The World's Most Valuable Social Network - the Missing Children's Website

As this says, I found it in the Interactive Annual 19 of Communication Arts magazine. 

I liked the subject matter most of all... missing children. I can't imagine anything worse than your child being missing. So, I read the article in the magazine, and then also read the online version (sometimes they are different due to the fact that they are sometimes aimed at different audiences). 

I found the information very clear and concise. I was, overall, very pleased with what I say in the magazine and in the online article. So, I included some images here for you to examine.

They say that by signing up with this you can have any "Amber Alerts" automatically posted on your social media networks. 

Then they go on to say that it would notify those using "Foursquare", that are closest to the last known location, so that they could look around for the child & possibly see them.

Then, finally, they say that this has led to some very quickly found children. This would be great if enough people were involved. I, personally, don't use Twitter or Foursquare, so it wouldn't necessarily work too well in my instance.

If you go to the website, click on the "view case" link in order to see how everything works.
www.valuableproject.ca

TCM Summer Under The Stars - Kirk Douglas

This was for the month of August 2013, but I saw it in the Communication Arts March/April 2013 issue & just had to post about it.

Every year TCM has Summer Under The Stars and therefore are trying different ways to draw in more viewers. These are screen shots of this years web design. The entire thing is interactive and for each actor, the layout/design and typefaces are different. If you click on a picture it draws you in to another page.

 
The bio is the second page you land on. It has a synopsis of the actors life and works along with other tidbits of information about them. The text scrolls while the background remains the same.

Then on the third page you get kind of a collage of pictures from various movies that the actor starred in. You have the option to save some of these pictures off, "pin" to Pinterest, "share" to Twitter and "post" to Facebook. Sometimes you can even comment on the individual movies. It's pretty cool overall.

Then on the fourth page, the schedule appears for the times and titles of the movies that actor appears in. If you click on any of the movie titles, you will be taken to a page with a synopsis of that movie and links to articles and a video. On the bottom is a link to "shop now," which takes you to the TCM store where you can buy just about anything relating to these old movies (mugs, shirts, etc.)

Here is the link if you would like to take a look at some of the other actors' information.
TCM Summer Under The Stars 2013 

Nicholas Benner, photographer - Website

I was looking through Communication Arts July/August 2013 edition when I came across some photos that caught my attention. So I thought I would check out their websites.

They were very similar, but I think I like the one below better.

The one on left is by photographer Nicholas Benner.

Nicholas Benner, photographer

This one is for Katarina Premfors, photographer.

I like this one better because you get a bigger picture with it & I can read the links better in the white bar than on the black one above.

Katarina Premfors, photographer

The End

Just wanted to share this image for the end of the semester. Hope to see you all in the fall!

Typography I Like

I love the way this looks. I don't know why, I just do.

The design is the lyrics to Coldplay's song "Fix You".

The white space is handled with a background that looks like stained & marked up concrete, which I think works quite well with lyrics. 

This is an invite to an Open House (obviously).

I really liked the way they took the typography in different directions and integrated it with the illustrations of the house eaves. I also liked the way they used the well-known female & male symbols and even included a note about their 2 cats. Too funny!

There isn't much "white space" in this design, but what there is seems to hold the design together.

Nursery Rhymes

The designs I have chosen today are by Victor Nizovtsev and are his rendition of some popular nursery rhymes.

I believe that the repeating muffins in this image do a good job of showing rhythm. The roof tops also add to the rhythm.

This one has the repetitive garlic trailing down the side and the pumpkins starting out small in front and getting larger as they go back, all showing rhythm.

In this mermaid one, the floating pearl-like orbs lead the eye through the picture lending to rhythm and a sense of depth.

For more artwork by Victor Nizovtsev take a look at McBride Art Gallery.

Grid Designs

Both of my choices for grid system related designs just happen to be websites.

I love video games of all kinds, so this web design caught my eye. The photos seem to have 4 columns with a fifth  being the descriptor, while the text below fall into 6 columns with a smaller 7th on the end (that I don't really like). The designer chose to put a wider black column in the middle of the photos & in the middle of the text, too.

This design is much cleaner, which is kind of funny because it is a design for a site called "Fresh". 

This grid is based on 3 columns with all of the photos being the same width and balanced evenly with the text on each side. Nothing seems to violate the grid, except maybe the links, but they aren't overpowering and they don't stand out.