There is something so serene from this series: A room from above…
There is something so serene from this series: A room from above by Photographer Menno Aden. See the rest here.
View full post on Design Dust
There is no Gon like a Hexagon
Just launched in March — and, from what I understand, spun off Reproplan, a digital service bureau (a la FedEx Office) with 22 locations in Germany — PIGMENTPOL is a digital printing company with three locations across Germany providing small and large format printing, digital printing on specialty materials, fine art printing, textile printing, as well as all kinds of finishing. Their new identity was designed in collaboration between Dresden-based ATMO Design Studio and Berlin-based FELD. While the opening image above looks anything but interesting, the rest of the identity makes up for it.
The new identity system embodies a variety of perspectives, experiences and possibilities while maintaining a coherent appearance. The chosen hexagon serves as a central key element, from which the generated logos and backgrounds are derived.
FELD provided a custom software application for the creation of individual graphics to enable a flexible and individual appearance of the huge variety of PIGMENTPOL’s corporate media, including personalized stationery, shop interior and vehicles.
— FELD Project Description
A look at the generative tool.
Brand launch or, in other words, the results from the tool above.
In essence there is nothing new here: Gotham, hexagons, overlaid colors, a generative tool. We’ve seen all these before in one form or another yet this identity manages to bring them together in an energetic, explosive system that fits perfectly a digital printing business, one that can create one-off solutions and individualize each unit in a 500 print run. The result is, literally, dazzling with a vast array of colors, close-up crops of the hexagon, and the mini, snowflake-like hexagons at the intersection of all the diagonal axes. And even with that said, the applications have a certain restraint that makes it look grown up and sophisticated. Let the comparisons to City of Melbourne begin in three, two, one….
Many more images in this Flickr set.
Thanks to Roy Swinkels for the tip.
Don’t forget to cast your vote about this post online
View full post on Brand New
Ben There, Done That
Founded in 1963 in Brighton, UK by Ben Sherman (neé Arthur Benjamin Sugarman), Ben Sherman is one of the most iconic clothing brands in both the UK and the world. Best known for its defining button-down shirts, Ben Sherman has maintained cult status for a remarkable five decades, transcending whatever the fashion of the moment is. Since July (or perhaps June) the Ben Sherman website has been showing a simple sans serif logo but acknowledging that the site was an interim version to a brand new site, so it seemed as if the logo was not a definite change. But this past September, with the opening of a new concept store in their flagship location on Carnaby Street, it remains no doubt that this is the new look for Ben Sherman. Designed in-house, the logo and identity have been brought to life in a retail environment by Brinkworth.
Brinkworth have produced a global retail concept for Ben Sherman. References to icons of British design, such as pubs, pie and mash shops and London Underground stations make a strong visual statement, and a fresh environment for the legendary brand.
— Brinkworth Project Page
A look at the new store.
The launch of the Plectrum line was first to indicate a new type language.
The previous logo, although not pretty at all nor necessarily reflective of the streamlined lines of the shirts it lived on, had enough equity to sink down the whole island of Great Britain, so it’s quite surprising to see it change to something as nondescript as the new wordmark. Typeset in a condensed sans serif — I’m not even sure what exactly it is… typophiles, any clues? — the logo is as sterile as it gets in the fashion industry but somehow it manages to exude more coolness than any fashion brand trying enormously hard to appear cool. The reality is that this is thanks to the context of where the logo now lives. The new store, the decor, the staff with unnatural facial hair, and, yes, the clothes themselves are what give the logo its personality. Without any of it, the logo is indeed, nothing. But since you can’t really extract the logo out of the whole Ben Sherman legend, a generic condensed sans serif fits it just right.
Thanks to Amy Maw for the tip.
Don’t forget to cast your vote about this post online
View full post on Brand New
There is now a $4.6 million Tata Nano made of gold
There are people who ask why, and people who ask why not — and yet others who decide to turn a $2,500 car into a $4.6 million car by covering it with gold and jewels. Yes, that’s none other than a lowly Tata Nano in an extravagant disguise that you’re looking at, and, yes, it’s very much real — and apparently for sale if anyone’s interested, according to the Tata jewelery subsidiary responsible for it (at least once it’s done touring it around for a few months). Head on past the break for a video of the unveiling from ITN.
[Image credit: Megha Bahree / The Wall Street Journal]
Continue reading There is now a $4.6 million Tata Nano made of gold
There is now a $4.6 million Tata Nano made of gold originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 21 Sep 2011 02:03:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
Permalink 
Autoblog | 
The Wall Street Journal | Email this | Comments
View full post on Engadget
Bushnell BackTrack D-Tour personal GPS takes you home, shows you how it got you there
We’ve seen our fair share of uncomplicated (and under-featured) GPS units, but the Bushnell BackTrack D-Tour throws in just enough tricks to make our inner techno-mountain-man salivate. The D-Tour does away with onboard maps and turn-by-turn directions for five simple waypoints and a digital compass. Lose your way? Just follow the arrow back to the campsite. When you get home, you can dump your hiking data into Bushnell’s map application, which will show you exactly where you’ve been, how far you traveled, and how fast you trekked. Its also a built in digital compass, clock, thermometer, and altimeter. Not too shabby, but a bit steep at $120, considering you’ll still need to provide your own maps. Hit the break for a video of the doodad’s track recording and mapping software.
