Yellow Car Design: The Blog » stuff we like

Misfits – the show not the band

ycd — Fri, 20 Jan 2012 17:59:00 +0000

IFC started showing Season 1 of Misfits, a science-fiction drama TV series produced in the UK about a group of young offenders (some of which are typical English chavs who remind us of people we used to know in England…aww memories!) forced to work in a community service programme. They get supernatural powers after a weird electrical storm. It’s not super recent – channel E4 started airing the first season in November 2009 – but it’s new for us and we thought we’d just do a quick blog post about the show’s intro. Not only do we like the song used (Echoes by The Rapture), but we love the way they treated the typography and images to give them that a “rough” and “underground” look. The animation sequence is well done; we particularly love the bit where the cat jumps (of course!). It really pictures well the whole atmosphere of the show: dramatic but funny and absurd at the same time. The first time we saw it we were reminded of the cool picture below; we took it in an underpass somewhere in London a few years ago. We think it suits perfectly the Misfits and could have easily been used as part of their branding! If only the series producers had known; they could have contacted us and bought the right to the picture… E4 would have been a nice client to add to our portfolio… Anyways, watch it (IFC Canada – Wednesday @ 11 PM) and enjoy!

What was your Christmas day wine?

ycd — Wed, 04 Jan 2012 18:54:06 +0000

That was ours, a Narcissist Riesling from the wine collection Megalomaniac which we of course bought because we really liked the label, not because of our inflated sense of self-esteem and the overestimation of our powers and beliefs… or was that the reason why we liked it?! Who knows! In any case, here’s a little unpretentious review of both the designers and wine lovers’ perspectives:

THE DESIGNERS’ PERSPECTIVE:

The label comprises many of our favourite design elements: an embossed name (for a subtle 3D effect), minimal colours that are used intelligently to highlight a few details (tie + corsage), fancy metallic ink (our photo isn’t of the best quality, check out the LCBO website to see a studio picture that shows the reflection better), it’s printed on a thick, off-white, cool died-cut paper, it uses a black, sans-serif font in various weights for the hierarchy of text… In other words, it’s simple, minimalist and it works. More importantly, it really communicates the idea behind the product’s name. After all, megalomania is all about one’s self-absorbency, and what’s better to illustrate that than a mirror!? And that’s exactly the effect produced by the metallic ink; it sorts of lets you see your own reflection in the label. We wonder if the metallic ink could have been used in a way that it’s located at the place where the head should be, so that when you hold the bottle your own face appears on it? That would have certainly been top megalomaniac! It might even have been a bit creepy, so another way the designers conveyed the mirror idea is by playing with the typography so that “2009 Narcissist Riesling” is reflected on the label, as if we were reading it in a mirror. Very cool.

In regards to the wine’s name, a quote from the maker on the back of the bottle explains it:

What’s with the name? I originally wanted to christen these wines in my name, John Howard, …and then my good friends accused me of being yet another “[profanity withheld] megalomaniac”. Regrettably, the name stuck.

For the rest, design-wise the bottle is pretty plain – in a good way of course. It has a nice smooth shape and shade of green. It’s a screw-top (silver; it goes well with the label) so no fancy cork to describe, and no difficulty to open the bottle, which takes us to…

THE WINE LOVERS’ PERSPECTIVE:

