Inspiration: Graphic Design, Part 1

Today is the second installment in my inspiration series, and the first post in the graphic design category! I have some fun things to show you all today. While not all my inspiration posts will have a certain theme or focus within their category, today's does. All the things I'm going to share today inspire me to think outside the box. The design I want to show you today is very creative, unique, and nontraditional, and looking at graphic design like that makes me want to think beyond the boundaries of the Adobe Creative Suite and plain colors and fonts (although those things certainly are valuable and powerful).

Let me show you what I mean. To start off, I want to show you some book covers (you know I love book covers) that incorporate a craft technique that usually isn't associated with graphic design. These book covers for classic books, designed by Jillian Tamaki, are embroidered!

The Secret Garden, by Jillian Tamaki

Emma, by Jillian Tamaki

Aren't those cool? Even aside from the fact that they're embroidered, the colors alone are striking. But the detail and the creativity of this idea is so inspiring to me. Black Beauty is also part of the series. You can view that, and the entire dust jackets for all the books here. (Please do, because there's lots more coolness than what I posted!)

This concept of outside the box design seems to be in style right now, but beneath the trend, I think there's some wise thought. There's nothing wrong with traditionalism in design, but there's also a place for doing something brand new and innovative, and to a large extent, that's what designers have to seek to do. Of course, there's not really such a thing as complete originally, but there is such a thing as "different from the norm," and embracing that can make for a more interesting design and more successful marketing. I don't know about all designers, but I know I can get stuck in a rut of doing things a certain way, and while systems and routines are good and helpful, sometimes I get so bound by those that I forget that - hey! - someone could just embroider a book cover! And Jillian Tamaki did. Her work on the Penguin Threads series is great. I'd love to have one of those books, probably The Secret Garden.

Next up is another neat, out of the box piece of design work. Do you remember me blogging about the designer Jonathan Ogden? This is a typography poster he created using loose tea.

I think it's such a neat idea to make typography out of some object. And doesn't the poster look neat? It's nice typographically, but the texture that the photos of the tea letters provide make it more interesting and unique. Again, this is an outside the box idea. You could make an alphabet poster by typing A through Z in some computer software. Or you could use tea. Which do you think is better? Honestly, both ideas have merit. The sheer power of typography (even when it's just typing in software) needs to be noticed. But there's something about rethinking the obvious that is fresh and unique, and should be applauded. And probably practiced a little more often.

The next thing I want to share is another book. I saw The Good Life Cookbook on A Friend of Mine, which is the design group responsible for it. It is such a neat book.

The Good Life Cookbook, by A Friend of Mine

The cover is well designed, but I think the real excitement in seeing this book lies in the cumulative effect of the different pages, and in the typography techniques.

First of all, isn't the style so charming? I think that's a good word for my opinion of it. It's warm and fuzzy and happy. But the design techniques were also SO creative. Look at the prominent use of photography, for instance. Most of the book is full page photographs with design interwoven seamlessly. The AFOM website says that there is "harmony and unity between type and image," and that is certainly true.

The way typography was used is also interesting. Here's a picture from the website with some of the stencils that were used:

It's so neat to see a hands-on picture from a graphic design project. There's something original (or maybe something old being rediscovered) and wonderful to me about designing at least partly away from the computer. The custom typography was used in different formats throughout the book, like ink and flour and pastry. Isn't that cool? A word of type made out of pastry. A Friend of Mine does such neat work.

Here's one last picture showing the pastry word.

Please, please, pretty please check out the rest of the images right here on A Friend of Mine.

I have one more neat graphic design-y thing to show you before I finish for the day, and this one also has a lot to do with typography. Dana Tanamachi is a graphic designer and chalk artist. Chalk artist? Maybe you had never heard that term. I honestly have never heard it applied to anyone but Dana Tanamachi. She does amazing typography all with chalk! If you have ever written on a chalkboard, you'll know that it's easy to make it look like ugly scrawls, and hard even to make it look as good as your normal handwriting. Somehow, Dana Tanamachi makes it look just like this...

From Everyday with Rachael Ray Magazine, May 2011, by Dana Tanamachi

That's so neat, isn't it? It really is chalk art, and I love how neat the typography is and how each "font" used is unique. And most of all, I love how this expresses the whole outside of the box concept I've been talking about. Chalk is an unusual media for graphic design, and yet it works so well! Who would've known? See lots more of Dana Tanamachi's work here.

Well, that's all for today, folks! I'd love to hear what you all think of these inspiring, outside of the box graphic design things that I've shared. Which one do you think is the most inspiring?