Some Legacy!

For reasons I'm not gonna go into here, my career as a graphic designer is over. 

As I look back over my thirty five years in the advertising business, I've come to the unpleasant realization that I have absolutely nothing to show for it. Nothing I can point to and say, "I did that!" Nothing to prove I was ever even here!

I guess I shouldn't be too surprised. By its very nature, advertising is temporary and ephemeral. Newspaper ads last a day, flyers a week and billboards a month. Such work was never meant to be permanent.

It became even worse when I made the switch to online advertising. Technically it doesn't exist at all, as it's just a series of ones and zeroes in the ether! Other than a few printouts I kept, there's no record I ever did any such projects at all!

Pretty depressing to think that all that hard work is gone forever.

Or is it?

Back in the mid 1990s I was working for Williams/Randall Marketing in Terre Haute, Indiana. That was the home of the "colorful boss" I posted about years ago.

Sometime around 1996 he assigned me to design a logo for Win Energy, some sort of power company or co-op in Southern Indiana.

Win Energy is located just south of Vincennes, Indiana, along Highway 41. Recently I was driving along the highway and spotted my logo! Amazingly, it's STILL there nearly THIRTY YEARS after I designed it!

That's an absolute eternity in the world of advertising and marketing. In fact it may be the only thing I've ever designed that actually still exists!

Unfortunately, the one example of my work that still survives isn't without its problems. For one thing, the text inside the red ring is wildly off-center! No idea how that happened, or why 1996 Bob let that happen. Surely I knew how to properly center elements back then? 

I'm kind of wondering if something happened to it in the past thirty years? Like maybe someone at Win Energy accidentally messed with it? We'll never know.

That text isn't an italic font either-- it's a normal one that's been slanted with the skew tool. It'd take too long to explain why here, but that's a big no-no in the world of design. I also distorted the left leg of the "W" to line up with the bottom of "Energy" as well. No idea why I did that back then, as it's something I'd never do now. 

Despite the logo's many shortcomings, it's probably the only piece of work I've ever done that still exists. 

Wow, what a legacy!

Buck Buck Goose

I've been seeing this billboard around my hometown for a couple months now. It features a giddy kid squealing with delight at he watches the circus.

As billboards go, it's not a bad design. It's simple and direct, and helpfully includes the date and a website address for more info. 

Unfortunately there's one BIG problem with it (as you likely knew there would be, since you're reading this on my blog).

That's supposed to be confetti raining down on the kid in the ad. Trouble is, the photographer snapped the pic right as a big white clump of it fell in front of the child's open mouth. This had the unintended effect of making him look like he's got a giant cartoonish buck tooth.

Jesus wept.

How the hell did this billboard get printed like this in the first place? As I've mentioned before ad infinitum, whenever I design a project at work it has to be sent to a couple dozen people, all of whom have to approve it before it goes to the printer. I assume it's the same at the agency that designed this billboard. So how did NO ONE there see the problem with it?

This would have been such an easy fix with Photoshop. In fact I took the liberty of editing it here, which took me all of five whole minutes. It ain't rocket science, guys! All you had to do was use the clone tool to erase the offending hunk of confetti and give the kid a normal set of teeth!

Sometimes I wonder if current designers even know how to use Photoshop, or are aware of all its many features. Heck, the latest version even has AI tools, which could probably have removed the confetti automatically!

Do I have to design everything myself in this town?

Obi-Gone!

Saw this thumbnail on Disney+ today. 

What art director thought this was a good design? I get what they were going for, with Obi-Wan, er, wandering the desert of Tatooine with the twin suns behind him, but that placement... 

It makes it look like someone stuck a big googly eye to Obi-Wan's face!

Logo-A--Go-Go

This week the BBC revealed their new logo for the upcoming new season of Doctor Who.

Eh, I don't hate it. It's OK as logos go, I guess. It's a bit wide though. If I was designing it, I'd but the "Doctor" above the "Who." In my experience it's always better to have as square a logo as possible. It's easier to fit it on a page that way, and you can enlarge a square one more than a wide one.

Honestly I don't much care what the new logo looks like, as I'm done with the show. They can typeset it in Sanskrit for all I care.

