Advanced Typography!

Wednesday, November 13, 2013

Bottle and Packaging Designs #1

Ordering Color Transfers from Color Comps Inc.

First step, make note of the size of your art and plan the manner in which you will group the separate graphic elements to fit the sheet size you have chosen. Second step, decide what the total number of different colors needed is for each separate grouping of art. Example: You may have an arrangement of graphics made up of logo marks and type which fill an 8" x10" area that you want to have printed in (3) separate Pantone® colors. This project would be charged as (3) 8" x 10" 1-color transfer sheets totaling from (1) 8" x 10" original transfer sheet billed @ $35.00, along with with (2) additional transfer sheet colors billed @ $20.00 each for a total price of $75.00, plus shipping. Third step, decide on the method of shipping that best suits your needs. Provide Colorcomps with your address and phone number at the time you submit project and we will provide several suggestions and price estimates for this 3rd-party service. Please Note: There might be additional charges for specialty printing.

5" x 7"	@	$30.00	each original	$12.50	each duplicate	$18.00	each additional color with same art
8" x 10"	@	$35.00	each original	$15.00	each duplicate	$20.00	each additional color with same art
9" x 12"	@	$40.00	each original	$25.00	each duplicate	$35.00	each additional color with same art
11" x 14"	@	$45.00	each original	$30.00	each duplicate	$40.00	each additional color with same art
12" x 18"	@	$55.00	each original	$35.00	each duplicate	$45.00	each additional color with same art

COLOR COMPS, INC.
200 NORTH CLARKS CREEK RD., MARTIN, GA. 30557

Phone: Linda (678) 425-7495

I have talked to Linda Carter at www.colorcompsinc.com who has always been available to create the rubdown transfers used in so many of the past projects in this class.
We'll go over how to create the artwork so you can send it to her for production. She is available to create whatever you need.

Here's the timeline for the next month: (it's going faster and faster)

Tuesday Nov 12th: Class Discussion of MODA/Olive Oil/Wine (please have at least 3 choices to show (on your blog or in person)
ALSO: Special Guest Designer Jeremy Spake (Head of armature at Laika.com) You'll be super stoked at what he's done since he graduated from GSU. You won't want to miss his
class visit while he is in town visiting his family.
Check him out at: http://laika.com/person.php?id=311&company=studio

Thursday Nov. 15th: Revisit MODA and More discussion of Olive Oil/Wine/Beer/Sake

Tuesday Nov. 19th: Prototype Designs for Bottle Redesign

Thursday Nov. 21st: Prototype Designs for Packaging
If you are going to order any rubdown transfers from Color Comps you need send it to her by this day so it can be created, mailed back to you, applied to your bottles.

Tuesday Nov. 26th: About to eat Turkey
Thursday Nov. 28th: Still eating Turkey

Tuesday Dec. 3rd: Final In-Class Discussions for Olive Oil/Wine/Sake/Beer

Thursday Dec. 5th: Final Critique for Olive Oil/Wine/Sake/Beer
Must bring your completed redesign and a printed creative brief.

Unless we decide to change the final meeting day to Tuesday December 1oth.

You will also need to turn in a DVD/CD of all the assignments you've done so far this semester. They can be pdf versions if you so choose.
This includes any in-class assignments (self portrait type/9-11, etc.)

You should have finished up all the blog assignments through at least Assignment No. 8

Monday, November 11, 2013

Tuesday Class Guest: Jeremy Spake, Head Armature at Laika.com

Jeremy Spake - Head Of Armature.
As head of the armature department, JEREMY SPAKE oversees the design and construction of the articulated metal skeletons inside the stop-motion puppets. He studied graphic design and jewelry and metalsmithing at Georgia State University, earning his BFA in 2004. He relocated to Portland in 2006 to join the Coraline production, followed by ParaNorman and The Boxtrolls.

Also check out his blog: http://jspake.blogspot.com

It is a pleasure to welcome back our creatively successful alumni Jeremy Spake to show you his work and what he's been up to since he graduated. You'll fall in love with him and his work because he continues to be one of the most talented alumni from your program.

The BoxTrolls Teaser Trailer from Focus Features on Vimeo.

Paranorman, film VF from dejolibeau on Vimeo.

