Elbowruminations Graphic Design Trends, Tips and Reviews

Neat is not a word you hear frequently as a term of endearment these days. Perhaps “neat” is not even something your parents would choose to use in an effort to describe something favourable in nature. In fact, according to the good folks at Merriam-Webster, the word “neat” dates back to the year 1649. Why is it being used as a centerpiece of an advertising campaign in 2008? That’s a good question.

It seems there are a lot of questions you could ask about this advertisement designed for the Calgary Public Library. For example, why choose black and blue as the palette for the ad? This colour combination carries negative connotations, primarily the bruised and battered feeling of placing a distant second in a two person punching contest. It’s not bright enough to attract the attention of a busy motorist rushing home to dinner, and it certainly does not give the impression that your local library is a vibrant centre of modern culture.

Furthermore, there are a variety of questions that also need to be asked about the design execution in this advertisement. The first inquiry being why so many fonts were used. Typically, as a graphic designer, you should attempt to keep your font choices to a minimum. Perhaps two fonts should suffice in most situations – a serif and a sans serif. In this case, at least four fonts are used in addition to bold, italics, and a hand written signature at the bottom. That’s too many.

The construction of the ad is also problematic. There is no flow in the layout. Your eyes are required to sweep the entire ad to gather information you’ll need to comprehend the message, and by that time it may be too late, especially in a car. A good graphic designer will engineer information in a way that gives your eyes a chance to see what needs to be seen one element at a time in order of importance. With the Calgary Public Library logo balanced precariously near the centre and everything else thrown in wherever it fits, efficient visual navigation is difficult.

From the archaic and non-relevant terminology, to the poor layout, and the dull colour scheme, this advertisement is a few letters short of a bad first novel and it’s unfortunate. Our library system deserves a better image. It’s a great resource that the majority of people ignore for the preconceived notion that it’s a bland, beaten down institution frequented by people who think books are “neat”. Now where would they get that idea from?

One could argue that my selection for best design contribution of 2007 could have been chosen in a patriotic effort to showcase some quality Canadian content.

True, this logo could have been nominated due to my undeniable personal affinity with the discipline of corporate identity development. I may have also selected it just to be different, knowing that none of my fellow contributors would choose such an unlikely small town candidate. Although none of these motivations lack validity, I am proud to present the Saskatoon Blades logo for your consideration based on the simple fact that the brilliant new design is magnified by decades of absolute repugnancy.

The simple construction of the logo combined with layers of meaning is what I think makes it great. To have the vision to associate the “S” and the “B” with a 3- dimensional skate blade and combine it with the powerful imagery of the hilt and blade of a dangerous looking knife is uncommonly clever. The combination of three simple colours is effective and clean. The precise vertical balance of the elements used, makes the threat of being sliced up abundantly clear.

Even as a self-proclaimed swoosh-hater, the swooshes in this logo not only add knife wielding movement to the design, they also fit right in as skate laces.

After appreciating this design for some time I got to thinking that perhaps if I was the client, I would have requested to see a version of the logo with the skate/knife handle act as the “A” in “Blades”. I feel that might be another great opportunity to add some interactivity between the text and the visual elements.

The only other comment I have is the related to the positioning of “Saskatoon”. With the team name being the “Saskatoon Blades”, it’s a little counter intuitive to have it convey “Blades Saskatoon”. I have decided it’s something I can live with.

The symbolic relevance of the elements that compose this logo are harmonic and seamless. The meaning runs deep and the overall look is powerful. Those are the reasons why I’m a big fan. If you do not share my admiration, you are more than welcome to adopt an earlier iteration as your favourite.

For those unfamiliar with the Canadian television series, The Dragon’s Den, it can perhaps best be described as American Inventor meets Reign of Fire. This CBC reality style program pits five rich investors against a variety of entrepenuers attempting to successfully solicit financial infusion for fame and fortune. Typically, as you might expect to see on a show such as this, the majority of pitches are ridiculed mercilessly and laughed off stage.

On the latest episode, which ran on November 5th, 2007, the Dragons made short work of a dog buiscuit baker, the inventor of a magnetic badminton fishing game, and a lady who somehow invested $40,000 of her own money into a small granite stone used to combat hot flashes. At this point, you may be wondering what this television show has to do with graphic design, and so you should.

Normally there is very little design-related content on the Dragons Den, save for a few token web 2.0 entries such as UniversityParty.ca, which was severely trashed on the show but actually seems fairly hip as far as social networking goes. Another design note is that one of the Dragons is Arlene Dickinson, the principal of Venture Communications in Calgary and owner of the cryptic website for Venture: openminds.ca. This site is as difficult to understand as it is to navigate and could have very well been a prime target for our Around Calgary section if it wasn’t for Arlene’s agreeable personality and obvious level of professional experience. We will trust her on this one.

This week was notable for one main reason. Dan Eisner from True North Mortgage was on the show. True North Mortgage is a Calgary based mortgage brokerage and also a client of ours. The poster displayed during the pitch was designed by your friends at Elbowroom Design! We were excited to see our work on TV as this is the closest we’ve come to our fifteen minutes of fame. First and foremost though, we were excited to see Dan have all of his hard work pay-off in the form of an investment offer from the Dragons.

For an update on what happened after the show, make sure you check out the True North Mortage blog, one of Canada’s top Mortgage Broker blogs.