Okay, so let’s make something clear: we are not wine connoisseurs, and we are far from pretending to be. Having both worked at Starbucks when we were students and being put through “coffee tastings” way too many times, we have a very cynical view of all “tastings”. Back then, we knew than describing Espresso roast using the terms “earthy mushrooms”, “burned sundried tomatoes”, and Marc’s all-times favourite “tastes like a forest after the rain” was just an easy way to make our manager happy and that happy manager = easy work shift. So when we read the wine’s reviews on the LCBO website that says: Juicy-terrific! Lovely melon and peach fruit unfold in waves of flavour. Love this style. Slightly off-dry so it is incredibly food-friendly and light-bodied - well we take it with a pinch of salt. Did we taste melon and peach fruit? Not really. Was it good? YES! It was really delicious! Did we pair it with chicken salad, crab salad, shellfish like recommended? Nope, we had it with chicken madras curry, our Christmas dinner. Did it work? Yep. It was a very good match – we think – as the sweetness of the wine soothed the spiciness of the curry. It’s a light and refreshing wine for sure, a wine that would also have been great on its own during a warm summer afternoon. Versatile, but far from bland. We recommend it for sure. It’s an VQA Ontario wine from the Niagara peninsula, region known for the quality of the Riesling wine it produces. It’s reasonably-priced ($17.95) and can be found in the Vintage section of certain LCBO locations. It would make a perfect gift – especially if you’re trying to get a message through to that big-headed friend of yours. You can even order a custom gift box from their [profanity withheld] flash website (it’s a nice, interesting site, but we just can’t stand flash – it wouldn’t even open in Firefox so we had to use Safari. Effort.). Anyways, make sure your Flash is up-to-date and visit their site at http://www.megalomaniacwine.com

Once you’ve tried Narcissist Riesling let’s compare tasting notes!

“Extra-long so you never make unwanted contact.”

ycd — Mon, 28 Nov 2011 13:37:48 +0000

The title of this post refers to the latest bags we bought to, well… to pick up our dog, Desmond’s poo! We normally buy the Dollars Store’s own version of biodegradable poop bags, but last time we were at Costco we saw these and fell in love with the packaging (if you’re a regular on this blog you’ll know that we often choose to buy stuff simply for the way they look, like it was the case for this or that – we justify the few extra dollars paid on nicely designed stuff by featuring them here ). So here’s our review of “The World’s Best PoopBags” (that’s how they’re called) in comparison with the Dollars Stores brand from both a designer and a dog-owner perspective.

THE DESIGNER’S PERSPECTIVE:

What’s not to love about the design of the World’s Best PoopBags!? The dog illustrations are simply irresistible. We love their simplicity and how easily they communicate what the product is about: taking care of your dog’s “needs” in an ecological manner. The bags are biodegradable (in 18-months) and their “greenest” is well shown by the choice of 100% post-consumer recycled paper for the box (which, with the 2 tones of green printing, looks great from a design perspective!). The use of the leaves and of the colour green for the illustrations also emphasize the eco-friendliness. Inside, the packaging is minimal: 25 rolls of 15 bags, held together by a little round sticker of the friendly dog. A clear window on the top of the box let us see the rolls inside, which is an appreciated feature. The quirky text on the box (including the mention “Big enough for a Great Dane’s pile.”) is written in a Serif-but-not-too-serious font which goes very well with the illustrations and humoristic tone. The bags themselves are very attractive too: again they feature the friendly dog and the company’s branding. Under the box, along with the bar code, is an invitation to “like” the company on Facebook. We personally would have put this on the back with the other text – we doubt that every person buying the box will look at it under every angles like we did for the purpose of this post. Many people might therefore miss the Facebook icon. Overall though, it’s a very nice design that respect perfectly the company’s branding throughout all the elements: from the box to the actual bags, via the little stickers used to hold the roll together. A visit to the company’s website shows that they are consistent with their branding online as well, which makes us appreciate them even more!

In case you want to see what the Dollar Store poo bags look like, here’s a picture (okay, it doesn’t help that the box got somehow destroyed by our cats before the picture was taken, but still, you can see that, design-wise, it’s really not a winner). Who thought that putting the head of the little girl hugging the dog on the detachable flap was a good idea?! Once the box is open we’re left with an headless dog hugger. Poor, poor design choice – but what do you expect from something bought at the Dollars Store?! We won’t elongate on this design other than to say that it’s very basic and unremarkable.

