Everyone and their grandmothers have made typographic posters using Helvetica and I thought it was about time I did as well. Anyone who’s watched the film Helvetica will know the history of the font and it’s ubiquitousness, as well as the ease it provides in making safe, reasonably good looking designs.

So I figured if using Helvetica was practising safe design, it’d be considered the condom of fonts. Hence the poster. Larger image after the jump.

PS – The quotes on the bottom of the packaging are made up. From my knowledge, none of the designers quoted ever said any of those things.

My first real attempt at making a Super Mario World custom level. I used a tool called Lunar Magic and a SNES ROM file.

I wanted to design a rather compact level, but from what I can tell, there’s a limit to the number of sprites you can generate per screen and since the level I made consist of 3 screens, I needed to recycle most the sprites. You’ll see how I managed in the video.

Yeah, I got married earlier this year, and it was my job to make the invites. Our wedding wasn’t in any way a traditional one ( no walking down the isle, no groomsmen/bridesmaids etc. ) so I wanted the invite to reflect that a little. Sure, I love white and lots of it, but I wanted something different.

I like green, and my wife likes green, and our wedding was to be outdoors so green it was. I wanted it to have some feel of Josef Müller Brockmann in it so naturally I used Helvetica as the typeface. The figures were illustrated using Illustrator ( naturally ) and the grass and leaves were standard Photoshop brushes.

English on one side, Khmer on the other, printed on 300gsm matt cards.

I also designed an RSVP page for the guests, which made working out the numbers much easier.

2 more larger pictures of the invites after the jump.

First off, Ljósið by Ólafur Arnalds.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Beautiful instrumental piece, directed by Esteban Diácono.

Next up is Hibi no neiro by SOUR.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Very creative piece, must have taken a lot of effort to put the entire thing together, considering it was made with the help of fans from all around the world.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Very cool. Unfortunately, I don’t know where this picture comes from so I can’t give credit.

Imitation the greatest form of flattery? Wish I could get paid to “design” these sort of pages.

Via NY Times

*Update* Video has since been taken down, I’ll see if I can find another one.

I found it interesting that the reason the logo stands out from the crowd is because the company that designed it has never done a campaign logo before. Unfortunately, the way the camera cuts back and forth between the different angles during the interview can be a little annoying though.

Now, I must say I’m new to blogging and by no means am a professional blogger, this being my 6th blog post ever. But I have been reading blogs since forever and there’s something that really irks me about a lot of the commercial tutorial blogs, and that thing is the Unnecessary Adjective & Arbitrary Numbered List™.

Let me give a few examples of what I’m talking about:

nettuts.com

5 Amazing New WordPress 2.7 Features

Seriously, are they really amazing? Do these 5 features really amaze? I could call them cool features, even interesting features, but I wouldn’t exactly use the word “amazing”. And why 5 of them? Even if there were only 5 new features to talk about, do we have to put the 5 in the title? Really, what’s wrong with just “New WordPress 2.7 Features”? Does the “5 Amazing” part add anything to the title except to make it sound like Microsoft PR talk?

But then again, just look at the author’s bio. Maybe he really does talk like that all the time. Just look how he finishes off the post:

The new interface and features completely revolutionise blogging, and the tightened interface is a dream to look at.

Yeah, sure, blogging 2.0 is now available with WordPress 2.7! The Revolution has come!

Smashing Magazine

50 Extremely Useful And Powerful CSS Tools

First of all, why 50? For one thing, 50 is just too much for one person to absorb at one time. Wouldn’t it be more useful to separate that that list into multiple posts, such as “Part One: CSS and Typography” and “Part Two: CSS Online Tools”. That way you wouldn’t be greeted with information overload as soon as you click the link.

And now for the “Extremely Useful and Powerful” part. Like, really? All 50 of them? How did they determine that these 50 tools are extremely useful and powerful, as opposed to just plain useful and powerful? But then, I guess for something called Smashing Magazine, you need powerful numbers and adjectives, right? Just look at some other examples from Smashing Magazine:

53 CSS Techniques You Couldn’t Live Without

Really? All 53 of them? I must be dead already.

75 (Really) Useful JavaScript Techniques

Did they (really) need to put (really) in there?

50 Excellent Digital Photography Photoshop Tutorials

Must I go on?

50 Stunning Examples Of Reflective Photography

Sorry, I couldn’t help myself.

Pro Blogger

9 Attitudes of Highly Creative People

Now, Mr Rowse admits it himself, he’s in this to make money. But does that mean the front page of Pro Blogger has to look like Google Adsense? Does every post title have to sound like it belongs in a self help book?

My Rant

I guess these people know what they’re doing as it certainly works for them. Their readers appreciate the up-beat feel and the enthusiasm that the language generates. They know what titles to attract the Digg boys and the Technorati crew. In the end, I guess it’s all about Search Engine Optimisation.

Maybe more people really would click on a link with “13 Fantastic Books Everyone Needs This Christmas” rather than one without the unnecessary adjectives and arbitrary numbered lists, but I don’t like it. To me, it feels like caffeinated, glossed, shallow marketing speak. And since I see it so often, I find it grating.