Brand confusion

Brands brands brands, they are everywhere, we wear them, read them and all sorts. We undertstand certain brands are luxurious and certain are poor, some people will go to extreme measures to get their hands on the latest product eg. iphone or playstation.

But i wonder…
Have we been spun? Do the rest of world embrace brands like us?

I spent some time on the sub-continent earlier in the year, the mish mash of brands was quite amazing, there were the cutomary brands like coke, pepsi, toyota etc… but then there were some funny things going on with brands!
The car pictured is a Toyota Starlet, i dont remeber Toyota making an R-Type Starlet? Can just hear honda gettin onto their lawyers!

I’m not sure what it is, it is not a blatant rip off, but there is a hell a lot of confusion, so i’m thinking the whole media-branding-machine hasn’t quite inflitrated the whole world just yet. Yet they still clearly have some idea of what is percieved as nice and not-nice. I also think the people i came accross did not have english as their first language, so maybe that is a factor too? There was another popular brand i came accross over there, it was called ‘Prado’- another interesting one, like i said above, they DO understand what is good and not, so it seems to me that they came up with the ULTIMATE luxury brand by chucking 2 international luxury brands together – genius. (Rado and Prada, for those of you who live in a broadband-ready brand-free-cave.)

Well anyways i found the 2 links below, they visualise another world of brands…(from china mostly)
I’m not sure if it’s an attempt to blatantly rip off big name brands, or whether it is a secret homage…either way its fishy and i wouldn’t buy any of it!
Doh! i’ve been spun!

http://www.popsci.com/popsci/technology/4d452e8569544110vgnvcm1000004eecbccdrcrd.html
http://www.cartype.com/page.cfm?id=1497

Anyways…discuss…

Trees in the City

I’ve been meaning to put this up for ages.
I designed this book of poetry back in the spring, here’s just a few sample pages.
This was a v simple and elegant typographic solution.

Amar

buy it at amazon:
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Trees-City-Action-Climate-Change/dp/095561130X

Awesome link

check out the link below, its all about images that lie. or rather photographers/re-touchers who make images lie. there some really good examples on there, some more contreversial than others.

Enjoy

http://news.com.com/2300-1026-6033210.html

The Observer G24 PDF Edition (On-Demand?)

I have written about the future of mags before, but i have only JUST come accross this G24 PDF Edition. i have seen others in the past but i am really impressed by the G24, all the major news from the site is on the PDF and it updates and puts the time of download on as part of the date slug (lack of pics tho).

The design is VERY simple, but still feels crisp and legible. There are no images but i think this may be more to do with the way this edition is produced – there seems to have been an initial design template (by a person) but the rest of it must be automated. i assume there is a link to some sort of news database and the PDF sucks the information and styles it up and VOILA – there you have it, on-demand printing…

but as i said earlier i really like, it means on this lovely/rainy sunday i dont have to spend as much time in front of this screen, i can go sit in the garden and read the G24 in the sun…and if it rains i’ll use my clunky a4 pieces of paper as protection as i make dash for the house!

Rogger Black has an article on Print editions click to read.

Anyways must get back to the garden before the torrential rain…(see below 4 a screen grab)

http://download.guardian.co.uk/g24/Topstories.pdf

Trees in the City

I designed a lil’ poetry book a while back…here is the link to the pres release:
http://www.apa.co.uk/cgi-bin/go.pl/news/article.html?uid=1754

NEW LOOK

Hi all,

Using a new fresh theme from today, keep it cleaner and i PROMISE to update here more often!

A

Holidays

Hey… excuse the lack of updates, i have been on holiday.
I am working currently at Axon Publishing on a secret project but it is quite cool. As soon i have clearance i shall put samples up!

