A trip to Can Tho!!!

I had a very exciting trip to Can Tho last Sunday. I visited floating market and saw people's life on the river. In my opinion, that's is cool and active. Last semester, I also had a tour to My Tho. There is river there too. However, It's different from Can Tho river.

After this trip, I intend to make a CD about life on rivers in Vietnam. I know that's not an easy project but I would do it in future. I won't do that for money but I'll keep it as a diary about tourism.

Here are some photos on my trip:

Hungry? Let's buy a load of bread!!!

Find a place to do business

Peaceful time

Buying & Selling

Which one do you want?

I love Milton Glaser (cont.)

We all know that Milton Glaser has designed things in different fields. However, there is a small evolution in his style. According to Milton Glaser, in the early day, his works were perhaps more virtuosity which is a characteristic of youth. Over the last twenty years, he always tries to express complex ideas in simple designs. His later designs led to simplicity.

Milton Glaser’s discipline for design is “never touch the computer when designing”. He prefers to use pen and paper for building the concept of designs before moving to the complicated steps. "The difference between the brain and the computer has to do with the way the brain works by maintaining its fuzziness," Glaser said. His graphic style and illustration technique helped him become one of the most famous designers in the 20th century.

Here are some of his design works:

Poster for Sony

Poster for school of visual art in New York

Poster for Van Gogh anniversary

References:
http://classes.design.ucla.edu/Spring05/155/projects/camilla_zecchetto/miltonglaser.pdf
http://www.designboom.com/eng/interview/glaser.html

Images from:
http://www.miltonglaserposters.com/index2.html

Make a mp3 player for you!!!

Can we make a mp3 player for us? yes, please visit the link at the end if you want to make one. It would show us how to make one. However, it would not be easy. It require us to have some basic knowledge about electronic and programming.

Why do these guys make it instead of buying a mp3 player on the market? It doesn't bring them any money but they do that because they love it. They want to experience new things. They feel proud to make and show it to every people.

Besides, this is an open source project so people can use and modify it as they want. The idea about this is very good. It would create a community that share softwares, information for everyone.

Anyway, let's do a mp3 for us!!! I would try to make one. I will have some fun with it even if I'm not success.

How to make a mp3 player: http://www.we-make-money-not-art.com/archives/009146.php

http://www.we-make-money-not-art.com/yyy/0makedaisy.jpg

I love Milton Glaser (cont.)

As I said before, Milton Glaser's design works don't have place for the complexity. To clarify that, let's take a look at some of his designs.

Poster for Bod Dylan (1966)

This poster was made in 1966. It shows us that Milton Glaser likes to draw by himself without help of computer. It uses simple lines and curves.

This poster is intended to show people an idea about Bob Dylan. Glaser represented Dylan as a simple looking man having a beautiful mind. All his body is just a black so it’s quite boring. However, by using many curves and contrasting colors for his hair, the poster becomes brighter, more balanced and less monotonous.

Text does not have an important role in this poster. This text uses a hand-made font which has very simple shapes. If the characters are put separately, it’s hard to figure out.

Poster for Juilliard, New York (1989)

This is one of a series of posters that were made for Juilliard, a famous music school. He plays with lines and curves again. However, it is simpler than previous designs.

The poster is about the road to success. It leads from the dark to brighter careers.

With the same style as before, this poster has dark background colors. The orange ladder catches the viewers’ eyes right at the time they look at the poster. Although the dark blue sky and the black mountain seem to dominant the poster and make a lot of white space, the dark orange ladder makes the poster become balanced.

Again, text is not a main component in Milton Glaser’s poster. However, a simple computer font does not spoil the design because it is a perfect poster. He put the Juilliard name on the top of the poster brought a every exciting meaning. That's Juilliard is the way to success.


Images & comments from:
http://www.miltonglaserposters.com/index2.html

2 Advanced Studios

This is the website that I chose for my assignment. This is a good example for the article in my post several day before. It's not a good website but design student should take a look at it to see how people work. The content is poor but the interface is perfect.

The colors of this website is very beautiful, suitable with the background images. Another exciting in this website is the hidden message from the background images. In my opinion, 2 Advanced Studios want to tell that they are having a good desire to the future in their design works. The customers are people who would take many advantages from 2 Advanced Studios.

Anyway, hope this post would helpful for you guys!!!

Screenshot of the website: http://2advanced.com

"Designing Atmospheric Websites"

This is an article that I've read on the Internet. It is about the problem that how websites are made these days. The author thinks that most websites don't have anything exciting. It throws many attractive things on websites to get more visitors. However, the contents are poor.

I absolutely agree with the author. It's hard to find a good website these days. Most of them are for commercial purposes.

Take a look if you want!!! I believe this would be helpful for our first assignment.

Here is the link: http://www.crossmind.net/cnt/issue/issue.detail.php?issueid=75

I love Milton Glaser!!!

I knew this designer last semester and had a little research about him. I would talk briefly about this designer.

Milton Glaser was born in June 26, 1929 in New York City. He studied at the Academy of Fine Arts in Bologna (Italy). In 1954, Milton Glaser and some of his Cooper Union classmates established Push Pin Studios, the first multimedia graphic design company in the US.

He worked as a lecturer for the Pratt Institute and the School of Visual Arts in New York.

Throughout his career, he has designed and illustrated over 300 posters in different fields such as music, theater and film. Moreover, he won a lot of awards and had many solo exhibitions.

His designs don't have place for the complexity. The simplicity can be found in his designs. Therefore, it makes his designs closer to the daily life and being accepted by people.

I would keep posting about Milton Glaser in the next few weeks to clarify his style.

References:
http://www.gdusa.com/issue_2006/01_jan/feature/pics/milton.glaser.jpg
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Milton_Glaser

Inspiration is everywhere!!!

Yes, it is. Inspiration is around us, in our normal life. Have you ever thought about that? If you don't believe me, please save a little time to visit http://www.taylorjames.com and examine it.

This is a website of a design company. Their works are amazing. From many normal photos, they can mix them up, make it become a perfect image. I don't talk about their photoshop skills. The main thing is that they get their inspiration from very normal things, things around us everyday. I believe we can to it too. From now on, don't ignore anything that you see. They are our inspiration sources.

In short, let the simplicities color our inspiration.

Here is the scene shot of the website:

http://www.taylorjames.com/photographic-retouching/tj-menu-3.php

Welcome to Content Design Blog!!!

Let’s talk a little about blog. What is blog? That’s not a new thing for everyone. I don’t know how it appeared but it has a strong effect nowadays. People can use it for many purposes:

- Communication: people in a same family can share photos, information about each others.

- Education: students can take stuff from their lecturer.

- Culture: there are some blogs about foods.

- Diary: some guys keep their blog as a diary. We can see all their feelings.

They are just the few things about blog. It would have a stronger effect in the future. However, why do blog have a strong effect like that? Here are some reasons:

- It is kind of community.

- It lets people engage, express their feelings.

- People can experience new things by visiting different blogs.

Let’s stop here!!! Again, welcome to my blog!!!