Now, on to…

THE DOG OWNER’S PERSPECTIVE:

Shame there isn’t a scratch-and-sniff function on this blog: you do want to smell the great scent of lavender emanating from these bags! Indeed, the cupboard where we store Desmond’s stuff now has a nice smell of lavender thanks to the box of PoopBags that have been stored in there for a few days. Good to know is the fact that the lavender scent really covers the “other” smell, making your journey from the pick-up place to the rubbish can a little bit nicer. The Dollars Store bags are also scented: with a weird coconutty-vanilla-very-sweet perfume…however they certainly don’t smell strong enough to perfume your cupboard.

Price-wise, we calculated that, at a cost of $9.99 for a box of 375 bags at Costco, each bag costs 3 cents before taxes. Comparatively, the Dollars Store ones are $1.00 for a box of 60 bags, so they come up to 2 cents per bag before taxes. The World’s Best PoopBags are therefore slightly more expensive than the Dollars Store ones… They are, however, a few inches longer which, as mentioned on the box and on this blog’s title, makes avoiding unwanted contact between your hand and the “pile” you’ve just picked up easier and allows for an easy knotting of the bag before you dump it in the bin.

Biodegradability-wise, both the World’s Best PoopBags and the Dollar Store one have the EPI certification and have been certified by the American Society for Testing and Materials. We’re not scientists, but we think that it can be assumed that both products are safe for the environment and will degrade much quicker than regular plastic bags. So on that note, both brands win.

Finally, the Dollar Store bags are Made in Thailand, imported by some company and distributed in Dolloramas across the country. The World’s Best PoopBags, on the other hand, are Made in Canada by what seems to be a real company with real people behind it (they even have a blog!), and are available online and in more than 175 stores in the country (including Costco, where we bought our big box of 375 bags).

CONCLUSION:

Since the 2 brands’ functionality is pretty much the same, when it comes to choosing between the Dollar Store poo bags and The World’s Best PoopBags, we guess it all depends on if you’re willing to spend a few more pennies to encourage a “local” company instead of giving your money to some nameless corporation. And of course, it also depends on how trendy you want to be while picking up your dog’s poo…

If you’re also a dog owner and belong to the 53% of dog owners that ALWAYS pick-up their dog’s poop when it occurs in public place (crazy I know – only half of us are responsible dog-owners according to the statistic we found here!) please feel free to share your own reviews of poop bags below in the comment section. And please, please, please: no matters what type of bags you use, always pick up after your dog! Otherwise it makes us, responsible dog-owners, look bad.

Dress for the cause

ycd — Mon, 19 Sep 2011 16:37:04 +0000

In the category “direct mail that grabs your attention”, below is the latest mailing piece we received from the Breast Cancer Society of Canada. Amongst a pile of boring pizzeria flyers and a few despised invoices, that very bright pink bra cutout certainly added a bit of colour to our post. It’s nice to get something clever and nicely designed in the mail for once…

Why clever? Because the pink bra works on so many levels: first, the event’s name is Dress for the Cause, so evidently choosing an element of clothing reinforces that message. Furthermore, the pink soutien-gorge strongly illustrate the campaign’s slogan: Show your Support for the Cause – indeed, since a bra’s main function is to, well, support, it’s a very intelligent choice of imagery. Then of course it makes direct reference to women’ breast because that’s, after all, what bras are made for!

So why do I find it nicely designed? Because sometime, less is more and I think that this is a great example of this simple idea being applied with success. Indeed, whoever worked on this concept could have chosen a different way to use the bra; maybe by illustrating one, by having a model wearing it, by having more than 1 bra, etc. In this case, they chose to use a picture of one pink bra on a white background. That’s it. Oh and with the event’s signature in the hoop created by the strap. Nice and simple. It grabs women’ attention because it’s pretty and feminine and attracts men’ attention because it’s sexy. A winner design

Then of course the back of the mailing piece has more details about the event (in a few words: wear pink on October 28th to show your support for the fight against breast cancer) and has all the usual contact information including a trendy QR-Code that takes you right to the registration page.

Now that your attention has been grabbed by the pink bra – whether by its prettiness or its sexiness – you have all the info you need so go on and wear you best pink outfit on October 28th to show your support!

