Designers That Inspire Me

I never really looked at a logo that I thought was well-designed and thought, “Wow, I wonder who designed that?” I am more inspired by art itself, I don;t go out of my way to find out more about a designer, because that doesn’t interest me, instead of looking for the designer of a logo that I like, I instead look for what style and elements that design utilises, such as minimalism and the use of negative space. I am also a sucker for vibrant colours, and as far as I know, the trend right now is minimalist, designs that incorporate vibrant, flat colours. Take Windows 8 for example, the whole operating system is full of minimalism and flat colours, from the app tiles, to the shut down screen. In my opinion, this style is my favourite, I just love how simple everything looks, yet I can understand and respect the huge amount of effort that it actually required for the designers to make everything look so simple, yet still portray the right message and look attractive.

Now, when looking for some specific logos that inspired me, I actually came across a design firm named Logomotive. I looked through their portfolio, and I have not yet seen a logo in their gallery that I do not like, Every single logo that they have on display incorporates exactly what I said earlier, I have chosen my favourite logos from their site and put them below. Each of them is designed intelligently and does an excellent job of signifying their brands.

Book Review – Design Thinking

Design Thinking is a book written by Gavin Ambrose and Paul Harris. It is focused around the seven Stages of Thinking when creating a commercial design. This book clearly outlines the stages a designer should go through in order to turn a client’s design brief into a product that the client will want to pay for. This book argues that design is a completely creative process, but the process is controlled by, and requires following the Stages of Thinking.

                The book itself is split up into these “stages of thinking” as defined by Ambrose and Harris. The seven stages that the book addresses are: define, research, ideate, prototype, select, implement and learn. It begins by giving a general analysis of all 7 stages. Design Thinking is a great resource for anyone looking at following this design technique, as each of the seven stages has a checklist, and the book recommends that all items are checked before moving on. Failure to do so could lead to a disaster later on Ambrose and Harris tell us.  After outlining the seven stages, it shows an example of the design process being used when producing a logo for a company named Sovereign. Then it proceeds to discuss broader stages, in which it goes into depth about research, idea generation, refinement, prototyping, and implementation, giving a chapter to each.

                Design Thinking is a great resource for aspiring designers who want to learn more about the seven stages of design. At some points, the book feels like it is saying that this process should be followed 100% of the time, which at times, impedes somewhat on the notion that creative ideas can sometimes just be spontaneous. While the idea of these 7 stages is a great concept, it is not the “be all or end all” of a design, as amazing designs can (and have) been conceived without following these steps.

Hello World!

My name is Liam, I’m 17 years old and I am doing a Bachelor in Fine Arts (Interactive and Visual Design) AND a Bacheor in Information Technology at Queensland University of Technology.

I want to be a graphic designer when I graduate, mainly in the strands of design for web and design for print. The idea of people seeing my work and thinking “wow, that looks great” really excites me, and some day I hope to work for a huge international company and have my work seen all over the globe. I still have a long way to go in my own development as a designer, and I have many things that I hope to learn from this unit (Design and Creative Thinking) this year.

– How to portray the right message with my work.
– How to successfully design something from planning to finishing the final product, and then learning from that product.
– How to use illustrator (It confuses me, even after 7 years experience with Photoshop!)