Design Students Packaging on Display

Jin Chung, Jennifer Waycaster

UAB Graphic Design students recently completed a packaging project for ARS 350 Intermediate Design. Students were asked to create a design for a snack that references local Alabama culture, places and/or people. Finished projects can be seen on display in the main Department of Art and Art History hallway on the first floor of the UAB Humanities building. Students worked conceptually with the idea of southern culture, history and ideals to create a snack and the packaging imagery to support it.

UAB Design Student in the Big Apple!

UAB Graphic Design student, Cana Grooms, spent the summer in the big apple interning with home design guru and bon vivant Jonathan Adler. She worked for 3 months on everything from basic patterns and color palettes to a redesign of the Adler product tags that will be used in all their stores. Talking about her experience Grooms said, "I was given tons of freedom. I would be given a basic idea of what the project was and the concept, and then allowed to ramble through designs and present the strongest ones at the end of the day." Cana was given free reign on many of the projects she touched, including the design of the 2011 Holiday Look Book. Talking about life in NYC, "Its crazy and wonderful at the same time, there is so much creative inspiration in the city. There is an energy that constantly renews your creative spirit."  

Need some typographic inspiration? Great images of holiday typography. Check out the latest news from the type theory archives. ( http://www.typetheory.com/ )

45 Beautifully Designed Book Covers

The great people at well medicated have compiled their list of the 45 most beautifully designed book covers. Book cover design has come a long way in the last 25 years, thanks Chip Kidd !
Got to their site and check it out.

I want!

Yet another feature I must have on my own card!  Local design student, letterpress owner and bon vivant Patrick Masterson showed me a sample of his latest work. The effect, called "edging" is done by stacking 200 cards together, then airbrushing the color, by hand, on the edges. Apparently the rage right now with the "in" crowd. It is really striking in person! I asked if there was anything stopping him from doing it in GOLD, and his answer.. in perfect Patrick tone "good taste?"

These are printed on Crane-Lettra, letterpress paper by Crane. http://www.cranepaper.com/lettra/home.html

IKEA's Type Troubles

Thumbing through his local Swedish newspaper, Göteborg resident Mattias Akerberg found himself troubled by a full-page advertisement for Ikea. It wasn't that the Grevbäck bookcases looked any less sturdy, or that the Bibbi Snur duvet covers were any less colorful, or even that the names given to each of the company's 9,500 products were any less whimsical. No, what bothered Akerberg was the typeface. MORE> 

Saffron's New Identity for LITRO.

Litro /

How can you succeed in the über-competitive European service station market? Powerful brands crave for our attention on European highways. Our challenge was to create an attractive brand to compete in the cut-throat market of gasoline distribution.

A clean slate is always a great place to start. And that was precisely our approach to this issue, a re-definition of the service station. Together, with our client Rompetrol (Romania’s challenger to incumbent Petrom) and Eight Inc. architects we have rethought the service station. The answer is Litro, a concept as simple and compelling as its name. See the complete article at Saffron!