The Details » Design

Dexter Intro by Ty Mattson

Aaron — Tue, 20 Sep 2011 22:53:29 +0000

I hate Ty so much. So, so much.…

Jordi Parra’s Spotify Box

Aaron — Mon, 02 May 2011 18:36:54 +0000

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New YASLY!

Aaron — Wed, 13 Apr 2011 15:15:36 +0000

Danny Jones continues to rule all of the design world, including your face and eye holes. His talent and skill are remarkable, plus he’s one of the best guy’s I’ve ever met. I’m lucky to know him as a designer, …

Another Big Life Change

Aaron — Tue, 15 Mar 2011 06:12:58 +0000

Hello, my name is Aaron Martin and I now live in Palo Alto, California. I am the new Senior User Experience Design for the mobile team at Aol. Here’s to a new challenge.

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Great Old Logos

Aaron — Fri, 29 Oct 2010 14:14:00 +0000

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The GAP Rebrand Debacle

Aaron — Wed, 06 Oct 2010 20:40:21 +0000

And by "debacle", I don't mean the design itself, I mean the ridiculous uproar that has come from the design community at large over the new design. If you're not familiar with the GAP logo redesign, here it is: I've read a dozen or so "critiques" of the rebrand, and I'm seeing the inevitable torrent of design blog contests and posts showing what they would have done, and showcasing user-submitted logo designs. I think the new GAP logo isn't great, but the vapid redesigns are a pointless exercise, for several reasons.

First, most of these new logo redesigns are just as bad and banal as the new logo.
Second, we have no idea what the creative brief was that landed the new logo.

Has anyone considered that they're switching target markets? Maybe this logo is an appropriate solution to new business ideals. And all these contests to redesign in a week's time? Do any of us honestly think that they landed on this logo in a week? I'm putting money on this being on screen and in meetings for months. But of course we're all good enough to redesign this logo in a week. That's also assuming we would actually give up a week straight to work on this to win a contest for a poster and a shirt. Most of us will spend an hour on our lunch break scrolling through our activated typefaces with the letters G-A-P in the preview window, until we come across something we think we like. But is it appropriate? Probably not. As designers and creatives, we're a small subset of consumers. Do you think that the 45 year old husband and desk jockey is going to care that the GAP logo is in Helvetica now? He isn't. He's concerned with buying khakis, not with the typeface the company logo is set in. We are supposed to value our profession and provide more than pretty pictures. We're not artists who get to insist that our opinions are the only ones that matter. We have a responsibility to the public to provide quantitative and qualitative feedback and rationale in our decisions and choices. In an age of UX and UI definition, we should be laying the groundwork for how seriously we want to be taken by the general public, and how professional we are assumed to be. Yelling at how ugly a logo is doesn't bring us any further than the "cousin of the guy who owns the company who makes logos." Let's all stop pretending that design is just how (subjectively) cool something looks and focus on whether it's the most aesthetic solution that solves the given issues and problems. If you want to complain about a company's redesign, fine, go ahead and complain. Though without context, your complaint is strictly aesthetic, and that's a new argument on the quality and value of one person's aesthetic opinion verses another's. Side Note: If you're posting on a design blog complaining about something, have the guts to link to your site. I'd love to see all the great branding work you've done.

Massimo Vignelli

Aaron — Thu, 16 Sep 2010 13:21:09 +0000

Massimo Vignelli is a pioneer in the world of graphic design and this video does him justice. If you have time and you’re in New York in the near future, check out the Vignelli Center for Design Studies.…

The Golden Triangle of Design

Aaron — Wed, 21 Jul 2010 21:38:41 +0000

You can only ever pick two of your three options as a client, so picking wisely is an important decision.

When you decide you want something fast and you want it for the price you have budgeted, the sacrifice the quality …

I Plan to Sip Coffee and Read Steinbeck Underneath One of These

Aaron — Wed, 17 Mar 2010 18:25:38 +0000

These posters from The Heads of State are beautiful.

