tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-72930142595302667412008-05-14T14:39:21.226-05:00The Cloudjammer Creative Networkhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09612693084668892716noreply@blogger.comBlogger136125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7293014259530266741.post-72865242013056981132008-05-12T13:26:00.022-05:002008-05-13T17:16:48.483-05:00

On April 2, 2008, The United Kingdom decided to change its currency. Not to the Euro ... heavens no! But the august pound sterling – the third-most-common, and forth-most-traded currency in the world – is getting a long overdue face lift. And the new coinage is a graphic dream: an integrated series of seven coins that work individually, as a collective whole, and reinforce the kingdom's royal

The Cloudjammer Creative Networkhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09612693084668892716noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7293014259530266741.post-79564735215512383962008-05-05T13:33:00.001-05:002008-05-13T14:50:56.680-05:00

It's amazing that Domino's villanous, red suited Noid (created by Group 243 and animated by Will Vinton Studios) and rapper/clock aficionado Flavor Flav coexisted in the 1980s and early 1990s without this brand hybridization coming to light: This is the sort of thing that happens when graphic designers have idle hands and an unhealthy affinity for trademark infringement. Enjoy! FB

The Cloudjammer Creative Networkhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09612693084668892716noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7293014259530266741.post-52820007420304850882008-04-28T12:22:00.001-05:002008-05-13T14:50:16.496-05:00

Think you are pretty good at identifying typefaces? We thought we were. But we were recently shamed by our 23/34 score on Kari Pätilä's Rather Difficult Font Game over at the Say It Ain't Slow blog. Currently the game challenges you with 34 typefaces to identify but the word is out that this may soon expand to an even larger collection of fonts. For our part, every designer we know (well, aside

The Cloudjammer Creative Networkhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09612693084668892716noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7293014259530266741.post-63280385496239608152008-04-21T20:03:00.006-05:002008-05-13T13:22:31.138-05:00

A friend of ours, Carl London, recently brought a great new service to our attention: CNN recently launched a tool that enables users to purchase recent news article titles on t-shirts. This beta service was quietly released today with the sudden appearance of little shirt icons next to the video icons on their homepage. But you better hurry because the wearable headlines are only available as

The Cloudjammer Creative Networkhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09612693084668892716noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7293014259530266741.post-33381551011060138202008-04-14T09:05:00.002-05:002008-05-13T13:19:37.621-05:00

We've long had an interest in the way photography and visual editorials can affect the way the public perceives news and conflict. So we took special interest in the way the press and the public marked this past March's bittersweet anniversary of the Iraq War. Most remembrances and acknowledgments focused on the 3,990 American troops that have been killed, and 29,395 that have been wounded, in

The Cloudjammer Creative Networkhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09612693084668892716noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7293014259530266741.post-86143701228357192992008-04-07T10:23:00.006-05:002008-04-08T20:54:26.389-05:00

We love fonts – that's no secret. So we were thrilled when Newsweek recently ran an excellent article on the emerging role of fonts in celebrity marketing and campaign politics. Author Jessica Bennett points out that "America has developed a geeky obsession with fonts, the latest instance of our sophistication about design." Alongside her discussion of Beyonce and Bjork's celebrity typography,

The Cloudjammer Creative Networkhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09612693084668892716noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7293014259530266741.post-76945800153966296442008-03-24T14:57:00.004-05:002008-03-27T18:10:03.826-05:00

StarWars.com's Expanded Universe blog recently showcased a number of scenes from the original Marvel comic and the much later Media Works magna editions of the original Star Wars trilogy. It reveals both a striking contrast in how different cultures approach the material in a graphically illustrated form and how different artists either suffered or benefited from a sophisticated familiarity with

The Cloudjammer Creative Networkhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09612693084668892716noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7293014259530266741.post-42211066477567601772008-03-17T11:56:00.002-05:002008-03-19T09:18:02.986-05:00

There are plenty of ways to embed documents into webpages. But when it comes to replicating the look and feel of a magazine or book, most digital efforts fall flat or complicate the interface. Thank goodness there's Issuu. Issuu lets you upload a PDF and then flip through it seamlessly on a dedicated Webpage or in a small embedded widget. Issuu's media viewer, which presents the content like a

The Cloudjammer Creative Networkhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09612693084668892716noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7293014259530266741.post-47608587397050514442008-02-18T12:42:00.003-05:002008-02-19T12:07:18.159-05:00

Over the last several years, Al Jazeera has become one of the world's most widely recognized brands, its calligraphic logo decorating not only its own news broadcasts but also those of every Western network that replays their much coveted footage. But the logo itself remains a bit of a mystery to many Western viewers unfamiliar with the Arabic script and the language's calligraphic tradition.

