Caramblogage

Proof that firepower can be put to creative use. See which ones you recognise.

What designers forget with regular frequency is that they are not the only ones involved in the production of print and web documents. The last round of interviews I intend to conduct within the framework of this project, I had the pleasure of sitting down with the people who teach all the students I had been previously talked to. They were able to provide me with the missing links to this project: an Arab perspective on all the arcane branding questions I had been asking for so long, but, more importantly, they were able to give me detailed insight into how Arabic is taught.  These teachers are experienced in teaching people used to Indo-Germanic (to show off the last bit of dichronic linguistics I remember) languages  a completely different way of dealing with script and speech. Arabic, even by classification, is a different system, whether one thinks about the grammar, the speech, or the way it is writ.  How to relate a language unrelated to most grammatical and wr...

Assignement: take all these number I gave you right here and turn them into a comprehensible and concise infomative piece of graphic design. Being on an illustration kick and going down the pencil and ink route, mashing it up with some digital blingosity, I created something I believe to be fun and incomprehensible — simultaneously. The state of designers' purses is more than somewhat depressing …  But, as the man said, KBO. 

Ranting and Type research aside, I am currently engaged on a project I like to call the Little Book of Fears. While it is a working title and I cannot show you the final results yet, have a few sketches for the characters and stereotypes that will populate the final result. I'll go into this in more depth once the project has attained the depth I am looking for.  Happy saturdaying!

What follows is a completely unfounded rant that has been haunting my brain cells for a while now. It felt like time to let it out. I understand the temptation companies feel to use a template for their online or print presence. They offer an easy and reliable way to make yourself look professional or good, maybe a combination of both. They are easily accessible, some great templates are available for free or a small fee online. Your basic word processor, which has long ceased being a basic word processor, probably include a wide selecion of templates that have been professionally designed and packaged for your convenience. Using them in everyday correspondence at home or at the office, they are very familiar, they may even give you the impression that the act of typing your name into the fields designated for that purpose and address in that space results in a unique piece of design which represents you and your values perfectly. Online, many commercial sites now use templat...

Finally, results! After listening attentively to all the recorded material I have, it is a pity that I am confined to a cursory exploration of this culture and the language. Distilling answers about the culture and the language into an overview is proving to be rather rewarding. Bear in mind that what I am posting here are sketches, to be improved upon once I wrap up the research next week.  Also: there have been a couple of rather exciting developments on the type side of things, which I hope to be able to report on in the near future.  I hope this answers some of the more pressing questions about what this is all about. Next up: advertising and the web. 

This was intended to be a Klapp story, however ended up painting a rather bleak vision of my experience of 2010.  In retrospect, I am very happy to say that it was by no means as bad as this might make it seem. There were certainly low points, which I had to get out of my system via this strip. There may be some metaphors hidden in there, which may reveal themselves as time passes.  As in the last panel, I am very much looking forwards to what MMXI will bring.  Have a great one, all!  " It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair, we had everything before us, we had nothing before us, we were all going direct to Heaven, we were all going direct the other way  – in short, the period was so far like the present period, th...