Oh wait, what? That's the new Photoshop logo? Didn't they just rebrand? Seems strange to me that Adobe would stray from what I think was a very successful brand with their periodic table of elements system in favour of incorporating the Extra Terrestrial into their logo, but who am I to judge?
I found out recently that Ewan McGregor and Charlie Boorman just completed another epic motorcycle road trip from Scotland to South Africa. Their first journey was back in 2004 when they rode around the world in 115 days on two BMW R1150 GS bikes. They filmed the entire experience and made a TV series called Long Way Round. It was a fantastic show, and I’ve watched it all the way through several times. It was funny, poignant, dramatic and suspenseful, and you don’t have to be interested in motorcycles to enjoy it. It’s a DVD box set that’s well worth checking out, and I can’t wait for the next series, slated to come out in October.
Okay I’ll admit I was skeptical at first about the new Apple keyboards, but now I’m quite in love. Much smoother and more elegant than the previous version, and will be so much easier to keep clean without the clear plastic “window of shame” that encased the old ones.
It's been a long time coming, but Trinity Western University has finally launched the new brand for their athletics department, the Spartans. The evolution of this new brand was a journey of literally tens of dozens of iterations and many different directions, culminating in this final version. By the time I joined IBC and was brought onto this project, much of the work had already been done by others before me, and I had been given a very definite direction to bring it home.
The wordmark had already long been established and approved, so one of the challenges was making sure that the icon worked well with it. Since an icon and a wordmark are usually developed in conjunction, this was a bit tricky. Basically the icon needed to have a slightly abstract quality to it while still representing a proud, noble Spartan. After viewing many months worth of work that had brought us to the point we were at, there were three sketches that had some of the necessary elements to make the icon successful. I think it's fairly obvious that the final icon was developed by taking the best elements of the three and making them work as one, as well as tie in seamlessly with the established wordmark.
I’ve always loved the typography in the opening and end credits of old movies. Before the time of elaborate CG titles, there was intricate typography and bold musical scores. Check out this flickr page to see some beautiful versions of “The End”.
Okay, I know I’m the last person on Earth to see it, but damn The Bourne Ultimatum was friggin’ fantastic. It’s a rare thing for a second sequel to rival the original movie, but this one does. Oh yeah, and definitely one of the coolest hand-to-hand fight scenes I’ve seen in a while. Excellent movie.
So, part of the reason I was finally able to find time to finish the site was that I broke my foot almost 5 weeks ago. It was a strange, unlucky incident in my parking garage where I swerved suddenly to avoid an obstacle, too suddenly in fact, and dropped my bike. Luckily the bike sustained only some very minor scratches, because my foot sacrificed itself to save it. I didn't even realize it was broken until I got to work and realized I could barely walk. Nonetheless, I sat through a client meeting and was taken to the hospital after, to discover I had a broken third metatarsal.
None of this is terribly remarkable, things like this happen. It's a bit unlucky, but you heal and move on…. Unless, of course, you re-break it. (more…)
