Some people do not consider the importance of colour in branding. Colour is crucial and a very important aspect to take into consideration. It transmits a psychological message to your viewers and choosing the right colours for your brand, logo or product can be vital as it helps your brand or product get easily recognised and identified with your industry.

Coca-Cola is red whilst AT&T is blue and this is not just a coincidence. The correct use of colour is vital to creating a positive image among customers. Furthermore, colour plays a huge role in memory recall. It triggers all the senses, instantly delivering a message like no other communication method. I listed some examples below. Hope you find them interesting.

Blue:

Blue is the colour of the heavens and oceans and brings to mind peace and serenity. It implies trust, devotion, confidence, intelligence, intellect, faith and truth. It is commonly used among financial institutions because it is perceived as trustworthy, dependable, secure and fiscally responsible. Another property commonly associated with blue is cleanliness and hence it is also often used to advertise products or services which want to portray this feature such as water related products and cleaning liquids. As it brings to mind the skies and the seas, airlines, airports, and the shipping industry adopt this colour in their brands. Another sector where the blue colour is implemented is the high tech and computing industries due to the fact that blue is linked to intellect and knowledge. Light shades of blue are often associated with well-being, health, peace and meditation and hence can be found when looking at spas, clinics, yoga and fitness centres.

Red:

Red actually triggers your pituitary gland and speeds up the heart rate, hence causing the person seeing it to breathe more rapidly. This instinctive response to this colour makes red aggressive, lively, stimulating and attracts attention. So if one wants to induce a passionate response, the colour red can always be counted on though it may not always be favourable since red also represents danger and indebtedness.

Green:

Green is a colour which is generally linked to nature, peace, well-being and freshness. Different shades of green however can mean different things so that deeper greens are linked to wealth and prestige whereas lighter shades of green are mostly calming and peaceful. As opposed to red, green means safety and it can be used to advertise environment friendly products or drugs and medical products.

Yellow:

To everyone worldwide, even to kids, the colour yellow is associated with the sun and hence communicates confidence, positivity, light and warmth. The human eye sees yellow before any other colour and this makes it a great choice for shop displays. It is also believed that certain shades of yellow inspire creative thought and energy

Purple:

Through these studies purple was found to be the colour which is favoured by creative people. It brings to mind mystery, superiority, mysticism and royalty whereas the colour lavender evokes reminiscence and sentimentality.

Pink:

The feelings which the colour pink evokes differs greatly according to the intensity of the colour. A bright pink brings to mind youth, fun and enthusiasm and is recommended for less expensive or fashionable products for women or girls whereas lighter pinks are more associated with romanticism.

Orange:

Orange is another cheerful colour and promotes liveliness, fun and energy. Research has indicated that the lighter shades of orange appeal more to an upscale market whereas the brighter ones appeal more to a younger audience.

Brown:

Brown is an earth colour which brings to mind straightforwardness, steadiness and resilience. Sometimes, depending on the shade of brown which is chosen, it can evoke a negative response from consumers who relate to it as dirty but shades such as terracotta elicit much more favourable responses from the consumers in general.

Black:

Black is seen as the most serious, formal and bold of colours and in effect black is really the complete absence of colour and light. It is commonly used and associated with prestigious and sophisticated expensive products. In the fashion industry black is elegance and authority and is used often for formal dress codes.

I suggest caution when using black as the main colour of your brand, print material and web design. Black absorbs and dilutes all colour surrounding it, and so one should choose well the appropriate secondary colour to contrast and compliment. Personally I prefer using it with all shades of greys and whites however it can make bright and vibrant colors really stand out. When there is a rich text content in publishing or web design, black is un-recommended as a backdrop, as it will make small type difficult to be read apart for ink volume issues. However it allows photography, illustration and other artwork to be the primary focus of the viewer so it is commonly used in online portfolios.

White:

White has always been the colour which brings to mind cleanliness, purity and simplicity. It is also associated with light, goodness, positivity, peace, humility and innocence. White can represent success or new beginnings like birth or marriages in the western cultures. In advertising is often used since the human eye sees it as a brilliant colour and it helps deliver a clear and clean message. Since it has connotations with safety and purity it is commonly found on medical and sterile products. It is found in hospitals, clinics, laboratories and also worn by their personnel such as doctors, nurses, surgeons, scientists etc. In branding and product design it is also often used with infants because of their innocence and simplicity, medicine and medical equipment, weight loss, diet management and dairy products as well as technology.

