First, I would like to stress a couple of facts: I haven’t watched (nor intend to watch) James Cameron’s Avatar, and I have absolutely nothing against the movie or its fans. Also, if you arrived here looking for a movie review, allow me to redirect you to the right websites.

Now that I made myself clear, let’s get down to business: Visual identity. It may sound anecdotal to some, rather unimportant to others, but to me it’s totally uncool (read mediocre) for a $400-million budget block buster -boasting the most cutting edge technologies in the industry- to have such a lackluster logotype. In fact, “lackluster” is way too generous. As far as branding goes, it’s a disaster.

It’s hard to believe that anyone with a plain word processor and a couple minutes can get a close result by following the three steps I described in the screenshot above. Heck, even a first-grader can pull this out!!

Verdict: Hire designers folks, they won’t cost you a dime compared to the $230-million you raked from day one.

Have a nice holiday, readers.

I’ve just had a peek at UEFA EURO 2012 brand new logo / visual identity, and I have to say that, unless I am missing something here, the concept is totally far-fetched for a football competition. Of course, I am fully aware that “football is more than a sport, it’s a lifestyle, a cultural phenomenon”, and that host countries try to promote their local cultures during these competitions.

However, mashing the art of paper cutting (traditional art in eastern Europe), flowers and soccer balls is not the brightest idea to capture the spirit of the sport.

Execution-wise, the color palette looks balanced and carefully chosen. The logo is overall round, following one of the most notable visual identity trends in 2009. In fact, this is one of the rare cases where roundness is well justified. The human shapes hidden in the flowers (as well as in the yellow parts of the ball) are a clever addition to the logo. Typography-wise, while the font choice is fair enough, the link between the R and O in Euro seems rather frivolous. Last but not least, the slogan “Creating History Together” is clearly offside, literally.

Verdict: good execution coupled with ditzy conception deliver us an average logo at best.

When it comes to business cards, there is no shortage of original and inspiring designs (I’ll be sharing some of my favorites in a later post). This time around, a designer from Italy who goes by the monicker Grafish Design has came up with a quite brilliant idea: a tiny calendar that fits on the back of a business card. The calendar can be downloaded for free in PDF format, and explanation can be found here. Even though the author is still silent about usage policy, I already see many using this next time they order their business cards for print.

The context

Red, white and green sparkling ornaments everywhere. It’s that time of the year already. Aside all the metaphysical connotations, which are getting more and more obsolete anyway, I grew to shun the consumerist orgy associated with this season, one which became the harbinger of the new year. Spending is now a rite, and those who don’t take part in it would be missing all the festivities. This said, I have nothing against that seasonal hero who brings the smile to kids and toymakers alike, Santa Claus.

The concept

Santa Cruz (pronounced krooz, like in Cruise missile). Following Santa tradition, this friendly missile flies the snowy horizons looking for wishful kids; not to fulfill their dreams, but rather to shatter them. And more seriously, it’s a playful wallpaper to adorn your desktop this holiday season.

Ever wondered about the steps leading to a final icon design? If so, this entry might shed some light on your questions. As a matter of fact, there is no standard design process: each and every designer is free to choose his tools and techniques. The steps detailed below describe roughly the process I followed to design Furfox.

Step 1: Everything starts with a sketch

I can get the most cutting-edge-four-billion-sensitivity-levels tablet, I can use the latest graphic design software on the most powerful Mac Pro, but I just can’t do without the old pencil and sketchbook. Out of the random icon concepts I have scribbled, this one seemed to be a viable starting point for a laid back, cute and vibrant icon.

Step 2: Vectorization

The second step consists in scanning and importing the raw scan into a vector drawing program to trace it, commonly referred to as linework (at least in manga art). While the result is nothing impressive, this step requires particular attention as it is the transitional phase between paper and data. I settled for vector instead of raster (pixels) simply because I think it is more flexible, scalable and above all easier when it comes to tracing.

For more about the differences between raster and vector graphics, check this article.

Step 3: More fur, more cuteness

This step is all about adding details and modifying the vector design obtained previously for maximum cuteness. I admit that drawing vector fur can be irritating sometimes, since you have to deal with it strand by strand. Fortunately, I got used to it through my ephemeral experience with character design few years ago.

Step 4: Life is not black & white…

This is my personal favorite. Nothing beats the joy of playing with colors, shades and tints. This time around I had to cope with a pre-determined palette (orange and blue predominantly) to preserve the visual identity of Firefox, and that’s often the case when doing professional design.

Step 5: Rasterization, Finalization

This step consists basically in exporting the vector icon in the previous step from Illustrator to Photoshop. I added more fur, adjusted the contrast, changed the beach ball angle and colors and last but not least did some minor tweaks that would require a higher resolution to be clearly visible.

Although I could have switched to raster right after step 3, I tried to make this transition as late as possible in order to preserve scalability and “editability“. You gotta love them those vectors, they never fail you.

Step 6: Icons for everyone

The last step consists in exporting the final design to Icon Composer, an icon making app that comes bundled with Apple’s Xcode. I also had to modify the 16px version of the icon for a sharper and more contrasted result. Once the final icon is ready, I exported it to CandyBar to edit its metadata and then re-export it as an iContainer, a Mac icon (ICNS) and a Windows icon (ICO). I have previously used IconBuilder, a Photoshop plugin for making icons, but I recently noticed that the combination of the two above-mentioned apps can do exactly the same, with style.

This wraps up the design process of Furfox. While I am overall satisfied with the result, I am perpetually looking for ways to get faster and better. Kaizen spirit for the win!