Another equally iconic design by Dumbar is that of the then newly unified, Dutch National Police. According to the Studio Dumbar website, “This landmark project began when the merger of the State and Municipal police, two previously autonomous organizations, created one unified national police force. A new identity was required to signal this change to…
The main idea of his design work is in creating unique, bold, and innovative brand identities. The first example of his work that comes up the most, as it is arguably his most iconic piece, that’s still being used today. I’m of course talking about his logo design for the Dutch Railways. It was a…
When one thinks of a traditional graphic designer, one’s mind immediately goes to 2D print, branding, logos, etc. However, Stephen Doyle not only creates inspiring 2D projects, but also loves to bring his projects to life into our 3D world. This project, Stephen Doyle’s interlaced chairs, creating a venn-diagram from bird’s eye view, is a…
While watching Elliot Earls Death and Resurrection of 1990’s Experimental Graphic Design, the only thing that I could think of at the time was that it was really weird and different in comparison to the styles of graphic design that I grew up looking at in the first decade of the 2000’s. The…
Something I didn’t realize before is that the TimeWarner symbol is not just an eye, it is actually both an eye and an ear. The eye can be seen with the top line entering the center of the swirl, and the ear starts with the inside squiggle and goes downwards. I think this is a…
Steff Geisbuhler is quite possibly known mostly for his conversion of the NBC peacock seen in image 1 to the widely known peacock seen in image 2. John Graham originally designed the peacock in image 1 as a way of showing off that the TV channel had color options, which explains why it is…
The U.S. Open has a long history of bad logos. Being one of the “highest attended annual sporting events,” one would think that the logo would have been better over the years. “The mark that had been used for 20 years—an illustration of a flaming ball paired with thin serif type and a red swoosh—was…
Conservation International was founded in 1987 with the mission to protect the environment while spreading awareness about global biodiversity issues. However, it was realized that discussing the well-being of the world was not enough. “To confront this reality, Conservation International is fundamentally redefining itself as an organization that protects nature for the well-being of humanity,…
I have always found this logo (1960) to be mesmerizing, and as I was two years old when it was introduced, it has been ever-present in my life. There are a number of interpretations of Rand’s abstraction but I want to give this a new spin. Someone wrote the look was that of circuit boards…
In the cultural mix (or mix-up) that was Studebaker-Packard, two once-proud auto manufacturers fell into market decline against GM and found themselves in a marriage of convenience between two very different cultures. Studebaker had made wagons and jeeps before moderately-priced vehicles in the 1930s; in the 1940s it had two post-war hits in its 1946…
There was a time in the late 1970s when generic brands first appeared in packaging that looked exactly like this (see Michael Nesmith’s Repo Man for the final scene in which the suburban punk is shot in the convenience store). I received this recently from Indiana. Does this appearance now constitute an historic style? See…
Jan Toorop (1858-1928) designed this poster around the same time as Henry Van De Velde finished his famous poster for Tropon. I got the two confused in my book American Design in 2008, and called Tropon (the product) a salad oil. It is not. It is a protein supplement derived from egg whites and came in…
Ben Fry is a designer that specializes in data design, professionally said, computational information design. He uses data and visualizes that data in a way that tells a story or answers a question. He’s worked with marketing teams to display data and he’s worked with scientists and doctors to easily access different information needed for…
Plain black cloaks, typically associated with antagonists in a storyline, have been known to add a sense of mystery, death, danger, and darkness. People tend to build first impressions very quickly and how someone appears adds a lot to that first impression. Showing a character dressed in all black builds the impression that they are…
For this assignment, the trope I have chosen to discuss is the “American flag/ Stars and Stripes” motif. The symbol of the American flag certainly carries a lot of baggage with it, considering both the roles that the nation currently plays and has historically played in global affairs, as well as the near-constant political turmoil…