Given what happened to the title character at the end of the 2017 Christmas Special, the BBC missed the most obvious design here...

Shameless Or Genius?

Went to the cineplex this weekend as I always do, and while I was walking through the lobby I spotted this poster for the upcoming movie The Snowman. It's a film about a serial killer (dubbed "The Snowman" of course) who leaves notes on his victims that taunt the police.

Obviously the poster's supposed to look like one of these notes, which I have to admit is kind of clever. On the other hand, it couldn't have taken the graphic designer more than five minutes to slap this thing together. He probably knocked it out around 9am and then took a four hour lunch before going home early.

I don't know whether to denounce the artist as a shiftless and brazen hack, or praise him as a bona fide genius.

This Week In Graphic Design: Denny's

This week restaurant chain Denny's squeezed out a brand new mascot for their nationwide marketing campaign. Let's take a look at it, shall we?

Oh dear. Yup, that's a turd wearing a fedora. A turd that was apparently designed by Aardman Studios.

OK, I think it's supposed to be a breakfast sausage and not a hunk of walking, talking fecal matter. I guess that might be OK if that was the only thing on Denny's menu. Since they offer a variety of food, sausage isn't the first thing that springs to mind when I see this thing, and it ends up looking like a nice, healthy dump. Definitely not something you want to see when you're trying to eat in a restaurant.

Once again I have to ask— how the hell does something like this make it to print and into stores? If Denny's is anything like where I work, then this design had to go through dozens and dozens of people for approval. I cannot believe that not a single one of them looked at this thing and said, "Wait a minute... that's not a sausage, that's a turd!" Someone was definitely asleep at the wheel in the corporate headquarters.

Even if it didn't look like a sentient bowel movement, it's still a terrible design. Adding a cartoony face and limbs to a product is one of the most hackneyed and unoriginal graphic design concepts possible— one that was old and worn out back in the Speedy Alka-Seltzer days. No self respecting graphic designer would ever create such a thing, especially here in the 21st Century. 

In fact back when I was in art school, I had a professor who actually kicked a student out of his class for creating a mascot very similar to this one!

On the other hand, I supposed Saucy The Breakfast Sausage here was better than Denny's original mascot idea— Scuttles The Kitchen Cockroach.

Not That There's Anything Wrong With That...

Lately I've been seeing vehicles festooned with this logo tooling around town. From the name I'm assuming uCabbi is some kind of independent cab service that's a knockoff of Uber and Lyft. 

Whatever it is, it's always nice to see our old friend The Seinfeld Logo getting work!

Umbrella Policy

This week a skin care clinic in Vietnam found itself the subject of unwanted internet attention when it was discovered that their logo was identical to that of the Umbrella Corporation, the sinister company in the Resident Evil video games and movies. Whoops!

This is especially unfortunate, since in one of the Resident Evil movies (god knows which one), Umbrella sells a revolutionary skin care cream that's supposed to reverse aging, but actually turns users into zombies.

As you can see, the octagon symbol in the logo is exactly the same as the one in the films. 

Obviously the founder of Medicare Skin Centre never saw any of the movies, but I'm still wondering why they approved this logo in the first place. I don't get what it has to do with skin care, even in an abstract sense. Maybe they're saying their treatments protect your skin the way an umbrella does from the sun?

The only way this story could possibly get any better is if there's a Raccoon City in Vietnam!

Putrid Posters: Spider-Man: Homecoming

There was a time when a movie poster was just as important as the film it promoted, if not more so. A good poster would tease, inform and pique your interest about a particular film, whipping you into a frenzy until you couldn't wait to see the movie.

That time is long past. Gone are the days when movie posters were beautiful examples of graphic design and illustration, and works of art in their own right. Classic movie poster design has been replaced by nightmarish collages, poorly stitched together in Photoshop.

And they seem to be getting worse, not better. So bad that I'm starting a new feature here on Bob Canada's BlogWorld, called Putrid Posters.

For example, take this brand new Putrid Poster for Sony/Marvel Studio's upcoming joint venture, Spider-Man: Homecoming. Oy gevalt! Where do I start?

Seriously, Sony? It's hard to believe this is an official piece of promotional art from a professional marketing department, and not an example of amateurish fan art.