Check out more work from The Heads of State here.…

Sorry so Quiet…

Aaron — Wed, 18 Nov 2009 15:59:14 +0000

Well, sort of. Lately I have had the great blessing of being busy. Really busy.

I’m thankful for that, because in a the life of a freelancer, being busy means that you have money coming in, food on your table, and …

Mama’s Sauce – Letterpress Printing

Aaron — Wed, 20 May 2009 21:54:19 +0000

This is Nick Sambrato from a print shop in Orlando, Florida called Mama’s Sauce. He owns a 2,000 pound Kluge letterpress. He’s keeping strong, the age-old, time-tested art of letterpress printing. A tangible quality put on your intangible creative …

Productivity Vs. Twitter

Aaron — Fri, 10 Apr 2009 17:50:20 +0000

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Hydra Studio = Purple, Rock, Scissors.™

Aaron — Thu, 09 Apr 2009 14:50:58 +0000

Some great friends of mine, for whom I used to work, have just rebrand themselves. Hydra Studio is now Purple, Rock, Scissors.™ Straight from Bobby:

While i am certain there are a lot of die hard Hydra fans freaking out, (Especially
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The Modern Logger – A Poster from Danny Jones & Aaron Martin

Aaron — Wed, 04 Feb 2009 22:35:39 +0000

Danny Jones and I decided that the world needed more typographic posters touting the brilliance of the lumberjack and his trade, so we’ve decided to bring you “The Modern Logger.” A 19” x 25” print on French Cordtone …

It’s almost 2009, So I Redesigned

Aaron — Wed, 17 Dec 2008 02:49:06 +0000

~~There are some RSS feed problems, and I'm trying to work them out now. Sorry to all 20 of you who read the RSS feed...~~ [Update: It appears to have been a problem with a Mint plug-in I had to monitor stats. To anyone using the Bird Feeder Pepper on their WP and Mint installations, you might want to check your RSS feeds. I was having link issues.] I've been fortunate enough to have a bit of free time the last few weeks, so I decided to use it wisely and redesign my blog. I went with a more print approach this time around. Typefaces are a bit bigger and more readable, margins are bigger, and I've given myself the ability to move content inside of posts around more, thus making some aspects of post more noticeable. My favorite thing though, is the archive page. Every entry, color-coded by year and month. I think it looks quite nice. I've also added in some sweet sIFR action to bring more character to the pages as well, using Soho Standard for most subheads, and I've decided to use Cambria for the post headers and body copy. Cambria is an opentype face from Microsoft. If you don't have it, no worries, you'll see Georgia instead. All in all, I think I'll enjoy this look for a while. Let me know what you think. I'm sure there will be some problems and design discrepancies that I've missed, so feel free to point those out. Thanks for stopping by!

Chris Pullman on Design Observer: What I’ve Learned

Aaron — Fri, 05 Dec 2008 23:54:17 +0000

Chris Pullman has a good read up over at Design Observer.

I’d like to take this opportunity to share ten lessons I learned in the past 35 years.

Work on things that matter.
Work with people you like and respect.
Be nice.
Have high standards.

Geogrotesque from Emtype

Aaron — Fri, 05 Dec 2008 22:14:36 +0000

Emtype has released a new face, Geogrotesque. It’s a smart, clean, and fun new sans-serif that I see having a lot of great uses. Give it a try! (Hat tip: Ryan Thrash.)…

Design By Humans Submissions

Aaron — Fri, 29 Aug 2008 23:49:50 +0000

I’ve put up a few shirts (01, 02) for submission to Design By Humans. I’d appreciate a vote if your a member and you think it’s something you’d wear at some point. Now get to it!…

Jim Coudal’s “General Theory of Creative Relativity”

Aaron — Mon, 11 Aug 2008 16:02:24 +0000

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It’s Viewzi Launch Day!

Aaron — Mon, 21 Apr 2008 18:24:46 +0000

It has been a long time coming, this launch, but Rome wasn’t built in a day. And a visual Rome that gives you better and more appropriate search results wasn’t built in a day either.

I’ve been working on Viewzi since …