Creative Album Covers.

So after looking through the favorite album covers of the half past century, I decided that I wanted to share some of my favorite album covers as well. 

This first Album cover is Carlos Santana's debut album from 1969, Santana. In the cover, the first thing that catches the eye is the lion and the name of the album, Santana. I love the way that the name of the album is linked to the picture, and as mysterious as the photo is, the typeface is just as mysterious. When I first seen this album cover, my mother was playing the album, and me being curious wanted to know who made this good music. When I picked up the album, I was frightened, because the eyes of the lion scared me. Now that I'm older, I think this album cover is cool, because its not only a lion, but there is a person and many faces. At the top, there's one face, with two faces underneath right on top of the eye area. There are also two other faces, where the whiskers are coming out of.  And underneath the chin of the lion face, there is legs. Although I read online that the legs are there because its suppose to be a native person with a skirt, my eyes have failed to see it. Do you see it?

What I love about this album cover, is A LOT. It has the old school 50's type of feel to it, and the type face outer lining matches the border with the gold, as well as the silver filling in the words "NO DOUBT" kind of matches the inside of the picture where the moon is shining. I also think that the mini pictures, like the coconuts at the bottom, and the flies and Gwen, and the guys along with the tree and the "Tragic Kingdom" was all placed where they were very well. I also think the the dry grass and the dead tree reminds me of Africa, where there are alot of Kingdoms, but the fact that its all seems dead reminds me of a tragic Kingdom. Overall I think this album cover was designed very well.

This album cover, is by Pink Floyd and the name of the album is called The Tree of Life. What I love about this is, it matches the album name because its a tree. But not only is it a tree, its a tree that was shaped to make it look like the side of a face. I think its so cool how they did this,  I can tell it was photo shopped, but whoever did that, did a good job, because the face itself just reminds me of life.

This is Keri Hilsons album, No Boys Allowed. What I love about this album is that, her name was written in the pink "lipstick". The only things that have color is the lipstick in her mouth (which at first I thought was a cigarette), the yellow do not cross tape,that she has labeled as the album name no boys allowed, and her name. I think this worked very well with this photo, and if it was in full color it may have been a little too much. I think with the lipstick in her mouth, that gave her a very sexy look, that would attract boys or men, but the tape over her body in that bright yellow probably made a couple of guys not buy the album. I think its really creative though.

This is another one of the album covers I choice. I actually found this one on the list, and liked it a lot, Its Frank Sinatra's Album, Tone Poems of Color. What I like about is it once again matches the album name, and has many different tones of color, and within the tones on the right hand side are the different color poems, matching the color, inside that color strip.  The only color poem that didn't seem to match was "Brown" which was actually in the red tone. I wonder why.

But these are some of my favorite album covers of all time, that I wanted to share because I think they were very cool, creative, and done with a lot of thought, alignment, and symmetry to them. 

Chapter One exercise - Dynamic Composition

On top of this photo, The Poet, 1911, by Egon Schiele, made with oil on canvas, lies my dynamic composition of the picture. Composition can be static or dynamic but for this painting I recreated the dynamic movement. Although the colors for my composition don't match those in the picture, I did it for a reason. I wanted to be able to tell the difference between the difference parts of the body, and I think the bright pink and pastelish green was able to bring that out, making the composition look rather 3-D ish. I considered that specific green and pink to be a eye catcher, while the brown and black background make it a little less popish, and tone down the overall vision of the composition.  

While looking at my composition I noticed one thing that I could have changed. Which was the positioning of the eyes. I think if I really fully slanted the eyes, from the inside going down towards the outside of the eye shape that my composition would have really captured the essence of the photo. 

I think overall that my composition was a good dynamic of The Poet. I think most of my angles for the triangles were correct and that it was very symmetrical as well. I look forward to doing another exercise like so, because practice is always a good thing. What do you think of my composition?

Mery Creation.

   So recently one of my friends started her own accessory company, called Mery Creation by her: Cruzmery Javiar. The other day she put up what would be her logo, that appears on the tags of the many rings, scarves, bracelets, bow ties, and earrings that she created.; on Facebook. This is it:

        When she told me she came up with the design herself I wasn't surprised, because its just so her ! I love it though. The jaguar print fades into this beautiful deep yellow color, and although its kind of plain it represents her and her line. One thing I wonder is why did she has the Mery lowercase while the Creation was uppercase. Mery is apart of her name so I thought it would be capitalized.
        What a lot of people don't know is why this design is so her. Well Cruzmery is in a sorority call Lambda Pi Upsilon Latinas Poderosas Unidas, and their "mascot" is a Jaguar. Which explains the jaggy print. Also the sororities colors are red, black, white and yellow. Which is why I think she had the jaggy print fade into the yellow. The girls are also called "Divas" so looking at this just reminds me of a DIVA. I'm glad the design is so "her" because every piece of the accessories that's made is hand crafted by her herself.
        One of the things I love about this is the two different typefaces that she put together as well. It gives the overall look of the design a very sophisticated and professional look. I hope that her success with the accessory business goes well. If you guys are interested here's some of her accessories:

You can see more at http://merycreation.wordpress.com/

You can also comment below and let me know what you think of her designs.