So why is it so bad? Because there's no design! There's no focal point to draw your eye, so your attention bounces all around the thing like a moth looking for a place to land. 

Who am I supposed to be looking at here? Who's the main character? Is it Tom Holland as Peter Parker? He's sort of in the center, but he's overwhelmed by Robert Downey Jr., who's sternly hovering over his shoulder as he stares off into the distance. What's he looking at? And why does he seem to be on fire? Who knows?

Why is Michael Keaton's face bigger than Tom Holland's? Is he more important than the main character? Why not place the small image of Keaton as the winged Vulture closer to his head, to establish a connection between the two?

Plus Michael Keaton and Marisa Tomei are both staring at something off to the right, which is another big no-no, as it drags your poor eye away from the main character (Tomei in particular seems delighted by whatever it is she sees!). They should both be facing inward, to draw your eye back to the center of the poster.

And was there really no other photo of Jon Favreau available anywhere in the world except for one in which he's awkwardly trying to button his suit jacket?

It's blatantly obvious that this "poster" was cobbled together from at least thirteen or fourteen different photographic elements, all of which were shot under radically different conditions with multiple lighting sources.

Seriously, look at the image above. Each yellow arrow represents a different light source.

As a general rule, when designing a collage with multiple figures and objects, you should pick ONE light source and stick with it. It helps to tie all the disparate elements together and make a complex layout into a cohesive whole. When you have a dozen light sources your eyes may not notice something's wrong, but your subconscious mind will.

Contrary to how I sound, I don't think ALL photographic posters are inherently bad. It's entirely possible to have a well-designed one. Take this Guardians Of The Galaxy Vol. 2 poster for example. It features lots of photographic elements, but they're all consistently lit, well-posed, extensively modified and they're all tied together with colorful computer graphics. 

You just needs an artist who knows what the hell they're doing.

There's a really easy way to eliminate all these photo-collage problems— ILLUSTRATE your poster instead! That way you won't be at the mercy of whatever photographic content you're provided, and you can control the light source, as well as the poses of your figures. No more guys buttoning their suits on the poster!

Where's Drew Struzan when we need him?

I WONDER What They Were Thinking?

This is the new poster for the upcoming Wonder Woman movie. Among other things, it's the perfect visual representation of the word "afterthought."

Graphic Designer: "As promised, here's the Wonder Woman poster you hired me to create."
Warner Bros. Executive: "It's perfect! We absolutely love it! It's just what we wanted! We just have one small change."Graphic Designer:  "Uh-oh."Warner Bros. Executive: "We need to remind people that Chris Pine's also in the movie. Our research shows that women respond positively to him, so we need to include him in the poster."Graphic Designer: "But... but it's finished. I can't add another character to it NOW."Warner Bros. Executive: "Sure you can! Just drop him in there! How hard could it be?"

Graphic Designer: "It's a character poster. As in ONE character. If I add another person, it'll throw off the entire composition! I'm gonna have to start all over and it's gonna take another week at least!"

Warner Bros. Executive: "Why are you making such a big deal about this? Just add him to the poster!"

Graphic Designer: "Fine. You want Chris Pine on your poster? You got 'im!"

(works in Photoshop for literally thirty seconds)

Graphic Designer: "There ya go!"

Warner Bros. Executive: "Pefect! See? Was that so hard?"

I am 1000% positive that the above conversation took place verbatim at some point at Warner Bros. Studios.

You know, if they deleted the Chris Pine layer in Photoshop, this would be a nice poster, with a fairly striking design.

Why does it just say "Wonder?" What happened to the "Woman" part? Did they have to delete that to make room for Chris Pine's intrusive head? Why aren't the SJWs complaining that a Wonder Woman poster doesn't have the word "woman" in it?

Lastly, is... is she generating sparks by scraping her sword on her boob armor? Yes. Yes she is.

DC Does It Again!

This week DC Comics unveiled yet another new company logo, to be used on all their titles, as well as their various digital and social media platforms.

They just came up with a new logo four years ago, but that's an eternity in the world of graphic design these days, so I guess they thought they were past due for a company-wide rebranding.

