Maroon 5 Logo

Back with a new album, Maroon 5 are also showing off their new, very clever logo. Using the roman numeral for 5, the "V" has been incorporated as part of the central section of the capital M - creating a simple, united logo that clearly represents the bands name, instead of having to have to completly seperate elements to represent the two words.

Temple Quay Typography

Much like Leeds, Bristol is currently going through huge reconstruction and rejuvenation – a rebrand if you like. This is the new logo for “Temple Quay”, and it sums up Bristol completely. An old, historic city with a contemporary and chic twist beautifully summed up through the use of a traditional style serif font and a clean, simple sans serif font. The colours compliment the aquatic surroundings, and looks particularly eye-catching against the old, historic buildings that create its background. My only issue with this logo, is the kerning between the two words, as there seems to be quite a distance between them, which just doesn’t sit easy visually.

Breaking The Chains

Bristol is infamous for its major role in the slave trade and is currently holding an exhibition marking the bicentury of the abolition of the slave trade. The dominant, bold typography truely highlights the importance of such infamous historic turning point. The kerning between the letters is particularly small, which I feel is of particular relavence, as slaves were jam packed into the ships with little room to move, let alone breathe and this is merely in typographic form. The break within the illustrated chains (the 'i' from the words breaking and chains) is a subtle representation of the exhibition title, without having to be too obvious or in your face.

A Designers Dilema?

My brother found this postcard around Leeds University and gave it to me to add to the postcard museum, that is my room. I personally really like typography and was particularly intrigued by the wording in the left hand corner (shown above). The reason I do not want to write the word that is seems to have caused somewhat confusion amongst the masses. Take a moment to see if you can read it, and then scroll down to see if you are right.

Personally to me, it was as clear as day. The beautifully designed word read, “Be” (confirmed by the website name.) However, to others it wasn’t so obvious, as they read the word “Do”. I thought this was particularly interesting, and I began to ask random friends and family what they thought the word read, with distinct results. To put it bluntly the designers could read the word perfectly, everyone else couldn’t.

Undoubtedly this is a beautifully designed word, with the postcards pattern being incorporated into the text, a design in which anyone could, and did appreciate, however somewhere in the design process it would seem the aesthetics maybe have been more important than the readability of the actual word. I have begun to notice that this is maybe a huge flaw in graphics today. As designers we are trying to create work, which is “subtly genius”, simple yet send a clever message, but in the end the message is getting lost being the single graphical elements that make it up. This has only become clearer to me, when my own work has come under some scrutiny.

The images below are sections of my revised posters for our first year project based on promoting a 2 hour lunch break for city workers.




Several people have seen these posters, and again I have received a mixed reaction. As always the designers can understand and appreciate the movie concept although they are not alone as others, although it may take a little longer also “get it”. When showing my mum, doctors in the making and future economists, they just couldn’t grasp why I had turned a W side ways, but to my sister it was glaringly “obvious”, when clearly it wasn’t as obvious as I thought. These two examples have certainly made me more aware of a huge problem facing a designer. Now more and more we are trying to be clever in our designs, but it seems we are beginning to design work, perhaps not realising it, but for our fellow designers, rather than the people we are aiming for, a balance we need to regain before non-designers are completely left out the loop.