The Sunny Delight Logo

         Recently we spoke in class about how American Airlines changed their logo. When I read 10 Observations on the new American Airlines logo, the one thing that popped out to me besides the fact that American Airlines isn't the best flight company, was observation number two and number ten. Observation number two was that the new logo is not as good as the old logo. That logo was made in 1967 and although that was a long time ago, I like that logo better and think that they could of at least used the same logo and modified it to look modern. Observation number ten was that most people don't even notice logos, which I disagree with. To be honest, I have never noticed a logo that relates to traveling, but if it has to do with food and beverage, I've noticed it.
         One that I really noticed that has continuously changed is the Sunny Delight Logo. It feels weird even calling it Sunny Delight since they have the nick name of Sunny D, but Sunny D is an orange flavored drink that is 70 percent juice and 30 percent made of other natural materials, as they say. They came out in 1964, and from what I researched this is the first logo. I also remember seeing commercials and bottles from my childhood in the 1990's with this design. Compared to now the design is a little dull, but when I was younger I used to look at this design like this is really a sunny delight in a bottle. I used to think that the flavor was refreshing, reminding me of laying out in the warm sun on a beach, during a beautiful summer day.
         It was said that they abbreviated the name in order to make it sound cool. So Sunny Delight changed to  Sunny D in the early 2000's. There are currently three different logos, for three different areas of the world since it became so popular. There is the US design:

The UK Design:

& the Design for Spain and Portugal, who still call it Sunny Delight:

The one thing that remains the same in all of the designs is the Sunshine in the background of the words. The Sun is what makes Sunny D, Sunny D. Although the UK one is a bit different by having the "sunshine" in back of the fruit that the drink taste like, maybe they just didn't like the original US look. My favorite design out of all three of them is actually the one from the UK because I feel like the typeface and the graphics around it are more appealing to children now, it just looks more friendly and more "cool"  than the US and Spanish design. Do you think the new Sunny D logos took a change for the better? I do.

Windows 7 Stunning background

I just wanted to share this stunning background design by windows seven. What I love about it is that it gives you the impression of being underwater by the way the light reflects the ground and the windows design is floating in the air as well as the green swoop that is across the screen. Its like an illusion because you see the sky is cloudy and sunlight coming out from it, so you never know for sure if this is underwater or not. Maybe that was the point, or maybe the designer wanted to give you the feeling of being in a new world. The main colors in this design are cool colors which is green and blue, with one warm color; that being yellow. The feeling that invokes in me from viewing this design is a feeling of curiousness and amazement. I think this was very creative, and I would love to have something like this on my background.
  One thing that I would love to know is how do they come up with these designs, what made them want to give the impression of being underwater, with the sky over you as a background logo for your computer screen? Does someone tell the person "Oh, I would like our new design to be confusing and creatively beautiful." Or does the person just come up with it and show them to see if they like it? I'm a person who's indecisive so I would like to know how designs are thought up of, other than besides obvious reasons. If I had the opportunity to design a background for window I would of used the windows symbol and filled it in with different views of the good things of life, or maybe even different vacation spots. I would go for the more obvious type of design. What would you come up with ?

Colors

  Every year I noticed that Google goes out there way to create a design for many of the holidays taking place during the year, and in the design it seems to find a way to spell Google and remains to be the home page for the rest of the day. Although there are so many, there were a couple that really caught my eye and invoked a feeling while looking at the design.
  The first one was the Valentines Day 2008 eight design of  a old man and old woman walking down the beach. I love this design because it gives me a warm feeling. Maybe its the warm colors of the red orange sky, and red balloons that reflect the love and passion that this picture is representing. Or the yellow shirt the old man is wearing that reflects the happiness that he may be experiencing while taking the lovely stroll on the beach. It could also be the cool blue of the water washing ashore, and hitting their feet that make them feel at peace with themselves or one another. Whatever it may be, I think the colors used in this picture symbolize a lot and get the message across that its valentines day be happy and love one another.
   The second one of my favorite designs for Google holidays was the first day of spring March 20, 2009. This design was by Eric Carle,  the author of the well known children's book, The Very Hungry Caterpillar. I love this design because it was one of my favorite books that I read as a kid, and the Caterpillar as well as the warm colors and fruit reminds me of spring. One of the things that I really like about this design is that all the holes that represent the Caterpillar eating through the fruit, also represent the letters in Google. I love that he had the idea to put a blueberry upside down with a leaf to make a lowercase g. This was a very creative was to celebrate the first day of spring.
  Colors seem to play a very big role on the way people perceive things in day to day life. They also play an even bigger role in design, helping getting a message across to the people that see it. The colors that have a big role in my life are Teal, Brown, Black and Pink. You can find me wearing one of these colors everyday. What colors to you like to wear?

Helvetica.. One Hell of A Movie.

  Before I begin discussing Helvetica, I wanted to point out the fact that although this is an old,well known, and well used typeface, Helvetica has the red line under it, so it needs a spell check. I wonder why that is.
  Before watching this movie, I never paid attention to the different fonts that are being used in businesses, retail, food, keyboards, and anything written in daily life. But now I notice all of them, and now I'm starting to see Helvetica everywhere. 
  I dont really like the font, I feel like the words are too close together, and the fact that its used so much doesn't help me like it either. I like variety, and trying something different. I understand people think, but its a classic! But I mean its 2013, stop following this classical thing and do more of a modern thing! Just because its classic doesn't mean its the best.
  After watching this, I watched the short mini film about the typeface Comic Sans--which I thought was a very well put together film & suggest it to others and realized I love Comic Sans way more than Helvetica.
  As a person who loves movies,  and media production, I was excited to see this movie because although I know that there is a lot of movies about almost everything, I didnt know there was one about a typeface. It was pretty cool to hear about how popular and well respected this typeface is, and even more cool to see that there was over n hour worth of material about it.
  But you know what would be more cool? Seeing a movie about MY favorite typeface. Verdana.
  Maybe Ill make a mini movie about it!