According to DC Entertainment Senior Vice President of Marketing and Global Franchise Management Amit Desai (Jesus, how does he fit all that on the door of his office?), "DC is home to the greatest Super Heroes and Super-Villains, and the new logo has the character and strength to stand proudly alongside DC's iconic symbols. The launch of the new logo is the perfect tribute to DC's legacy, exciting future and most importantly, our fans."

Well, that was some impressive Marketspeak™ there, Amit. Meaningful without saying anything.

Anyway, here's the new DC logo.

Meh. I'm underwhelmed. It looks like they're attempting to capture the look of their logo from the 1970s, but didn't quite get there. It's much too plain, and looks like it was slapped together by the designer at a stop light on his way to the meeting at DC.

The insides of the letters are a bit odd as well. According to DC co-publisher Jim Lee, those odd little cuts are supposed to invoke Superman's S-shield, Batman's bat symbol, and Wonder Woman's emblem. If that's true, then it's a huge fail, as I don't see a single one of those things in this logo. 

My biggest complaint about it is the frail, weak circle that surrounds the letters. It looks completely out of place, considering how bold the type is.

There, DC. I fixed your new logo for you. The beefed-up circle echoes the weight of the type, and looks much more powerful and balanced. I still don't particularly like it, but this is better than it was.

As mediocre as the new logo is, it's nowhere near as bad as the previous one, that looks like an old sticker that's peeling off the letter C. 

I've heard this logo described as an "partially unwrapped toilet seat," and once you see that, there's no way to unsee it. Maybe that's why DC wanted to change it after only four years.

Here's the logo they started using in 2005, which always sort of reminded me of Dairy Queen.

As you can see, DC's logo featured the same general "Type In A Circle" design up until 2005, when they went completely off the rails.

By the way, the "DC" stands for "Detective Comics." So DC Comics actually means "Detective Comics Comics." It's one of those redundant terms like "ATM Machine."

This is the DC logo I grew up with. It was created by graphic design legend Milton Glaser (look him up, kids!) and was bold, distinctive and instantly recognizable. It's the one I much prefer, and I wish they'd go back to it. 

You know what they say— "If it ain't broke, leave your goddamned logo alone!"

Chip Faced

Take a look at this billboard I recently saw for Hacienda, a regional Mexican restaurant chain here in Indiana. Their food's pretty good, but they're definitely not taking the high road with their marketing strategy. 

Obviously their "Get Chip Faced" slogan is a thinly disguised version of "sh*t faced." That has to be what it means, right? I can't think of anything else they could be going for here.

Oddly enough this isn't the first time they've done something like this. A while back they were running these "Code Brown" billboards all around town. 

As you no doubt know, many hospitals use the "code" terminology to alert the staff of an emergency without alarming the public. Code Red means "Emergency." Code Blue means "Cardiac Arrest." And Code Brown means "Patient has soiled themselves, their bed and possibly the walls, bring a mop and bucket."

Someone on the Hacienda Marketing Team is definitely a big fan of turd-based advertising puns.

Pandamonium!

I was in my local cineplexery last weekend and saw this poster for the upcoming film Kung Fu Panda 3: Electric Pandaloo.

In the poster, Po, the main character, is eating a bowl of steamed dumplings while striking an impressive Jean-Claude Van Damme-style pose. 

As I waited around in the lobby staring at the poster, something became apparent...

Note that four of the pandas in the crowd below look suitably mortified by Po's prominently displayed nether regions. Obviously the sight of his massive taint and provacatively splayed ass cheeks has sickened and horrified these members of reserved Asian society.

Especially the female panda on the left. Look at her! She looks like she's gonna need months of intensive therapy!

These two on the right though are a different story. Get a load of the older one! He can't believe his good fortune! He's positively enraptured by the sight of Po's dangling junk, as his eyes narrow in ecstasy! Don't ask, don't tell, Mr. Panda!

Once again I have to ask: Does anyone at these studios ever glance at their posters before they print a million of them?

The E's Have It

Last week my home town of Evansville was rocked to its core by a sordid scandal.

After nine months, construction finally finished on the brand new cloverleaf intersection on the city's ironically named Lloyd "Expressway." That's right, ladies and gentlemen, it's the Lloyd, the only expressway in the country that features numerous intersections and stop lights along its length. Both of which seem counter to the concept of an expressway to begin with.

