Maybe you’ve seen this? It’s a wonderful celebration of type-in-motion from Ronnie Bruce based on a poem by New York performance poet Taylor Mali, who measures his life in a variety of ways: He has 11 years of experience as a professional spoken word artist; he has one book, one DVD, and four cds; for 10 months, he was the official voice of Burger King; he was a national poetry slam champion four times; three times he appeared on the HBO original series “Russell Simmons Presents Def Poetry”; for nine years he taught college, high school, and middle school; and once, in a single SCRABBLE game, he earned a score of 581; but MOST IMPORTANTLY OF ALL, after hearing his work, 650 people have told him they will now become teachers.

Typography from Ronnie Bruce on Vimeo.

John Irving’s quote inspired our theme for 2011. As a celebrated prolific novelist, he has certainly embraced the idea that books are not written, but rather re-written. We know that good designs are truly re-designed, and re-designed again and again.

In Peter Shaffer’s Amadeus, Mozart is told that his composition is beautiful but he needs to remove a few notes. “Too many notes!” says his patron. Mozart, unlike the rest of us, could produce a finished product right out of his head. To remove one note or change the space between the notes would destroy the perfect balance of the final musical composition. Most of us are not geniuses like Mozart. We have to refine, revise and do it over until it the design is just right.

We are more like Dickens. Have you ever seen a draft of the manuscript for A Christmas Carol? With its many scratched out sentences and re-worked language you can see how the master of Scrooge wrote and rewrote the story.

As we plan ahead for 2011 we envision a revision in how we see things. We look for ways to see a different light, perhaps leading to a better way or a way we’ve never seen before. Visual communication is a collaborative practice. And as they say, practice makes perfect. It is the combination of our clients’ knowledge with the expertise of the designers that creates the most successful communications projects. The clients know their markets, services and products. The designers excel in visual language, imagery, patterns, typography and the best techniques of online, in print and on site promotion. The back and forth revisions between clients and designers is a healthy way to develop the next great communications project. It is the combination of intelligence and inspiration that we seek for 2011. By doing it over and over, listening to each other and adjusting, adapting and refining the design and the content until it’s just right.

As Oprah Winfrey has said in approaching the last year of her talk show, “Cheers to a New Year and another chance for us to get it right.”

Visual Design that hits your funny bone!

Let’s kick off the fall with a batch of funny visuals that can distract the most serious visual designers as well as deadline-driven communication clients. We selected a range of cross platform media solutions to tickle your fancy.

1. Poster: I Shot the Serif
Bob Marley, who wrote this song, would be proud of this design. Perhaps they should have taken this into account when they designed the “Bob Marley typeface.”
You may buy the “I Shot the Serif” T-shirt Here.

2. Video: Font Conference
What if all of your favorite typefaces showed up at a meeting to give you feedback on your latest project?

3. Game: Web vs Webb
Word play that only a designer with a sense of humor could devise: This game asks if you can decipher whether terminology is from the World Wide Web or something that Jack Webb might have uttered…because, that’s something you’ve been struggling with, right?

4. Video: Tipp-Ex
Wite out and Liquid Paper have always been an American designer’s best friend. Germany’s “Tipp-Ex” shows us how to correct and revise our online experiences in this funny video promo. You can type in different words and get unexpected outcomes!

5. Photos: Cats online
We really made it in the blogoshere when an article from our blog was re-purposed on a blog with Cat Photos. The ultimate sign that you’ve arrived!

6. App: Fat Booth
We tell Jim, our Design Director, that he eats at elmo’s restaurant too often! Perhaps this latest photo will set him on the path to healthy eating. Get the app at iTunes.

7. Signage: Ladies and Gentlemen!
Speaking of elmo’s, check out their restroom signs. When he was thinner, Jim (above) flipped the “m” in the elmo logo over to change the men’s sign to the women’s sign. Make sure you’re right-side up when you answer nature’s call.

8. Shopping Bag Design: For the fitness craze!
TBWA, Istanbul shows us how shopping and design go hand in hand, so to speak.

9. Emoticon Design: For when you just can’t figure out what mood you’re in.
Canadian designer Josiah Jost of Siah Design created this.

Langton Cherubino Group’s design for IPRO won the 2010 Apex Award for Excellence. IPRO is one of the nation’s largest independent, not-for-profit health care consulting organizations.  The report honors IPRO’s 25^th anniversary and highlights the organization’s achievements while celebrating the long-term employees who contributed to IPRO’s growth and success. Click Here to see more.

