Yellow Car Design: The Blog

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!

Our pretty 2011 Christmas cards!

ycd — Tue, 06 Dec 2011 21:33:17 +0000

Front

Back

This is the pretty YCD Happy Holiday card – 2011 Edition - that we designed for our clients & friends. It’s always great fun to spend some time doing design work for ourselves and to have carte blanche for all stylistic choices (including the choice of a reindeer photo amongst ALL the reindeer photos available in the whole world!). Thanks to a little print defect, our order was doubled by the printing company so we now have a few extra to spare… So if you haven’t received one and would like your own YCD 2011 Holiday Memorabilia drop us a line with your address at info@yellowcardesign.com and we’ll be happy to mail you one.

“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.

Latest work! Zeste : un cadeau gourmand.

ycd — Thu, 17 Nov 2011 16:03:08 +0000

Certificat-cadeau | Magazine Zeste

Lucky people who will be receiving a subscription to Zeste (Quebec’s most delicious-looking food-related magazine) this holiday season will not only receive 4 or 8 issues of one of the best executed magazine in the province: they will also receive this beautiful gift certificate, designed by none other than us @ Yellow Car Design. We were commissioned by the magazine to create a print-at-home certificate for people buying the subscription as a present to give to their loved ones to let them know that they were now subscribers to Zeste. The deadline for the project was very tight but thanks to the great pictures that were submitted to us we were quickly inspired and designed something that looks good in next to no time!

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Les chanceux(ses) qui recevront un abonnement à Zeste (certainement la publication culinaire québécoise la plus appétissante) en cette période des Fêtes ne recevront pas seulement 4 ou 8 numéros du magazine gourmand le plus haut de gamme de la province : ils recevront également ce joli certificat-cadeau, conçu par nul autre que nous, Yellow Car Design. Nous avions reçu le mandat de créer un certificat pouvant être imprimé à la maison par les gens qui achètent l’abonnement en cadeau; ils peuvent ainsi donner le certificat à l’être cher(ère) pour lui dire qu’il ou elle est désormais abonné(e) à Zeste. Nous avions très peu de temps pour compléter le projet mais grâce aux excellentes photos qui nous ont été soumises nous avons été rapidement inspirés et sommes arrivés à un très bon résultat en un temps record!

Little Owls T-shirt

ycd — Thu, 13 Oct 2011 16:14:50 +0000

If you’re following us on Facebook you’ll remember that a few weeks ago we mentioned that we had ordered a t-shirt from Wordans, a canadian website where you can order custom-designed apparel ranging from t-shirts to aprons, passing by g-strings and tote bags… Well the t-shirt we ordered came and we’re quite happy with the result so we thought we’d post it on the blog!

We had been interested in getting our designs printed on stuff for a long time, and when Marc designed the above little owls for a project I knew right away that they’d look good on a shirt. I chose a plain but good quality beige American Apparel top that I thought would complement the illustration (and the rest of my wardrobe!). The ordering process is quite simple: You choose the apparel you want to print on including the size and the colour, then you simply upload a jpeg of the image you want to use and place it where you want it to be on the product, either at the front or at the back. It gives your a preview (that was ours), you can re-edit it if you’re not 100% satisfied or go ahead with it if you like it, then it takes you to the payment and shipping page. Nice and easy! Also worth mentioning is that if you type “Wordans Coupon” into Google you might get lucky like me and get a discount code for 15% off on your purchase which makes the experience even better.

So go ahead and get your craziest ideas printed on stuff that you can wear. Or if you don’t know how to design it, you can always ask us to design it for you; we’re pros

Vick @ Yellow Car Design

Steve Poses for Birthday Card

ycd — Mon, 26 Sep 2011 17:47:42 +0000

I like to use my design skills in real life, for example when it comes to creating birthday cards for people. I designed the one above for my goddaughter Arianne who turned 10 (already!) last week. Call me cheap, but I do find that paying $6-7 (ofter more for the very fancy ones) for a generic Hallmark card is way too much. Personally, I would also prefer to receive an homemade card, made “with love” and customized to my tastes rather than knowing that whoever bought the card just went to the card section of their grocery store and picked up any card for the sake of buying me one. However, I know that for some people homemade = ugly, but luckily, with our design craftiness we have the best of both world: we can easily create personalized, customized cards but design them in a way that make them look like real ones you’d get from a store. That’s what I did for Arianne’s card: I chose to use a picture of Attitude Steve because, of all our mascots, I think the little ginger fella is her favourite. I gave it a more grown up look by keeping the layout and font simple with black&white Helvetica and repeating the motif of a gift to add the birthday element. All that printed on a nice, thick, stock. Quick, easy, almost free and Arianne gets to have a picture of Steve!

Vick @ Yellow Car Design

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

Carpark Cats in Byward Market

ycd — Tue, 13 Sep 2011 13:43:34 +0000

Marc noticed these weird cat-sculptures the other day as he was coming out of a multi-story carpark located in the Byward Market. He took a picture with his phone to show me, and of course I was intrigued and wanted to see for myself so we went back last weekend (going back with the camera to take more photos to post on the blog was also a great excuse for a walk in the market and a stop on a patio for a pint!).

After Marc showed me the sculptures he had noticed while driving we kept discovering more and more cats! Sadly we ignore who created them and put them there as we could not find any mention of it being some sort of art project. They look like they are made of papier maché or some similar material but we didn’t really want to touch them to find out because, well… it’s not the cleanest carpark ever. So if you have any info about the carpark cats please let us know in the comment section below as we’d like to know more!

Eco Art Exhibition @ Portage Bridge

ycd — Tue, 06 Sep 2011 16:13:06 +0000

I walked a different way to work this morning and by doing so stumbled upon an exhibition taking place at the underpass of Portage Bridge here in Ottawa. 12 large scale photographic artworks with an environmental theme are painted on the walls as part of the summer edition of the Eco Art project (earlier this year these same pictures taken by young photographers from all across Canada were displayed at Dows Gallery, on the Rideau Canal Skateway so you might have seen them there if you’re a Canal skater). It’s always nice to come across an art exhibition (regardless of if you like the art shown or not) when you don’t expect it – especially when it’s at a portion of a path known for being quite dodgy since it’s dark, sometime home to creepy-looking people and has bikes literally coming flying from every direction paying, as usual, no attention to us pedestrians! I actually had to risk my life dodging a dozen cyclists in order to take these pictures so I hope you’ll excuse the weird angles on some of them….Enjoy the exhibition

Vick @ Yellow Car Design