Good News

I’ve been working as an intern for 2 months now, that means two-thirds of my internship, and i just got some very good news today: one of the works that i made was presented to the client and he loved it.  I mean, really loved it (my boss said that it was one of the most positive reactions he ever got from a client). The job was to design all the stationery for the client, and we really tried to do some things that aren’t so widely used, like using photos on the business cards, for example. 

I didn’t do the job all by myself, we work as a team most of the times, and my boss acts like a creative director, so i follow some guidelines and add my ideas too. But it feels really great to have a positive response, and it dissolves a little of the stress we feel by working against the clock everyday (specially for a guy like me, who’s starting his professional life now).

At school, things are not so good, the works are always late, and there’s plenty of things to do (just ask Edgar) and i feel that my colleagues and i have potencial, but to work and study at the same time is making things go bad. But i guess we just have to get used to it 🙂

Designing for friends and family

Most of graphic designer’s first clients are family or friends. Everybody has a cousin who’s opening a business or a friend who wants a new webiste. My first piece of work to be used in the “real world” (meaning: not personal or academic works) was the logo for my parent’s restaurant, called Papas & Tapas (Papas is a portuguese “nickname” for food, and Tapas is a kind of spanish snacks). It’s a nice way to start getting used to work in real life situations, but it has some problems too: i find really hard to say “no” to my parents, so they (mis)lead my works 😛

That’s the final version of the logo:

 

 

I dont know why, but my parents fell in love with that font, ITC Bradley Hand, so i hade to use it. It is, in my humble opinion, a really bad typeface. 

I would have used another handwriting font, like Jellyka’s Estrya, and i’d use colors in other way. This is a sketch of what the logo would be, if i decided by myself:

 

 

Better, isn’t it? Anyway, this kind of “co-design” is not very good for us, but i’m pretty sure every designer have an example of this, specially when dealing with family or friends. But it’s not such a bad logo after all: i still like the “half”-circles, and the shape of a dish they make. And the logo looks surprisingly nice at the restaurant window, in negative, made in vinyl. It looks something like this:

 

 

grey: translucent vinyl

white: cut-out of the logo, without any vinyl (therefore, just glass)

 

PS: the restaurant has excellent food and the interior is beautifully designed anyway 😀

Internship and links

I’ve just started today my second week of internship, at Duplo Network, here in Coimbra, Portugal. It’s so important to a student to have a internship, to learn the job in a real company, with real clients and timelines. I just made some minor works on week 1, most stationary, but now it’s starting to get better, with some new projects (which i can’t discuss now :P)

Anyway, i want to introduce two of my friends 😀 First one is the-iguana , a nice photographer and graphic designer (you can see his blog at my links list or here) and last but not least, saveGOD , who doesn’t have a blog (but should have) and it’s a great graphic designer too. They’re both from my classe (Design, Polytechnic Institute of Coimbra) and two great friends. Oh and my deviantart is here too.

PS: i just realized now how ugly is my header 😛 i’ll going to design a logo for myself soon enough

 

cheers

Channel 4 id

When i was doing my exchange studies at Istanbul Bilgi University, in Turkey, i did a research work about TV ids, and i chose UK’s Channel 4. They started in 1982, when they lauched their first logo, a 3-dimensional number 4 composed of various pieces, a very dynamic and colorful logo.

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Durante o meu período de Erasmus na Istanbul Bilgi Universitesy, na Turquia, fiz um trabalho de pesquisa sobre identidades de canais de TV, e escolhi o Channel 4, do Reino Unido. O canal começou a transmitir em 1982, quando lançaram o seu primeiro logo, um 4 a 3 dimensões, composto por várias peças, o que resultou num logo colorido e dinâmico.

 

 

 

In 1996 they redesigned their logo. It became flat, inserted into one of four circles, that could be arranged in different ways, according to its use. 

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Em 1996, o logotipo foi redesenhado. O 4 passou a ser 2-D, e foi inserido dentro de um círculo, acompanhado por mais 3 círculos. Estes círculos apareciam em diferentes posições, de acordo com a sua utilização.

 

 

 

New redesign in 1999: the number four got sliced in diagonal and vertical cuts, like a 2-D version of the original logo.

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Em 1999, foi criado um novo logo, uma versão em 3D do logotipo original.

 

 

 

There was another change in 2004: 

 

But the really interesting thing is the new (not so new now, they’re from 2006) TV spots, with footage from ordinary scenes from everyday life, where the new logo is formed from various things in the environment. 

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Para mim a parte mais interessante desta última mudança foram os novos spots televisivos, onde o logotipo é formado através de vários elementos de cenários do quotidiano.

 

 

Cider – Krönleins Bryggeri

First post!! I’ll start with this lovely design from Sweden, by studio Amore. It’s pretty self-explanatory, simple and effective, as every graphic piece should be.

via thedieline.com, a great source for package design around the world.

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Meu primeiro post! Começo com esta embalagem fantástica, criada pelo estúdio sueco Amore. Explica-se sozinha, é simples e eficaz, como todo trabalho de design gráfico deve ser.

via thedieline.com, uma excelente fonte de bom design de embalagens