Banapana » graphic design

Forced Blogging

Russell Warner — Tue, 17 Mar 2009 18:52:13 +0000

Well, I would really rather be developing a new iPod touch app, but Xcode won’t quit quitting on me and the Apple Developer Connection is away for lunch (or site updating)—probably something to do with this rumored iPhone OS copy and paste I’ve been hearing about. At any rate, since the development train is pulled into the station for a moment, allow me to instead share with you this gorgeous collection of posters that I found at Poster Cabaret. Pretty.

Update 2:55pm: The rumors are true; there will be copy and paste in iPhone 3.0.

Is Graphic Design Art?

Russell Warner — Mon, 17 Nov 2008 23:25:13 +0000

First of all, free free to answer the question for yourself. It’s not what I would consider the most scientific study, but que sera sera. I draw a distinction between graphic design and art based on what is being communicated and what is the intent of the communication. Art attempts to communicate emotion, it evokes feeling. Graphic design has to communicate information—and I emphasize has to. If an artifact of the visual medium does not communicate information (or data, to be technical about it) then it is not graphic design. When information is communicated it can sometimes be done with excellence, and graphic designers want to call that art (because it is their art, as in trade) but other folks will still call it technical or design or advertising. But when the emotional content outweighs the communication of the information, as in, drowns it out, then I think graphic design can attain “artness.” And mind you, I am not saying the reverse of this: that art has nothing to say. On the contrary, art can say nothing at all or nothing specific. In my mind, a great deal of the cleaving of the two forms comes down to Andy Warhol’s “Soup Can” and an actual advertisement for the same soup. One form is trying to get you to think about your world, what it looks like and how it feels. The other form is trying to get you to think about soup. [Thanks to Kitblog for today's inspiration!]

The Obamamercial

Russell Warner — Thu, 30 Oct 2008 01:15:15 +0000

To continue the trend of writing about election week media here at Banapana, i’d thought I’d make a note about the “Obamamercial,” the 30 minute informercial that candidate Barrack Obama aired tonight at 8pm Eastern. So far, around the web I’ve seen a lot of people talking about how they felt that the production values were good. Perhaps that may seem like an odd point to use to enforce the idea that Senator Obama would make a great President, but I really think it speaks volumes about a man who knows how to delegate power and knows who to trust to get the job done well. As I pointed out in a post about campaign branding the kind of design work you see coming out of a campaign does a lot more than tell you if the person in charge has taste. It tells you whether they are smart enough to not interfere with the work of the professionals that they hire to get the job done. Whether it’s the creatives he’s chosen to work with or just how totally, unbelievably thorough the campaign was in designing graphics for every necessary instance, the Obama campaign’s media strategy can tell you a lot about what Obama’s team knows about strategy and just how good they are at it. I think the production values of this “Obamamercial” just give greater weight to the point that Obama knows how to tap good, talented, smart people and he knows how to manage them cohesively. For all the rhetoric about policy decisions and political stances, I don’t think anything can tell you more about the potential for an executive team then how they’ve run the campaign. Obama’s team is good. Vote for them. Vote for Obama.