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So, this May I’m getting married to a wonderful lady who luckily shares my sense of style. Now, being a designer, I (really want to/feel like I should) design our invitations. We’ve been looking around online a lot for inspiration, but we’ve mostly found the typical, traditional invites. That’s why it’s so fun and refreshing to see something out of the ordinary and much more personal.

From the pixel illustration to the letterpress, these invites please on every level. But, to me, the greatest thing about these invitations is that the style truly speaks of the generation that grew up at the dawn of the digital age. It’s also pretty awesome that the little pixel folk could pass for my fiance Beth and I. (Check me out on the staff page.)

So check out Cabel’s Blog and take a look at some excellent wedding design. It’s not just the invites either, Everything is tied together and wonderfully executed. I’ll try to keep you posted on our invitations when they’re ready.

Click to enlarge.

It’s not very often that a design is so successful and original that it inspires hundreds of imitations. Shepard Fairey, of OBEY fame, achieved just that with his “HOPE” poster for Barack Obama. Whether you consider yourself Republican, Democrat, Independent, or even just apathetic, good design is still good design, and Fairey’s poster is easily one of the most recognizable images of the year.

But now that the election thingy is finally over, we can focus on the more important question: is Sylar good or evil? For those who may not be familiar with Gabriel Gray, AKA Sylar, he’s a character on NBC’s “Heroes”. Lets just say he’s not someone you would want to upset.

This season of Heroes is titled “Villians” and we are seeing the duality of the characters on the show. Sylar has always been a pretty bad guy, but has he turned a new leaf? Decide for yourself, and let others know what side you’re on by downloading a zip file with 11×17 300dpi printable versions here. (4.95mb .zip file)

Do you recognize this logo? You’ve probably seen it before. Almost everyone in the world has. It’s the logo for Major League Baseball. It’s striking, simple and full of symbolism. And no one is quite sure where it came from…

Full Size Image ( 237KB GIF – 5000×800 )

No other color in modern history has carried such gravitas when it comes to associations with masculinity, femininity and politics. The color pink is a vessel for weighty subject material, indeed. Especially when you consider the fact that it has only been around in its proper form for less than 500 years. Who knows what the future for this light shade of red will hold, but this info graphic covers the last hundred years of politics and pop culture in all things pink.

This image is published by Voltage Creative under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike License.

Apple has released two new “Get a Mac” ads with Justin Long and the hilarious John Hodgeman. In “Bean Counter” they’ve set their sights on Microsoft’s now infamous $300 million dollar advertising campaign, “Life without walls.” Microsoft’s multi-million-dollar baby started out weird and impenetrable with Jerry Seinfeld & Bill Gates, but has become more comprehension-friendly, if not sincere.

Vista’s horrible reputation makes it an easy target and they knock it out of the park (I laughed out loud) in this clip, but I’m still left wanting for some positive spin on the Mac. This is just more negativity about Vista, of which there’s already plenty to go around, it’s starting to feel like a Presidential campaign.

Li Chen’s Design Portfolio is fun to navigate and fun look at. The drawing is fun, and the work on display is nicely presented. Illustration has never been my forté so I love looking at hand drawn sites like this.

The Unnofficial Apple Weblog just launched a redesign today. They’re one of the longest running Mac blogs and have managed to turn themselves into more than just another mac fan site over the years. I like the new look, it finally mercy-kills their dated blue and green logo that I’ve always kind of wished didn’t exist. The new format is easy to use and read, but retains a lot of the flavor of the old site. Good stuff.

“Bang” is a slang term printers use for an exclamation point. “Interrogatio” is Latin for “cross-examination.” The interrobang is the mash-up of the two used to define a gloriously unnecessary glyph that’s a marriage between a standard exclamation point and a question mark.

The interrobang was invented by a marketing man, Martin Speckter, who thought that his advertisements would look better with surprised, rhetorical questions using single punctuation marks. He was wrong. The interrobang is now considered a non-standard English language character that was in vogue for much of the 1960′s.