Vick @ Yellow Car Design

Snail Mail My Email – Art Project

ycd — Tue, 30 Aug 2011 17:43:21 +0000

Letter we received from Snail Mail My Email

Isn’t that adorable?! Even though I did come up with that lovely message, I didn’t actually write it down and drew the little illustration: Snail Mail My Email did it for me. Snail Mail was a month-long worldwide collaborative art project that took place from July 15 – August 15, 2011. It allowed people to email them a letter, which was then handwritten by volunteers along with customizable options. I of course asked for an illustration of the first thing that came to my minds: our YCD mascots (if I remember rightly I asked for a doodle of a grey cat, a ginger cat and a B&W dog sitting on top of a yellow car). The letter created was then mailed to the recipient (in our case, us), completely free of charge.

When I first came across the project on Twitter I thought it was pretty cool and worst mentioning on The Blog… but then I thought: “Wait, what if I sent a letter to The Blog readers themselves through the art project to tell them about it?” Much much cooler, and I got to encourage the art project that, by the way, had 234 volunteers send 10,457 handwritten letters to over 50 countries around the world, spanning across all seven continents… I also got to surprise Marc since I hadn’t told him about the letter (didn’t want him to be disappointed if it hadn’t showed up!). When him and Desmond went to the postbox this morning they were quite surprised to see a nice yellow envelope addressed to Yellow Car Design instead of the usual bills!

The success of the Snail Mail My Email project shows that, contrarily to all beliefs due to the over-usage of e-mails, the old mailing system isn’t dead. People still enjoy finding a “real” letter in their mailbox. I am myself quite a snail mail fanatic who insists on checking the postbox everyday (especially when expecting cheques from our clients ) in the hope of receiving something amazing. It happens once in a while when Marc’s mum sends him his mail from England and decides to include a few Galaxy chocolate bars and a bag or two of Minstrels… That, believe me, makes the little walk to the postbox well worth it! So now, get to your pens and paper and start doing what you haven’t done in a long time: physically write a letter to say “hi” to someone. And if you want to be extra-nice, add a little bar of chocolate in the envelope: you are guaranteed to make that person’s day 100 times better!

Vick @ Yellow Car Design

Japan: Tradition. Innovation. – An exhibition review

ycd — Tue, 23 Aug 2011 14:07:24 +0000

Japan has always been at the top of the list of countries we’d like to visit someday. Not only are we fascinated by Japanese arts and design, we’d also like to see if it is as strange there as depicted in Haruki Murakami’s books (recommended readings: The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle, Norwegian Wood, After Dark, A Wild Sheep Chase).

When we saw a few months ago than an exhibition about Japanese design was coming to town (at the Museum of Civilization) we thought it was something not to be missed and we ended up going last Sunday.

“From fashion to robots, today’s cutting-edge achievements are mirrored in an earlier time. Creativity and innovation flourished in both the Edo period (1603–1867) and contemporary Japan (1945–2011). These times are similar in Japan because of their lack of armed conflict, greater political autonomy, shifting social hierarchies, and increasing wealth and leisure time.

By exploring five key areas — travel, robotics, social status, consumer culture and entertainment — Japan: Tradition. Innovation. demonstrates the parallels between these two important periods.” -from the exhibition website

That sums up very well what the exhibition was about. From ancient to modern times, we were given an overview of what has been achieved in the land of the rising sun in a range of fields from travelling to entertaining. The exhibition was really worth going even though we felt like a few things were missing. Indeed, why was there no mention of Tamagoshi, these keyring/digital pets that were so popular in the late 90’s. Also, what about Nintendo? A little mention of this brand which is basically a synonym with Japan for people of our generation would have been appreciated! Also, there was no Maneki Neko (lucky cat) to be seen… these little creatures have been around since the later part of the Edo period and are recognized around the world as a synonym of good luck… Again, a little “hi” to them would have been nice!

Anyways, there was still a lot to see so here are a few of our highlights:

Old Maps, Object & Furniture

A few very ancient maps and very old objects such as writing and manicure kits were displayed and it’s always amazing to see how detailed and decorative they are and how time consuming it must have been to create them.