The Cloudjammer Creative Networkhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09612693084668892716noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7293014259530266741.post-79614756848549019332008-02-11T23:28:00.001-05:002008-02-13T15:23:17.630-05:00

It's no secret that I've got pretty strong opinions about creative business – particularly about the many ways designers hurt themselves and the industry by not knowing or following good business practices. In the past, I've written about designers selling their services for pocket change. But I was recently asked to produce some work on spec and, in refusing, I realized that a far more insidious

The Cloudjammer Creative Networkhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09612693084668892716noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7293014259530266741.post-14236757723839254152008-02-04T12:19:00.000-05:002008-02-04T13:52:22.715-05:00

Some light fare this week: Recently Lifehacker brought to our attention a hilarious series of Photoshop "tutorials" by a pseudonymous screencaster, Donnie Hoyle. In addition to saying that you suck at Photoshop (or Photardshop), he currently offers a quintet of funny, Dane Cook-ish tutorials with some adult themes and language. But his marital strife and personal failings are our pleasure. We

The Cloudjammer Creative Networkhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09612693084668892716noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7293014259530266741.post-81726431358991854072008-01-28T07:04:00.000-05:002008-01-28T13:33:27.107-05:00

I love good informative design. It's a difficult task to combine information, entertainment, and good design. But thanks to the on-going writers' strike, and our NetFlix account's associated vigorous workout, we recently stumbled across a surprising and impactful combination of these elements in the inventive three-minute opening sequence for Peter Berg's The Kingdom. Observers frequently notice

The Cloudjammer Creative Networkhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09612693084668892716noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7293014259530266741.post-84958108507645499802008-01-21T17:39:00.000-05:002008-01-23T15:31:45.945-05:00

Helvetica is a movie about a font. A whole 90 minute movie about one, single font. A font that you use – and see – every day. It's a movie that throws around terms like typography, kerning, leading... But the film's not just for graphic design buffs. Really. It's a genuinely interesting and well made film that opens your eyes to, well, the words and letters all around us. The words and letters

The Cloudjammer Creative Networkhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09612693084668892716noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7293014259530266741.post-31569576995863390872008-01-15T22:43:00.000-05:002008-01-17T09:56:03.928-05:00

Earlier today a colleague directed me to a fascinating Gizmodo article connecting Braun's industrial design from the 1960s to Apple's industrial design of today. The article centered on the similarities in the respective design philosophies of Braun's Dieter Rams and Apple's Jonathan Ive and the eerie similarities between a number of the companies' products – such as that of the Braun T3 pocket

The Cloudjammer Creative Networkhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09612693084668892716noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7293014259530266741.post-91430110460460721632008-01-10T07:47:00.000-05:002008-01-10T23:50:12.863-05:00

I just was just reminded (cause I needed it) of rsizr, a great little image resizing tool online that's based on seam carving technology rather than the basic scale and distort methods we normally use in Photoshop. As most of us know, when you resize an image using traditional tools, you make everything in it smaller. But with rsizr, a Flash, browser-based application that lets you resize JPG,

The Cloudjammer Creative Networkhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09612693084668892716noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7293014259530266741.post-22682932829541496362007-12-28T22:50:00.000-05:002007-12-28T23:43:20.071-05:00

I've recently been either blessed or cursed to work on a number of websites that make use of the PNG file format. They're small, they look great, and they support full transparency with variable opacity. Problem is: Not all browsers support them. For those not familiar with this type of image, The Portable Network Graphic (PNG) image format was developed in the 1990s by the World Wide Web

The Cloudjammer Creative Networkhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09612693084668892716noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7293014259530266741.post-46193400053574589202007-12-26T09:16:00.000-05:002007-12-26T21:51:02.489-05:00

(originally posted on PoorMartin.com) Taking a break from all this baby talk to mention something else that really interests me... There are a number of great translation websites that can help you speak exotic languages. Perhaps you've used online translators like Babelfish (a fantastic, and functional, homage to Douglas Adams' useful little ear swimmers) or Systranet. Maybe you've even plugged

