5 things to read and see this week
This week the roundup covers the new “Hidden Figures” Legos, the beginning of design in the federal government and multiple pages on collegiate basketball.
1. Hidden figures no more: female NASA staff to be immortalized in Lego
Lego unveils five female NASA staff legos just in time for National Women’s History Month. These courageous, smart and fiercely talented women helped send astronaut John Glenn into orbit. I hope that all kids playing with Legos learn about these amazing women, their hard work and their importance in history.
2. Women’s March on Washington: strong in number, but how about design?
This article argues why more voices and perspectives in the design of the Women’s March logo would have helped ensure that it accurately reflected the organization’s values. It also underscores how important it is to consider an organization’s purpose throughout the design process, so that logos or other materials aren’t hypocritical and align with the organization’s broader principles.
3. New website Logobook archives logos going back to the ’50s
This website has compiled almost every logo ever made from the 1950s onward. If you’re ever redesigning the logo for your student newspaper, working on a big class assignment or doing a little freelance work, you can use this site for some inspiration.
4. Women vs. men: who’s on top in the design profession?
This fascinating infographic breaks down the results of AIGA’s 2016 Design Census into easy-to-read images and graphs. Men still hold the majority of design leadership positions and earn significantly more than women do.
5. Nixon, NASA and how the federal government got design
The United States government underwent a redesign in the 1970s, which saw the launch of new logos for NASA, Department of the Interior, the Environmental Protection Agency and more, and it’s sometimes called the golden age for governmental graphic design.
“Design is an urgent requirement, not a cosmetic addition. The absence of design is a hazardous kind of design. Not to design is to suffer the costly consequences of design by default.”
— The Design Necessity: A Casebook of Federally Initiated Projects in Visual Communications, Interiors and Industrial Design, Architecture, Landscaped Environment
Page Designs
- The MAC Tournament | The Post, Ohio State University
I love the unified color palette that ties the whole page in together. The different cutouts of the basketball players works really well because they’re overlaid on top of each other without being too overwhelming. It creates an entire page that stands out on its own, and could even be used as a poster. I just wish that the two articles were both two columns each, because having the articles in just one column makes them look too wide.
2. True/False Guide | The Maneater, University of Missouri
This is a super fun spread that does a great job of bringing the viewer into the page with great photography, smart use of color and movie posters. While the angle of the posters might be a little much, diagonal lines gives the page movement, interest and really makes it pop.
3. Reaching out | The Daily Orange, Syracuse University
What I like about this page is that it takes what could be a complicated and confusing article and breaks it down into clean numbers, statistics and graphs that make it easy to understand. The page is engaging despite the lack of pictures accompanying the article, which can make designing an interesting page more difficult.
4. No sweat | The Michigan Daily, University of Michigan
This page is the definition of clean, bold design. I love the huge hammer head in the empty space of the photo accompanied by a detailed deck. The symmetry of the page with the pull quote in the center of the page with two teasers at the bottom makes the page extremely visually pleasing. The only thing I wish they had added was a little more whitespace.
5. ‘Crimes of the Heart’ oozes charm | The Daily Californian, University of California Berkeley
I love the awesome and sassy illustration that accompanies the “Crimes of the Heart” article. It captures readers as they flip through the paper. I also like the layout of the film review for “Kong: Skull Island” with the rating, movie title, reporter and photo on the lefthand side, while the article starts on the right. It gives the page some good white space. The only problem I have with the page is that the illustration could be mistakenly interpeted as accompanying the “Kong: Skull Island” review since the picture for “Kong” is so small that it’s easy to pass over.
If you think you have a well-designed page or a good read to share for the next roundup, email me at shays2@elon.edu
Students, did you know you can join the Society for News Design for as little as $5 a month?
