Brand Cityy

Inspiration Board #2

2009-10-12T21:07:00.003+08:00

I have a deliberate simple approach to graphic design in which there is a constant process of reduction in order to find the honesty, the purity, the real story to tell. I have a visibly consistent style that translates into a clear and communicative visual language with a modernist bias towards type and image. I believe the focus need be firmly placed on what you have to say first, and how you say it second.

Quote and images taken from mgiesser.com

Love his work and his design philosophy.

Illustrators of note

2009-10-07T13:42:00.006+08:00

I have been surfing the net alot searching for inspirations to take my illustrations to a whole new level as an artist. I believe improvement and not stagnating is important as well as finding your "design voice". A sort of branding of sorts that defines your work as yours not anyone else but your work.

I have compiled a list of illustrators as well as a sample of various illustrator's work and websites. This is for the purpose of developing my "eye" as an artist and inspiring me to push my art to new levels using my own "voice" of course. I despise plagiarism.

Anyway here is the compilation of illustrator's work I admire and want to learn from. In no particular order I love all the work equally.

Four Beauties created by lucioleloong.

I love her art I keep wishing there were more works to peruse in her website.

Asian mystic and beauty juxtaposed with ugliness is one of the concepts this young artist brings to life in swirls of color and soft light.

Dream girl created by Zzanthia.

Zzanthia has an interesting style of illustrating from simple sketches to full on water color paintings that make me want to crawl inside the picture and become the character. Her works are whimsical, sad, frivolous, sexy and provocative. Inspirations include fantasy, flamenco dancers, pop culture, Venice Festivals and ordinary scenes from life.

Creation by Molly Crabapple from Making a Painting

Molly Crabapple has one of most vibrant art personalities around. She performs, she illustrates, she holds classes for artists, she is a business woman, the list is long. Her style however is very consistent she does Victorian styled illustrations with a wicked twist. I mean when we mention Victorian the first thing that jumps up in my mind would be women in high collared dresses and tight knit expressions in high society reading poetry. NOT tightly corseted women with huge hair and batting long lashes and wearing ridiculous shoes.

Love Molly Crabapple for turning any prim and proper thoughts involving Victorian drawings on it's head.

I don't even like... created by Daniel Danger

I first read about Daniel Danger from OMG posters

And I have pretty much been hooked to his dark and mysterious ways of illustrating since. Oh ya that print above is SOLD OUT.

Because I hate halloween (unofficial title for art work) created by Krisatomic

Kris Atomic has such a flair for making simple elements inside an art piece stand out with use of colors and whimsical objects such as a cat woman mask in the above art piece.

There is something child-like and joyous about her body of work and I, personally can appreciate this in art.

Keep learning

2009-10-05T22:26:00.001+08:00

Its always good to find good tutorials.

Live and learn.

Smashing magazine round up of print tuts

Design update #1

2009-09-24T19:13:00.005+08:00

I think it is important to go back and review the portfolio designs and ask oneself how to improve and make it better.

I have done some reviewing and I have plans to revamp the works I have placed in my portfolio. But it will be a process and it will not happen over night.

Today I worked on a illustration I call Esther. I created Esther to showcase or "model" a Deep blue dress I was selling on my online shop ages ago. I loved the color and I like blondes so I thought the design was worth a revamp to give it a breath of new life.

Before

After

I was planning to put Esther on a beach but I ended up placing her somewhere in a desert. I have also changed her shoes and her bag to make it more up to date.

Of course I am not completely happy with the revamp and I view it as a work in progress.

I might want to update the updated design soon.

Will keep this design space updated :)

Inspiration Board #1

2009-09-23T22:11:00.009+08:00

Love the typography in this one. Laughter should always be emphasized what better way to do so than to exaggerate the "hahaha" word?

omg

Illustration by Blanca Gomez (simplicity works here)

Taken from here I don't know what LSD is but I admire the graphic art in this vintage poster. Minimalist but not boring. I like the use of color in this.

Kitty smoking a pipe. What's not to like? To view more click here

Interesting colors, not minimalist more like the "eccentric color" use here. Love the illustrations and typography in this one. Taken from here

In the same vein as the above picture but less. Taken from here

A bunch of vintage Esquire covers

I have more pictures but if I were to put them all up. We would need several eyes to see them all at once.

I love design.

what makes good design?

2009-09-17T23:10:00.014+08:00

Seriously,

I mean for us designers we would state the bigwigs in the industry like Apple, Ikea, saatchi and saatchi.

They give good design.

That does not answer the question thoroughly.

Because there are those gray areas that include designers who do not come from such large companies but work either freelance or are just starting out.

Are they lousy designers than? Did those months of internship and years in school teach them nothing about design?

Obviously not, if you have an eye for detail and sense of color and feel of aesthetics. You can produce good design.

Not great but good.

You probably need years and years and years and years of experience before becoming great.

So now I just talk about how to be good because I have not yet achieved greatness. And I am still learning and growing as a designer. However I have opinions about what constitutes good design and I shall share it.

Does good design mean piling on brushes, effects, dropshadows and all the rest technology can provide?

Some clients think so.

I speak from recent experience in which a client emailed me and stated that my design was too clean and did not look "professional" enough. Ouch.

But that is his opinion and he is entitled to it.

It led me to think of what makes good design?

Does it mean that just because a designer does not pile on the effects it means they are bad designers?

I beg to differ. Clients should understand that when they hire a graphic designer they are not hiring a executor of special effects; they are hiring a designer.

Someone who looks at things an artist would and than execute it accordingly whether they use zen minimalism or eccentric color.

Here is a list of good design done by various artists and they are varied yet none can be said to be bad design. Simplicity can work and most of all humor.

