“Like Minded Studio was honored to collaborate with Baz Luhrman, Catherine Martin & Bazmark team  on the branding of  ”The Great Gatsby”. Our aim was to realise Baz’s vision and develop a bespoke Deco styled logo reflective of the roaring 20s and Fitzgerald’s masterpiece. We also created a display typeface to acompany the main branding. The letterforms were customised and refinined to reflect the design of the main logo.

 

“This included developing a system to combine solid and pinstriped characters in sequence when typing out words. Inspiration for the typeface was from the deco alphabet designs of K.H. Schaefer. The final titles and logo were further rendered in 3D by Deva Studios to create the signature Gatsby style.The process and final branding is showcased below.”

- Like Minded Studio via Behance

 

I absolutely love this logo design. Just awe-inspiring work. Definitely one of my favourites of 2013.

What are your thought on The Great Gatsby?

Published by Jamie Davis on Davis Dna Designs

Since its inception in 2010, Instagram has become an integral part of many of our day-to-day lives. Offering a simple and quirky way to instantly enhance our photos, using a wide reach of filters and share them with the world. Mackey Saturday was tasked with rebranding the wordmark and it’s inspiring to see how small differences make such a huge difference.

“I had the opportunity to work with the fantastic team at Instagram to create their new logo. It has been a long time coming, and I’m honored to share the result with you.

“It was always essential that the design maintained everything that we’ve all grown to know and love about Instagram while creating a logotype that was more refined, durable, and that positioned the brand for expansion. Looking to the past to inspire the future, the script connects with the nostalgia that Instagram was built from, maintains the important character of the original typeface, and places the brand in a unique and prominent position both in the current and future landscape.” – Mackey Saturday / Dribbble

Facebook paid a cool billion dollars to acquire Instagram back in April 2012, because they knew they were getting big and with the brand reaching over 100 hundred million users. The sky really is the limit. What are your thoughts?

Published by Jamie Davis on Davis Dna Designs

“Who could forget the iconic image of Audrey Hepburn peering through the shop window in Breakfast at Tiffany’s or Streisand and Redford’s goodbye scene in The Way We Were. Both were shot 40-plus years ago in the City That Never Sleeps—but journalist Christopher Maloney, on his addictive website FILMography, has shown that New York is also the city that never changes.” – Ben Moss / Webdesignerdepot

I think this concept is incredibly clever. See more images via Webdesignerdepot. You can also purchase prints via FILMography.

Published by Jamie Davis on Davis Dna Designs

The Swedish vodka-maker teamed up with Swedish ad agency, Family Business to create this fantastic project, demonstrating incredible visual expression and uniqueness. I love this concept – and I believe this kind of diverse production is the future of graphics and packaging design. The following is quoted from absolut.com.

With ABSOLUT UNIQUE we have created an almost unlimited amount of different designs rather than a limited amount of a single design. So instead of having to chase down one of a few, whichever bottle you get is the only one of its kind. Your very own ABSOLUT UNIQUE work of art.

94 quintillion bottles

At close to four million uniquely designed bottles we felt that we had proved the concept. Though to be honest, we could have kept going for quite a while. We’ve calculated that 94 quintillion uniquely designed bottles could be produced before two identical ones would appear. That’s more than 13 billion bottles per person on the planet.

Many world-class creators have made their interpretation of our iconic bottle over the years. This time we realized a vision of our own. Gunnar Broman and Hans Brindfors designed the original ABSOLUT bottle in 1979; today it is one of the most well-known bottles in the world. ABSOLUT UNIQUE is one of our most inimitable and technically advance reinterpretations of this global icon.

Related bottle designs you may enjoy: Incredible bottle designs #1 & #2.

Published by Jamie Davis on Davis Dna Designs

2012 has been an inspired year for me and an incredible learning curve.

This blog has come a along way since launching back in Jan 2012 and it’s largely thanks to you.

Wordpress has just made my Annual Report available. Check it out for a little insight into DDD.

Published by Jamie Davis on Davis Dna Designs

It’s been an incredible first year for Davis Dna Designs and the support I’ve received has been tremedous. I feel as though I’ve learnt so much about the design community and my own abilities through this blog.

