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Changes to kenreynoldsdesign.co.uk

Posted 28 Apr 2010 - 5 Gratefully received comments

Hopefully you’re all seeing what you are going to read in the following article, but I thought I’d take the time to explain what I’ve done with my site. I think it’s interesting to know about the thinking behind how a personal brand/website can develop,

What’s New?

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What is your best piece of work? – Random Question #3

Posted 26 Apr 2010 - 8 Gratefully received comments

Here’s another opportunity for you to have your say, with another one of my random questions.

Design is subjective, which is a blessing and a curse. Art is also this way, which means all opinions are valid, because the viewer takes away whatever they want from any given piece of art or design.
In my mind the distinction between art and design is that no matter what opinion has been formed in the viewers mind; a piece of design has performed a function, whatever that may be.

Taking all of this into consideration, the designer or artist will have started out with an aim in mind. You could say that the designer/artist is the person best placed to judge a final piece of work.

Which brings me to my question:
What is your best piece of work?

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Blog Advertising – Yea or Nay?

Posted 22 Apr 2010 - 2 Gratefully received comments

If you keep a blog going long enough this question will inevitably rear it’s head: At what point do you begin trying to make money out of it?

Perhaps this question was the reason you started your blog in the first place, but I can only write from my experiences, and it certainly wasn’t something I ever planned when building this blog last year.

I’ve been clear in the past about my reasons for starting this blog (5 Questions to ask yourself before starting a blog), to be honest I never saw it as anything but an extension of my freelance business. Now after nearly a year of blogging which has comprised of 26 editorial articles, 25 comic strips, 7 project showcases, 6 book reviews, 2 competitions, 6 freebie resources, a couple of tutorials and a few guest articles dotted around other blogs; I’ve begun to realise that my blog has grown a lot bigger than I ever planned.

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My Life as a Cartoon #25

Posted 19 Apr 2010 - 3 Gratefully received comments

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The Importance of Side-Projects

Posted 15 Apr 2010 - 4 Gratefully received comments

They steal time away from paying work, they make no money at all and sometimes I can obsess about them forgetting about everything else in my life, but my side projects keep me sane.

I’ve mentioned how important I think side or hobby projects are to me, and how I believe others should consider using them as a healthy creative outlet.
As I say above they are distracting, time consuming and they are unprofitable, but that’s not the whole story.
Oddly a few of my side-projects have broken through and started to become profitable, so sometimes it works out quite well. To be honest I don’t really care if I get any money out of my self-initiated projects, the enjoyment and creative freedom I get out of them is priceless.

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1000 Type Treatments – Book Review #6

Posted 12 Apr 2010 - One gratefully received comment

Typography is one of those design disciplines that can overtake your entire career, it’s very easy for designers to become obsessed with type and then let it become the focus of their everyday activities. Of course even if this isn’t the case and typography isn’t your bag, it’s one of those things that you still need to understand. Type cannot be ignored.
Books like the one I’m about to review give an excellent insight into successful typography, which can lead to the reader obtaining a better understanding of how type works, whether it’s a passion or a chore.

Blurb: The ability to wield typography is a clear indicator of a designer’s talent. Being able to craft type well and thoughtfully requires a deep understanding of typography’s inherent complexities, and a keen eye for it minute, subtle details. This book contains a collection of 1,000 instances of thoughtful and inspired type usage, along with credits that note which fonts were used in the design. The photography in this book homes in on the star of the book – type treatments – so readers can get an up-close look at each piece.
This must-have book showcases an array of fonts in a catalog-like format, making it easy for the working designer to practically shop for ideas.

I was previously unaware of this book and received it as a competition prize from Design Forums (you can see my winning entry here.) It’s great when you get a book as a surprise and it turns out to be really useful, it’s much better than buying the book yourself.
If I had to sum up this book in a glib and slightly vulgar way it would be as follows: 1000 Type Treatments is typography pornography.

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Political Branding

Posted 08 Apr 2010 - 3 Gratefully received comments

A general election has been called, here in the UK, so it seems like a good time to take a quick look at how the political parties choose to represent themselves graphically.

This is the first time in my life that I would consider myself politically aware, maybe I’m just getting older, or the importance of my vote has slowly dawned on me. I’ve always viewed the fact that I can vote as a privilege, but in the past have decided not to use it. The main reason for this is that I’ve never felt that there has been a political representative that stands for what I believe in, or represents me. This fact hasn’t actually changed, but I’m motivated to use my vote this time around for other reasons.
Over the last few years we have seen a rise in popularity for political candidates with more extreme views. This has disturbed me; thinking about people gaining power that have views which disagree severely with my own.
Instead of deciding not to vote because I didn’t feel that anyone deserved it, I find myself motivated to vote in an effort to stop the people I strongly disagree with gaining more power and a stronger voice.

Over the next month I’ll be learning as much as I can about the candidates and parties, trying to figure out who’s views match closest to my own beliefs. The main thing is that for now I know that I will be voting. I have come to realise that if you don’t make your voice count you have no grounds to complain about the way things are.

Anyway, that will do for my own little party political broadcast!

As a designer it seemed like the sensible way to begin learning about the candidates was to look at how they represent themselves graphically to the electorate.

The Main Parties

With all of the main parties seemingly merging into one another and moving to the centre on most issues, usually culminating in the opinion that politicians and parties are ‘all the same’ or ‘as bad as one another,’ it’s more important than ever that they differentiate themselves. So how they represent themselves visually suddenly becomes quite important.

The next month of campaigning will be all about the politicians trying to get their messages across. With their party logos being one of the purer forms of political communication, will they help or hinder the information that each party is trying to project?

Simple, solid and clear. They have kept their rose symbol and employed it in a much more corporate way. I guess that it gives quite a dependable air, with the party hoping that the voters want stability and continuity.

This is quite a new logo for the Conservatives, and was employed to illustrate quite a dramatic shift in the party’s stance and image. To me it feels flimsy and laboured (if you’ll forgive the pun!). It’s meant to come across as fresh and vigorous but for me it smacks of play-school. Then again have you ever watched parliament debates? Maybe it’s fitting.

As far as I know this logo has been used for quite a while. I can’t say it grabs me all that much but I like the ideas of hope and peace it tries to project. I object to the typeface more than the logo. Probably due for an update.

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