2010 Communicator Award, Award of Distinction, Internal Communications

Langton Cherubino Group along with Mercer Human Resource Consulting created a poster campaign for the employees of Unilever that highlights their employee health and welfare programming.

The Communicator Awards is the largest and most competitive awards program honoring the creative excellence for communications professionals. The awards are judged and overseen by the International Academy of the Visual Arts (IAVA), a 450+ member organization of leading professionals from various disciplines of the visual arts dedicated to embracing progress and the evolving nature of traditional and interactive media.

Logos we designed for IPRO and Koinonia have been selected for inclusion in TradeMarks USA a logo competition and digital resource developed by legendary designer and author David E. Carter — one of the founders of the American Pixel Academy, and serves at its Executive Director. Carter is a multiple Emmy® and Clio® winner, and has a long history of media innovation. He is the author of 100+ books on logo design, serves as editor of the Creativity Annual, and is the founder of the Telly® Awards.




IPRO
IPRO is one of the nation’s largest independent, not-for-profit health care consulting organizations. The logo was developed to express the breadth of services and national reach of IPRO which has outgrown its roots as a small county-based organization. Click here to see more.









Koinonia
Koinonia is a center for spiritual renewal and leadership development, providing retreats, camps and conferences for families, youth, adults and church groups.

Choosing by Color

The colors we use define us, from our walls and clothes to our cars and pets. How do we decide what colors things should be? Hans Hofmann said, “The whole world, as we experience it visually, comes to us through the mystic realm of color.” What if we used color to help us make our decisions? Here are examples of websites and apps that let Color make the decisions for you.

Etsy.com
Etsy sells crafts from independent artists around the world and they’ve developed a color system that lets you pick out a color, then see what craft is available in that color.

Idée Labs
Perhaps you’d like to pick your images by color? The Multicolr Search Lab is a part of Idée Labs’s technology playground for visual search. With the Multicolr Search Lab, you can browse through 10 million images on Flickr and choose up to 10 colors from a palette of 120 different shades.

ben Color Capture iPhone app
And what if you see a color you like and want to start there? Benjamin Moore has the app that can do that. The ben Color Capture app for iPhone lets you capture any color that catches your eye and instantly select its match from Benjamin Moore’s thousands of paint colors. Just snap a picture of your color inspiration, tap on the image, and instantly reveal the closest paint color. Download your free ben  Color Capture app at the iTunes App Store.

Choose Your Color, Change Your Life
What do your color choices say about your personality? Can color lead you to your next career choice? Take the Dewey Color tests and see how your color selections may color your career choices. This non-language test gets beyond your preconceived career notions to recommend additional occupations.

Color your trip abroad
Journey to the center of the color universe at the Pantone Hotel, a new boutique property in Brussels that invites you to experience the Belgian capital “through a lens of color and a spectrum of comforts.” Designers Michel Penneman and Oliver Hannaert selected a distinctive palette for each of the hotel’s seven floors (which range from “daring and fiery” reds to “captivating, esteemed, silky” shades of violet) and upped the contrast with clean white walls and the saturated outsized photographs of Victor Levy. Pantone consultants are on call to assist with any color crises. Our favorite touch? A rooftop bar serving color-matched cocktails. Choose from Pink Champagne (Pantone 12-1107), Lemon Drop (12-0736), or Daiquiri Green (12-0435).

NYC Designer shares a guided process for developing a new brand.

For a printable version of this blog entry, click here.

I have one of those minds that doesn’t do well on standardized test. I question the questions too much. I read into them and scrutinize the many ways that each question may be interpreted. I once flunked my driver’s test renewal in New Jersey when I was in my late 20s. The question that did me in was one that asked what to do when you come to a steady yellow light. The correct answer — in New Jersey — is to slow down and prepare to stop. I consider a yellow light that is about to turn red as not in a “steady” state. To me, a flashing yellow light that consistently flashes is doing something “steady.” I selected, “Proceed with caution,” and had to wait another 30 days to take my exam again. The kind of thinking that interprets things differently may not excel on standardized tests, but it does come in handy when brainstorming a new logo concept. Seeing things from different angles presents the client with new perspectives of their brand.
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