Category: Identity

  • Identity Designed, the book

    The Identity Designed hardcover (published by Rockport, available from January 2019) aims to uncover the most valuable details about what it takes to create a compelling visual identity. Since the Identity Designed website was launched in 2010, it’s been a bit of a labour of love sharing insights into more than 500 projects from design…

  • Marginalising creativity

    There’s never a good reason for designers to call themselves “creatives.”

  • Wigan Little Theatre’s little known facts

    Problem: design a brochure for a small theatre. Solution: make the brochure small.

  • The influence of colour in brand identity

    Who wants 50 shades of grey when you’ve got the choice of the rainbow? Written by Laura Hussey, partner and creative director at London-based SomeOne. It’s drizzly, it’s grey, everyone is wearing black and I’m a Celebrity is back on the telly tempting me with the lush green Australian rainforest and it’s vast, bright blue…

  • LiveSurface Context

    LiveSurface Context is an Adobe Illustrator plugin by Brooklyn-based Josh Distler that renders your flat artwork onto a wide range of contextual photos. I had a go with the free trial. Excellent. And at $9 per month (or $89 for a year) it’s a fair bit cheaper than a stock photography subscription. You can cancel…

  • On designers critiquing designers

    Design blogs often direct a lot of negativity toward projects of different kinds — especially within comment threads. So, now and again I like to remind myself that it’s almost impossible to give a balanced critique of another designer’s work without knowing a few things: Details of the design brief The relationship between the client…

  • Remove the logo. Know the brand.

    I asked Twitter to name brands you can visually identify without the logo. Here are a few clues from your suggestions — a reminder that identities are more than just wordmarks and symbols. Image credit Image credit Image credit Image credit Image credit Image credit Image credit Image credit Image credit Image credit Image credit…

  • When asking for a design critique

    Designers often ask me for feedback on their work, but in many cases they’re asking the wrong question. Don’t show two logos and ask, “Which one’s best?” What does the client do? How do they want to be seen? Why? And it’s always easier to offer an opinion when designs are shown in context, i.e.,…

  • Identify, by Chermayeff & Geismar & Haviv

    In Identify, designers Tom Geismar and Ivan Chermayeff, and partner Sagi Haviv, open their studio for the first time in the firm’s 55-year history, revealing the creative process that led to some of the world’s most well-known marks. “Identity design is not about what one likes or dislikes. It’s about what works.” There’s a preface…