My venture with DDD has just begun but as I look back on 2012, here are five lessons that I’ve learnt along the way:

I launched my blog on the 1st Jan 2012 and towards the end of my first month, I got a taste of the true power of the internet. As many of you know, David Airey influenced the creation of my blog and it all started with an email to him.

Power of the Internet

I asked him whether he could take a look at my blog post on how I became a graphic designer. A couple of hours later, I checked my view counter (which usually displayed around 15-20 views per day) and it had jumped to 400+ views.

It took me awhile to figure out how this was possible as no one had commented on the post at that stage. I eventually checked my Twitter feed to see that David had sent out out a tweet simply saying, ‘Thanks for the props, Jamie. Brought a smile to my face.’ and kindly put a link back to my website.

Patience

When I first launched my blog, I found myself wondering why my views were so low. What I didn’t understand at the time was that is takes a lot time and dedication to cultivate views and ultimately an audience.

I was naive to think that interest came instantly. So my advice to anyone starting up a blog is to work hard and to remain patience. Rome wasn’t built in a day and if you’re consistent, people will come.

Sharing something of value

There are hundreds of blogs in existance, which sometimes makes it difficult to differentiated valuable reading material from the white noise. When surfing the web, you will effortlessly come across blog posts that have been ripped from other sites, reshaped and regurgitated into the world.

I know this because I have also contributed to the white noise in the past. But the DNA in my brand name stands for uniqueness, amongst other things and I aim to maintain that. Duane Kinsey also talks about sharing something of value in the form of social networking via Logobird. It’s worth a read.

Learning from mistakes

Be careful not to steal the work of others was my biggest mistake of this past year. But it was also my biggest learning experience. It’s definitely a lesson that I’ll never forget.

Saying Thank You

Take the time to say thank you to the people that have supported you from the very beginning and along the way. It takes a great deal of time and energy to produce a consistent blog and the support is always greatly appreciated.

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Happy New Year everyone and all the best for 2013.

Published by Jamie Davis on Davis Dna Designs

I have often wondered about the concept of creative block. I find it fascinating how it affects people in a variety of different ways.

We have all experienced creative block at one point our another, during our creative processes and when it happens to me, I often find myself thinking about how it manifested itself in the first place.

It is self inflicted? Do we get to the point where we subconsciously prevent ourselves from producing new ideas? Or is it something else?! Perhaps our own brains, telling us to stop and think about the current creative direction we’re taking.

You’re probably wondering how Sherlock Holmes relates to all of this.

Well, about a year ago, I had a conversation with a friend of mine about creative block. I remember suggesting to him that he use a concept that, at the time, had recently occurred to me. The Sherlock Holmes method of thinking.

For those of you that are not familiar with Scotland Yard’s unorthodox detective. Sherlock Holmes is a fictional London-based detective created by Arthur Conan Doyle and first appeared in publication in 1887.

Holmes is gifted with an extraordinary mind and is arguably most famous for glancing over a person that he’s just been introduced to and immediately understanding their interests, habits, and lifestyle in a matter of moments.

But what fascinates me the most about Holmes, is his ability to solve cases in the most innovative ways. Especially when he is faced with a mental block, due to a difficult case.

When a case isn’t going the way he would’ve hoped, he usually embarks on an array of different activities to shift his mindset and thought process into a new perspective. This is done in an attempt to surpass his mental block and solve the case that’s inconveniencing him.

Dr. Watson, Sherlock’s friend, assistant and to his dismay, flatmate, often finds Sherlock’s methods of distracting his own mind extremely disruptive and occasionally dangerous.

Holmes is known for having a very complex personality and in the various stories I’ve experienced, he has tried many questionable experiments, in order to shift his thought process – and many of these activities are often carried out at the same time.

To name a few: testing homemade drugs on their pet dog, playing classical music on the violin to bare-knuckle fighting. Experimenting with human body parts and keeping them in the fridge and even taking narcotics himself.

