Tom Tian: Visual Artist: Graphic Design

Showing posts with label Graphic Design. Show all posts

2/22/13

Monogram-a-Week: 04

This week's entry: "S.A.," for "Shahzad Ahsan," not "Sparrow Agnew" and definitely not the jackbooted thugs of the early Third Reich.

5/26/11

...Now in Wallpaper Form!

Remember that poster from yesterday? It's now available as a wallpaper! Download to your heart's content.

(Click on the thumbnails for full-resolution images.)

From top to bottom:

1024 x 768

1280 x 800

1440 x 900

1920 x 1080

4/25/11

Reappraisals: The Maroon

Quick new re-interpretation of the Maroon (top) and old re-design (bottom)
Note: This hypothetical redesign is the property of Tom Tian, and may not be used without his express permission.

Few things are as sobering and edifying as critiquing one's earlier work. I recall revamping the Chicago Maroon's print edition a few years back and thinking that it was the best thing since sliced bread. At the time, it did represent a pretty radical departure from precedent insofar as it attempted to be much more systematic in its type treatment, hierarchy, and layout. It was also more generous in its use of white space, which helped to punctuate and define the content.

Looking back, my runaway indulgence in systematism undermined its long-term reproducibility. Contrast is a good thing, but overuse leads to complex systems that cannot be easily duplicated. Moreover, excessive differentiation risks fragmenting the design into components that do not easily cohere into one product or idea.

With this in mind, if I were to redesign the Maroon again today I'd start with a modular grid and scale; without changing the size of the page, this means setting down a 5 x 8 grid and 3:4 scale, which roughly correspond to the page itself (11:17). Once determined, these relations would then inform my subsequent choices, such as spacing and type size.

Whereas the old redesign was a cacophony of various weights and types (Gotham and Adobe Caslon), the new one would use fewer weights from one family (Adobe Garamond Pro), set flush left to facilitate reading. The modular grid can be thought of as a chart or table of sorts, whereupon horizontal rules of varying weights can serve to divide/partition the page into portions that reflect the importance of whatever content it houses, thereby shifting the burden of differentiation from the type to spacing and layout.

On the non-design side, I would do away with bylines in favor of an expanded masthead; the "topic tags" would also go, as they belong online and have no place in print. The end product is a more modular, parsimonious system that retains the virtues of the older design while curbing its excesses.

4/17/11

Tri-X 2011

Laid out in Illustrator CS5; font: Gotham

I picked up some Tri-X yesterday because my refrigerator's film-to-food ratio was dangerously low, and decided to do a quick 'n' dirty reinterpretation of Kodak's packaging, which looks about as good as their annual earnings report. My version adds more large-small and light-dark contrast, uses a simple 3 x 3 underlying grid and modular scale to lend it a bit more structure, and avoids overly complex gradients in favor of simpler ones. It lacks proper barcodes and icons for recycling, though it's not difficult to see where those would fit.

The logo was more of a quick fix than anything else, and I'm not terribly happy with it.

UPDATE: It occurred to me that the reverse side of the pro pack needs to be flipped so as to display properly once the box is assembled.

3/30/11

Candid Assessments: The Point

Old cover is on the left; my quick reinterpretation, laid out in Illutrator CS5
using Trade Gothic is on the right. Copy unceremoniously borrowed from
The Point's website, so pardon any mistakes.
Cover features City (Westward) (2008), by Jason Salavon.

I recall looking over a classmate's shoulder once in an art history lecture to find him "designing" a cover for what turned out to be the first issue of The Point. The publication of record is a seldom-released but well curated, reputable (and widely distributed) small-scale journal that attracts good writers owing to its close connections with the University.

Problem is, that's not the impression most people would get upon seeing said magazine for the first time, and the haphazard design is to blame.

The masthead is plagued by the loose leading between the words "THE" and "POiNt," the iffy kerning between the letters "N" and "t," the unsettling disproportion between the counter and bowl of the letters "P" and "O," respectively, and the unnecessary tension between the word "THE" and "POiNt," which, though of disparate size, are equally heavy. I also take issue with the inconsistent use of upper- and lower-case glyphs, which quite frankly just plain contradicts the professionalism of the content within.

As for the teasers, I really can't say much except that I'd prefer it be set flush left, and that the two tiers of teasers could either be set in separate columns or at least use a more generous paragraph break.

I have no idea what the inside pages look like, but the cover's indecisiveness (is it a journal or a magazine?) inspires doubt. I do, however, like the fact that it's printed on something that resembles a standard trade paperback/ISO A4 instead of ANSI A1, which ought to make it slightly easier to read.

Good content deserves good design. Let's hope that changes soon.

On an unrelated note, here's a doodle I made of a happy lumberjack:

3/25/11

Children of the Corn, Part II

11" x 17"; India ink on bristol board; live traced in Illustrator CS5;

some copy set digitally in Trade Gothic

If you're on campus, look out for this poster in the weeks to come. Like the "carpocalypse" design, it, too will adorn a t-shirt, a t-shirt that you absolutely must buy.