Would you wear bell-bottom trousers or have an 80’s haircut nowadays? What if you had to keep a particular image thought the years? Trends change rapidly even in logo design and following a short craze can leave your company’s identity outdated in no time. Here is the article about the 2011 logo trends from LogoLounge.

Whether we follow trends or not we are constantly affected directly or indirectly by what others are doing and it is difficult to say that we don’t follow tendencies. It is good to be updated with the current styles and consider using these and other movements for inspiration, as the more knowledge you have, the wider your range of options will be when providing solutions for different cases. However one should find a balance between their style and trend, which is constantly changing. Timelessness should be a quality of a logo and one should not become a fashion victim but use trends wisely and to his advantage.

What are your views about this? Do you follow logo design trends? Let me know your thoughts!

An English friend of mine is a young creative successful employer, who always comes up with new interesting business ideas. However he does not believe in portraying a polished and refined image, that is, no professional brand design; no business cards; no decent stationery to represent his company. He believes it is a waste of money at least in the early years of a business and that it does not help a company establish itself.

Is the right time to start thinking about branding after you failed to impress and wasted your shot at it? Definitely it is not sheer luck that this guy’s small business survives; it is fuelled by a creative mind, passion and hard work…and he’s a good salesman. But what if he invested in his image? An element for a strong brand is to portray a trustworthy and professional image differentiating and making yourself memorable so that people will either look for your business, product or idea or else choose you above your competitors. With strong branding leading the company forward, he would probably be making triple the amount of money he is doing now. What about the good ideas he threw away with poor looks and crappy presentations after seeing uninterested clients turning their backs on him?

So a bad cover can prove to be fatal after all; whether it is a company’s dreadful brand or advert in a chaotic directory; or a good bottle of wine with an awful label gathering dust on the supermarket shelf.

It’s a fast moving unforgiving world out there. One thing is for sure. You never get a second chance to make a first impression.

Here’s the new business card I just printed for myself. This time I went old-school. Letterpress. “Yes Letterpress”. That was my answer to all the printers I emailed who sent me a “What!?” as a reply. New technology printing is evolving rapidly and unfortunately these old methods are becoming practically obsolete. Luckily however I did find a printer who took up my unusual request and who accepted going back in time and did a wonderful job of it. I just love the looks, how it feels and how it bites into the paper and also the 3 dimensional quality that no other printing method can equal. There is craft, history and art in this printing method that turns an ordinary piece of paper into work of art.

Check these guys at ‘Mama’s Sauce’ out. Based in Florida, these talented printers still use these fantastic machines.

KLUGE from Northern Lights on Vimeo.

A year on after the successful experience in Slovenia, I was invited by an Italian curator to take part in an Arts Festival which will be held in Schio, Vicenza, Italy. Pulsart is a festival created to bring together the different forms of contemporary arts and it is being organised  by Type Creative People, Yourban, Sezione H and Daamstudio.

This is the first such Arts Colony which is being organized in Vicenza, Italy and it is curated by Anna Zerbaro Pezzin. This event, also being referred to as Art Contest will bring together 75 artists, both Italian and international which were selected form a total number of 350 artists, with the exception of 6 artists (one of them being myself) who were invited directly by the curator. These 6 artists will be staying in an arts residence in Schio (Vicenza), which will be used as living grounds and as art workshop. Although not all the 75 artists taking part in the contest would be able to produce their art at the residence, all their works will have the same theme in common and will be exhibited under the same space. This project will move through the various aspects that characterise America and it’s society and for the residential artists the task will be even complex since their art will be made up of wasted materials since America is the land of consumerism.

The artists have been given a theme to work on which is called America ‘Lato A – Lato B’. Geographically America offers an incredible variety of landscapes: forests, endless plains, lakes, mountains, rocky deserts, volcanoes, oceans. Thanks to the large size and geographical diversity climate differs considerably from coast to coast and in the various areas of the country. Extreme weather events are therefore to be expected. Considering the purely geographical aspect, moving from state to state, one might think to be even halfway around the world. The history and economy of America was born from the merger of so many cultures. This merger has created an amazing place, an explosive mixture that has been able to create movement and is imbued with a strong cultural concept: the literary movements, peace, art, and music. Among the countries of Anglo-Saxon and Latin America there is a considerable difference in the cultural, social and economic development.

