The Merge Building

We hope to see all of you who are in the area at the MergeArts Project inaugural exhibit on 2.24.12

The past year saw many developments in the world of design and advertising. QR codes took off as mobile phones provided apps allowing users to follow the QR code to whatever information it led to. Designing for mobile devices became more important than ever, and the iPhone became available to Verizon and Sprint users, ending AT&T’s monopoly. The Photogram app was released on June 15, and one day later became the top featured app in the iTunes app store.

Pantone had proclaimed Honeysuckle – a reddish pink – to be the color of 2011. In design, colors maintained their importance but were lighter than in previous years. Texture and patterns found their way into designs, adding some dimension. Infographics continued their rise in popularity. Typefaces that looked hand-drawn were widely used.

This screen shot from the Panera Bread website shows an example of the hand-drawn style of typefaces that were popular in advertising over the past year.

We don’t know yet what trends in design and technology will dominate 2012. We do know that Pantone has named its Hot Color for 2012: Tangerine Tango. Incidentally, it is very similar to the reddish orange paint used as an accent color on the Merge building.

The Merge Building modeling the hot new color for 2012

We will take that as a sign of great things to come for ds303 and Merge in the coming year!

Our ecard was inspired by the work of Sharon Werner, author of Alphabeasties. This children’s book is a whimsical introduction to typography aimed at a young audience, but equally enjoyable for adults. This book forces the reader to take notice of typefaces and their personalities, and think about how the choice of typeface can influence how the viewer perceives the text.

Then it started snowing:

And now it is sunny again!

Hope everyone in the Chicagoland area has a safe and dry commute home this evening!

There are many different ancient festivals that are linked with our modern celebration of Halloween, including Parentalia, the Roman Festival of the Dead. In today’s post, we are going to examine the images that the dead leave behind to mark their time on this earth – gravestones.

A small amount of research reveals that gravestones vary wildly based on time period, region and the religion of the deceased. In the 18th century, gravestones focused on the theme of death, and often featured skulls or gravediggers’ picks and shovels. The wealth and social status of the family determined the size of the gravestone.

An 18th Century Gravestone

In the 19th century, the focus shifted to life after death, and the gravestones were decorated with crosses or angels. More recently, gravestones have become simpler, often merely displaying the name and dates. Within the last 15 years a new trend has been developing – to focus on the life of the deceased, by engraving very personal reminders of the person’s personality and hobbies.

A trip to a local Chicago cemetery last weekend (Wunder’s Cemetery) allowed me a glimpse of some of these gravestone features.

Wunder's Cemetery

It was a Christian cemetery and, judging from the names on the gravestones, it began as a cemetery primarily used by families of German descent living in Chicago. I noticed that the majority of gravestones near the entrance used a blocky typeface that reminded me of high school varsity lettering. The use of this type – along with the minimal amount of text on the gravestones – gave them a clean and uncluttered look, occasionally bordering on utilitarian. (Note – the study of the text on gravestones is called epigraphy.)

Gravestone of a woman who died around the turn of the century

The top of the gravestone displays the German word for "Mother"

The cemetery was not old enough to showcase the 18th century skulls and death-themed adornments, but I did get to see a few examples of the recent practice of decorating the gravestone with more intricate engravings that symbolize the personal interests of the deceased.

An example of a gravestone with detailed information about the life of the deceased.

From the above gravestone, I can tell that the deceased was Puerto Rican and loved fishing, baseball and horses. Gravestones highlighting personal eccentricities and interests are made possible by advances in technology. Traditional hand letter cutting in the United States is waning in popularity, and slowly giving way to images or text etched via computer scans.

Gravestone with a Masonic symbol

This gravestone is more traditional, but the deceased’s membership in a Freemasonry society is highlighted.

A personal favorite in Wunder’s Cemetery was a gravestone labelled “Godenrath” in an unusual, barely-serifed type. Two circles containing blackletter “G”s flank the top corners. A brownish deposit has dripped below the letters and stained the stone, lending an ominous, gothic look to the stone.

How are some of the most prolific designers remembered? In 1966, Paul Rand asked the Swiss designer Fred Troller to make a headstone for him. He wanted it to avoid the usual clichés involved in gravestone design. Troller’s design includes two cubes, the top one turned on an angle. The top cube is inscribed with Rand’s name and the dates of his birth and death – all in a justified san-serif, memorializing his modernist doctrine. The bottom cube is inscribed in Hebrew. The resulting monument is simple, elegant and subtly beautiful.

Paul Rand's Memorial, designed by Fred Troller

What are your thoughts on the current trends in gravestone design? Have you ever considered designing your own monument?

Information and images were used from the following sources:

http://www.squidoo.com/gravemarkers

http://www.thedisciplesofdesign.co.uk/2010/11/death-meets-design-pt-2/

As I mentioned in a previous post, our main office is now located in the Merge building at 5920 Hohman Avenue, Hammond, IN 46320. Lots of exciting creative activity is taking place in the Merge building, so if you are in the area you should stop by and check it out.

We will be back with another installment in our Greeting Card series next week!

There are certain elements that the of the logos from the biggest names in fashion share. Almost all of them are black and white designs. Monograms are popular, often accompanied by a separate logo with a simpler typeface than the monogram. Modern typefaces, similar to Bodoni or Didot, are widely used.

The history of fashion brands using monograms begins with Louis Vuitton. Starting in 1858, Louis Vuitton revolutionized the design of the traveling trunk by creating a trunk that was flat and easy to stack, unlike the trunks that were prevalent at the time. The design was widely imitated by other designers, so Louis Vuitton added beige and brown stripes to the trunks. The trunks continued to be counterfeited, so in 1888 the company began to use the Damier Canvas pattern.

The Damier Canvas Pattern on a modern Louis Vuitton bag

In 1895, 11 years after the first Louis Vuitton store opened in London, the Monogram Canvas launched. This design included graphic images of quatrefoils and flowers in addition to the Louis Vuitton monogram. Ironically the Monogram Canvas pattern was designed to prevent counterfeit, but imitation handbags with the pattern remain widely available today.

The Monogram Canvas Pattern on a modern Louis Vuitton bag

A detail of the Monogram Canvas Pattern

One of the most renowned of the fashion houses also boasts one the most successful and recognizable logomarks of all time: Chanel.

The Chanel logo has an interesting history. In the 1920s Coco Chanel, the founder of Chanel, enjoyed spending time at the Chateau de Crémat in France. She was friends with the American owner, Irene Bretz. While there, Coco Chanel fell in love with the Chateau’s emblem, which featured interlocking “Cs.” When Coco Chanel launched her fashion label, Irene Bretz gifted her the copyright for the emblem. If you visit the Chateau de Crémat you can still see the symbol with the interlocking double “C”s – now easily recognized as an icon in the fashion world – around the grounds and carved in the stone of the castle.

What do you think are the best logos from the world of fashion? Have you noticed any trends in brands that have developed more recently versus brands that have been established for a while?

Here is a sneak peek of the election materials.

You can spot this ad at the Hammond stop of the south shore line.