Axon is in Shorditch and within walking distance of Spitafields Market, this place has changed beyond recognition! It used to be a run down shed of a place to a bustling collection of shops, cafes and stalls. LOTS of budding designers sell their ways there and i couldn’t resist buying the illustrated t shirt. ‘Boys in the Hood’ – brilliant. Anyways i must carry on with work whilst wearing my car-related t shirt, will pop down to Sppitalfields to soak up some creativity during lunch.

This car-related stuff is becomming a bit of a trend… hmm…i wonder…

eMags…

I’ve been keeping tabs on jellyfishmag.com and monkey mag and i can totally see what they are doing – after getting past the ‘interesting’ (ahem) aesthetics. I like the way you can link to shopping sites and i like the way video is intergrated into the editorial, although occasinally it is clumsy. Taking the traditional magazine format and reproducing AND adding extra bells n’ whistles has made the 2 mags work quite well. I cant imagine either mag being able to hold its own on the newsstand but on the web, the feature lengths are just right for the format and the intended audience.

There has been a lot written bout Monkey, Jeremy has written about it at Magculture and it dawned upon me today, that lil’ old me may have to eventually like to do something in ‘eMag’ format, so i am in the process of coming up with something…WATCH THIS SPACE.

I will hav something to put up soon…i have a title and i think i can do a very basic interpretation of an eMag, the danger is my flash/interactive skills may let me down…so if there are any Flash whizzes out there up for a tiny project – give me a shout!

My typographical heritage…

That above is my name in urdu calligraphy… and ‘cos urdu and arabic are related languages that is also my name in arabic. There is something quite beautiful about the loose swooshing lines. I’m by no means an expert. I dabble from time-to-time i scribble designs, form and words down in pen, usually in biro, then magic marker and then inevitably (as above) i use adobe illustrator. My calligraphy, however is a far cry from the ‘real thing’. Traditionally each letter form would have been painstakingly drawn/written with a calligraphy pen and then reproduced, often these books were HUNDREDS of pages long…!

This brings me onto newspapers and magazines. As a child we used to have old issues of an urdu mag knocking round the house called ‘Shafaq’. I always wondered what the typewriters must have looked like… i stumbled accross this article which KINDA answers that, the typewriter was a PERSON! I always knew this… but it is sad to see there is only ONE handwritten newspaper left in the world. I feel i want to go there and offer them my services, i’m not sure how many times my name can appear in the newspaper…

Be sure to look at the link there are pics on how this manual style of typesetting takes form.

WIRED…and the future of mags

Hello again, i bought WIRED mag today. Haven’t bought it in ages, looks great! Right up my street. Lot of diagrams, graphics and bold design. Over the last few years i have visited the WIRED blogs a lot, lots of news and reviews of gadgets and gizmos. This got me thinking about web/mag design ‘convergence’ or the much discussed ‘future of mags’.

WIRED mag is pretty much what you expect, beautiful editorial and nice meaty features. The mag also has news and reviews on new products, but it’s only the best of the best. The WIRED blogs however cover almost EVERY little development in the technological industry. Every time there is any Apple, Microsoft or Sony rumour, it’s fed straight throught my RSS feed. It really has become the forst source off gadgetry news – it is the ONLY RSS feed that gets me excited, even if the news is rubbish and i dont even read past the headline. (i would still rather have a physical mag in my hand though…)

So it seems WIRED have created a seemingly perfect model, the cross-over and convergence of web seems to work seamlessly. There are elements of the design/brand which have been ported over to the web too. To quote Samir Husni ‘The problem we have in print today is not the medium but the message’ and i think the WIRED blogs and WIRED mag live comfortably side by side, the messages in both mediums is right. WIRED have also given us a glimpse into the future of mags (other mags like Vogue and Monocle have similar strategies). In the coming months i’m expecting lots of free wi-fi spots and eventually the iphone and other smart phones will appear and i will be able to recieve WIRED blog feeds on the move.

This blog was titled ‘WIRED…and the future of mags’ – i think for a few days i might stop thinking about the future and ENJOY THE PRESENT.