Anyway, the cloverleaf was capped off with a sign proudly proclaiming "CITY OF EVANSVILLE." This is a bit puzzling to me, since it seems like something you'd put at the city's entrance, not on a bridge smack dab in the center of town. But I digress.

All was going well though until alert motorists noticed something about the sign was didn't seem quite right. Turns out the last "E" in "Evansville" on the multi-million dollar project was installed upside down! Typical.

You can tell the "E" is upside down by the fact that the upper serif is longer than the lower one, instead of the other way around as seen in the first letter.

Surprisingly there were no pileups from outraged motorists trying to take photos of the error as they flew down the expressway at 60 mph. Ah, who am I kidding, it's the Lloyd. Try 40 mph.

Embarrassed work crews quickly flipped the errant vowel, braving taunts, mocking laughter and a barrage of rotten tomatoes thrown their way.

Now if they could just do something about the horrendous kerning in the word "EV ANSVIL LE."

What's In A Logo?

Above is the new logo for the Evansville Museum, located, not surprisingly, in my home city of Evansville, Indiana.

It's actually not a bad logo. I like the way the stylized "E" and "M" interlock and form sort of a diamond shape. Well done, Mr. or Mrs. Logo Designer!

That said, I feel like I've seen this design somewhere before...

There it is! I knew it looked familiar. The Evansville Museum's logo is very similar to that of failed Texas energy company Enron.

Helpful tip to future logo designers: you might want to steer clear of designs that are callbacks the largest corporate debt scandal of the Twenty First Century...

Spock Model Kit Illustration Step By Step

As promised, here's a step-by-step look at how I drew my recent Mr. Spock Model Kit illustration. 

It was drawn all in Photoshop, on a ton of separate layers. Each step shown represents a different layer. I combined a few for this post, just so we wouldn't be here all day. In all there were fifty four layers.

It all starts with a box.

I added a white border around the edges of the box, as well as a dividing line.

Next I added the blue box at the left. Exciting, isn't it?

Then I added the logos at the side. The Star Trek logo was hand drawn. There are some Trek fonts out there that I probably could have downloaded and used, but I like recreating logos by hand. I didn't spend a huge amount of time on it, I just traced over the real logo with the pen tool in Photoshop. I also traced it vertically as it's seen here, instead of horizontally as I normally would. That was a first for me.

I briefly considered going the Wacky Packages route and making it say Star Dreck or something like that, but in the end decided to stick with the real name.

The AMT logo was fairly simple, just a red box with rounded corners and typeset text. I couldn't find a perfect match for the real font, but I won't tell if you won't.

Next I added a black outline around the edge of the box.

And lastly I added the text in the upper right corner. The "Mr. Spock" was also hand drawn, because I couldn't find a font that matched it exactly. The white tag line underneath was simple typeset text.

These graphic design elements were the easiest and quickest parts of the project, taking just an hour or two.

Next I started on the background. I had an image of the actual box art on a layer, and would constantly turn it on and off and check it to see if my colors matched and if I was getting the clouds and mountains and such right. I used a splotchy Photoshop brush to match the painterly look as well as I could.

I then added the distant mountains in the background, with suitable shading. Note that for some reason I wasted time drawing the reflections of the mountains in the water, even though they were totally covered up in the next step.

Next up I added the brownish middle ground. I learned my lesson from the previous layer and didn't bother detailing that plain area near the right, because it would end up being covered by the three-headed snake. No sense spending time on something that'll never be seen, right?

I then added the foreground rocks. I was just blocking in shapes here and planned to color that grey mound at the right a light brown, but then changed my mind and decided to do that on a separate layer.

I added the sandy soil, including the snakes "nest," over the rocks on another layer.

It's kind of hard to see unless you zoom in, but I added some sand effects to the nest on a separate layer.

Why do I use so many layers, you ask? Ease of use, and so I don't destroy all my hard work, that's why. If I drew the sand effect on the mound and then decided I didn't like it, I'd be screwed. By adding the sand on its own layer, if it didn't come out right the first time I could erase it and try again, with no harm done to the art below.

