National Bird Day

Today is National Bird Day.  Did you know this?  Well, I didn't until I saw it in a craft book.  But I thought that I would take time to celebrate on my blog.  I also have decided that I would like to take a little bit of blog time every now and then to celebrate other little known holidays like National Bird Day.  So keep your eyes out in the days to come for more posts like this!

I don't know much about birds, honestly.  I can't really tell which one is which.  I mean, I can recognize a cardinal or a blue jay, but not much besides that.  However, birds are a really neat thing to use in graphic design and art.  John James Audubon knew this.  Here is one of his paintings.

It's quite lovely, isn't it?  There are lots of other places birds are being used as design items more recently.  There are plenty of minor examples of this, but one big one is the American Eagle Logo.  This is definitely a bird.

I've mentioned before that the typography is great in this logo, but I have to say it again.  That serif font is just great.  Wow.  I'm not sure what the "ae.com" is doing there - it came up on all the blue box versions of the logo, but I'm not sure I like it.  It just looks so small and insignificant next to the serif font.  What I like about the bird icon, though, is not so much the icon itself, although the icon is very well done, but the silhouette.  If the logo had been a more realistic picture of an eagle, with lines for feathers and such, it wouldn't have looked as stunning as a silhouette does.  I really like the contrast that is achieved by using a silhouette.

There are some really fun items to be found online that use birds as graphic items, too, so I thought I'd mention a couple.

 1. Turquoise Bird and Vintage Locket Necklace on Etsy | 2. Precious Love - Limited Edition Print on Etsy | 3. Paper Mache Bird by West Elm | 4. Suspended Seagull Sculpture by Three Potato Four


I hope you liked looking at those fun little things.  And one last little note from me...

If you want to download that to share or make a card out of or something, you can do so here.  Have a great day!