Mum can you do our invitations?

Firstly a huge congratulations to my beautiful daughter Matilda and her now husband Yulan - what an incredible day that was! Matilda asked me if I would help out with her wedding and of course I was absolutely 100% excited and on board. They had decided the day was going to be fun with lots of dancing and partying so had the idea of disco. Now that’s a brief I can really run with so we sat down together and went through all the adobe fonts and Matilda liked quite a few which gave me some scope to play around. I loved the font ‘funkydori’ which was not only fun with a 1970’s age of disco vibe, but also has a range of glyphs to play around with, check out the ‘Y’s’ on the image below of the website I created for the event.

First step was putting together a website with all the information for guests, I animated all the fireworks so they ‘went off’ as you scrolled down the page. I got the invites printed and then turned the kitchen into a production line while I re-trimmed and scored them all ready for posting, Matilda had ordered the gold envelopes which kind of dictated the size of the cards, nice big and square. Amazingly the postage within Australia was exactly the same as the international postage ($3 each) due to the unusual size. A tip for the uninitiated is to make sure you write 'CARD ONLY’ on the international ones - I forgot to do this and had a few restless nights wondering if they were going to be returned, they were not! Phew!

I discovered that Australia Post will print personalised stamps (you can’t use these for overseas addresses unfortunately), so I got a photo from their first date and set up the addresses to be printed on label paper. To be honest this was perhaps the most frustrating part of the whole job as it was difficult to use the clunky template that was online - but after a few attempts I got there.

Matilda’s wedding dress was found in an op shop on the South Coast and needed some adjusting, initially she thought we could just take it up but we ended up spending a couple of weekends tinkering with it to get it just right. We removed some lacy sleeves and the bodice so we could take the skirt up at the waist then added horsehair braid to the bottom of the lace to make it sit properly. There were a few nervous moments when I was putting the zip back in but after a couple of attempts I got it right.

My other daughter Elinor arrived a couple of nights before the hen’s party with some ideas for games they could play on their weekend away. We had a lot of fun coming up with the ideas, and I especially enjoyed this one - ‘Guess Which Celebrity Couple?’ I confess I got a little carried away, I even put their faces on a portrait of the royal family he he he.

The day before the big day we got up at 4am and went to the Sydney flower markets as we were doing all our own flowers. The reality of 6 bridesmaids came home to roost and I was a little panicked about my $500 budget. I needn’t have been, we got the perfect amount and all the bouquets were spectacular, very proud of myself and Ellie on this one. It was really special to be with my daughters and all the bridesmaids who have been friends since year 7 and make up all the bouquets.

Turned out there were also some last minute emergency graphics needed. I didn’t have my computer but luckily Matilda had a subscription to Adobe and I had put all the hens weekend graphics on Elinor’s google drive so I was able to put them together - now that was a bit stressful but we got it done! Everything looked so fabulous on the day, and the reception at the Polish club in Ashfield went off without a hitch. Matilda wore my wedding dress to the reception which was just really really special to me. She rocked it!

Stitch & Bitch

Getting creative in practical ways with some more sewing. It's lovely to get off the computer every now and then and actually make something tangible. The bonus is now I have all my cushions covered. All materials sourced from collections from my grandmother, marketplace and op shops so everything from the zips to the trims is upcycled. Gotta love some reuse!

#upcycle #retrofabrics #reuse #sewingproject #mirandadougasdesign

Little Fri-Yay funny for all the designers

lol

Shout out to Ellen Lupton

Shout out to #ellenlupton. In my work as a graphic design educator Ellen’s books have been the most amazing resource with everything you need to know presented beautifully and communicated in an approachable and accessible way - thank you for your amazing work which has really helped me to inspire my students!

Mitch Tambo – sharing language, and teaching us about cultural pride

It was so incredible to see Mitch Tambo perform ‘Great Southern Land’ in Gamilaraay language with Reigan Derry at the SCG on Friday night. Not just because they are both amazing singers, and it’s beautiful to hear the words in language, but for me mainly because they played the clip with all the words written in language up on the enormous screen. Making this language accessible to everyone for me is a huge part of all Australians embracing our incredible and ancient cultural heritage. Mitch has a powerful message of love and peace and acceptance and wishes to empower younger generations across all cultures to celebrate their identity and to feel confident to sing in their native languages. Here's a link to the video.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ughiq_Z334Q

What you talking about Willis?

When communicating ideas it’s can be really hard to get the message straight. I like to have a really good conversation first, preferably not over email, to make sure we are all on the same page. I also have a branding questionnaire for clients to fill out before we start anything major like a new logo or brand. A bit more communicating in the beginning makes the process easier for everyone. How do others feel about filling out forms to help get their ideas down? 

Saul Bass

The poster for this film was designed by the amazing Saul Bass who I always like to point my students in the direction of cause often they don’t know about him. He was a real master of ‘less is more’ and a great way to talk about some of my favourite design elements and principles like scale, line and colour. 

I went to see this movie with my cousin when I was about 12 - not recommended, I screamed so loud that when it was all over and the lights came on peeps were pointing at me saying ‘that’s the one who was screaming!’ I recently took the other pic of my daughter and her partner at the Millennium Biltmore hotel in LA as a homage to #StanleyKubrick well … WE thought it was pretty funny!

