I was flipping through a local magazine this morning called, Mr., and came across this unattributed photograph.

It carried the headline, “How To Know That Your Ass Is Too Small,” and I thought it was hilarious!

Technorati Tags: flying, donkey, cart, heavy, karachi, pakistan

I’ve had a few situations where I’ve been given some existing artwork and needed to figure out what typeface was used in it. This used to be a really laborious task, but, I came across a really cool service called Identifont a few years ago which made life a lot simpler.

Identifont is the largest independent directory of typefaces on the
Internet. It provides a range of features to help you locate fonts or
find information about fonts.

When you use the tool, make sure you have the text visible, because it asks some detailed questions about the key characteristics of the typeface.

One of the reasons I started this blog was so I could write about things I felt I knew a lot about. After running a couple of creative departments and paying particular attention to the art people, I realised that I was always talking about the basics to people who had been working in the industry for years.

It bolstered my ego to be able to teach someone something, but it also left me a little disappointed at the same time. After all, some of these people had been working as long as I had — they should’ve known these things inside out by now.

So, it was funny the other day to get a little come-uppance when I sat down to write about the basics of typography. I googled around to see what topics others had covered, what they said about things, etc., and came across a post by Mark Boulton titled, Five Simple Steps to Better Typography.

It essentially covered the same things that I wanted to, but it was explained so much better than I could’ve ever written it. I even managed to have a few things made clear to me about Hanging Punctuation and The Measure.

It’s great stuff and worth a read to even the studliest typographer! Make sure to go through the comments of each of the five parts as well.

Technorati Tags: typography, mark boulton, graphic design, fonts

Hubsch, by Afsheen, is Afsheen, just Hubsch, just Afsheen… ? There’s a store on Zamzama (A wannabe high street in Karachi) that I drove by a few days ago. I couldn’t help but notice a few awful things about it.

To start with, the storefront is 10-12 feet wide, yet it has no less than four signs outside — FOUR! If you excuse the Pantene-sponsored blue one on the top (I’m not inclined to, to be honest), the remaining three share a common aesthetic, but they don’t look like different formats of the same ID because the logo’s tightly kerned and the mismatched size type doesn’t lend itself well to vertical orientation.

The other thing that bothered me was the “by Afsheen” bit. I don’t know who Afsheen is and neither does my wife (who’s been publishing a fashion magazine for 13 years and is generally more learned than I am), so I think it’s safe to assume that Afsheen is only known to her family, friends and customers.

I’m of the opinion that a name tacked on must add value for the consumer (Polo by Ralph Lauren). This seems to only add value to Afsheen’s perception of herself — it’s basically a vanity thing.

Lastly, there’s the Pantene sign. It has nothing to do with anything. It follows Pantene’s style guide and pays no respect to Hubsch’s ID. It’s a sore thumb on the shop’s facade and, as you drive around the city, you’ll see 50 others like it.

But, I can’t completely fault P&G for this, because they’re trying to project harmony for their own brand, but you’d think that they’d give a small nod to the shop owners by integrating the individual logos into their own signs.

Technorati Tags: hubsch, branding, signage, logo, retail, store

I'm becoming more and more addicted to blog-reading. It's a great way for me to deal with the lack of adult human contact that I'm faced with, now that I'm freelancing full time again.

Here's some of the posts I've read of late that I feel would interesting/beneficial reading for a lot of people:

Full post: adliterate - Separated by a common language

Extract: My first love is design.

I got into advertising by accident. I was all set to become an industrial designer, when irresistable lure of Geography took me away from the path of righteousness (which is another story). And a love of design is handy these days since it is looming ever larger in the lives of advertising people.

Full post: Noisy Decent Graphics - Advice: Always do it for real

Extract: As a designer, if you're asked to put some hand writing onto a brochure of a document, do it for real. DO NOT use a hand writing font. (How can you have a hand writing font, anyway?) Write the text out and scan it in.

If you need some distressed type, then print the type out, screw it up, photocopy it, re-screw it up, re-photocopy it and so on and so on. Distress it for real, DO NOT use a distressed type font.

Full post: Mark Bixby - Your Domain Sucks.com

Extract: Following an abysmal interaction with PNM‘s customer service department (New Mexico’s public utility company) I went online in search of a consumer advocate group with whom I could share my despair.

Knowing it was a long shot, I pointed Firefox to PNMsucks.com with the hope of discovering a vocal opponent to these “evil-doers”. No such luck. Interestingly, a quick domain lookup revealed that PNM was fully aware of their negative perception, and had preemptively purchased the domain… for ten years.

Full post: Graphic Design Blog - I Want it Free and I Want it Now!

Extract: Imagine you walk into a electrical shop. “Hello Mrs/Mr Smith” says the shop owner, “How can I help you today.” You know Mr Brown, the shop owner quite well as you buy a lot of your electrical goods from him. “Its my friends birthday, I’d like an MP3 player please,” you say. “Of course says the shop owner and shows you his complete range. You choose the one you want, take it and start to walk towards the door. “Ummm.. Mrs/Mr Smith, you’ve forgotten to pay.” “No, I’ve bought a lot of stuff from you so I’m having this for free,” you say.