The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo

Fight Club

The Beach

Trainspotting

Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas

Recently I was in a bookstore where they had a display of the latest edition of the novel Eat Pray Love. The cover featured Julia Roberts sitting on a bench next to a nun, eating something . . . → Read More: Hey, are you a book or a DVD?]]>

Eat Pray Love

The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo

Fight Club

The Beach

Trainspotting

Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas

Recently I was in a bookstore where they had a display of the latest edition of the novel Eat Pray Love. The cover featured Julia Roberts sitting on a bench next to a nun, eating something with a sheepish look on her face and it really annoyed me. I wasn’t annoyed because of her – I don’t mind her, and same thing goes for Brad Pitt, Edward Norton, Leonardo DiCaprio, Ewan McGregor & company– but because of the whole “oh-now-that-we-made-a-movie-with-that-book-let’s-pretend-that-they’re-the-same-thing” thing. We all know this is rubbish, and that in most case movies based on books end up being very different (sometimes in a good way, sometimes in a bad way).

So why did the publishing company felt like they had to put Julia Roberts on the cover of the book? Don’t we see her enough on the movie posters? See, if I want to own something with her face on it, I’ll buy the DVD. Because she is an actress, not a novel character. I might have been interested in reading the book –though the story sounds a bit too soppy– with its original typography-based cover because it had a concept behind it (“eat” written in pasta, “pray” in beads, etc) and wasn’t like “hey reader, we think you don’t have enough imagination to picture the main character in your head, so here’s a picture of the actress who plays the role in the film so that you have something to relay on”… How annoying!

Marc and I both recently read The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo* (with the nice colorful jacket) and we also rented the movie to compare scenarios. Even though I enjoyed both I am very happy to have read the book without knowing what the main character looked like in the film and actually, in my head, she was pretty similar to the actress who portrayed her in the film. So now I can say “wow, well done my imagination, you worked well without being dictated how to picture the character by a book cover”. Do you know what I mean?

Anyways, it made me think about the whole “issue” and I’ve checked our bookcase and realized that a lot of the novels we own have been made into films. And that, strangely enough, only one of them, Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, has the cover featuring Johnny Depp that was made after the film… And we almost certainly bought this version of the book because the original one wasn’t available at the bookstore! In the examples above, I think that the original non-movie tie-in version are all better… What do you think? Any example where the movie-inspired cover beats the original one?
Vick @ Yellow Car Design

*We strongly recommend it and can’t wait to read the sequel. The author was a graphic designer and there are lots of graphic design references… That was an added bonus for us

I recently re-read Made You Look by Stefan Sagmeister, one of my favourite designers. He’s not one of my favourites because of his work (rather ugly, sometimes!), but I like him because of the thinking behind his designs and I just find that the stuff he writes in his books/interviews is quite hilarious and . . . → Read More: YCD Paris]]>

YCD Paris

I recently re-read Made You Look by Stefan Sagmeister, one of my favourite designers. He’s not one of my favourites because of his work (rather ugly, sometimes!), but I like him because of the thinking behind his designs and I just find that the stuff he writes in his books/interviews is quite hilarious and entertaining. He once described some of his past work as being “a remarkably pure piece of shit”; anyone with this way of describing things deserves my respect! Anyways, the link between Sagmeister and the image above is that in Made You Look the designer described how his great uncle, Otto Sagmeister, owned a tiny little “home-based” distillery in Vienna, but decided to create advertising and stationery for his business that pictured a great fancy building with many chimneys and even described an association with the very noble French region of Cognac (even if Otto had never set foot in France!). That was in early 1900′s – well before Photoshop – and certainly contributed to Stefan Sagmeister’s great creativity and wittiness! Reading this inspired me to follow Otto’s steps and create a listing for YCD that shows our, hummm, office. You thought we were located in Canada? Uh, no, no… we’re actually in Paris, in a great Haussmanian building near the Louvre… (we wish!!!).

Sagmeister: Made You Look

YCD Paris (v.f.)

J’ai récemment relu le livre Made You Look de Stefan Sagmeister (un de mes designers graphiques préférés). Il n’est pas parmis mes favoris pour son travail (parfois c’est affreux!), mais bien parce que j’aime sa façon de penser et ce qu’il dit dans ses entrevues et livres est souvent hilarant. Il a lui-même décrit l’un de ses anciens projets comme étant “de la merde remarquablement pure”… Cette grande humilité mérite certainement d’être respectée! Mais bon, le lien entre la photo ci-dessus et Sagmeister tient du fait que, dans Made You Look, le designer décrit comment son grand oncle, Otto Sagmeister, avait décidé de créer une affiche pour faire la publicité de sa petite “distillerie maison” viennoise. Or, sur l’annonce, un gros bâtiment aux allures de château avec plusieurs cheminées était illustrée, et on mentionnait même une affiliation avec la réputable région française de Cognac (même si Otto n’avait jamais mis les pieds en France!). C’était au début du 20ième siècle – bien avant Photoshop – et ça a sûrement contribué à la créativité et à l’humour de Stefan Sagmeister. En tout cas, relire cette histoire m’a donné le goût de créer une publicité pour YCD montrant nos, ahem, bureaux. Vous pensiez que nous étions au Canada? Hum, non non… notre studio est à Paris, dans une belle bâtisse Hausmanienne à deux pas du Louvre… (si seulement c’était vrai!!!).

Vick.

Fedra Sans

Forewords

Typotheque is a graphic design studio and “digital type foundry”, founded by Peter and Johanna Bil’ak (ahhh, designer husband & wife duo…) in 1999. Anyone who’s interested in typography should bookmark their website, as it is full of useful and beautiful design things available for purchase such as books, t-shirts and . . . → Read More: Typotheque – Celebrating The First Ten Years]]>

Typotheque Typefaces 1999-2009

Fedra Sans

Forewords

Typotheque is a graphic design studio and “digital type foundry”, founded by Peter and Johanna Bil’ak (ahhh, designer husband & wife duo…) in 1999. Anyone who’s interested in typography should bookmark their website, as it is full of useful and beautiful design things available for purchase such as books, t-shirts and of course typefaces as this is what they specialize in. To celebrate their 10 years anniversary, they sent us – and a bunch of other people, I’m sure – a nice little brochure that commemorate what they’ve accomplished in the last decade. I was very impressed by it, which was to be expected since it puts together a few of my most favourite design elements:

- A typography-based design;

- A good used of “the grid”;

- The use of black ink on newsprint;

- It’s Dutch (ok, that’s not really a design elements, but what I mean is that Dutch design is one of my favourite and a trip to Amsterdam is enough to convince anyone that design is ultra-present everywhere, even in the streets (see picture below).

You will notice that my favourite design elements all have one thing in common: they are simple. Yet, when you put them together the result is stunning and nothing is missing. No frou-frou and no need for fancy stuff. Just a well executed, simple design, like the Typotheque brochure above. A special mention goes to the envelope in which the brochure came in. Again, simple, typography based design but this time in a bright orange colour that contrast well enough with the brochure to create a balance when the two items are put together. We wish Typotheque a very happy 10 years old birthday, and look forward to their 20th anniversary brochure.

Amsterdam