Elaborate Poster Puts All of Wile E. Coyote’s ACME Purchases on Your Wall

Artist and designer Rob Loukotka has drawn every product the ACME Corporation ever sold to Wile E. Coyote.
In the field of (fictional) DIY mayhem, the leading brand is clearly the company where Wile E. Coyote shops for gear to catch the Road Runner. What the ACME product line lacks in reliability, it makes up for in breadth. ACME will sell you just about anything, from jet-propelled tennis shoes to cheese. Over 43 episodes, Wile E. Coyote ordered and received 126 different items from the corporation and Loukotka has made a poster that includes them all.

Loukotka’s poster includes:

Any object that officially said ACME on it. “Obviously.”
Any product whose box, wrapping, or label said ACME on it.
Any product that appeared on an invoice, shipping manifest, slip of paper, etc. that said ACME on it.
Labeled products that clearly arrived with other ACME orders. “It can be assumed these were from ACME as well, even if the box did not show ACME’s name.”
Any product with a named title on its box or label. “Coyote ordered 100 percent of his items from ACME, so if it had an official name or box I just included it as an ACME item.”
All books. “The books accompanied or preceded ACME purchases, thus are assumed to be published by ACME as well.”

“The ACME Corporation is essentially a dream factory,” Loukotka says, “They make anything and everything you can imagine, and ship it to you instantly. Invisible paint? Got it. Rocket-powered pogo stick? Got it. Super hero outfit? Got it. Massive quantities of faulty explosives? Definitely got it.”
To document ACME’s offerings, Loukotka watched only the Coyote and Road Runner cartoons. “Those plots absolutely depended on the ACME Corporation, and I’d argue that’s where we all remember most ACME products from,” he says. He also limited himself to the original episodes, which ran from 1949 to 1994, with the last episode directed by creator Chuck Jones.
He also chose not to include any of ACME’s offerings from the 2000-2012 episodes. “The plots and products are a bit too weird and modern,” he says. “Plus they weren’t around when we were growing up.”
Whenever a labeled ACME product appeared on screen, Loukotka would pause the show, number the item “and write down the title and every single description, tagline, slogan, ingredient, or quantity that appeared on the box.” This turned out to be a non-trivial task and Loukotka ended up having to make some rules about what borderline cases would or wouldn’t make it to the poster.
We asked Loukotka whether he noticed an evolution in the products over the course of the 45 years that the episodes were created. He says ACME products have always been crazy, and that staples like rockets attached to things were available from the get-go. “But the more fantastic machines (instant icicle maker, Christmas package machine, etc.) came later in the series. The overly developed uni-taskers like that came later, but bombs and rockets qualify as wild all the time.”

This is Loukotka’s third Kickstarter project and, as far as rewards go, his simplest. There is only one reward. You either contribute $30 to get a poster, or you don’t. Loukotka says it’s all a matter of focus and scale. His first project had higher reward tiers that were never chosen. “My second project was also successful, but printing at various sizes means higher costs for everyone,” he says, “ONE design at one size means I could offer this giant poster at $30, that wouldn’t have been possible if I had a whole series of 36″ prints to deal with.”

What Loukotka left out:

Unlabeled items with no box, container, or title.
Unlabeled items that the Coyote owned but never ordered. These included a bow and arrow, paintbrush, hammer, etc.
Extra accessories. “Things like nails, helmets, pipes that may or may not have been part of larger kits. These accessories also had no titles or packaging.”
Created items or gimmicks. “Coyote painting a hole or train on a rock wall is a great gag, but not technically a product. This includes the portable hole.”
Repeat items. “ACME Bird Seed appears a lot, but appears once on the poster. Same for grease, glue, etc. unless it received an alternate name.”

Kickstarter isn’t the only place where you can buy Loukotka’s work. He maintains an online store and some of his work like this incredible map of Gotham are available through third parties. But he says for a project like the ACME poster, the Kickstarter model is key.
“The only way to offer them at a reasonable price ($30 on Kickstarter), was to do a BIG print run, so I could afford each poster and the large tubes they’d be shipped in. I needed 100 people to buy the print to make it work out, and so far I have 1,492 people,” he says, “Also I love the Kickstarter community. It’s so much fun to speak with backers who really care about your work. I get a lot more feedback and collaboration on Kickstarter than I do out of my regular online store.”
As for Loukotka, he admits to having some ACME-like ambitions of his own. “I’m currently building my own workshop in Chicago, my own mini factory of art and furniture and crazy things. So I guess The ACME Corporation is a bit of role model.”
“Since I was a kid, I had a longing for companies like ACME to exist,” he says. “Designing this poster brings our world a little closer to that fictional universe.”
All images courtesy of Rob Loukotka. The Kickstarter runs until Dec 24.