Award Winning Poster Series - Great Hand-Lettered Designs!

This poster series was designed for the Forum Theatre's 2012-2013 season. Designed by Carolyn Sewell who had a limited budget, these posters use the juxtaposition of stock photos with hand-painted lettering.

I really enjoy this kind of hand lettering, and using stock photos—coloring in portions of them in red against the black and white scheme of the rest of the poster—gives them a vintage look as well as being really eye-catching and attractive. While I have no idea what these plays are about, the images chosen are quirky and evoke curiosity. I also like that the only things in red are the Forum logo and the image (or parts of the image). I really like how she placed the photo and painted the lettering where it would fit, changing orientation and size of the letters and words. I looked at some other images on her website, and they are amazing, especially if you like hand-lettering! Check it out here:
http://www.carolynsewell.com/

Poster Series for the Forum Theatre 2012-2013 Season, 18x24, 4-color, offset

Source and credits:

Communication Arts Typography Annual 4, January/February 2014, p. 92-93.

Online version (you might need a subscription to view): http://www.commarts.com

Carolyn Sewell, designer
Carolyn Sewell Design (Arlington, VA), design firm 
Forum Theatre, client

Now I'm Seeing Orange Elephants

This packaging design, and especially the elephant itself, really caught my eye. I saw a video about Charles and Ray Eames last year, and I really enjoyed learning about their lives and designs of furniture, architecture, and all kinds of other things. The molded plywood elephant is unmistakably designed by Eames, and it resembles the famous Eames Chair. This collectible miniature elephant is a replica of the sculpture created in the 1940s. Only two prototypes were made, and only one still exists (owned by the Eames family); they were never commercially produced until now to commemorate the 100th birthday of the late Charles Eames.

I really like the simplicity of the elephant and the packaging. The wood used for the box is the same wood (birch) used to make the elephant. It extends the product into the packaging. They go together. The wood for the box is unfinished, and the lettering is bold and simple—condensed sans serif, all caps. It looks like a cargo crate. It's old-fashioned in terms of its opening mechanism (sliding lid). I wish I knew how small it was! I love miniatures, but the book doesn't give that information. I just really love the shape of the elephant, the fact that it's orange, and the cool wooden box (which also comes with shredded paper to "nestle" the elephant like a straw bed). I'd bet this costs a pretty penny. Only 200 were made, and collectors have probably snatched them all up.

Here is a cool article that talks about the original Eames elephant and where it is now:
Where is the Eames elephant now?


Source and Credits:

Kirkpatrick, Janice. New Packaging Design. London: Laurence King, 2009. Print. P. 127.

Pack: Vitra Eames Plywood Elephant Anniversary limited edition
Client: Vitra, Germany
Designer: Elephant: Charles and Ray Eames, USA; Box: Vitra, Germany
Year: Elephant: 1945; Box: 1945

Guerrilla Marketing is creative and FUN!

I studied guerrilla marketing in my advertising class last fall. It was so fun to see all of the creative, out-of-the-box advertisements, such as this one. What an attention-getter! You simply could not walk past this display without doing a double-take, as this man obviously is. It's so silly, yet effective. You undoubtedly want to find out why this is here, so you look around and then see, "Aha! It's for 96.3 Rock radio station!"

I think it's brilliant. The final project for the advertising class was to come up with five guerrilla marketing ideas, and I had a lot of fun with it. Even though the requirement was to describe them in words, I decided to put my limited Photoshop skills to use and create actual images of what they would look like. Unfortunately, I used low-resolution images from the Internet, so the quality is very poor. The instructor appreciated it, nonetheless!

The main point is that guerrilla marketing ideas are not so easy to generate, and that they can be extremely creative if done well.

Source: Top 8 Most Creative Guerrilla Marketing Campaigns I Have Ever Seen by Melissa Kusiolek, Updated On: June 19, 2014

https://www.toovia.com/photo-blogs/top-8-most-creative-guerilla-marketing-campaigns-i-have-ever-seen

(However, this image is all over the internet; it's impossible to find out the original source.)