Dieter Ram's 10 Principles for Good Design

TP 1 radio/phono combination, 1959, by Dieter Rams for Braun


Dieter Rams has been proved one of the 20th Century's most influential designers. He was Director of Design at Braun from 1962 - 1995 and his elegant yet minimalist designs have found themselves into many of homes from calculators to coffee machines, clocks to cigarette lighters.

In the 1980's Ram's set about asking himself whether his design was good design. In response, he came up with the following 10 principles for good design:

Good design is innovative
Good design makes a product useful
Good design is aesthetic
Good design helps us to understand a product
Good design is unobtrusive
Good design is honest
Good design is long-lasting
Good design is consequent to the last detail
Good design is concerned with the environment
Good design is as little design as possible

Read more about the design master here:

Dieter Rams: ten principles for good design

New Poster Underway

I've been working on an illustration for the past couple of days. I'm not quite happy with it yet. The colours aren't quite right and it doesn't really capture the depth of the original image. The subject matter is a beautiful young peruvian girl who I photographed sitting on a ledge overlooking Colca Canyon in Peru. Here's a sneak preview...

Local Heros work found in...Argentina!

While I was away I made a few design related purchases. One of my favourite days on my trip was spent perusing the antique markets of San Telmo in Buenos Aires. The array of well designed books astounded me. Books that, in the UK, would cost upward of £10 purely based on their cover design, I picked up for less than £2. Most of the books on offer were lovingly packaged in plastic wrapping and were in good nick.

I bought 2 books; 'Los Isleros' by Ernesto L Castro, a story of family struggles of islanders living on the Parana river. I haven't been able to find out much about Castro himself but the book was turned into a film in 1951. The second book was 'El Libro de los Numeros' by Sepharial, who turns out to be from Handsworth Wood, just down the road from where I live in Birmingham.

I chose these books purely for their cover design so am suprised and so pleased that one of the authors turned out to be a Brummie! Here's a little bit about Sepharial:

Dr Walter Gorn Old (born 20 March 1864, at 2:06 a.m. LMT in Handsworth, England; died 23 December 1929 in Hove, England) was a notable 19th century mystic and astrologer, better known as Sepharial.

An eminent English Theosophist, Sepharial was a well-known and respected astrologer in the late 19th and early 20th centuries and wrote numerous books, some of which (particularly those on numerology) are still highly regarded today. He was editor of "Old Moore's Almanac", which is still published in the 21st century.

As a young man Sepharial initially studied medicine and followed this up with studies in psychology, oriental languages, astrology and numerology. In 1886 he started to write an astrology problem page in the Society Times, where he answered the public's questions, and in 1887 at the age of just 23 was admitted to the "inner sanctum" of the Theosophical Society. He was in fact one of the founder members of the Theosophical movement in England. Madame Blavatsky (whom he lived with until her death) called him "The Astral Tramp" because of his nightly explorations into the astral plane (Ref: Kim Farnell's book).

He became a very influential author in the fields of the occult, astrology and numerology, and his writings had a considerable impact on E. H. Bailey and Alan Leo, who he introduced to Theosophy. He can be credited as the first astrologer to use Earth's "dark moon" Lilith in his calculations. Genuinely erudite, Sepharial had for example a greater knowledge of mathematics, astronomy, and historical methodology than most of his astrological contemporaries and this showed in his writings. Sepharial's "Degrees of the Zodiac Symbolised" (co-written with Charubel) foreshadowed Marc Edmund Jones's subsequent (and nowadays better known) work on Sabian Symbols. However, many of his books and other works were put together in a rather slapdash way, which made his reputation less enduring than it might have been. A colourful character, Sepharial started a number of astrological magazines, all of which failed to establish themselves.

He sounds like an interesting guy and I'm just disappointed that my spanish isn't good enough to read the book!

Here's a photo of my purchases at San Telmo:

Back to Business

I returned from my little jaunt round South America at the beginning of January and since thengs have been pretty hectic, settling back into the routine of work and home life. I haven't yet had chance to pick up my illustrator pen but hope to do so in the next couple of weeks, putting some of my travelling inspiration to paper, or should I say, PC.

What I have been up to, is designing a logo and set of stationery for a good friend of mine's new business venture, Centreline Couriers. The logo design has now been agreed but rather than let the cat out of the bag, here are a few of my initial designs. See if you can guess which was the winner!

Artsfest Photos and more news...

Here are some photos I took at Artsfest 2 weeks ago. Sorry for the late update, but I will fill you in with an explanation further down the page...

My space at Art on the Railings:


The Hall of Memory in Centenery Square on the gloriously sunny Saturday:























The fireworks display on Saturday night:


Now for the explanation...

I am going to be leaving the UK for 3 months from the 3rd October, to do some travelling around South America. I'll be visiting Peru, Bolivia, Chile, Argentina and Brazil, all on a big yellow truck with a group of people whom I've never met, but hope will become good friends.

In that time, I hope to pick up some good inspiration for future work and will have my camera at the ready at all times!

I will have a sale on in my etsy shop next week to celebrate my leaving. While I'm away a friend will fulfill any etsy orders, but the stock may be limited so if you're looking for anything specific, please get in there quick!

I'll also be at Moseley Market this Saturday so hope to see a few of you there.