I love it anyway and I’m not sure why. It may be because it’s fun to say, or that it’s a typographical relic and I’m on a typography kick. Who knows‽

Are any of you guys geeky enough to have a favorite glyph? (<– not rhetorical and surprised = no interrobang.)

Following up on this posting of clever signage that is effective…

Some stupid signage. (It’s probably just as effective after all is said and done; and is definitely just as eyebrow-raising.) Whoever made this sign was clearly not up to speed on Maslow’s hierarchy of needs.

Now this is great logo design. It has a distinctly Japanese vibe, and it should: Open Trace is one of three companies representing Japan at TechCrunch 50 this year. They want to be a Wikipedia of food production information, helping people find out where their food came from and what kind of impact that journey has on their environment.

The dragon speaks to their heritage and position as gatekeeper of information with the tree imagery nicely tying in the environmental aspect of their business. It’s a simple shape riffing on the “O” glyph, but the detail is very good up close, as well. Hooray for a modern startup without a shiny, bubble-licious web two-point-lame logo design!

This is cringe inducing. It’s the first salvo being fired back at Apple’s Get a Mac campaign with Justin Long and the superb John Hodgeman.

This is weak tea. Microsoft is going to need a lot more than esoteric comedy and a act who used to be great to shake off the branding corner that they’ve been painted into.

On the other hand, their Mojave Experiment TV Spots are brilliant; just don’t actually go to MojaveExperiment.com it’s an almost an unusable Silverlight GUI disaster, but that’s another blog post. They can’t beat Apple on funny, or slick production, so all they’ve got is their product. Fortunately for them, Vista has a bad name that no piece of software, no matter how terrible, could actually live up to. It’s a case where not living up to the hype is a good thing. They know this and played off it well, this is where they should concentrate. This Seinfeld stuff is just Microsoft shooting themselves in the foot with an insanely expensive bullet.

[Source]

After staring sadly at the number of reality show competitions on TV these days and longing for a show that would truly touch my soul, I’m frightened glad to hear that designers (in this case digital artists) finally get a show of their own. I know, its hard to believe that MTV would produce a show thats not about music, but believe it or not, thats where you can find this program in September. The show is called Engine Room, probably because it sounds cool. Anyway, it looks to be interesting at the very least, so check out the Engine Room website and keep your eyes open. We’ll try too keep you posted on when this show premieres, so check back every single day like you already do.

I’m also intrigued by the unique partnership with HP as well. HP makes nice laptops, I’ve got one at home, but the majority of digital artists use Macs to do their work, so this is kind of like seeing Snoop Dog selling acoustic guitars. I can understand that HP is trying to sell their brand as design savvy and that’s cool, I just wish I could have seen the look on the designers’ faces (many of whom have probably never used a PC) when they were told they would be doing everything on an Hewlett Packard.

Oh, by the way, that sure is an awesome logo for Engine Room. I enjoy the use of the lightning bolts and the circle with the white ring. Boy, that sure looks familiar. (For those who don’t look at our awesome logo every day, heres an “Engine Roomified” Voltage Creative logo next to the one for Engine Room for you to check out.)

More YouTube drama-goodness today:

In August last summer, a fan of Electronic Arts‘ Tiger Woods PGA Tour ’08 posted a video showing a glitch in the game that allows Tiger Woods to literally walk on water and perform a golf shot. He referred to it as the Jesus glitch.

Well, someone at EA saw it (after 100,000+ views) and responded with the following vid a few days ago:

These kinds of marketing opportunities wouldn’t exist without mainstream sites based on user generated content, like YouTube. It’s nice to see a company mastering the medium and using it to communicate directly with their fans on a level otherwise not possible. This is as opposed to, say, freaking out and unleashing the attack dog lawyers, because you don’t understand your product, your audience and their culture.

Nicely played, EA. (Tiger, too.)

Now, I’m a admitted Apple fanboy, and I’m all for artistic license. But when the thing you’re promoting is speed itself, you might want to show things in real time…

Shady advertising aside, they’re obviously doing something very right…

Steve Jobs would say, “BOOM.” Apple (AAPL) has eclipsed Google (GOOG) in market value. Apple’s current market cap: $159.37 billion. Google’s: $157.56 billion.

