Then here you go. The modern furniture company BoConcept is looking for a few good graphic designers to help them create their spring line of china. Among all the applicants, there will be 6 winners whose designs will be produced and sold in all BoConcept stores around the world.
This is how you do it:
Go to www.boconcept.com and download a template of the BoConcept cup layout and make your very own design to enter the competition. All the entered designs will be featured in 3D on the website. In January 2010 when the competition finishes, an international jury of 4 judges will decide the winning design of 6 different cup designs that will be put into production. The 6 winners will each get their name and country written on the cup. Furthermore they will receive a set of the 6 winner cups and – last but not least – an BoConcept Imola chair in a fabric of their own choice.
Nixon, the über-trendy surf and skate clothing company has a flair for west-coast flavored euro-styling. I'd love to find this watch in my stocking, and the company's use of a super skinny version of Chalet on their website and in their ads is refreshing. Here at birdsong gregory, the design team always keeps an eye on the underground fashion world to help our Charlotte marketing agency stay inspired and informed.
If you work in an image saturated field like graphic design or advertising, then you understand the need for a more user-friendly and hierarchical way to search online for stock photography. So we were excited to see Google recently roll out their smooth flash-based image search tool: Google Image Swirl.
When you click a stack of images, Image Swirl displays a fluid matrix of photos based on a quasi relational basis, i.e., search for dogs and you get several thick stacks of dog shots, which you can then rifle through. But bugs in the search logic remain. A search for dogs also turns up a shot of machine parts. And a search for ambition returns a shot of two young japanese guys staring blankly into the camera.
It's still a fun way to hunt for that perfect visual metaphor, though. Plus the resulting patterns that develop are a loose art form unto themselves.
I'm sure I am not the only designer that has nightmares about Comic Sans or bad kerning. Any Charlotte graphic design professional would sleep better resting their creative brains on one of these type-centric pillows.
I am still in love with this stop-motion film commissioned by the Maine Chapter of AIGA, the professional association for design, for use as an interstitial between speakers at the Compostmodern conference this past spring. It is a great visual remedy for Charlotte graphic design teams that have endured the past week of rain and gray.
For over forty years, the JFG Coffee billboard has graced the Charlotte skyline, advertising the New Orleans' coffee company's signature beans. Featuring large white letters against a blue background with the company's tagline "the best part of the meal" in an elegant cursive script across the bottom, this window into graphic design and advertising sensibilities of an earlier era was located next to Interstate 277 just south of the Panthers stadium. Let's hope it finds a new home soon.
Here's the link to the story in our local birdcage liner, the Charlotte Observer.
Not that I'd know, since I'm a happily married copywriter. If I were single, though, and wanted to impress all the cute single graphic designers I see at AIGA events, I'd use one of these lines to break the ice.
1. Show me your .tiffs
2. Has anybody ever told you that your teeth have perfect kerning?
3. I’m just like a global nav; I love to be on top.
4. Would you like to lorem ipsum dolor sit on my lap?
5. I couldn’t help but notice your eye path went right to my smudge stick.
6. You look perfectly put together. Do you display this well in IE?
7. If you like what you see now, wait’ll you look below the fold.
Last week I represented birdsong gregory as part of the Charlotte Chapter of AIGA (the professional association for design) team at charity pumpkin carving competition, GUTS.
Charlotte graphic design firms, web design firms and advertising agencies came together to raise money for the Levine Children's Hospital while enjoying festive candy, spooky music, and a little light-hearted competition. Thirty-three participants turned out from the creative Charlotte community to sculpt some truly amazing pumpkin creations in the name of this worthy cause!
Sustainability is an issue on top of many creative minds but it can be a complicated topic to tackle. To ease the process and give designers a distilled framework to work from AIGA, the professional association for design, unveiled The Living Principles for Design at the Make/Think Design Conference in Memphis last week.