Bye for now!

Great first day at Artsfest

Wow, it's been a pretty hectic day.

The arts on the railings went pretty well, the sun was shining and lots of people came out to say hello. My pitch was directly in the sunlight for 5 hours so it's safe to say I'm now looking a bit crispy and feeling a little bit of a glow. Met some great people though and sold a decent amount of work.

Packed up at 6pm and then was back in centenery square for the classical fantasia.

Off to bed now as am pretty exhausted and am going to do it all over again tomorrow!

Full report and photos to come after the recovery preiod...

Framed up and ready to go!

Here's a sneak preview of what delights will be on sale at Artsfest tomorrow:

All of the framed prints:


A new square format print of Emmylou Harris, one of my idols. There will only be one of these so be quick if you want to snap it up!


I'll also have the usual cards and unframed prints on offer.

See you tomorrow!

Artfest is upon us!

Artsfest kicks off tonight. Hope those of you that are coming are looking forward to an excellent weekend of entertainment!

I set up my area on the railings of Centenery Square tomorrow, opening at 12 o'clock. I popped down today to check out the site being set up and take a quick photo of the railings so I can plan my space. Here are the photos I took:

Special Offers on Etsy

A fellow member of the Etsy Midlanders, Phillisb, will be leaving the UK for Zambia soon and so is adding special offers to her site over the next 2 weeks. She has some great cards and modern cross stitch designs on the site so go over and check them out:

http://phyllisb78.etsy.com

New Commission!

Lavenderwool, the company that I produced 3 bumper stickers for through Etsy have commissioned me to design 2 more. I shall post the new designs when they're finished.

I've also sold 2 more prints through etsy this week to Seattle in the US. Beckyismyname is going stateside!

Artsfest this weekend

I will have a space on the railings in Centenery Square at Birmingham's Artsfest this weekend. Come and see me between 12 and 6 on either Saturday or Sunday. I'll have prints of different sizes available, framed and unframed. There will be lots of other entertainment going on in the square with live music and dance so well worth a day out!

In other news, I will be leaving the UK for South America on the 3rd October and won't be back in the country until the 4th January. Artsfest and the September 22nd Moseley Arts Market will be your last chance to see my work before I go, so if you are thinking of buying anything from me, please try and make it to one of these.

My etsy shop will be run by a friend while I'm away but stocks may be limited. I shall post further details closer to the time.

Hasta luego amigos!

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.

The weekend is almost here...

My to do list for the weekend:

- catch up with friends
- buy outfit for forthcoming friends' wedding
- watch cricket on the big screen in the park
- visit the Ikon Gallery and the Framers to see if any of my work has sold
- deliver Warley Woods prints to the Cherry Tree

This weekend was supposed to be relaxing but it's fast getting filled up...!

Better late than never...

So Moseley Arts Market was a great experience on Saturday. I met lots of other stallholders, got some good advice for Artsfest in September, got a better idea of what people like and dislike about my work, and sold a few pieces too! My Moseley Dovecote print was the most popular; not surprising seeing as it's a local piece. The InShadow images also seemed to be popular, and quite a few cards flew off the shelves.

The weather held up, with the morning starting off too hot, but by midday the sun had dropped and it was a pleasant temperature for standing around under a plastic sheet! People seemed in good spirits. After thoroughly enjoying the day, I have signed up for another stall on the 22nd August.

A few people took the information sheets on my Warley Woods prints. Incidentally, I have agreed to supply some of these to the Warley Woods Community Trust cafe in the woods in 2 weeks time. They are going to be displayed on the walls and for sale in the shop and by custom order. More details to follow on that soon.

For now though, I shall leave you with some photos of my day at the Arts Market in Moseley...

beckyismyname's stall:


The Dovecote print in action:

Framed Moseley Dovecote prints now on Etsy!

My new illustration of Moseley Dovecote is now available to buy on Etsy.



I've priced it at $50, which is roughly £30. I can provide the print unframed if anyone would prefer. Please either email me direct or through etsy if you're interested.

www.beckyismyname.etsy.com

Moseley Dovecote

I've produced a new illustration of Moseley Dovecote to have on sale at the arts market tomorrow. I'm quite pleased with it, I think the colours work well together.

Here's a little bit about Moseley Dovecote from The Moseley Societies website (www.moseley-society.org.uk):

The Moseley Dovecote

The Moseley dovecote was built in the 18th century probably at a similar time to the icehouse, but the precise date is not known. It was constructed of red brick of three storeys and is octagonal in shape. It had, by 1840, been adapted for general farm use and its ground floor had been converted to two pig sties, and the upper parts became storage rooms. The whole complex of South Lodge buildings was scheduled for demolition in 1933, but public petitions for the dovecote were successful, and this building, with a part of the adjoining “cow-house”, were spared. Plans for restoration of the building were in hand in 1939, but work was suspended on the outbreak of war, and it was not until the 1980s that, with the help of the Manpower Services Commission, it was possible to complete the work.

The Dovecote has been placed in the care of the Moseley Society, whose members volunteer to supervise opening to the public.

Text by Roy Cockel

and here's my illustration:




It will be available framed at tomorrow's market or you can email me on beckyismyname@hotmail.co.uk if you're interested in buying a print.