Knol is Google’s newest assault on the rest of the internet. (They’re convinced they own it.) I’m sure it will do well, because it’s a Google property, but…

K-N-O-L is their brand name? I couldn’t think of a worse name if I tried. In fact, I’ll offer a cash prize for a worse name. (Details at the end of this article.) First, let’s explore this:

• Knol contains a silent letter.
• Phonetically, It starts and ends with a soft consonant. (This guarantees the following conversation will be had countless times… “Blah blah blah Knol.” “What?”)
• It’s a play on the word knowledge, masquerading as the root. (Which is actually “know”.) But they drop the “w” and add the “l” leaving us with “knol.”
• They don’t even own Knol.com. Knol is at knol.google.com. Knol.com, on the other hand, sells steam cleaners in Sweden. No kidding. This is who Google couldn’t afford to buy out.

Google is liquid to the tune of $10 billion dollars. Couldn’t they buy knol.com? Or even something nice like know.com, or known.com? And what’s with the web 2.0 drop-a-letter-add-a-letter bandwagon? This is going to look passé in 6 months. It kinda looks that way right now.

Apple Inc. just bought Me.com. Now that’s a domain. That’s a brand name. Sure the launch sucked, but no one will care in 6 months. They will, however, still be having this conversation:

“…Knol.”

“What?”

“No. KNOL.”

“What!?”

“KNOLLLL.”

“Nal?”

“Eh, screw it.”

Google was a game changer 6 years ago, but that is an eternity in web-years. They’re looking more and more like Microsoft or General Motors when it comes to fresh innovation and execution. It’s like they’re trying to confuse.

In fact, if anyone can come up with a worse brand name than Knol, post it in the comments. Next week I’ll pick out the worst one and Paypal you $50.

The Rules:

• Has to be SFW.
• 2 syllable maximum.
• Has to be pronounceable.
• I’ll announce the winner here next week. (I’ll also send them an email.)
• If you’re related to me or someone who works at Voltage, you can’t win.
• The winner is my pick, which means no whining if/when you lose.
• One entry per email address.
• Cuil doesn’t count.

Update: We Have a Winner

The phrase, “web 2.0″ has surely jumped the shark by now, but the big concept behind it (user-generated content) still has incredible power. Marketing companies love to talk about harnessing the power of web 2.0, and I think I’ve finally found one that really does just that.

Visit Modernista!’s web site and you’ll see something unlike (and just like) everything else online. They’ve built their website using a small layover menu in the upper left hand corner that takes you through their website which is literally built across web sites such as Flickr, Del.ico.us and Youtube. Brilliant! This is a web 2.0 site, for real.

[Image Source]

Theworldsmostpowerfulnakedbike.com

This viral marketing website fires on all cylinders. There’s a plain black background, focusing us on the movie playing in the middle. Various pieces of a high-tech sport bike are visible. An anonymous rider backs out of a race trailer, idles to the line, and does a smoky burnout to get the shoes sticky. Then… SQUEERRRWAAAAAH-and we’re off! Screaming into the distance with a hair-raising engine wail; the camera following along for the ride. After ripping through a few gears comes the money-shot: the rider pops a high-speed wheelie giving us the first glimpse of exactly what motorcycle we’ve been looking at… It’s a BMW K 1200R.

Although it’s done here to great effect, showing some expert push your product to the limit is nothing new in transportation sales. What’s taking this site to the next level is a near-perfect, contagion execution.

