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Wired’s - The Best Album Art of all Time (Reader’s Choice)

David Bowie Diamond Dogs

This is, of course, a hard argument. So many albums, so much beautiful art, design and illustration. There are a few that stick out that in my mind that shouldn’t be missed; what about Pink Floyd’s “The Wall”, or Queen’s “News of the World” ? I can think of hundreds more… Either way, this article, “Best Album Art of All Time, Readers Choice Edition” by Wired’s Scott Thill is definitely worth a look. The related article “The Best Album Art of all Time” is worth a read as well. Enjoy!

Pixelube Works with Seattle Company thePlatform to Modernize the Existing Logo and Brand Design

With website design coming in an easy second, logo design is my favorite. For as many logos as I’ve created, regardless of the many years and experience, I always find myself chalk full of anxiety at the outset of a brand project. There was no exception when the folks at thePlaform approached Pixelube to update the company logo. For me, it may in fact be a bit more intimidating to modify a logo rather then starting from scratch. Why you say? There are a variety of reasons, namely:

1. thePlatform brand has equity in the market-place therefore we need to try and maintain some of the key brand traits.

2. There are a limited number of design assets to work with in the original logo so we have to use what’s already been created as a baseline

3. We needed to create a mark that was flexible enough so that it could work with some of the exiting family of graphics

thePlatform Logos From old to New

Initially, my gut told me to create something flat, in fact, I found myself pushing back on the client when the main request was to make it 3 dimensional. It, of course, is part of our job to listen to the client so for the first couple reviews, we mixed flat options in with logo treatments that were a bit more 3 dimensional. I quickly came to realize that the client wasn’t going to budge. The flat versions just were not going to work.

Of the many, many roughs that didn’t actually make the cut, we ended up presenting about 25 logos before we actually honed in on something that the client was happy with. From there we tweaked, re-worked and modified the various fonts, shapes and color to come up with the final brand.

thePlatform Print Collateral

I’ve found that we always get the best results when we’re really able to collaborate with the client. Sure there are times when one feels like x,y or z may not be the best choice a client could make but more often then not, if you listen and use your creative energy to satisfy both the client and yourself, you’re probably going to come up with a great mark that everyone can be proud of.

Microsoft OEM Brand & Logo Design—It’s Great Working with our Redmond Neighbors

Microsoft OEM Logos

Wow, get this, after 28 various marks we then honed in on the final. From there we created 192 variations of the same logo. This, of course, included localization, 1 color and print/rgb versions. Once the logo was complete we had the pleasure of working on additional collateral which helped to define the look and feel of the new brand, namely the style guide, website mastheads, a power point template and business cards, to name a few.

 

The iPad, the Kindle and the Nook, Will They Influence a Paradigm Shift in our Approach to Design?

What’s up with these new gizmos - so much buzz and hype! It may actually be for good reason. I don’t yet own one of these devices but, believe or not, I had the privilege of designing one of the first apps to launch with the iPad. We pretty much had to design blind as the yet-to-be-launched device was under lock and key… I quickly came to realize that I had to approach design in a significantly different way. They say that the approach is similar to designing for the iPhone but even that’s a reach. The iPad is 4 times larger therefore there is much more room for content, navigation, ads, etc. not to mention various new gestures have been added to the mix.

Sure, we can make pretty pictures all day - that’s easy, but what about usability and way finding? How do we create new and intuitive visual queues that help guide the user down a particular path?

Writer Steven Levy of Wired Magazine paints a picture in broad strokes but I found his article inspiring. It may be a bit apple-centric but it’s worth a look!

Pixelube Logo Design Gets Published Again – Kudos!

Intoxica logoWe’ve just been informed that one of our latest logos (Intoxica) has been selected for LogoLounge’s, soon to be published book LogoLounge Volume 6.

Not to toot our horns but this years lot was made up of an incredibly competitive judging session with over 34,000 logos entered for consideration. We’ve also been informed that your our work has been chosen for inclusion in the new book by an international panel of judges. This year’s panel included, Bart Crosby of Crosby Associates, Hans Hulsbosch of Hulsbosch, Jeannie Servaas of Saffron Brand Consultants Inc., Jessica Hische of Jessica Hische, Marius Ursache of Grapefruit, Sherwin Schwartzrock of Schwartzrock Graphic Arts, Silvio Giorgi of Latinbrand, and Tessa Westermeyer of Landor.

We love to design logos!

UIEvolution Website Design—Clean Corporate website with WordPress Integration

UIEvoluiton Website

Based in Kirkland, Washington, UIEvolution is specializes in creating mobile applications and solutions across multiple devices and platforms. They’ve created a variety of applications for clients such as ESPN, Disney and Microsoft Bing, to name a few.

We worked closely with the team to design simple website that would bring their work into the foreground, leverage various social media tools such as WordPress and Twitter and, last but not least generate leads.

It was a great website design project and it has been a pleasure collaborating with the UIEvolution team to create a web site that will make their brand shine! Take a look here…

Senior Designer: Tim Moser

Creative Director: Vincent Dean

16 iPad Design and User Interface Resources

ipad_blog_01
A few weeks ago a client of mine shot me email indicating that he might be interested in creating an iPad application. By the end of that week my client was oozing so much enthusiasm for creating something that I was only happy to oblige. He already had a huge web site with a substantial amount of users and he was working on the 3rd iteration of a related iPhone app so it only seemed natural that we dive right into something for the iPad.

Where to start? Everyone’s completely green. I’m fairly certain the only real experts at iPad design and development would be the folks out at Apple and even they are waiting on folks like us to help interpret and define what the iPad is fully capable of.

Once I got the official “green light” from my client. I kicked of the project by mining for as much information as I could find. As a result I’ve compiled a list of iPad resources that I hope will be of use. Read the rest of this entry…

The Pen Story—Breathtaking Stop Motion Video Design

A story describing “a journey through time” based on printed images; this video by Takeuchi Taijin was created for a new Olympus marketing campaign promoting its new Pen camera. If you have a minute or two, this video is definitely worth a watch!

Freshly Launched Website: Seattle Construction Company BNBuilders

BNBuilders New Web Site
BNBulders (BNB) is a full-service general contractor. They have worked on a variety of local projects such as the Seattle Children’s Research Institute, the King County Library System, various projects for the University of Washington and multiple biotech projects in the Lake Union area of Seattle.

Pixelube worked closely with the BNBuilders team to build the new website that would showcase their latest projects and allow the BNB staff to easily post job openings, and announcements to the site via a custom content management system.

Senior Designer: Don Flora
Development: Devin Swecker
Creative Director: Vincent Dean

“Last Day Dream” — A 42 Second Video by by Chris Milk

Last Day Dream [HD] from Chris Milk on Vimeo.

Try and find 42 seconds in your day to watch this video Last Day Dream by Chris Milk. I’m certain that you’ll see a little bit of “you” in it - I did.

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Pixelube is a design studio based in Seattle Washington. We specialize in logo, identity, web and print design—design that sparks interest, builds equity and generates revenue.

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