Design Quizzes

Quiz: Car Emblems

By Delphine Hirasuna | February 29, 2012September 4, 2014

Car emblems have existed almost from the inception of automobiles. Early cars had radiator caps that rested on top of the hood. At least one automaker got the idea of turning the cap into a hood ornament. Soon every automaker had an emblem or mascot adorning the hood of their car. In addition to giving the vehicle a decorative flourish, the emblem served as a brand identifier. Early carmakers based their designs on everything from national flags, family crests, coat of arms, constellation of stars, and animals that embodied the traits they admired. Today with the profile of cars looking so much alike, the emblem is often the only way we can identify the maker. See if you can recognize these. (Answers on the next page.)

Publishing

Is Publishing Dead?

By Delphine Hirasuna | February 27, 2012September 4, 2014

Turn up the sound and pay attention to the words all the way through. This video titled “The End of Publishing” was presented by Penguin CEO John Makinson at an internal sales meeting. It was so well-received that Penguin decided to share it with a wider online audience.

Prepared by the marketing arm of Dorling Kindersley in the UK, the video was done by Khaki Films in Kent. Khaki says that the approach was inspired by the Argentine film, “The Truth,” by Savaglio/TBWA Buenos Aires, which won a Silver Lion at Cannes in 2006.

For “The End of Publishing,” Khaki’s writer Jason LaMotte took four days to piece together a script that made the exact opposite point when read forwards and backwards. From there, arriving at the right voice inflexions and pacing for the film was an amazing feat in itself. Very clever. Let’s hope that the backwards reading is true.

Design Education

What Nobody Tells Beginners

By Delphine Hirasuna | February 21, 2012September 4, 2014

Ira Glass, the host and producer of the Public Radio International storytelling program, “This American Life,” expounded on what nobody tells to beginners. Singapore-based filmmaker, David Shiyang Liu, took Glass’s comments and turned them into a video. Glass’s words are insightful and reassuring in themselves, but displayed as kinetic type, we pay rapt attention with both our ears and our eyes, which makes Glass’s observations all the more meaningful.

Packaging

Rubber-Stamped Japanese Food Packaging

By Delphine Hirasuna | February 20, 2012September 4, 2014

Traditional Japanese packaging for food products has historically been made of the natural materials-at-hand out of utilitarian necessity. Straw, bamboo sheath (the leaf that covers the sprouting bamboo shoot), and thinly shaved sheets of wood show an abiding connection to nature and a crafted human touch. Although this package design for Forest House Honey does not use wrapping materials plucked from nature, it has that sensibility in a 21st century kind of way. Yamagata-based Akaoni Design gave the packaging a simple humility with its unbleached brown paper and rubber-stamped floral block print patterns. Rather than a slick, “over-designed” manufactured look, the product has a farmer’s market “boutique” quality. It feels wholesome, organic, unadulterated by additives, and packaged by human hands and not mass produced by machine.

Public Service Campaign

Can You See Me Now?

By Delphine Hirasuna | February 15, 2012September 4, 2014

This modified eye chart is more representational than accurate, but, for the most part, it gets the point across. Designed by Salt Lake City-based creative director Gary Sume, this poster for the Utah Highway Safety office advises drivers to watch out for motorcycles.