Thankfully, the Sherlock Holmes Method that I suggested to my friend didn’t include any of the above. The concept that came to my mind more relates to the principle that Holmes uses to take himself away from the case at hand and shift his mindset.

The next time you experience creative block, do something else to take your mind away from your process.

Listen to some classical music or a favorite track that you haven’t listened to in five years. Walk your pet dog or go for a run. Cook something you’ve never cooked before for your friends or partner.

Read a couple of chapters of a book (backwards), play chess against yourself (and try to win!) Go into a quiet room, close your eye and meditate for ten plus minutes. Watch a documentary about something complete unrelated.

Walk into a cafe or pub and order something that you wouldn’t usually order. Read a few Chinese proverbs and give them some thought. Play an instrument (no matter how skilled you are). Find your favorite App on whatever app store and write a positive review (they’ll appreciate it).

You know when you can’t remember something and you tell yourself not to think about it and it’ll come to you. The Sherlock Holmes Method uses that very some principle and it does work, because your mind is still working on the problem in hand, whilst you’re busy doing other things.

There’s no time scale for this method because everyone is different. But if you take yourself away from the process that your stuck on and immerse yourself in another activity. You’re more likely to change your perspective and come up with new solutions. Give it a try :)

What are your methods for beating creative block?

Published by Jamie Davis on Davis Dna Designs

Dorothy identifies the colour of music, using an incredible colour wheel vinyl design. I found this via CR and had to share it. Lovely work.

Two New Music Inspired Prints. From Black Sabbath to The White Stripes, Purple Rain to Pale Blue Eyes. Our two new litho prints feature colour wheels made up entirely from the names of bands and songs with colours in the title.

The Colour of Popular Music featuring the names of 154 bands (and artists) and The Colour of Song featuring the titles of 576 songs are available as signed and stamped Limited Edition prints £100 and Open Edition prints £30.

The Colour of Popular Music features the names of 154 bands (and artists) with a colour in their title.

From the obvious Black Sabbath, Pink Floyd, Deep Purple, Blondie, King Crimson and The white Stripes to the more obscure (but not forgotten) Silver Apples, Black Flag, The Red House Painters, and The Green Telescope, plucked from the depth’s of Phil’s well thumbed vinyl collection.

There’s an A-Z key at the base of the print listing the featured bands and artists along with the years they were ‘making music’ together or as individuals.

What are your thoughts?

Published by Jamie Davis on Davis Dna Designs

Established in 1955, ITV (originally for Independent Television Authority) is the biggest commercial television network in the UK and is the main competition of the BBC and Channel 4. The rebrand was said to have been designed in-house.

“The new logo forms the basis of all ITV’s branding domestically and internationally, and is a warm, bold design based on a formalised version of human handwriting, comprising of five colours, in its static state.

“When the logo appears on coloured background, such as marketing images for ITV programmes – it will adapt and change according to the background colour scheme of the image.

“This colour picking technique means that the logo can be dynamic, shifting tone along with the content, reflecting and blending with the mood of different shows.

“Within the ITV broadcast business, the family of UK channels will all have a new on-air look, with ITV2, ITV3, ITV4, and CiTV receiving new colour schemes, clearer brand propositions, and accompanying updated brand identities.” — Press Release

Personally, I love it. The colour combinations reminds of the new More4 logo, which is one of my favourite brand identities of all time.

What are your thoughts on the rebrand?

Published by Jamie Davis on Davis Dna Designs

Foodscape photographer Carl Warner, has published ‘A World of Food‘ which includes a Parisian boulevard made of cheese, a candy cottage and a forest of cucumbers.

Warner has created some incredibly stunning scenes, using an array of different foods such as sweet treats, fresh fruit, vegetables, meat and more.

It’s as if he ventured to the depths of Willy Wonka’s imagination, with a camera in hand. I love it! Click to enlarge is available on most of the photography.

“Although I’m very hands-on, I do use model makers and food stylists to help me create the sets. I tend to start with a drawing which I sketch out in order to get the composition worked out”

- CARL WARNER

Warner is incredibly talented. Check out more of his work and share your thoughts below.

Published by Jamie Davis on Davis Dna Designs