Play with me!

Happy Friday friends.

The past few months have afforded me the opportunity to work on a couple of tv spots. I’m new to this game, but so far I’m finding it both incredibly fun and incredibly challenging. As a visual designer, I often find myself letting technique or aesthetic drive the concept instead of building from the core messaging.

Now bear with me on this analogy, and also know that the irony of me being an awful surfer is not lost here. When a surfer takes off paddling, they are looking for the sweet spot on the face of the wave that will drive them forward with enough to speed to allow for a smooth ride. Once they’ve got that speed & stability on their side, they can start carving up the wave and turn a steady ride into a beautiful one. The same is true for a commercial. You need to start by finding the core messaging that needs to be communicated. That’s what drives the spot forward. From that you can build a unique & (hopefully) beautiful spot through technique.

In the midst of concepting this month, Jonathan Gurvit got in touch to share some of his latest spots. I’m a fan.

What do you think?

SILVER & LIGHT from Ian Ruhter on Vimeo.

This is a beautiful project, with beautiful people, beautiful craft, and pure Friday awesomeness. Going back to the roots without leaving society. You know what I’m going to say: RAD!

CONGRATULATIONS HOLLY (#17) & MATT (#22)!! You rad people get to reap the reward for entering and giving some great answers.

Matt:

my wife loves canning tomatoes, so we have lots of mason jars. our baby likes to toss travel mug lids into the recycling, which we unwittingly send out on recycling day.

she would be blown away to get this as a mother’s day present.

Holly:

I would love to use this cuppow for my maple syrup. I think it would be a great way to pour my syrup on my pancakes 

We’ll be in touch to schedule the shipment of your very own CUPPOW! Thanks to everyone for reading and entering!

I really just can’t get enough of the stuff coming from French design studio Superscript. A refined typographic density seems to permeate all of their work, resulting in beautifully layered compositions. Inspiring.

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Look out, Raleigh! Big talent is dropping in the area very soon. Michael Steven Forrest got in touch to share his work, and to let us know he’s moving to the Raleigh area soon. His portfolio (while not extensive by any means) is a heady mixture of challenging aesthetics and beautiful compositions. I asked Michael about his work and he had this to say:

“I ask myself what is the most important or appropriate means of communicating the idea at hand. Should the content be delivered in a way that is didactic, direct, pure and simplified or socratic in that it presents the viewer/ user an opportunity to dialogue or wrestle with the imagery and its relationship to the content? I believe that our generation is gullible in a lot of ways and we base a lot of decisions on impulse. Perhaps its the educator in me, but I think that as designers it is important for us to encourage critical “seeing” to the same degree hopefully our writers are trying to promote critical thinking.”

No joke. Handmade type. Created by  Taiwanese designer and current Pratt student Tien-Min Liao.

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Benga – I Will Never Change from Us on Vimeo.

Amazing visuals. Nice Dub. Rad design firm based out of London called Us.

Finally, a typeface that Douglas Hofstadter would approve of.

Frustro is a typeface by Hungarian designer Martzi Hegedűs based on the impossible figure called a Penrose Triangle (which you may be familiar with since The Verge adopted it as their logo).  At a quick glance, the letterforms seem to be simple 3-d renderings sitting on an isometric grid.  But if you look closer, you can start to see how the letters make impossible connections and simultaneously occupy several different 3d constructions at once.  It’s as if you took a 3d letterform from two different angles and mashed them seamlessly into one form.  Following the forms, it’s as though parts of the letters are sitting on the page while others are simultaneously standing off of it.  Blink your eyes and they switch places.  Pretty slick and well done.  Now I just need to find a reason to buy it when it comes out.

Glen Milner is a London based filmmaker who created a short vignette of a book being created using traditional printing methods.