Bank Holiday Study Trip

I took a trip to Ikea yesterday (I know, bank holiday horror!) to buy lots of new frames in preparation for Artsfest, to sell to the Cherry Tree in Bearwood and to put up some photographs in the Warley Woods Cafe.

On the way there I got a tip off that Ikea has recently changed it's display font from the elegant simplicity of Futura to Verdana, mostly used as a screen font. So a seemingly simple trip turned into a reconnaissance mission, a typographic study trip...

Ikea Coventry hasn't yet completely finished the branding excercise, most of the display material was still written in Futura, but there was the odd hint at the rebrand. I took a photo of one of the offending posters:



The supposed reason behind the rebrand is that Ikea want to use the same font throughout it's branding, from web to print material. To me, this seems like lazy typography. You need to choose a font based on it's end purpose, and Verdana just doesn't cut it when used at a large scale. I'm a bit confused as to why Ikea would spend the extra expense licensing the new font when the old one worked so much better. If it aint broke, don't bother fixing it.

I'm assuming they will be using the font on their instruction manuals too, items that are meant to make the headache-inducing process of putting their furniture together as simple as possible. Keeping the typography simple is key to a document like that.

The type debate is hotting up on the typophile forum, check it out here if you're interested in hearing more type geekery:

http://typophile.com/node/61222

I ended up buying far too many frames than I could carry yesterday; 19 to be exact, and when I came out of Ikea it was raining and had to carry them back to the train station and back home to Brum. My shoulders actually have dents in them this morning. Who says I don't suffer for my art!

In other news, I sold a Moseley Dovecote print to a lady in Sacramento, CA through Etsy. Very exciting.

There are lots of other exciting things happening in the world of becky at the moment but I shall drip feed these to you over the next few days.

Hope everyone's having a fabulous bank holiday!

Today's inspiration

I've been designing some report covers for work today and was searching for inspiration in classic book covers, when I came accross Olly Moss, and his videogame covers, which use the same grid as the classic penguin book covers. The typography and simple imagery is great. I'm also designing a brochure cover for a project at work and only hope I can go some way to capture the simplicity that Moss does in his illustrations.

Here are some of Moss's covers:



and some other covers I swooned at today:







You can see more of Olly Moss's work here:
http://www.ollymoss.com/

Etsy commission is finished!

I was commissioned through Etsy's alchemy tool to create 3 magnetic bumper stickers for a rug hooking company in the US. I've thoroughly enjoyed the process of working with a company so far away and feel we worked really well together to reach an outcome that we are all pleased with. Here are the final designs. Look out for them in a car window near you!

Moseley Arts Market

Hi y'all!
Just a quick note to let you know that I will have a stall at next Saturday's (22nd August) Moseley Arts Market on Alcester Road. I will be selling more of my Moseley Dovecote Prints, and a few Warley Woods framed prints, as well as some unframed prints and the usual cards.
Hope to see some of you there!

New Commission through Etsy and a Beautiful Kent Wedding!

I've been commissioned to design 3 bumper stickers through Etsy.com. The commission is from a company based in Minesotta and is a rug hooking and wool supply business. Check out their website here:
www.lavenderwool.com

The designs are coming along nicely and I'm enjoying the opportunity of working for someone so far away, and the idea that my design will be on cars travelling through the US! I shall post the designs once they have been finalised and agreed.

In other news, I attended the lovely wedding of my friends Hannah and Conor Costigan at the weekend. It was set in the beautiful Kent countryside and it was great to get away from the smog and catch up with friends.

I had designed the wedding invitations and table plan for the wedding and even got a mention in the speeches, which was totally unexpected and made me blush. I'm not sure if any photos were taken of the table plan and my little handbag was too small to fit my camera in, but I shall ask around and post photos if I can find any. In the meantime, here's a screen grab of the front of the invitation, which was designed with an illustration of a sweet pea to complement the bridal party's flowers.