Patrick van Gerwen

Graphic designer @ vormwijs and DTP enthusiast 
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January 7, 2011
 

The rebranding of important logodesigns in 2010 (Dutch Market)

Rebranding

Dutch weblog VIBE (Visual Brand Experience) has putted together an overview of the most important logo-redesigns and changes of 2010 in the Dutch market. Not only corporate logodesigns are showcased but also new designs for Dutch municipalities. Something which is (becoming) quite common in our country and seen as more and more important by those who govern.

Rebranding 2010 (1)
Rebranding 2010 (2)

 

Filed under  //   Logo design  

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January 7, 2011
 

7 business card galleries

Business cards, i have a special love for them. Somehow they seem to withstand the digitalizing of print still remaining objects of desire. Trying to create a design on such a small surface with the purpose of achieving a long lasting impression, is a real design challenge. Below is a short list of websites which showcase these wonderfull small objects of print.

Cardview
Card Nerd
Cardobserver
Cardonizer
CardGala
Premium Business Cards
Creattica

Via Design daily news

Filed under  //   Inspiration  

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December 19, 2010
 

Santa Brand Book

Santa_brandbook

Even Santa is a brand.To ensure the brand is correctly implemented it's important to have brand guidelines. That's why even Santa has a Brandbook which describes brand promise, brandessence, brand language and lots more. Developed by Quietroom. 
Via Vibe

Filed under  //   brand guidelines  

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December 16, 2010
 

The Book of Paper

Booksofpaper
Graphic Designer Oliver Helfrich and Photographer Antje Peters have teamed up for an ambitious project: a series of publications called 'The Books of'. 'The Books of' series explores the creative potential and intrinsic qualities of seemingly ‘everyday’ materials such as paper, wood, glass and stone. The first in this new series of publications is 'The Book of Paper', published by Post Editions. From tissues and take away coffee cups to milk cartons, paper plays an integral role in our day-to-day lives and yet we often take it for granted. Through a series of sculptures 'The Book of Paper' elevates the aesthetic value of this most ubiquitous of materials. The publication also features a series of essays written by artists, architects and scientists, all of whom have unique approaches to paper – from adopting origami to fold space telescopes to creating earthquake-resistant cardboard architecture or using paper as a therapeutic tool.

PrintRoom is a platform dedicated to artists’ publications, the small press and self-publishing projects by artists and designers, based in Rotterdam.

You can be present at the book launch of The Book of Paper.

Saturday December 18th 2010, 16.00 - 18.00
Print Room, Schietbaanstraat 17, Rotterdam, The Netherlands
From next friday on, the book will be available on the website www.thebooksof.com or in selected bookstores (see here).

Filed under  //   Books  

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December 10, 2010
 

What people think vs how it was 'sold'

I'm not gonna start a discussion about what makes a good logo design, but the fact is that the average person walking down the street interpretates a well thought through design completely different than the designer intended. The movie below is an introduction of the new visual identity (topic logo) for the Design Academy Eindhoven (The Netherlands) which illustrates this phenomenon. The cool thing about this movie is the fact that it's made by the Design Academy Eindhoven itself!

What you hear: Average Dutch persons giving the most weird explanations about what they think the logo stands for and what they feel is missing: Prison, door, basement, needs color, needs text.
The subtitles: Language commonly used by design agencies to 'sell' their designs.

Filed under  //   Logo design  

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October 12, 2010
 

Making brand guidelines exciting

I myself have a lot of experience working on and working with, brand guidelines. They all follow the same principle: a collection of do's and don't s about the way a brand, and in specific the visual identity of the brand or organisation, should be handled. The bigger the brand, the more people have to work with the visual identity, the more rules are written down and the larger the guidelines become. Thus resulting into sometimes an endless number of pages inside a PDF which creates another problem, getting people to actually read these guidelines!
Just like a lot of other big companies Lipton also found that guidelines were not read and therefor wrongly implemented. DDB Hong Kong figured out a solution...

via Vibe

Filed under  //   brand guidelines  

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October 11, 2010
 

InDesign Magazine is now available on the iPad

If you're an InDesign Magazine fan like me, and if you have an iPad, maybe you can download, the free content sampler!

As a thank-you gift, the app includes a special subscription discount code, "IPAD". It's good for 50% off a one-year subscription! To use the "IPAD" code, go to InDesign Magazine's website 

Filed under  //   DTP Tools   ipad  

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October 5, 2010
 

Publishing for the iPad - my experience

Ipad-booklet

Another PDF-presentation i would like to share is a presentation which explains the workflow of designing a magazine for the iPad (and getting it on the iPad). 

It's based on the information i picked up during my two-days hands on course at PubliQare, Veenendaal, The Netherlands.

My conclusion: It's not so difficult to create a digital magazine within InDesign (either with the use of WoodWing's plugins or standard functionality of InDesign CS5), but the bottleneck lies in getting it on the iPad and making it widely available in the iTunes-store!

While writing this post Adobe has announced to release his own 'Digital publishing solution' late summer 2010.

Oh, the 'Free Magenta' booklet was my reference for making a digital version.

Filed under  //   DTP Tools   ipad  

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October 5, 2010
 

How i like to organize my project files

Projectfolder

Hi there,

It's been a while but that's because i've recently started working for Lava Graphic design (European Design Agency of 2010), Amsterdam, The Netherlands. One of the reasons i was asked to come in was for my organizing skills. So, first thing i did was to setup a short manual describing how to save and organize workfiles within the studio. Thus making it easy to manage and to guickly recover from the archive.
The manual is based on my own personal working experience and has proven to make my life (and of others) a whole lot easier when correctly implemented. So here by you are free to download this manual and let me know if it helps and improves your workflow?

Note: The whole idea behind the manual is that multiple people work on a same project and therefor it needs to be clear what the most recent files are (in case of absence of a specific designer) and in what stage of production proces they are (sketch / definitive design / DTP / Delivered)! I myself use the same system for my own personal projects and the big benefit lies in returning assignments. Organizing my files as described in the manual lets me quickly find the right file in my archive even when it has been a couple of years since i last worked on it.

Filed under  //   DTP Tools  

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April 27, 2010
 

Handig van Zwaan: Papier-voel-boek

Zwaan_voelboek

Zwaan printmedia noemen zichzelf bevlogen drukkers. En dat zijn ze. Reeds eerder verscheen een boekje van Zwaan printmedia. Dat ging toendertijd over drukwerkveredeling. Dit boekje gaf, aan de hand van voorbeelden en technische omschrijving een zo volledig mogelijk inzicht in de huidige veredelingstechnieken. Ikzelf grijp regelmatig terug naar dit boekje op momenten dat ik klanten een speciale veredeling wil uitleggen. Het is dan fijn dat de klant aan de hand van de voorbeelden in dit boekje e.e.a. kan zien, voelen en soms zelfs ruiken.

Op dit moment heeft Zwaan printmedia een nieuw boekje uitgebracht: het papier-voel-boek. Erg handig bij de papierselectie; de meest gangbare papiersoorten in alle gramsgewichten bijeen. Een must-have voor ontwerpers en dtp'rs. Via voelboek@zwaan.nl kun je kosteloos een exemplaar aanvragen. Zo lang de voorraad strekt natuurlijk!

Filed under  //   Books   DTP Tools  

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