Draplin Design Co. Illustration

One of the more famous design illustrations by Draplin Design Co.  The scene depicts mountains in the background along with a lake and pipes and drains leading in to it.  He could be trying to convey some sort of environmental message to use in this image.  He uses very playful and saturated colors along with simplified shapes to demonstrate the objects in this scene.  Even though though the scene looks a bit chaotic it is symmetrically balanced and highly simplified in its smaller elements.

Loose Lips Sink Ships

While searching for space ships to use in homework 12 I found this little bit of design.  It was created by a fan for the game Star Citizen and there are several components about it that I appreciate.  It has a very early modern feel to the design and in particular it reminds me of the type of design that was common in war propaganda from WWI to WWII.  The illustration relies on flat silhouettes to produce the image of a ship exploding.  The more I looked at this design the more I began to recognize it as a reproduction of an actual WWII propaganda that had the same tagline.  I really thought it was neat because the message that is portrayed about espionage was very relevant during WWII and will also be very relevant in the game Star Citizen, so it was a really nice way of taking an older design and remaking it.

Minus the Bear

This design has an interesting hint of design from war propaganda posters during WWII.  however a lot of the design elements such as silhouetted shapes and heavy san serif fonts are more indicative of late modern.  It ends up being this interesting hybridization of late modernism and propaganda design.

Balraj Chana

http://www.printmag.com/web-design/balraj-chana-ui-designers/

I found Balraj Chana through Print Magazine and spent a good while looking at his designs and really grew to appreciate how much clarity and sensibility of placement his designs have.  His designs are contemporary with a very minimalist approach.  His use of color to either emphasize or create subtlety is clearly well thought out because some of his designs incorporate a lot of highly saturated colors but he seems to balance them very well and they don't ever become to jarring or confusing.  I would say Balraj has clearly got a good handle on color usage and how to apply it where it matters.

This is a design Balraj worked on for an interactive educational web game

 

Art vs. Design

This to me has a certain Dada feel about it.  Its' deliberate obscurity is fascinating and the repositioning of the art itself feels like a very Dadaist thing to do.  There's a lot about this that I appreciate because the person who wrote this makes a very good point written in the smaller print and I do really like the way this design is laid out.  But I also like art in almost all its various forms (few exceptions may apply) and this seems like a deliberate B***h slap right in the face of art in general.  The function of the design seems to voice the designer viewpoint on the art vs. design argument.  Me personally I appreciate both design and art.  They both have their place and to shun one and only acknowledge the other in my opinion limits ones creative horizon.

Type Design

I'm not sure if I entirely agree with this quote, but as far as typography goes as well as the layout of design I certainly enjoyed what I see here.  The function of the quote is likely to promote a certain viewpoint the artist has about design.  The design itself compliments this well because it makes the reader follow the sentence almost chaotically around the design until reaching the end.  The reading process isn't logical but that's what the designer is likely trying to get across because the sentence layout is designed to look like it doesn't know where it's going and that reflects the very nature of the quote really well. This design also has a sort of modernist approach to the design with potentially a little bit of Swiss design influence.  The diagonal slant and san serif types are good indicators of this trend.

Draplin Design Co. Logos 2

The playful contemporary style of Draplin Designs is always a joy to look at.  Inspired by branding from Paul Rand but with a contemporary twist.  The portfolio of logo design with Draplin Design Co. is pretty substantial now and it continues to grow.

Draplin Design Co. Logos

As I stated earlier Draplin Designs is very much inspired by logo branding from Paul Rand but with a more contemporary approach.  His designs are a little more playful and use a wider range of colors.

Draplin Design Co. Book Cover

Draplin Design Co. was founded by Aaron Draplin in 2004 along with his father Jim Draplin.  Aaron Draplin is a contemporary designer that was largely inspired by Paul Rand.  His design firm focus a lot of logo design and is often fun and playful while still keeping a very minimalist approach.