Bushnell BackTrack D-Tour personal GPS takes you home, shows you how it got you there originally appeared on Engadget on Sun, 19 Jun 2011 04:38:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
Permalink | Bushnell | Email this | Comments
View full post on Engadget
There is no “i” in Thnk. Seriously, there isn’t.
Launched this year, with the first class beginning in 2012, the THNK Creative Leadership Program at THNK, The Amsterdam School of Creative Leadership is a post-graduate program designed to “provoke and inspire professionals, entrepreneurs and scientists into becoming the world’s next creative leaders.” Limited to 30 participants the program runs for a whole year with one month of “basic training” off campus, four months of “intensive training” on campus, and five months of “acceleration program” off campus. Tuition is €43,000 (US$63,000). An identity for the school has been created by Amsterdam-based Lava.
The absence of the ‘i’ in their name exemplifies thnk’s philosophy: that the challenges facing us today, standing in the world, not only can be solved by individuals, but collectively – creative leaders know this. It is not the ‘i’, the only I, but always in collaboration with others.
Lava has this philosophy represents the individual i’s and bring them together to overlap so as to create a network. Thus they form a network of an infinite variety of playful shapes that represent co-reatie and collaboration, with great richness, diversity and individuality as a result. These are called ThnkBats and they are both the basis for the logo for the imagery used to enrich typography and illustrations build.
— Lava project page, originally in Dutch, translated with Google
The “i” is used to create a palette of “thnkbats”, below.
While I have my reservations about the whole program, too hoity-toity for my taste, the identity is pretty awesome. I love the idea of taking the missing “i” from the school’s name and using that as the basis of the visual concept to create their very own dingbats that generate a very unique texture and distinctive identity. The three functions of the thnkbats work really well: coming all together to form letters as in the the main logo, as replacements of “o”s, and as building blocks for illustrations and infographics. It’s a clever take on being a flexible identity and it offers something new, which I feel we’ve been missing here lately.
Don’t forget to cast your vote about this post online
View full post on Brand New
Let there be light! Keyport Slide gets a LED insert
Okay, so maybe it’s just the natural evolution of things, but it seems as if the purveyors of the Keyport Slide have finally given owners of the $80 key vault a LED-tipped insert so they can more easily unlock poorly lit keyholes everywhere. For those wishing to obtain such convenient luminescence, its up for preorder on the company’s website for $9.99 (for the LED only of course), and if all goes well, it’ll ship on March 18th. Ten bucks is steep for a couple of measly LEDs, but it sure beats the flashlight-in-mouth method (on a number of fronts).
Let there be light! Keyport Slide gets a LED insert originally appeared on Engadget on Sun, 06 Mar 2011 10:06:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
Permalink Gizmodo | Keyport | Email this | Comments
View full post on Engadget
There is a New “W” in Town
Originally home to the Washington Senators, not one (1901 – 1960) but two times (1961 – 1971), Washington’s current Major League Baseball team is the Nationals, who were originally the Montreal Expos before they relocated to the U.S. as an expansion franchise. On November of last year, the Nationals announced new uniforms and new logos.
“From a brand perspective, our ability to develop the curly ‘W’ into something that’s iconic and instantly recognizable and understood is exactly what we’re about,” COO Andy Feffer told the media. “And the more equity that we can build in that simple, easy to understood symbol and what it stands for — youth energy, authenticity… If we’re able to communicate that in an authentic way that really resonates, it’s a much more effective play. And oh, by the way, it looks great. You’ll see it on TV, it’ll pop, it’s simple to understand.”
— The Washington Post
The “W” has been part of the Nationals’ identity since the beginning, when it appeared on the cap. Now it’s the main identifier. The original logo wasn’t too bad and it communicated “baseball” with the conviction of a denying steroid user. The new logo looks like a baseball logo in that it celebrates the scripty nostalgic goodness of the Brooklyn/LA Dodgers logo — emphasized blatantly and annoyingly in the new wordmark, above. In a way, the new identity fits better with the rest of baseball logos, where script lettering is more common than spiky beveled sans serifs — it’s almost as if the new one identity is a throwback/retro version to a Nationals era that never existed, which is funny, in a manufactured sort of way. Nonetheless, it’s a perfectly acceptable execution of all the elements. Except, perhaps the super American “W” below.
Thanks to Jay-Michael Sutton for the tip.
Don’t forget to cast your vote about this post online
View full post on Brand New
Apple’s ‘Back to the Mac’ event is tomorrow at 1PM ET / 10AM PT — we’ll be there live!
What will happen tomorrow? A new version of OS X? Tiny MacBook Airs? Verizon iPhone announcements? Tomorrow never knows… but Steve Jobs probably does. Even if we can’t predict the future, we can at least follow along with the present, right? That’s exactly what we’ll be doing tomorrow at Engadget, as we bring you the best liveblog in the business! Tune in at the URL and times below for the full scoop on just what Apple is getting up to. You won’t want to miss this!
Here’s the liveblog post you’ll want to plant yourself at, and here are the start times around the globe:
07:00AM – Hawaii
10:00AM – Pacific
11:00AM – Mountain
12:00PM – Central
01:00PM – Eastern
06:00PM – London
07:00PM – Paris
09:00PM – Moscow
02:00AM – Tokyo (October 21st)
Apple’s ‘Back to the Mac’ event is tomorrow at 1PM ET / 10AM PT — we’ll be there live! originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 19 Oct 2010 17:23:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
Permalink | Liveblog | Email this | Comments
View full post on Engadget
