WIP: Uncommon Fund

Cover from possible collateral piece for due diligence purposes.

Established in 2006 at the University of Chicago and entirely student-run, the Uncommon Fund finances a diverse range of student projects. I wondered what things would look like if the Fund was a national-level organization with a seven-figure endowment. Print pieces use Gotham throughout; website uses Gotham and Arial.

Funded Projects Report: First interior spread.

Funded Projects Report: Chapter opening.

Funded Projects Report: Typical primary project spread.

Funded Projects Report: Typical secondary projects spread and brief synopsis.

Website: Homepage.

The site is laid out on a 6 x 6 grid in Illustrator, and employs a horizontal navigation system laid out in columns, similar to the view found in Finder. Most of it pretty basic at the moment.

Website: "About" section, introduction.

Website: Application mockup.

Website: Project gallery.

Website: Project entry.

Resources/Ye Olde Reading List

I thought that some of you might be curious about what I regularly read with regard to design and illustration, so I've assembled a fairly complete sampling. You'll probably want to use Google Reader to keep track of all of these RSS feeds.

In no particular order:

Illustration & Cartooning:

• ASIFA-Hollywood Animation Archive
• Cartoon Brew
• Cartoon Modern (no longer updated, but useful nonetheless)
• John K Stuff
• Process Junkie (NSFW): The Best Figure-Drawing Books Ever (sadly, some of the books are no longer available, but I might have a copy)
• Kevin Dart
• One1more2times2's Weblog
• Flickr: Vintage Advertising Posters Pool
• Tirade
• Drawn!
• A Journey Round My Skull (great entries on obscure designs and illustrations)
• Geninne's Art Blog
• I Don't Like Wet Socks (seldom updated)
• John Manders' Blog
• Matthieu Forichon
• Uwe Heidschoetter

Graphic Design, General Design & Architecture

• Aisle One
• Design Milk (mostly furniture and interior design)
• Lovely Package
• LEBBEUS WOODS
  
• Swissmiss
  
• Smashing Magazine (web design)
  
• Advertising/Design Goodness
• Wellmedicated (seldom updated, may be in active)
• FormFiftyFive
• Design Observer
• Book Worship
• ISO50
• Pixelelement
• Sci-Fi-O-Rama
• Signalnoise
• The Dieline

Typography:

• Cooper Union Typography
• i love typography
• Ministry of Type
• Spiekerblog
• The FontShop FontFeed
  
• Ewald Spieker Blog
• Typography Served
  
• Betatype (seldom updated)
  
• Slanted (German only)
  
• Type Theory
  

Phew! I'll let you know if this list expands substantially, which it undoubtedly will.

Media Meltdown, &c.

Designed in Adobe Illustrator CS3 & post-processed in Photoshop CS3; font: Sansation

Print is dead...long live print!

Here's what I like about paper over the Web: Not mucking around with mystical coding that distracts from design. I was going to add typographical versatility, but it looks like TypeKit will narrow that gap soon. But my previous point stands--I'd rather go to a printer who will get what I want ninety-nine percent of the time than go through a programmer who, fancying himself a design guru, decides to take artistic license where he shouldn't.

I also believe that the principles of good design obtain across different media--the only thing that the Internet really changes design-wise is interactivity, and even then it's really just a step up from pop-up books, in my estimation. Elsewhere, there are plenty of impediments vis-a-vis image reproduction that makes web design much more cumbersome and irritating than its technically simpler predecessor.

In any event, people who insist that the Internet has somehow revolutionized the core values of design are trying to swindle you, and are not to be trusted. A line is still a line, and human beings still respond as they have to certain layouts, figures, colors, and what have you. The salient change concerns the celerity with which things are published, which poses an economic, not aesthetic, challenge.

On a related note, I have had people approach me asking me to teach them Illustrator, Photoshop, InDesign, &c. in the hope that a command thereof it will somehow improve their design acumen. This is a pernicious belief that must be eradicated. The programs of record do not in any way, shape, or form directly affect one's artistic competency. Having the right tools will allow you to do things (and better tools tend to allow you to do them more expediently), but they will not make you do them well.

Designed in Adobe Illustrator CS3 and processed in Photoshop CS3; font: Garamond BE

Garamond is boring. Or is it? Dun dunn DUNNNN...

On a related note: I need to start using serif fonts more.