Who could resist Homer stealing an Apple shaped pastry?

Hello Kitty. The logo is so simple but its massive popularity in the world particularly Japan cannot be denied.

Everyone has tried Campbell soup sometime in their lives. Its a simple soup can but its tasty and the label on the can is a classic even Naomi Campbell super model has a comment about Campbell soup cans.

And if you love vintage Penguin & Pelican book covers this flickr set is worth a perusal.

***

I shall leave you with that to look at.

Goodnight and remember the sky is the limit when it comes to designing. What constitutes good design? that is something every serious designer should ask themselves.

For me it is simple, memorable and well loved. That, is good design.

Hello so you wanna BRAND your shop?

2009-08-25T10:27:00.002+08:00

Hello,

Would you like to start up your day and your customer's day with a brilliant brand logo that will make their eyes pop and make them keep wanting to come back to your shop again and again and again?

According to this I have saved many online shops in my favorite list.

I am not advertising for the shops I just saved them as favorites because I liked their clothes together with a 100+ other shops :) All randomly picked and here is how I would redesign their web banner/logo design:

Examples 1 for yours-fashion.blogspot.com

Example 2 punk-little.livejournal.com

Like what you see?

Do you want the same for your store? Drop me an email at brandcityy@gmail.com for more details.

Psst...don't have the time to photoshop your pictures for that photoshoot? I can help you with the photoshop as well :)

What? You don't have the time to take the photos either?

Never fear I can offer photo taking services as well.

***

Just simply drop me an email to find out more.

brandcityy@gmail.com

vintage advertisements

2009-08-20T13:27:00.003+08:00

You have got to love old ads from the past.

Here are some that I found:

Coke cola advert with Max Headroom surfing personality taken from vintagedepotdirect

Ponds Cold Cream 1935 advertisement taken from adclassix

Believe it or not I am using this stuff to remove my make up ;)

It comes in a green and white box that looks something like this:

taken from and recommended by Vogue.uk

I had no idea the cream was in existence from that LOOOOONNNG ago!

Batman Forever Movie poster taken from vintagedepotdirect

Want to see a vintage Lux soap advertisement?

Taken in 1938 from adclassix

You can view more under the health and beauty section of adclassix there is even a kotex advertisement in there from 1946

Brand image

2009-08-18T23:22:00.000+08:00

Brand Image is the perception the consumer has of your product or services.

Definition quoted from About.com

Brand Cityy launch!

2009-08-18T17:15:00.013+08:00

What made me want to start Brand Cityy?

I have been doing ALOT of online shopping lately because apart from selling stuff online I also buy stuff online.

Haha :)

I have seen many many many many shops and the number on my favorite list is scary more than 100 shop names listed.

click to enlarge

From Livejournal sites to blogspot sites to owners who bought their own domains.

Let's be honest here if you are a hardcore online shopper like myself who sees more than 20 online shops in a day let's face it they all look the same after a while. The clothes are similar, the names are similar, the web site designs are similar...

It would take a lot of work in styling the photoshoots and the clothing designs to make the shop appear different from any other shop.

But even in this area most online shops are pretty much similar to the other. Pretty girl posing in front of a standard white background in a sweet demure or sexy fashion.

For evidence of this just click next, next, next and scroll down here

So what makes anyone shop different from the other?

After much thought into this matter I have concluded that it is:

Branding.

Yes you heard me right. It is the only ammunition online shop owners have over a multitude of choices online shoppers have take note I have not even brought in ebay or forever21 online shop or many other international brands into account.

Why? because the self owned, self done, humble online shop be it, blogspot or livejournal cannot even attain a fraction of that market value that forever21 has attained or any other international brands have attained.

We cannot compare ourselves to international brands.

However we can learn from these international brands and formulate a plan to combat the sameness, the mundane pattern that has become standard among so many online shops.

How do you build a brand than?

Let's look to the international brands! The most obvious thing would be the photo shoots.

Take Guess by Marciano and Miu Miu for example

Guess by Marciano photo taken from here

Miu Miu photo taken from here

By looking at the photos we can have a feel of what the brand is about.

Guess is definitely giving off the sexy siren appeal and they are well known for their fitted corset tops and dresses.

Miu Miu has a darker more mysterious feel. The clothes are classy and would appeal to a more sophisticated customer group.

We can see the evidence of this from the webpages Miu Miu and Guess by Marciano.

What about the humble online shop?

Some online stores have the money to splurge on photoshoots at exotic locations but the reality is most are not able to do so.

The alternative would be to do something with the webpage and the banners and the logos.

However most online shops I visit do not have a logo or a website banner that really makes me remember the store.

Most banners look the same with a simple pattern and than the name of the shop in bold placed on top of the pattern.

Like that. And no I have no offense against stripes or pale yellow or turquoise I use it in my own designs but is it a new design concept in a logo/ web banner design? No, hardly.

I said before that I saved alot of online shops into my favorites list. I like the clothes which is why it made it into my favorite list in the first place.

But I just feel that it would be even more wonderful if the shops had a logo or web banner that would make me remember the store for the BRAND rather than just the clothes alone.

This I feel is important because competition to sell clothes online is tough especially when consumers are spoilt for choice with so many places to get the items from.

Its important to have something that stands out, that makes one different from the rest.

I admit some shops have very interesting names that I can remember but with more than 100 shops saved in my favorite list and I am sure there are some girls out there who save like a 1000 online shops and counting in their favorites list.

However an interesting name alone is not enough to make one remember the shop. An interesting name paired with a visually appealing logo would further imprint the memory of the brand into the customer's mind.

Which brings me to the point of why I started Brand Cityy. I want to help make branding something accessible to all online shops. And I also enjoy designing logos and web banners and coming up with new things every time :)