Moving Images: Predators
This article was posted on Thursday, 10th May 2012 by John Rainsford
I like movies for many different reasons, the story, the script, the characters, the visuals, the actors or just a combination of the aforementioned. I thought the 2010 film Predators had many flaws, but I liked the characters, the premise of the story and most especially the visuals. It really had some great scenes, which I have screen-grabbed and included below.
My favourite scene? The Yakuza versus the Predator scene. Everything about it just came together to be a really nice visual. The lighting is moonlight, the location is a wild grass pasture, the characters are a heavily tattooed Japanese gentleman and a big hulking Predator. The juxtaposition is really great.
Worth watching the movie for the visuals alone or just enjoy the images below.
All images are © 2010 Twentieth Century Fox.
Brilliant Branding: St. Barts
This article was posted on Thursday, 26th April 2012 by John Rainsford
Not all new branding needs to follow the latest trends and use so-called 'modern' typefaces. Case in point- the branding solution for Saint Bartholomew's Church, which won the Best of Show in the 2011 Brand New Awards.
There are many things I like about this identity. The typography is a nice blend of old carved type, lifted directly from the Church walls, and Carter Sans by Matthew Carter. Carter Sans is a very legible and clean sans-serif, with loads of character (no pun intended) without being too ostentatious. The sub-branding is nicely consistent- a circular motif is maintained through the branding, with a selection of iconography and text-within-circles, to denote the different aspects of the church. I love the fact that not only is the branding incredibly comprehensive, there is also so much room for expansion.
The branding is designed by the Original Champions of Design- you should check out their case study page as well as the rest of their work. They do some great work, kudos.
The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo
This article was posted on Monday, 23rd April 2012 by John Rainsford
Just after Christmas last year, I saw the David Fincher remake of The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo. I thought it was a better interpretation of the original novel than the Swedish film. I thought they had a great cast of actors, and I felt that both Daniel Craig and Rooney Mara portrayed their respective characters better than their Swedish counterparts. I thought the film was shot, edited and paced a lot better too-it's a long movie, two hours and forty minutes, but it doesn't seem like a long journey. More like a tough journey.
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As with all David Fincher movies, the attention to detail is brilliant. Every little element on screen has been thought about and is there for a reason. I think this is probably why this movie appeals to me a lot- as a designer, it's those tiny little details that 99% of people do not see, but are there, that excite and interest me. They are the threads of a fine woven garment.
The Art of the Title Sequence, a website celebrating movie title sequences, posted an article about TGWTDT when it was released in the cinema, and I'm sure I posted it to Twitter. Having watched the movie again on Blu-Ray, I thought the article deserved a mention on a blog post because it is really good.
It consists of interviews with David Fincher, Tim Miller from Blur Studios- the company which created the title sequence and, Neil Kellerhouse, the designer who handled all the graphic elements for the movie.
Amazing and inspiring work.
All images were taken from the Art of the Title Sequence without permission and I do not claim ownership for any of the images in this blog post.
Brilliant Branding: Budnitz Bicycles
This article was posted on Thursday, 19th April 2012 by John Rainsford
I happened across Budnitz Bicycles on 37signals' blog and I was really impressed with the branding that Budnitz Bicycles have. It was designed by a two-man design studio in Colorado, Berger & Fohr (check out their work on their website, it's all great).
The branding has been designed to go across several mediums, even bicycle frames, and it works so well. The three elements that I think form the guts of the branding are the logotype (Paul Budnitz Bicycles), the logo mark and the stretched hexagon crest (which reminds me of the vintage bike companies, especially when on the frames) enclosing the logo mark.
The real genius is how the logo mark, the 'b' from the logotype, looks completely natural in the stretched hexagon and in the text-based logotype. I have tried this before and it is near impossible to achieve. A single letter taken from a logotype can look unbalanced on its own, or a single letter logo mark can look forced when it's shoe-horned into a logotype.
A really nice piece of work, kudos to Berger & Fohr.
(Image taken from bergerfohr.com. I, of course, lay no claim to ownership)
Adobe Illustrator issue: Keyboard controls not working
This article was posted on Wednesday, 18th April 2012 by John Rainsford
As a public service, I'm recording this issue and solution here, rather than a throwaway tweet.
I've noticed in the past couple of months that the shift, alt (or opton if you're an old school Mac user) and spacebar functionality within Adobe Illustrator had stopped working. Examples would include when I use the alt key to duplicate selected content whilst moving it, or when I hold the shift button down to move content at 90 or 45 degree angles to its original position. Or even the old 'move the artboard' trick by holding down the spacebar.
The behaviour was sporadic and when they weren't working, holding the keys down had no effect- even holding down the spacebar did not change the cursor to the grab-hand.
After much forum searching, and going through many suggested solutions, I spotted that people were claiming that quitting Firefox solved the problem. I wasn't using Firefox but I had started to use Chrome a whole lot more.
The solution was to quit both Chrome and Illustrator, but restart Illustrator first. There seems to be a conflict with key commands between the two and I think whichever app opens first gets precedence.
I hope this helps someone with similar issues, as it is so frustrating. It makes it very difficult to be productive with one metaphorical-hand, tied behind your back.