Good, Cheap Fast

This simple graphic I’ve seen many times as a venn diagram but never as an animation. I have often wished you could explain it really simply to clients ‘There are three things with design: GOOD, CHEAP, FAST but you can only have TWO!’

When I design the most important thing is definitely GOOD.

Indigenous art in public spaces

Wonderful to see this incredible work by local artist Grant Molony at Gosford Private Hospital recently. I have often thought how beautifully New Zealand incorporates Maori culture into it's design vocabulary just about everywhere and wondered why we don't see more of this happening with our indigenous culture here in Australia. It makes my heart sing to see this changing! 

You can read more about this artwork here

www.gosfordprivate.com.au/news/2021/our-new-foyer-takes-flight 

and make sure you check out Grant's FB and insta pages - there are some fabulous time lapses of Grant creating on there too.

Throwback Tuesday

Having a nostalgic moment today looking at some of my really early graphic design work. I found this example which could well be the very first paid identity job that I did. Loving its retro look now and remembering how contemporary it felt when first created! Noticed the date on the envelope and it’s the first of April - April fools - ha ha.

I am really happy to find this example of early work and see that consideration was made with the stock - a kind of semitransparent paper, the colour of the paper for the letterhead and envelopes to match. All done with a single colour no doubt to bring costs down.

So often we are tempted to throw things out and keep only digital records but it was a wonderful whiff of nostalgia to see and touch this old relic.

Sagmeister & Walsh BEAUTY

I’ve long been a fan of the work of the creative team Sagmeister and Walsh based in New York city. I’ve gone down to Melbourne to attend a workshop with Stefan Sagmeister and dragged a teenager daughter to one of his talks at the Livid Festival in Sydney - she enjoyed it too, phew. So I was excited to see this new collaborative exhibition about Beauty that Sagmeister and Walsh produced last year. Delving a little deeper I discovered this 10 minute talk about Beauty and how

‘Something was lost when functionality replaced beauty in art and design’.

Now that we all have more time to reflect, my vote is we get involved in creating more beauty in our world. Link to approximately 10min Sagmeister video talk here https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fXaF0bIthB0 and link to the page for the exhibition on their website here https://sagmeisterwalsh.com/work/all/beauty/ if you’ve got some spare time I highly recommend having a look at their other projects too.

Enjoy! Oh and any family members reading this, the printed book would make an excellent birthday present ……

Miranda x

Noma Bar and Creative Storytellling

I don’t know how many of you know the name Noma Bar but I’m pretty sure many of your will have seen his work. This short video (9minutes), tells us a bit about his design journey and in his inimitable style he accompanies the story with his incredible illustrations. I encourage everyone to take a few moments a day to engage with your own creativity.

https://vimeo.com/63862976

Superette cover - and thanks

It’s so great when clients get in touch to let you know they are happy. I’m thrilled with this recent email for the author of ‘Superette’ a book I recently did the cover for.

Hi Miranda, 

Hope you're well.  David Musgrave gave me your email address, ...firstly, a very belated thank you for the cover design you created for Superette.  That is, the deepest, sincerest thanks you could imagine!!  This cover was beyond my wildest expectations and really, I can't thank you enough...(even down to the shade of green on the spine, perfection).

Thanks again for your beautiful work.

With best regards, 

Melinda Bufton

Happy clients

It’s always great to get feedback from your clients. It lets you know where you are going right and where you have areas for improvement. I have been working with the Eastern Suburbs Liquor Accord on a number of projects and just got this feedback:

"Miranda has saved my life on many occasions!!! She has extremely fast turnaround time and consistently produces work of an extremely high quality. She is flexible in her approach and can adapt to a broad range of styles and briefs. The work she had produced for us at the Eastern Suburbs Liquor Accord has always been very well received. I can't recommend her highly enough!"

- Bec Ackland

Things go better with ...

Have you ever wondered why Santa is rather a rotund fella all dressed in red with a jolly disposition? I had assumed that Santa was the stuff of fairytales lovingly passed down through generations. The true story of our current incarnation of Santa is a fascinating advertising success story, and these days Santa is well and truly one of our most loved and enduring brands.

The lineage of Santa Claus can be traced back to a monk named St. Nicholas, born sometime around 280 A.D. who lived near modern-day Turkey. Luck our current day model he was know for his kindness and benevolence - which led to him at one stage becoming the most popular saint there was. Connections have also been drawn to the Germanic god Odin, who rode across the sky on an eight-legged horse. The Christianization of the Germans left Odin behind but kept the concept intact.

St. Nick was particularly well-liked in Holland, where he gained the nickname Sinter Klaas.

In Dutch traditions, Sinter Klaas wears bishops robes and goes around the country finding out which children have been good or bad. After the Protestant Reformation, gift giving switched from the feast day on the 6th to Christmas Eve.

Sinter Klaas crossed the Atlantic Ocean with the Dutch, who celebrated his feast in New York, and with the Germans who celebrated the Feast of St. Nicholas in Pennsylvania. In New York, the increasingly popular Sinter Klaas was alternately described as a rascal with a blue hat and yellow stockings, and a man with a broad-brimmed hat and 'Flemish trunk hose.'

