The story of how scarlet originally did not mean 'red'. The tale of Spain's secret carmine recipe. And the unexpected critter in our red foods and cosmetics.
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Red: Part One
Why are stop lights red? Does red make me stronger? And, most importantly, why does Santa Claus wear red? Read to find out>>
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Original image from page 347 of 'Thrilling Life Stories for the Masses'
Scheele's Green: A Killer Colour
If you are intrigued by mysterious deaths, green desserts, and little Frenchmen with world-domination aspirations, read this>>
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Image courtesy of the SDA
Pop Pop Shop: Support student designers and artists!
Y'all need to go to the SDA's Pop-Up shop! I'm glad to see it's back for another year and I hope it's to become a tradition. It will be open from December 11–21 in Enterprise Square with store hours being from 11–6pm. Stop by to pick up some art & design pieces and handcrafted goods. For more information, check out the SDA's website, or check out their instagram to see some of the goods available.
Outburst Auction
Every year, the art and design students at the University of Alberta join together to auction off their artwork and designed goods. The money raised goes towards paying for a final exhibition for that year's graduating BFA and BDes classes (the BDes grad show will be March 29–April 9th, 2016, and the BFA grad show will be April 19–30, 2016. Both will be hosted in FAB gallery at the University of Alberta, and are free for anyone to visit).
This year's fundraising auction is called Outburst and will be hosted at 7pm Friday, November 27th, at the Telus Centre on the UAlberta campus. Although I have already graduated, I'm contributing a couple dozen German Star Christmas ornaments. You should stop by and bid on them... Click here to see some of the other work available.
Choose Type with Function and Users in Mind
We've all come across this at some point: a beautiful-looking design... with ridiculously illegible type. Now don't get me wrong—there are defiantly some great designs that specifically use type in artistically illegible way. However, when it comes to signage and communicating vital information, legibility trumps prettiness.
Don't choose a typeface just because it's pretty; choose a typeface because it works hard and delivers. As a designer, it's a constant concern of mine to consider how the type will hold up under different conditions in the real world. What distance will it be read at? What are the lighting conditions? Is there enough contrast between the type and background? What's the viewing angle? Is it digital or printed (or something else)?How readable and legible it is for the key demographic (and other users)? Is the user likely to have some sort of visual impairment? What age are they? Are they moving while reading the text? How fast?
Here's an old article, but a good read nonetheless: Read Typography and the Aging Eye
Nuit Blanche!
I hope everyone had fun on Saturday night at the first Edmonton Nuit Blanche festival! It was so great to see so many people out and about enjoying contemporary art by local and international artists. I was glad to be working with the Edmonton Wayfinding Society to help create the signage and hand-held map for the one-night event (truly an interesting challenge). Wherever the night took you, I hope you had a blast!
Today's Inspiration: Art of the Title
In case you couldn't tell from my earlier post of Saul Bass title sequences, I'm a big fan of opening credits in film and television (sometimes I like them better than the actual show...). One of my favourite places to see such great design is Art of the Title. Not only does it showcase great title sequences, but it also features great interviews and articles that talk about the creative process behind the sequence.
So many good things
Art Shows
I'm working on some print pieces for 2015/16 UAlberta Art Shows season using the illustrations I created for the different events. I'm pretty excited! Looks like some really neat shows coming up! Don't miss it.
Making some notes on some test pieces... Always good to make a proof
Saul Bass Title Sequences
If you've got an hour to burn over lunch, these are always fun to watch...
All the Fine Arts!
There's a lot of awesome music concerts and design shows and theatre performances and art exhibitions coming out of the U of A this upcoming season! Here's a bit of a behind the scenes on the visual system we're building (Any suggestions for what represents Drawing & Intermedia at the U of A? That's a hard one).
Check out this link to see what's on at UAlberta or go here for more UAlberta behind-the-scenes.
Here's a hint about an upcoming theatre piece: Titania falls in love with an ass...
30 years of Art & Design themes from The Works Festival
Bringing More Design to The Works Festival
What did I do today? I went to a media launch for The Works Festival (oooh, exciting)! For those of you unfamiliar with The Works, it is North America's largest free outdoor art & design festival, and it is celebrating its 30th year in 2015! Myself and some of my fellow designers are taking part in this year's festival in Edmonton's Stanley Milner Gallery (that space indoors between the downtown library and the second cup—you know the one) from June 19th til July 1st.
OUR DESIGNS
Who: Alexa Guse, Bianca Ho, Amanda Nogier, Jaime Clanachan, Ryan Wayne, Priscilla Chu, Serena Tang, and Jessica Hong.
What: For the Love of Design! This show is a collection of various design work from Fine Arts and Design grads from the U of A. It features pop-up books to signage, and a collection of other design-related work (more info on that to come)
Where: Stanley Milner Gallery
When: June 19th – July 1st
Why: My friend Bianca was a designer at The Works last year, and we were talking about how we'd like to see the design part of the festival beefed up a bit. There are some lovely posters every year that show great design work, but we wanted to see more tangible design items in the festival. So, we decided to submit a proposal and somehow we were accepted. Yeah! I'm very excited about the show and hope to post more info soon.
Edmonton Wayfinding & Northern Design
I've started volunteering with the Edmonton Wayfinding Society! They're an exciting group of Edmontonians with the mandate to help make navigating our city easier. We're taking part in an exhibition at FAB gallery that is open from May 12th to June 6th. The exhibition, called Design Latitudes is about design studies in the north. Come check out the design work and party at the reception on May 21st at 7pm!