The Principles, developed by AIGA Center for Sustainable Design, build on a framework of environmental protection, social equity, economic health and culture — giving clarity to integrated sustainability and making it accessable, relevant and actionable. This is a great resource for Charlotte graphic design and advertising agencies that are looking for ways to incorporate sustainability into their professional practices.
After many years of using the iconic Futura font for its catalog design, Ikea has switched to Verdana, upsetting hard-core IKEA fans and graphic designers alike. Their point of contention? Verdana was invented by Microsoft for the computer screen, not print. Not to mention that Verdana is not nearly as pleasing to the eye.
To protest, the chattering class is up in arms. Twitter is filled with angry comments extolling the company to "stop the Verdana madness, and an online petition now has over 4,000 signatures.
According to IKEA (who made the switch because it's cheaper to use one font that works in digital and print media), "We're surprised. But I think it's mainly experts who have expressed their views, people who are interested in fonts. I don't think the broad public is that interested."
So is this important to IKEA? It depends on the scale of criticism, of course, but also on something that's not quantifiable: the depth of emotional attachment.
When a company has evangelists, it is often because that company represents core values (i.e., Apple = innovation). For IKEA, whose core values are style, chic design, and affordability, a typeface could be considered more than just a typeface: it's an emotional catalyst. When Walmart changed its logo recently, no one complained because Walmart had nowhere to go but up since its core value is low prices, not contemporary style or sleek design.
For IKEA, the Futura font is (or was) the emotional subtext to IKEA's contemporary yet familiar vibe. Which means perhaps for the purists and evangelists, switching to Verdana is a sign of something worse than a new font.
Check out the amazing Kseniya Simonova, who just won Ukraine's version of "America's Got Talent." She uses a giant light box, dramatic music, imagination and sandpainting skills.
Sandpainting, in case you're wondering, is the art of pouring colored sands, powdered pigments from minerals or crystals, and pigments from other natural or synthetic sources onto a surface to make a painting.
These are often ritual paintings for religious or healing ceremonies, and is practiced by Native Americans in the Southwestern United States, by Tibetan monks, by Indians, and Australian Aborigines, among others.
Suppose you want to announce or sell something, amuse or persuade someone, explain a complicated system or demonstrate a process. You could tell people one by one or broadcast by radio or loudspeaker. That’s verbal communication. But if you use any visual medium at all – if you make a poster; type a letter; create a business logo, a magazine ad, or an album cover; even make a computer printout – you are using a form of visual communication called graphic design. This colorful (literally) trade, by the way, is one our Charlotte ad agency specializes in.
So here's a link to a helpful explanation of what the different components of graphic design are, and how this infinitely creative process combines art and technology to communicate ideas for companies like yours.
Have you always wanted to know the difference between a pictogram and an ideogram? Or where America's first advertising agency opened its doors? (FYI: it was Philadelphia in 1841). Then check out www.designhistory.org. This wonderfully illustrated site begins with the origin of symbols and type before moving through the various cultural movements (Bauhaus, Arts and Crafts, etc.) that influenced and eventually evolved into the modern digital state of design and advertising.
Here at birdsong gregory, the graphic designers and branding gurus at our Charlotte ad agency are always looking for ways to sharpen their craft and deepen their knowledge of this creative, mercurial industry. So to that end, this site is a helpful collection of facts, faces, and inspiration.
Want to find birdsong gregory on the web? Search for Advertising Agency Charlotte, Branding Agency Charlotte, Charlotte Graphic Design or even Charlotte Social Media. These are just a few of the keyword phrases we try to optimize against because we recognize when prospective clients hit Google to research potential agency partners, it's what they'll be searching for. The more competitive or broad the phrase, the more difficult it is to win. For instance North Caroilina Advertising Agencies is one we continue to pursue, but it's a long haul.
