Tuesday, September 21, 2010

Minjun Yue's Painting

Minjun Yue is a Chinese artist. He was born in Heilongjiang province.  His art works are famous of the big face, red skin and soigne teeth. The people he draws are always laughing, it was not a really laugh but a sneer. His works are strongly reflect a really society and world. People could find themselves through his works.


This is one of his art work. The image give the reader a high attract becuase of the exaggerated laugh. The main color of the art work is red. Red color is positive color which is more powerful. The three characters are Chinese armyman. And they are ordered from short to tall which looks very balance.



This is another painting of his. The red color is still the main color and people are laughing. In my opinion, this kind of design was a successful idea. Because people are tired of old and common things, his art works give people a new and fresh vision. From his art works, I find that when we design something we must innovate. Innovation could be your own ideas, also it could be the ideas you copy from others but you combine them toghter and creat a new idea of yourself.  This is why we have to learn form others.

Monday, September 20, 2010

Zakumi - Official Mascot for the 2010 FIFA World Cup

Zakumi is the official mascot for the 2010 FIFA World Cup which was presented on 22 september 2008. Zakumi was designed very successfully. First of all, his name comes from two words which are "za" and "kumi".  "Za" is the ISO code for South Africa and "kumi" is a word that means ten in African which is referencing the year 2010. In addition, the designer  use leopard because it is one of the famous animal in South Africa and others have been used before. From this point we could see that the designer try to make the mascot consummate, even the name and the character. This is the most important part we need to learn, if we design something we need to do some research to get more information and also we need to think about very detail things to make our design work perfect. Furthermore, the designer use two main colors green and yellow for this art wok which is the emblematical color in South Africa. On Zakumi T-shirt it write South Africa 2010 and on his hand there is a football, all of these design are strongly show us that 2010 FIFA World Cup is in South Africa. The art work looks simple but very attractive, because all of the design are around South African and FIFA World Cup.

Sydney opera house


Sydney opera house is one of the famous buildings around the world. It was conceived and largely built by Danish architect Jorn Utzon. The Sydney opera house is located in the Sydney Harbour.  First, the designer make the opera house near the harbour, when we see the Sydney opera house far away, it looks like builded on the water which give people hallucination. Secondly, the shape of the opera house is very special and attract. Although it looks a little bit complex, it still follow the balance. You could have different view from different directions which make the whole building looks visual. Third, the designer used the bright color which make the opera house looks pure. The white color also fit in the blue color between the sky and the sea. It is beautiful. According to the wikipedia, the Pritzker Prize citation stated: "There is no doubt that the Sydney Opera House is his masterpiece. It is one of the great iconic buildings of the 20th century, an image of great beauty that has become known throughout the world – a symbol for not only a city, but a whole country and continent."

Sunday, September 19, 2010

Life - 100 PEOPLE WHO CHANGED THE WORLD




According to the Wikipedia, The Life was founded in 1883 as a general-interest light entertainment magazine, heavy on illustrations, jokes and social commentary. Today I will talk about the design of the Life - 100 PEOPLE WHO CHANGED THE WORLD.

On one hand, look at the image above, it is the cover page of the magazine. The designer make the logo and title in the middle of the page which will attract the readers eyes. In addition, there are several people images around the page which make the page more dramatic and rich. The designer make 4 columns and 4 rows for the images. The layout of these images are successful and look balance. The logo and title looks bright on the dark background.

On the other hand, the content of the magazine was full of images not only with text which make it readable and easy to understand. Because sometimes, images could be instead of hundreds of text description. In addition, every pages are layout in different ways with different colors, when the reader read the magazine, they will not feel boring.

The Good Guys website - one of my favorite websites

The Good Gus website is one of my favorite websites. First, when you open the home page (http://www.thegoodguys.com.au/NationalView), it will ask you to choose your location and it will automatically find the nearest store from your home which is very convenient for the users.


In addition, when you already choose the location you will come to the main page (http://www.thegoodguys.com.au/midland/store/TopCategories).


You could see from the above picture, it uses a white background which could highlight the content. The font of the whole page is readable and the color is soft and fit the white background. Furthermore, it is clearly lay out the navigation bars on the left hand side and top. The navigation bar on the left hand give the users a very detailed sort, so the users could find their products quickly.

Thirdly, in the middle of the website, it shows users some hot deal products. All of this hot deal products are described with image and price. Again, it is convenient and clear.

To sum up, the good guys website was created successfully, all its design were considered for the users which is very convenient and clear. The website developers really know what the users want and then they build it.

Saturday, September 18, 2010

Logo - A book about design

This book tell us about the logo design. So, What is a logo? According to the writer of this book, he said that logo is just as ancient ancestors communicated through visual icons, modern brands speak to customers through imagery.

This book give me lots of ideas how to create a successful logo. The goal of logo design is simplicity in design. A logo needs to work across many different mediums to be successful e.g. the web, in newspapers or on a small business card. If a logo is too complicated, it is different to distinguish on a business card or in a small newspaper advertisement.

Logo is created by shapes, lines and colors. Colors is very important. It should be simple and can be translate on different backgrounds. For example,  rainbow colors work on a white background but will not translate on a dark background. All of these aspects need to be considered for a logo to be successful.
As you can see the IBM logo is a classically successful logo that is highly recognizable, very simple and
works across different mediums and on different backgrounds.