ITAP - Mark Murphy - Design Heroes: Saul Bass & David Carson.

Mark Murphy from Surely Creative Design and a visiting lecturer to our course gave us a very diverse and informative talk about two of his design heroes, Saul Bass, the American graphic designer and film maker and David Carson the American, graphic designer, art director and surfer.

SAUL BASS - This man had a very distinctive style. Using Limited colour palates  and hand made type in most of his film title work, but he was also a very prolific graphi designer, designing some amazing logos along with loads of other work.

Here you can see some of the iconic, simplistic logos, all of which were deigned in the 60s and early 70s. His use of white space and drawing with space is exceptional and what every logo designer wishes to achieve. Many of these logos are still in use today, not many of them have needed to be adapted and they are such timeless design pieces.

http://www.graphic-design.com/design-bookshelf/2012/saul_bass/Saul_Bass_Logos_t.jpg

In the talk Mark showed us many different examples of Bass' work I particularly liked the Lawry food packaging for it's timeless design, great use of colour and illustration and typography. These designs would fit right into the supermarket shelves of today and would out rank some of the competition still. That is the mark of great design in my opinion, weather it's still going to look good in 30/40/50 years!

(source: Mark Murphy's presentation slides)

DAVID CARSON - A rule breaker and experimenter, a mad scientist of design. Mark described this guy as 'a marmite designer' you love him or you hate him and at the time I disagreed. My stance was exactly the same as my stance on marmite,  I actually didn't mind his work. I din't love or hate it, it was just ok. I have to be in the mood for it to like and appreciate it. BUT as time has gone on, I have seen more of his work and had time to think about it and i have decided that I am not the biggest fan. In some cases i think his work is good, but i would never choose to design in the way he does. Unless i was requested to.

http://www.creativereview.co.uk/images/uploads/2010/12/lwl_black_swan_0.jpg

https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgug7HQZlwHq9clK0NSO5LKoHBC_n4wK4gJzzjD285pCS99HzTyKEolCAAY4zjngH0EK16tBKxhDstzcSYw65ask0MdHvMwZmeyZVf3rFeTONW18OLcpLMYau7uchEuHQl49ON_CrK-ib8h/s400/mastercard_david_carson.jpg

I do like this cover image he produced for Little White Lies and I do appreciate his style somewhat. I think in this context it works really well, I also like his use of hand written type in his master card work but a feel that both of these images I like are not typically 'David Carson', they have elements of his style but they're far from signature pieces.

These magazine covers and ads are more what you would think of immediately when someone says David Carson.

http://mabsoota.files.wordpress.com/2011/11/4590744095_a8c360d082_o.jpeg?w=900

https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjnbVw5zsIyjI0H9ce3QEYTeaX2hm-uGWpYibmzd8p4YA5qDZsHks7rQf8LCvhY1cUR92VOfmsquRUvNQC-iNtQQbFOAIfFw9n_1deBV6ncygmHMBZ4XUQonxp7SVXDtDlRV0LDOQJ7Ca3g/s400/casron%2527s+work+3.png

One thing I cannot bypass is the amazing ability to break the rules of design and come out with innovative and exciting work that forces you to engage with it, 1 - because it's genious and 2 - cause it's slightly different and difficult to read. I have to hand it to him.