The image we have of America is so often contradictory: with regards to North American we think of promises of wealth and fortune, of the American myth; to what our grandparents dreamed of when they sailed in search of new fortunes on the oceans aboard ships which were definitely not cruise ships; we think of music, freedom, festivals, social and literary movements; we think of the carnival in New Orleans; to the Pop architecture that explicitly takes the form of the activities they offer, such as fast-food in the form of Hot Dog. To all this and more, today we have the contrasting images of bankrupt banks collapsing, children who at only 16 years of age may have a driver’s license, at 18 can hold a gun in their pocket, the death penalty, horrific stories of children serial killers, unbridled consumerism, abuse of medicines, food problems, redundancy, the homeless, religious fanaticism, plastic surgery taken to an excess. And then think of the mystical and colorful Latin America, despite severe poverty and many social problems, political, crime, and a thousand other horrifying situations, which is able to contrast all this with the bright colors, music, smiles, folk festivals, dances, delicious food, ancestral rituals, which marked the avant-garde artistic movements of the twentieth century, fine poets, designers and architects with a sophisticated taste. The proposed work to us artists, therefore, is to investigate and interpret, even emphasizing, the dual “personality” side A and side B of this continent.

Fine architecture, castles and myths, quaint cafes, river boats, bridges, ballets, concerts, art festivals, scenic landscapes were all recurring keywords which kept turning up as I was researching Ljubljana, capital city of Slovenia, when I was invited for last year’s Ljubljana’s Art Festival – one of the biggest art festivals in Europe with a participation of 3000 artists and performers from over 30 countries each year.

This artwork was made in pen and ink and now forms part of Slovenia’s national art collection after being displayed to public in Ljubljana Castle. It depicts the city’s features and character in a stylized silhouette graphic method. This elaborate detailed illustration can be considered a far cry from my minimal works. However, it is still a game of shadows surrounded by a clear white space which when seen from a distance appear as a black circle in a white square.

Following positive feedback received, I had thought of issuing a set of prints but never really got down to working on it. Do you think I should?

An interview with award winning lecturer and professor Erik Spiekermann where he talks about his design process, his fascination about letters and typography and the importance of design communication and its impact on society.

It is 14 minutes long but I recommend it as it really is an eye-opener.

What are your views about this?

Art, culture and a rich history. All this and much more can be found in Valletta, Malta’s capital and a World Heritage site, nothing short 
of an open-air museum. This small underrated European city holds secluded corners as 
yet unmarked by mass tourism – quarters filled with character and authenticity, where it is easy to slip in,
 slow down and stumble upon that unknown shop, pub or restaurant. At some point most people walking through Valletta will pass through the
 quaint narrow streets which cut through the city and once were so full of life. Today only remnants of that bygone era remain and these are 
the many plaques that still hang on the abandoned bars and shops – a heavenly discovery to all typography lovers, especially when these fading names are 
seen in contrast to the polished shops and franchises such as fast food and clothing chains, which now form part of the capital city’s busy streets.

These vintage signs (nowadays, they are broken down and in dis-repair, fading over doorways) are reminiscent of a time when we were dependent less on technology and more on skill and technique. However, we cannot compare the typography of 100 years ago to that of today, with the arrival of so many new typefaces,
 new ways to create fonts as well as new ways to get our artwork out into the world. Today, all these bars and shops are closed up but the names still remain.

These are some shots I snapped with my iPhone during a quick stroll in the city which I hope you find as interesting as I do – Enjoy!

Camilleri Galea Ltd., are a young team of Certified Public Accountants who deliver assurance, accountancy, advisory, corporate and tax services to a broad range of business, corporate and private clients. I was in charge of creating their visual identity.

You can view the full Camilleri Galea brand design and more work in my portfolio.

Renergy is a team of Engineers and works with the philosophy of offering a complete package related to energy services, starting from energy auditing to the implementation of renewable energy generating systems. I was hired to design the Renergy Brand. Renergy wanted their company’s concepts to shine through their new brand identity, that is, clean renewable energy with no negative impact on the environment.

You can view the full Renergy brand design and more work in my portfolio.