Let’s pick it apart…

1. BMW really takes advantage of the fact that this url gives no hint as to the product’s branding. They don’t show you the familiar blue-and-white crest until well over 30 seconds into the video. By the time you see that it’s a BMW bike, you’re already invested emotionally in the proceedings and at least some part of that investment is transferred onto their brand, whether you like it or not. They are cutting their baggage loose by taking this chance, and it pays off big.
2. The focus is 100% on the action at hand, there’s no progress slider, there’s no volume button. Just a field of black, their bike footage and you. Normally, sound on a website with no volume/mute button is one of the cardinal sins of web design. They get away with here, though, because it’s not exactly auto-play. You have to click to start the movie. And they give you a warning of the impending audio with a little engine rev before you click. It’s short and sweet enough to not warrant much attention from the guy in the cubicle across the way, but it lets you know tail-pipe music will be forthcoming, should you want to turn down the volume on your computer.
3. The parting shot is nicely done, as well. They provide you a link to contact local dealers as well as a link to the 1200R product page. Two nicely targeted calls to action are presented without having to reproduce their entire site at this alternate url. They also offer a “replay movie” link along with an available download of the film for the ones who liked it enough that they want to experience it again, and share it with friends. (A.K.A They pay service to, and provide a path of least resistance for, those who are most likely to truly make it a viral site.)

Whoever is doing BMW’s new-media marketing earned every penny on this one. Laser-like focus on the product at hand, maximum capitalization on the distance-from-brand viral campaigns offer, and a classy, understated call to action makes this viral site a winner.

I’m loving me some CommandShift3, lately. It’s like Hot or Not (Warning: link may be mildly NSFW), but it’s for web sites instead of vapid, digi-cam-wielding web personalities. Basically, you get screen shots showing two current web sites. You click on the one that you like the most. By doing so, you’ve just declared a winner between the two. Sites are rated over time and assigned a rank in the grand scheme of things.

Anyone can submit a site, and you can provide a credit url to the designer (or to yourself). It’s a fun way to find some inspiration or put your design chops to the test. The best of and worst ever galleries are not to be missed. Oh, and us Mac users will never again forget what three buttons to press when we want to snap a screen shot. (command-shift-3 is the Mac keyboard shortcut for taking a screenie.)

I recently received an email to vote on the new, improved athletics logo for UMKC, my alma mater. (That’s University of Missouri – Kansas City for anyone wondering.) I was confused at first. How often do logos need to be updated? The year after I graduated they came out with a new logo. I’d say somewhere around 2005. This brings us to somewhere around 3 years ago. And it’s already time for another logo?

It seems that the athletic department has decided that “to create a more comprehensive athletics program, they need to have a more consistent identity, which is something that hasn’t been visible in the past.”

I guess the logo they designed a few years ago wasn’t consistent enough. I’m pretty sure the invisibility of the past was lack of marketing, not the identity. I thought the logo they used from 1987 to 2004 was pretty consistent.

It wasn’t used very well and kind of reminded me of the KangaROOS shoe brand logo, but I thought it was consistent. Re-branding is a common method used to spike interest, so I guess I can handle it. A logo design should be timeless and if anything be able to last more than 3 years. Changing your logo constantly isn’t going to help “consistency”.

After saying all that, I’m still excited to see the options I’ve been given to choose between. I click the link that takes me to the voting page. Uhhhh… really? The two logos shown aren’t what I was hoping for to say the least. Quick critique time!

Option One (on left): I like that they show the whole kangaroo. Even though it says roos, it’s nice to know what it is with a quick glance and with just a head or upper body it’s hard to tell exactly what it is. I understand that the Roo is supposed to have an illustrated feel, but it seems incomplete. The bigger issue is the typography. “Roos” is hard to read. The “R” looks very close to an “A” and the “s” looks like a “5″. The text shouldn’t be angled. When this gets printed on a T-Shirt, it will look like a bad print job. I can hear it now. “Is this supposed to be angled?”

Option Two (on right): I really want to like this one. Overall I wish it were more symmetrical to give it a stronger and more stable look. Especially being a sports logo. The boxing gloves are a nice concept, but I’m not sure if it reads very well. The typography here is better starting with a more traditional and less trendy font choice than option one, but still needs some work. It looks like they tried to have the same arch baseline for “UMKC” and “ROOS”, but were just off from matching it and “ROOS” being italicized doesn’t help it fit either.

Maybe we should look to our new arrivals in the Summit League, the South Dakota State Jackrabbits. They recently redesigned their logo as well. I think I’ll write in a vote for it.