A daimyo lunchbox, 1800s – Wood with lacquer and gold, Collection of the Royal Ontario Museum © ROM

Woodprints

Some woodprint artworks were on show and included the actual wood blocks that had served to create the print. Sadly Vicky’s all times favourite – The Great Wave at Kanagawa by Katsushika Hokusai – wasn’t on display. We can’t find pictures of the ones that were there so here is a picture of The Great Wave anyway. Getting back to the exhibition, it was very impressive to see how the woodblock used to create the prints were just as nice at the final artwork themselves. It made us want to try this technique at some point.

The Great Wave at Kanagawa by Katsushika Hokusai

Kimono & Samurai Armor

A great collection of kimonos wore for various occasions were on display. Be it to wear around the house or wear at a traditional ceremony, this type of dress is always synonym of refinement and elegance due to its fine patterns and delicate fabrics… in contradiction to the daimyo (lords who controlled Japan’s provinces during the Edo period)’s armour, which is a lot more oppressive in look!

Daimyo armour, Late 1500s to 1800s - Collection of the Art Gallery of Greater Victoria

Pottery & dishes

Chopsticks, sushi dishes, rice bowls… Whether they’re modern or ancient, a special attention is always paid by Japanese designers to the shape, size and colour of each item they create.

Porcelain by designer Mashahiro Mori (Manufacturer: Hakusan Porcelain Co. Ltd.) - Collection of the Canadian Museum of Civilization

Honda Civic

We were able to say “hello” to our own car’s ancestor, the very first generation Honda Civic introduced in 1972. It was designed to compete with American compact vehicles and offered features such as front power disc brakes and reclining vinyl bucket seats and AM radio… Such luxury!

Honda Civic First Generation, 1972-1973

Robots

Who wouldn’t want to have a robot to do their daily chores? We ourselves have been contemplating getting a Roomba to get rid of our mascots’ dander effortlessly… After meeting Wakamaru, we find the Roomba’s design a bit too simple and a tiny bit unfriendly compared to Wakamaru’s opened arms! Sadly though, Wakamaru isn’t meant to clean your house; it was designed to help elderly users to take their medications, to provide them with basic information such as the news and weather forecasts, etc.

Designer: Toshiyuki Kita, 2002 (Manufacturer: Mitsubishi Heavy Industries, Japan)

Anime & Manga

From Astro Boy to Sailor Moon, without of course forgetting Pokémon and Hello Kitty, the last part of the exhibition was dedicated to anime and mangas (Japanese word for “comics” and “cartoons” which, in the west, has been, appropriated to refer to comics created in Japan or by Japanese authors). Vicky’s childhood favourite “Rémi sans famille” (家なき子, Ie Naki Ko – in English: Nobody’s Boy: Remi) was also featured in the exhibition and reminded Vicky of its lovely theme tune. Here it is for you to enjoy:

Sadly, there was no mention of Studio Ghibli, a Japanese animation film studio that produced many great films and won many awards (recommended viewings: Castle in the Sky; My Neighbor Totoro ; Porco Rosso ; Spirited Away). Again, we know that not everything Japanese could have been featured in the exhibition so I guess we’ll just have to plan a trip to Japan in order to see the rest! Who wants to babysit the mascots?!

Studio Ghibli

New logo of the Montreal Impact – MLS 2012

ycd — Tue, 09 Aug 2011 16:42:13 +0000

Logo - IMPACT 2012

Montreal’s Impact will be joining Toronto FC and Vancouver Whitecaps in the MLS next season and for the occasion they revamped their logo. We gotta say, a redesign was clearly in order as this is what it used to look like:

Very “Junior League”… Overall, we quite like the new logo and find it’s amongst the best ones of the league. We like the shape, the colours and the use of the Fleur de Lys, stars and stripes. It’s symbolic without being overly clichéd. However, we’re not too fond of the font used for the team’s name. It seems like a font with a little more impact (no pun intended!) would have suited the design better.

