The Blog

These are some images of a brand of french baby shampoo that I noticed on a store shelf yesterday. I thought I would blog them as the packaging design is appropriate to the product and also functional. The packaging is brightly coloured and resembles a childs building block making the design appropriate, but the same thing would also mae it easy to stack and transport whilst giving added stability as the products lock into one another on both the top and bottom and left and right.

On completing 1984 I consider it to be a very interesting and engaging novel. At first I felt confused by elements of the plot detail but when I realised that this was intentional on Orwell’s part in order to help the reader empathise with and relate to the main character who is himself confused by the world he lives in I enjoyed the steady and systematic release of information and explanations.

I can’t help but feel at a loss though that I could not read this at its time of publish in 1949 as I feel that the impact of the novel must have been so much greater in its contemporary climate as after the elation of the defeat of Germany, to be presented with such a bleak future offers few prospects and would be both disheartening and believable in conjunction the the current climate.

1984 is a well crafted and well written novel that I will try to remember and draw from with regards to copy writing, creation of empathy and systematic information release (almost like a teaser campaign) within my own work. Up till now I have looked at other examples of copy writing from advertising and design and have not considered literature as a source of inspiration. Not because I didn’t consider it worthy, but simply because it didn’t occur to me as I do not often read a lot of novels.

I saw these floor patterns whilst visiting the abbey atop Mont St Michel in Brittany, France. I thought I would post these as they reminded me of the Design Theory lectures and the border patterns and motifs we learnt about and are examples for me of how a creative design can be created in a simple and easy way.

I have also included these windows (which weren’t side by side - I have combined them onto one image) as I think the limited colour palette of the strong red and pale green against the black lead create a simple, yet strong border pattern design.

Mont St Michelle itself is an interesting place. Located on an area cut of from land by rising tides at regular intervals the streets wind up the hill to the abbey at the top. Unfortunately because of its interesting nature the influx of tourists has caused every other shop to become a souvenir shop, and the ones between those cafes and restaurants meaning that some its appeal has been lost, but the higher up you walk the fewer tourists you see and the architecture of the whole place remains mainly intact which is good.

These are two examples of effcetive long copy from The National Newspapers of Ireland. They are a nice read and clearly convey the message about the uses of the advertising spaces. The tone of voice is unique for each and appropriate to the advertising space. It reminds me of the work we were aiming for during our typography projects where the aim was to create a tone of voice for our typefaces and makes me wish I had seen these at that time as they would have probably helped me to understand the kind of copy I should be aiming for. These are nice designs and proof that long copy works as long as it is well writen and continuously effective.

http://www.fnazca.com.br/awards/2007/en/09/peca/

A nice design that makes the most of the popularity of google earth. I’m not sure if it is a pop-up and weather blockers would resrict the audience of the ad. Maybe it would be better if located within the page. But still its a simple design that conveys its message quite well.

http://www.fnazca.com.br/awards/2007/en/22/peca/

This web advert for Suplicy hand selected coffee beans has a lot of potential. I like the fluid scattering of the beans but it seems to take too long and too much effort to clearly reveal the brand name and information. I think it would have been much more effective if the scattering were faster, but aslong as there was still the element of intrigue in that some effort was required in order to reveal the type.

Heres another site that implements interaction with the cursor www.theasylum.com.sg/ that I found at the same time.