The Cloudjammer Creative Networkhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09612693084668892716noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7293014259530266741.post-23833393807420556492007-12-20T22:52:00.000-05:002007-12-26T14:28:54.061-05:00

It's that time of year again. In addition to the usual litany of New Years retrospectives, Google has released its annual report (of sorts) on the way we search. The 2007 Zeitgeist – a German word they've borrowed to describe "the spirit of time", the general intellectual, moral, and cultural climate of an era. At least that corner of the era we find through Google. Google measures our search

The Cloudjammer Creative Networkhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09612693084668892716noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7293014259530266741.post-22476189914193046572007-11-06T23:00:00.000-05:002007-11-08T07:04:10.627-05:00

We recently stumbled across two entertaining diversions that screamed to be shared: Make My Logo Bigger Cream For every designer that has struggled against clients who hate white space, swoon for starbursts, and love big, fluorescent logos, the satirical infomercial for Make My Logo Bigger Cream (and its associated products) will ring painfully true. We found that every designer and developer

The Cloudjammer Creative Networkhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09612693084668892716noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7293014259530266741.post-65046137387775576302007-10-17T21:34:00.000-05:002007-10-18T07:55:10.557-05:00

Fresh on the heels of bouncing balls in San Francisco and a tower of paint in Glasgow, bunnies are taking to the streets of Manhattan. 200 plasticine bunnies, to be exact – hopping around the city, leading us toward a huge 30-foot bunny looming over Thomas Paine Park in Lower Manhattan. This television advertisement, titled "Play-doh," was released earlier this month by Fallon London. It is the

The Cloudjammer Creative Networkhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09612693084668892716noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7293014259530266741.post-76476235698628148802007-10-15T21:25:00.000-05:002007-10-18T07:49:44.372-05:00

If you thought that it was too soon to plan for Christmas... well, the folks at Home Depot aren't the only ones who think you're wrong. Already this season's holiday promotions and interactive cards – combined with fresh reminders of past years' best leftovers – are popping up online and in your email box. We wanted to take a moment to acknowledge one of this year's early arrivals and rapid

The Cloudjammer Creative Networkhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09612693084668892716noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7293014259530266741.post-35159401215205383572007-10-11T21:32:00.000-05:002008-02-07T12:41:11.551-05:00

For the last several weeks Microsoft has inundated us with a marketing assault on behalf of the Xbox’s premier video game title, Bungie studio’s Halo 3. Thankfully, this campaign revolves around an original and well-executed concept. Halo 3’s mix-media campaign, “Diorama,” features a fictional monument created in the year 2607 to pay tribute to Halo’s great hero, Master Chief Petty Officer John-

The Cloudjammer Creative Networkhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09612693084668892716noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7293014259530266741.post-35592811965507872882007-09-29T23:52:00.000-05:002007-10-05T08:30:41.377-05:00

Struggling to design appealing and effective color palettes can be one of the most difficult challenges a graphic designer faces in the course of developing a project. When existing collateral or brand systems leave palette options wide open, it is often challenging to get started with meaningful color exploration. Thankfully Adobe Labs has stepped up to the challenge. They recently introduced

The Cloudjammer Creative Networkhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09612693084668892716noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7293014259530266741.post-18856923579056086592007-09-20T21:11:00.000-05:002007-09-25T09:11:29.247-05:00

With all the excitement surrounding the release of Adobe CS3 (and the collective gnashing of teeth over how much worse than CS2 it performs on on our much-loved pre-Intel macs) we were surprised to see Adobe announce this week that it is going to rebrand the software suite's flagship product, Photoshop. Photoshop has come a long way since its quiet beginnings in 1987 as a graduate student's side

The Cloudjammer Creative Networkhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09612693084668892716noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7293014259530266741.post-56525563607914021072007-09-17T21:55:00.000-05:002007-11-08T11:26:53.972-05:00

Among stock art websites, Veer holds the coveted position of the design community's sentimental favorite. With its mix of high-end, designer-aimed photos, video, illustrations, merch, and fonts, Veer already stands apart from – or at least toe-to-toe with – its momentous competitors Getty and Corbis. But it is with Veer's ideas that we find particular pleasure. Its mixture of activities, events,

J.D.http://www.blogger.com/profile/13410710834258909791noreply@blogger.com