Are you on page one for your company's keywords? If not, give Jim Cusson a call at 704-332-2299 or visit our site at www.birdsonggregory.com
Finding inspiration is not always as simple as it sounds, whether you’ve been designing for years or are still in school. Here at birdsong gregory, the seasoned graphic designers in our Charlotte marketing agency have to jump back and forth across the entire spectrum of design – from web design to print to identity and even to environmental design. To keep our muses fresh and invigorated, here is a collection of 100 great online graphic design resources that can help anyone find inspiration and direction on a design project, whether it be online or in print. These sites range from galleries of graphic design to online magazines and a few unconventional sources of inspiration. Please enjoy.
And in a big way. Plans were announced this summer that Apple will invest $1 billion in a computer data center over nine years.
The data center is expected to have at least 50 full-time employees, although another 250 contractors could be employed to manage security, landscaping and heating and air conditioning systems. Including construction jobs, the presence of the facility could put a total of 3,000 people to work, according to Department of Commerce estimates. This would provide a significant economic boost to local communities, the state, and possibly Charlotte branding agencies and the wider Charlotte graphic design community.
The exact location is still undecided, but Apple has to build the data center in one of North Carolina’s more economically distressed counties, according to provisions in the incentives legislation. It is expected to choose a location in the western part of the state, likely between Charlotte and Asheville.
To learn more about our branding agency or the marketing, advertising, and graphic design services we offer, please visit birdsong gregory online, contact Jim Cusson at 704-332-2299, or stop by the next time you’re in downtown Charlotte.
We had been hearing rumors in the Charlotte social media circles for a while, and now it’s here – an upated Twitter homepage. It’s new, it’s very blue, and it’s all about search.
In fact, from the looks of it Twitter has decided to take the simple and straightforward front page route, all centered around search functionality Gone are any attempts to explain Twitter, or a link to the “Twitter in Plain English” video. Instead, the Twitter homepage features a big search box, along with popular topics right now, over the past day, and from this week.
The fresh new look is big departure from the previous homepage, but we’re kind of digging it here at birdsong gregory And the new focus on search makes it a lot easier to keep up with our colleagues in the NC ad agency world.
I came across this great video from Tim Brown, the CEO of innovation and design firm IDEO, talk out creativity and play that I thought I would share with you. Jim Cusson, Chief Strategic Officer here at birdsong gregory attended the 2008 TED conference where this speech was given, and he has tried to incorporate some of its insights into the way our North Carolina ad agency works.
It is interesting as you watch the video to think about what narrowing behaviors you've taken on as an adult, and to think about how you might step outside them to achieve greater creativity.
As I was watching the video, I found myself wondering why graphic design is not part of the core curriculum for students growing up and going through elementary school and high school.
I know there are movements out there to merge B-school and D-school thinking, but it's a lot more work to get people to unlearn old behaviors and learn new ones. How much more efficient and enjoyable would our society be if we all thought like designers engaged in open-minded, creative problem solving? And what lessons can a Charlotte ad agency
Command X: Season 2 is a graphic design reality show featuring seven up-and-coming designers who step into the spotlight and have the chance to break into the industry in front of 2,000 peers, heroes and potential employers during "Make/Think" the 2009 AIGA Design Conference. Throughout the conference, contestants will take on a series of design challenges to complete and present on the main stage within 24 hours. Although no one from the Charlotte advertising or design community was featured in Season 1, a designer from a North Carolina ad agency in Raleigh did compete and was a runner up. Way to go, Matt!
This year, seven lucky participants will show off their talent before the world's best designers. Each will receive a complimentary registration to the conference—although they’ll be hard at work on their next design challenge most of the time! The winner of “Command X: Season 2” will receive $1,000, design software and iPhone and best of all Glory.
If you read websites about food, NYC or general wackiness, there's a good chance you've recently run into Scanwiches—a Tumblr with nothing but flatbed scans of bisected deliciousness. It's a fun, creative concept and I can envision how a site like this could anchor the social media marketing strategy for a Charlotte, NC sandwich shop.
At the same time, since most Charlotte graphic design studios have a scanner on the premise, you have to wonder if our sandwich landscape is fertile enough to support a project like this. Probably not.
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