Also, by using layers I can adjust the size and color of an element without affecting anything else on the page (like when I realized Spock's left hand was larger than his right, and had to fix it). I'd be totally lost without layers.

Next I added a little patch of grass near the bottom center.

And then drew the alien plant and dead trees in the background.

Next I drew the wispy "smoke" in the center. I'm not quite sure what this stuff is supposed to be. Volcanic plumes? Noxious gas escaping from the planet? I have no idea.

It's actually starting to look like a proper background now.

I then added the tiny Enterprise zooming overhead in the upper left corner. The ship generally didn't ever fly this low on the show— chalk it up to artistic license.

Lastly I added the ship's exhaust trails. And that's it! The background's finally done! Whew! On to the next step.

Now it's time for the characters. I copied the background art pretty closely, but I wanted the actual figures to be more in line with my usual cartoony style. Wacky, even.

First up is the three headed snake. As you might expect by now, each of the snake's heads was drawn on a separate layer. I drew the foreground snake first.

Then I added various details on another layer.

Then I drew the middle snake.

And his details on another layer.

And lastly the far snake.

And of course his details.

I added a few scales on a separate layer, and played with the opacity until I thought they looked right. That's another advantage to using layers— you can adjust the opacity or how they interact with the layers below them.

Next I drew the shaded ridges on the snakes' bellies.

And lastly I added irregular white highlights to their bodies, to make it look like their skin's glistening. And that's it for the snake!

Hopefully it reads as one snake with three heads, and not three separate snakes crowding out of that hole. When I look at it, sometimes I see it as one, other times as three. The same thing happens when I look at the original box art though, so I'm blaming the source material.

Now it's time to add the focus of the box, Spock.

I started with his face, and added a few rough features.

Next I added his hair, eyes and his trademark upswept eyebrows.

I added his left ear on its own layer, so I could detail it without messing up the rest of his face. I made this ear a bit darker so it wouldn't blend in with his nose.

Then I drew his blue science-division shirt.

And next his legs and boots.

I added his left arm and hand, holding what I assume is supposed to be his communicator. Note that it doesn't look anything like the prop used on the show. I went back and forth as to whether I should draw him holding the actual communicator or the inaccurate version seen on the box art. 

In the end the "wrong" one won out. I figured since I was recreating the box art, I might as well go with that version.

Next I drew his right arm. Again, it's drawn on its own layer so I could shade it without affecting the shirt underneath. 

Spock's limbs underwent quite a few changes as I was working on him. They looked OK in the sketch, but once I drew them for real, I realized they were way too long, which made him awkward and gawky looking. Also his left hand, which is farther from the viewer, was originally much larger than his right hand, which just ain't right.

Fortunately because all these parts were drawn on separate layers, it was easy to fix them.

I drew Spock's inaccurate phaser next. It's closer to the TV version than the communicator is, but it's still not right.

I just realized that Spock looks very incomplete without his Starfleet emblem and rank stripes. Naked, even!

Next I added many the details to his face and shirt. I added a 5 o'clock shadow around his mouth and a bit of red to his nose, to help give his face some life. I also added the "eye shadow" he always had on his lids (look at any photo of Spock— honest to god it looks like he's wearing dark grey eye shadow). 

I then added the aforementioned Starfleet emblem and rank stripes, plus his tricorder strap.

Then I drew wrinkles on his shirt and pants. On a separate layer of course. There was lots of drawing and erasing and redrawing of wrinkles before I was satisfied with them.

Next I added the phaser blast. Hopefully he's got it on stun and not disintegrate. I also added his tricorder, visible just under his right wrist. Not much to it, it's pretty much just a black square.

And that's it for Spock! There were only two things left to do.

I added some shading/aging around the edges and corners of the box, just so it wouldn't look quite so pristine.

And lastly added my signature in the lower right corner.

So there you have it. A recreation of the Spock model kit box art, in only thirty nine easy steps. Actually there were a lot more steps than that, as you could probably tell; a lot of them got combined here.

Once again, here's the original box for comparison, in case you've never seen it (which is a real possibility, since it's first appeared in the 1970s).

Here's an animated gif of the entire process.