Another inspiration for modern day Santa comes from England's Father Christmas, who worn green and lived at the North Pole

This figure dates back to 17th century England. Most pictures of Father Christmas before 1880 showed him wearing a big green coat. He wasn't much a gift-giver: he preferred wandering from house to house, feasting with random families.

This legendary figure merged with Sinter Klaas once they both arrived to the New World.

But it wasn't until Coca-Cola got its hands on Santa that he became standardized in his appearance

As Coca-Cola ramped up their holiday advertising in the 1920s, they wanted to move away from the strict looking Santa that had appeared in magazine advertising previously. Coke turned to illustrator Haddon Sundblom for this project in 1931. Sundblom would create a more loveable Santa: embracing children, raiding the fridge and of course sipping bottles of Coca-Cola.

The Coca-Cola Santa became the most popular of all, running in Coke ads for 35 years and appearing throughout popular culture.

Sundblom continued to create original Santa Claus/Coke ads until 1964. The ads became so popular that rumours of Coke having invented Santa began to circulate, despite the fact that Santa had appeared in advertisements for other products well before Coke's introduction in the 1930s.

Meanwhile, other Santa-related characters began popping up, including Rudolph, the ninth reindeer, in 1939. He was given a red nose 10 years later.

Today, Santa Claus has been updated for modern times but retains his classic look

Santa's workshop may now be a mechanised assembly line, but Santa continues to ride to his sleigh all over the world, delivering presents in his red suit. The endurance of his look is a testament to fantastic advertising, as well as a sentimentality that thousands of years of tradition has helped embed in our collective consciousness.

So how do we view Santa? Most of us still think of him as a jolly benefactor but then there are some that can no longer separate this figure from the commercialisation of christmas. Still we would have to agree that he is well loved by kiddies everywhere.

Graphic Design and the US election

The American Institute of Graphic Arts (AIGA) have reached out to their community of graphic designers to come up with posters to encourage the public to get out and vote. Their designers have answered the call with big names like Milton Glasser - who designed the iconic I HEART NY logo in the 1970's, to Paula Scher who is known for her identity and wayfinding graphics.

Over 100 designers have already contributed to the campaign, and all AIGA members are eligible to participate. The posters are all available to download from the organisation's website.

Each measures 11 by 17 inches, in A3 vertical format, so they can be easily printed out. The AIGA hopes that they will be displayed in public locations such as small businesses, workplaces and schools, particularly in areas with historically low voter turnouts.

Design has had a long history with social change and political influence. Here is yet another example of the power of design to move people and motivate change in behaviour.

Jesse Wu's Rise & Vote poster

Kevin Garrison's Power and Liberty to All poster

Tanner Woodford's The Ballot is Stronger Than the Bullet poster

How Good Design Saved the Paper

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I don’t know if any of you have ever hear of Polish designer Jacek Utko - I know I never had, but what he managed to do with the power of his design is truly remarkable.
How many times do we hear about how print is dead? It seems to be felt no where more keenly than in the newspaper industry. We are used to having instant news at our fingertips, why would we want a paper copy that seems out of date as soon as it hits the stands? Advertisers seem to feel this way too and in this country alone paper copies of the paper seem to be dropping like flies. Graphic designer, Jacek Utko took on the challenge in his native country and turned around the fortunes of the ailing newspaper industry.
When he initially took on the challenge of redesigning the newspaper he had to field such helpful enquiries as ‘What? Design a newspaper? There’s no design involved in newspapers!” He felt frustrated by this attitude and the shortsighted lack of budget for design. One day he went to see Cirque de Sole and had a revelation, ‘These guys took some creepy, run down entertainment and took it to the highest possible level of performance art, and I thought my god! Maybe I can do the same with these boring newspapers.”
Jacek started to improve all the newspapers one by one, and used the cover space as their signature It became an intimate space of dialogue to talk directly to the readers. Experimenting with type. illustration and photography and having fun soon brought results. In Poland their pages were named cover of the year three ties in a row. The design ethos went beyond just the cover. Each paper was treated as one composition - like a piece of music, with rhythm and as an experience for the reader.  The society for newspaper design named the Polish and Estonian newspapers the best newspaper in the world. The rewards then translated directly to the bottom line. After 3 years circulation had increase for the Polish paper by 35%, 100% for the Estonian paper after years of stagnation the redesign excited readers to engage with the medium all over again.
To me this is a great example of how good design increases reach, cut through and eventually your bottom line. People now are more design literate and image savvy than ever. Let me help you to make sure all the collateral you put out in the world is working for you and sending the right messages to your customers.
If you are interested you can view Jacek’s TED Talk and folio here:

http://utko.com/?okay-portfolio=can-good-design-save-newspapers

Proud teacher over here!

http://www.theherald.com.au/story/3883430/winning-takes-the-right-type/

Here I am with my fellow proud teachers Ralph Kenke and Bettina Hodgson, and of course a copy of the book.

Here is a link to the website for the grad show. http://www.uonvis.com/