Archive for August, 2012

What’s a vector and why do we need one?

By on August 31, 2012 in best practices with No Comments

So, you’ve hired a designer to make your website, flyer, brochure or novelty dog bib (a surprising percentage of our business) and now they’re asking for a vector version of your logo. What in the heck does that mean? You already sent them the jpg, so what more could they possibly want?! Well, here’s an explanation:

VECTOR vs. RASTER

Every digital image falls into one of two categories: a vector image, and a raster image. A raster image is made up of tiny dots called pixels that from far away (or zoomed out) looks like something. Any digital photograph, for example, looks like the thing it’s a photo of, but if you zoom in as far as possible, it is just a series of colored squares – kind of like a mosaic, or a Seurat painting, or an extremely coordinated crowd at a football game.

Rasterized version of the Ask Jeeves Logo

While a raster image is made up of individual pixels, a vector image is made up of lines. Vector images are made up of mathematically defined geometric shapes: lines, filled areas, curves, etc. Read more…

Crocodiles Davis

By on August 9, 2012 in design inspiration with No Comments

Grizzly Gillespie (Dizzy Gillespie as a bear)We love design mashups as much as the next guy on the internet. There’s something about seeing something nostalgic reduced to a bold and clever design that brings a smile to the mind. But, somewhere between movie adverts redesigned as minimalist posters, video games redesigned as Penguin Classics, Penguin Classics redesigned as tattoos, and social media sites redesigned as sneakers (yes, really) things can get more tired than a sleepy panda redesigned as packaging for chamomile tea.

Over the last couple of years, the internet has flooded with [fill in the blank] designed as a minimalist graphic design project. True, sometimes less is more, but sometimes more is more. Thick sharpie squiggles, big blotchy watercolors, blurred colors, etc. — the kind of stuff you can’t fake if you’re just a wannabe design student with a cursory knowledge of Illustrator. Artist – and frequent collaborator – Abel Charrow has done a wonderful redesign project featuring jazz musicians as animals.

Abel’s Crocodiles Davis (named after this illustration) features beautiful watercolors of jazz musicians embracing their wild side. Some of our favorites? Thelonious Chipmonk, Elephants Gerald, Lynx Guaraldi, and Grizzly Gillespie.

The genesis for this project, according to Abel:

puns are clever, jazz is good, and making drawings of animals is fun

With more than a few dozen on the blog already, Abel is adding more each week, so visit often. Check out some of our favorites after the jump:

Read more…