s out. I wonder if Cigarette Smoke will be on it. It’s a pretty cool demo track they gave out free on the fan site www.arctic-monkeys.com.

The rhythm’s pretty good in the Monkey’s work, similar to Bloc Party they have a great drummer who does a little more than keep the beat. There’s a great article on rhythm how it is an important factor in audience rapport and participation and a bunch more, By L. Ron Hubbard – you can see it here, it is at the bottom of the article.

Now back to the cover of the album. “Liverpool designers Juno, who also did the artwork for the first LP, spent a week gutting three unoccupied houses from the estate, before moving a team of spray artists to paint the interiors.” source www.gigwise.com.

The cover is a little dull – but looking at it from that aspect it’s a lot more interesting. It totally reminds me of that amazing graffitti covered building in New York or the Dolk stencils I’ve posted about.

Ok – well I can’t wait for the album to get released!  Whoever get’s the release date first drop me a comment.

More and more Dolk – and more again…

Dolk is undoubtedly one of the best stencil artists around. But he isn’t good because he’s good. He’s good because his stuff communicates.

Each one of his stencils have a message – but not some heavy political “revolution.” Yet you leave the image and the mind starts going. Every image has that little twist.

Check out the marathon runner crossing the police line? (picture courtesy of Wooster Collective)

Or “Che” – here’s the symbol of revolution – but rapping?

Or the boy remote controlling… a bird?

Or what about the Burger King?

It’s communication. And when you see one of these images, always look for that little (or big) extra.

Here are some “Dolk Resources” that I’ve found to be the best ones around.

Check them out.

First the “official” Dolk fans forum, you need a login but it’s full of amazing shots from around the world.

Find it on: www.DOLK.co.uk

Second the interview done by “Schhh” - it’s in English and Spanish.

Find it on: http://www.schhh.unmicroclima.com/blog/?p=151#englishdolk

Then this Wiki has a ton of photos and other info. Definitely worth checking out. This is hosted at TheGiant.org.

Find it on: http://thegiant.org/wiki/index.php?title=Dolk&redirect=no

(but don’t hotlink to his images he doesn’t like that)

And some additional pictures from Wooster Collective. They have some great stuff too.

Stencil Revolution has also got a good bunch of shots and additionally they have comments by Dolk and others on these. Very neat. Also has it categorized differently here.

Find it here: http://www.stencilrevolution.com/photopost/showgallery.php?cat=500&ppuser=1864

And then Stencil Archive has some stuff - mainly from Barcelona so update it if you have more.

Find it here: http://stencilarchive.org/index.php?set_albumName=album337&name=gallery&include=view_album.php

I know there was mention that some were on sale as Picturesonwalls or Banksy but I could not easily find them so voila. If you find it then post the link in the comments please.

But Seriously Dude… Where’s my Bike? (Some basics on color usage)

I took this shot of a bike in the snow the other day. Following my earlier post (Dude where’s my bike – a lesson in 3D font usage) I thought I would bring this sequel.

Just like the bikes can’t be found in the snow, so will your message if you don’t use your color harmony well. I found the following would be a good basic to start from.

What is color?

Technically we could explain color like some do in encyclopedias. Something like “physical phenomenon of light or vision associated with the various wavelengths in the visible portion of the electromagneticspectrum. As a sensation experienced by human beings and some animals, perception of colour is a complex neurophysiological process.” Per the Encarta Encyclopedia.

While this may serve a technical defition it doesn’t give us a better understanding of what color is and how to use it.

Color could be simply said to be a visible characteristic used to distinguish similarities and differences in an object, painting, picture etc.

Arguably more than half of the beauty in an object, painting, picture comes from the color. Think about a bouquet in black and white. It would be nice but it would just not quite be as nice as it could be.

But color can also turn a nice painting or object into something so repellent you just want to get rid of it fast. Imagine a room with beige walls with fine gold ornaments and a Bordeaux carpet and in the middle of that place the most expensive renaissance chair, a true piece of art, painted in bright green. Had your vision been in black and white you would still consider that a gorgeous room.

Almost everyone can somewhat figure out what fits and what doesn’t. But how can you be sure. And what do you do when you are told your Powerpoint presentation needs to feature the company logo which is bright green and simply doesn’t fit with any of the charts you made. Or after you found out at a recent seminar that the color that would best represent your company is red yet all your point of sale materials you have are green.

How can you know what other colors you can use or rather you must use to make the presentation attractive (and thus sell)?

Here is where the laws of color harmony come in. To understand color harmony you first need to understand the word harmony. Harmony is defined as a pleasing effect produced by an arrangement of things. It comes from the Greek word harmonia ‘agreement, concord’ which came from the word harmozein ‘to fit together’.

This is the secret of color using color; harmony. There are laws to color harmony, there are limits and boundaries and exceptions to these which are explained with the color wheel.

Let your bosses have at you, tell you that your presentation needs contain their favorite colors, let the marketing analysts present you their color surveys, no matter what color you are asked to include. With the color wheel you are never lost.

Just like any other field, there are laws to this game and knowing them and having the tools to use them replaces your rickety string ladder with granite steps of certainty.

There is no way around it. The color wheel is a basic to creation like a paint brush is to a painter. You can paint with your fingers but you won’t get a Monalisa.

The color wheel existed long before computers, but recently a company did a pretty neat little software called color-wheel-pro. You’ll find a link to it in my tools section on the right. Try it out – it works well the new version (2.0) fixed some points missng in prior edition. It’s soon perfect.

Want to see some amazing photography?

NOTE: JUST DISCOVERED THAT JEAN MICHEL BERTS’ BLOG IS DOWN, THEREFORE PLEASE SEE MY NEW POST ON THE AMAZING PHOTOGRAPHY:
http://marcozna.wordpress.com/2007/07/08/the-amazing-photography-series/

Check out this blog from Jean Michel Berts. I am including some of the pictures here. He’s mainly in France but did some work in the US.

This is the new Ansel Adams!

Musee d’Orsay – Paris

Eiffel Tower – Paris of course

Park Avenue – New York

Enjoy! And check out his blog!!!