Japanese WWII Air Raid Defense Posters

From the "i've never seen those before" file, comes these very cool WWII Japanese Air Raid posters. Note how the men get to wear gas masks, and the women get a handkerchief. The illustration style and compositions (especially the first image) is very interesting and shows an obvious link between the traditional japanese woodcuts and manga styles that will become popular in the decades after the war. 

Human Rights Poster project written up in PRINT Magazine

At left: Poster by Christopher Kosek At Right: Poster by Cindy Chen

Over the summer term at Art Center I had the privelage of working in a special class dedicated to making poster celebrating the 60th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. The 25 posters that my class made traveled to Paris, France and were displayed at the NGO conference there and locally at the Pasadena Central Library.

PRINT Magazine did a write up of our project and i'm prominently featured in the article as well as having one of my posters shown in an article that is currently on the front page of the site.

From the article in PRINT written by Paul Morris: Posters That Redeclare Human Rights

Christopher Kosek, whose mother grew up in Communist Poland in fear of the Secret Police, created several of the exhibition’s posters. Kosek said graphic design needs to be a vehicle of public service to increase awareness for issues such as the military use of children. One of his posters, entitled "A Child Is Not a Soldier," depicts a child soldier as drawn by a child's hand. Kosek said that children draw whatever surrounds them, perhaps unaware of their own traumas. Two of Kosek's posters, "Somebody" and "Everybody," feature medical illustrations and neutral typefaces. The message is that “we’re all made up of the same stuff,” going back to that self-evident Article 1 of the Declaration. Kosek’s use of warm colors (yellow, pink, red) nevertheless stirs up a message of hope and progress.

Its a pretty big thrill to see my work written about in a prominant graphic design magazine and i'm even more excited to see our project and the cause of human rights getting some exposure.

Best & Worst Logos of 2008

Via DesignObserver and Brand New the Best and Worst Logos of 2oo8

The Best two snippets:

"The Oklahoma City Thunder / You can take the Supersonics out of Seattle but you can't take the lame out of this logo."

"Animal Planet / This logo is neither animal nor planet. Discuss."

Human Rights

This past summer at Art Center, I participated in a sponsored transdisicplinary class through our Designmatters program. We created 25  posters for the 61st DPI NGO conference in Paris, France celebrating the 60th Aniversary of the Declaration of Human Rights. I was honored to have 6 of my designs chosen by jury to be part of the final show, which can be seen on my website.

Tonight, I attended the local reception and show opening at the Pasadena Central Library. The mayor various Pasadena Socialites and various county and state representatives were in attendance. It was great to be a part of such a great project. There is so much emphasis (at least for me) at Art Center about making strong design work that builds a great portfolio that will open doors and land me a great job. It was refreshing to "use my design powers for good" and remember that communication can help people and be a force for real change in the world. 

For me the most exciting part of the evening was one one of my instructors set me up with a writer from PRINT magazine to do a brief interview about our class project that may run in their next issue. Fingers crossed and knock on wood about that happening. The other part was when i was interviewed on camera for local Pasadena TV. Yeah um that was kinda sorta fun but i felt a lot like Ricky Bobby....."i'm not sure what to do with my hands" kinda thing.

The Stories Behind Hollywood Studio Logos

As a kid I used to watch alot of movies on VHS and BetaMax (Beta was better!!!) which all happened to be from different decades. I'd see these logos evolve and i'd always have opinions about them.  I was intrigued by the animations, and complexity. How some would seem to jump or be integrated into the opening titles, or ow they were just strong graphic images.

I eventually started to associate these studio logos with certain genres or particular movies based on my favorites. The rumbling drums and 3-d type building of 2oth century Fox became associated with Star Wars. The Paramount mountain meant Indiana Jones. The MGM lion/United Artists Icon always came before James Bond. And finally the WB shield always came before my favorite cartoon series; Batman the Animated Series (as well as Tiny Toons, Animaniacs and Pinky and the Brain)

Without being aware of it, this was my first real exposure to graphic design and identity was through watching these movies.

So needless to see i totally geeked out once I found this  great article on neatorama.com about some of the most recognizeable logos in pop culture...movie studios.  Definetly worth checking out.