The logo was created by Pigeon* Branding + Design, a design agency with offices in Montreal and Oakville, ON whose recent work other than the Impact logo seems to be more in the field of packaging design. With clients such as Dempster’s, Danone, General Mills, Kraft, Shoppers Drug Mart and of course Saputo (who’s owner also owns Montreal’s Impact!), we are surrounded by their designs every time we go to the grocery store or simply open our refrigerator… They’ve also created a little explanatory video to illustrate the logo’s narrative:

Just for fun to see what people think, we’d like to know: according to you, which MLS team has the best logo? To vote for your favourite, please join our Facebook page and answer the poll question.

Converted mailbox – Project idea for Canada Post!

ycd — Thu, 05 May 2011 14:25:54 +0000

We went for a walk in Wakefield, QC last weekend and saw this nice mailbox converted into a drop-off box for books outside the public library. We thought it was a great and unique example of recycling and that, actually, it’d be a good idea for Canada Post follow this example and to start turning more of their mailboxes into artwork like this one; it’d add a little je-ne-sais-quoi to boring neighborhoods!

GO à vélo! – 2011

ycd — Thu, 21 Apr 2011 13:07:56 +0000

GO à vélo! - 2011

Remember that blog entry from June 2010 featuring the logo we created for GO à vélo!, a team doing the 1000 km bike ride for the Grand Défi Pierre Lavoie? Well, since they doubled the amount of cyclists in order to create 2 teams for this year’s challenge, we updated their logo to illustrate that change and here is how it now looks on Louise Lévesque’s, the team captain, jersey! Nice isn’t?

Again this year we wish the best of luck to “our” teams! If you’d like to make an online donation and help GO à vélo! reach their $10,000 objective for the lactic acidosis awareness & research cause, please visit their page.

——————

Vous vous souvenez de ce blogue datant de juin 2010 où nous parlions du logo que nous avons créé pour GO à vélo!, une équipe de cyclistes participant au Grand Défi Pierre Lavoie? Éh bien, puisque l’équipe a doublé son nombre de cyclistes pour ainsi faire 2 équipes de participants, nous avons modifié leur logo pour illustrer ce changement pour l’édition de cette année. Voici de quoi ça a l’air sur le maillot de Louise Lévesque, la capitaine de l’équipe. Joli, n’est-ce pas?

Encore cette année nous souhaitons la meilleure des chances à “nos” équipes et nous vous encourageons à faire un don pour cette bonne cause en vous rendant directement sur la page de GO à vélo pour les aider à atteindre leur objectif de 10 000$!

Logo -2011

Buttons Bags

ycd — Mon, 28 Feb 2011 16:14:45 +0000

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Cadbury Buttons

I am a bit ashamed of posting this blog entry since just last week we posted one about ice-cream… You’ll think we’re eating only sugar-loaded stuff here at YCD, and believe me, we’re actually eating very healthy food and certainly having our daily rations of fruit & veg! We do have a sweet tooth though, and when we see great packaging like the one above we can simply not resist a little indulgence (telling ourselves that we NEED to buy it for the blog’s sake!!).

Back to the Buttons…

Pearlfisher, a London/New York-based (lucky them!) agency specialized in packaging design came up with the design back in 2009 (however, I’ve only started seeing it on shelves in Canada recently…so I don’t know when it was actually launched here). Pearlfisher are known for having created great work for Absolut Vodka and Innocent (tasty little smoothies we used to drink all the time in England). For Dairy Milk Buttons, they went with cool-and-funky-but-not-too-cute illustrations that certainly grab your attention when you see them on the grocery store shelf. I myself felt like a little kid when deciding which one to choose (I finally went for the cat – for obvious reasons). The designs certainly illustrate the brand’s “playfulness” and adds a little uniqueness to its classic purple packaging. It is guaranteed to bring a smile on every Cadbury’s lovers’ face!

Fair-traded, delicious & coming in great packaging… 3 great reasons to indulge yourself!