desantis creative

Design in the News: Brooklyn Nets Logo

admin — Wed, 02 May 2012 15:54:33 +0000

It pains us to see New Jersey lose one of the few teams that bears its name to New York. (As if the Giants and Jets who actually make their home in New Jersey and are called New York’s isn’t enough.) But what pains us even more, here at desantis creative, is to see the branding of our former team put in the hands of a hip-hop artist and not a designer.

While we can admire the simplicity of this one color logo, we also are quite frustrated by the mishandled and distorted type. The more a logo is simplified, the more care must be taken into handling the small details of the logo. Here we see type set on a curve, which of course is very common, but the “s” in particular has been distorted in a way it was never intended to be. It hurts the integrity of the clean and simple typeface that is being used.

Of course we’re somewhat bitter New Jerseyans and perhaps a bit biased, so take our opinion with a grain of salt. Personally we feel that the branding is not as polished as it could be and we also feel that there should have been a name changed involved. They are the New Jersey Nets. If you’re gonna take our team Brooklyn, at least give them a new name, for they are no longer our Nets they should be no one’s Nets.

What do you think? Do you like the new branding? Are you as pained as we are? Should they have changed the name? “Good riddance”? Don’t let our bitterness sway you. Feel free to disagree with us. People of New Jersey! Designers! Basketball fans! Let us hear you!

In This House Show Artwork

admin — Wed, 04 Apr 2012 19:55:14 +0000

“Musical, love and relationships, personal, ephemeral, spiritual, warm, disconnection, loneliness, poignant. In this musical, a young couple dealing with their very different hopes and dreams and visions for the future, crash their car into the wall surrounding an old farm house. There they meet a couple who’ve been married for over 50 years, and have some skeletons of their own, which are revealed through conversations between the two couples.”

This is what we had to work with in order to come up with the title treatment and show art for the Two River Theater’s latest show: In This House.

Starting with the title treatment, we did numerous type explorations that tried to express the words that embodied the spirit of the show. We went through an evolution of how the title should be rendered, starting with a more soft look, to a more structured look while still keeping a hand-made quality to the type. The final font was suggested by the Marketing Director of the Theater, emphasizing the architectural aspect of a house.

Once the time came to work on the show artwork, we discussed several different focuses and approaches. In a discussion with the Two River Theater group, we talked about the mood and feeling they wanted to convey with the artwork. “Pastoral, Virginia, Americana, rough, raw, hand-built, hard, real”. They mentioned the opening scene to the 1986 movie “‘night Mother”, which shows shots of a rural road, then an isolated house on that road, then several shots of the outside of that house, which makes the audience curious about what is happening inside. They wanted the same kind of intrigue with the poster. They were envisioning a house in the snow, with perhaps a light on–just enough to make one wonder what is happening inside.

We also explored the imagery of a needlepoint canvas in a distressed frame on an aged wall, with the title rendered in needlepoint.

Finally it was suggested we use old family photos scattered around. We tried a version with a more straightforward arrangement of the photos as was suggested, but we also came up with the idea of forming the shape of a house with the pictures. That solution ended up working perfectly in highlighting both the human drama and the structure of the house (a significant metaphoric element) in the play.

Design in the News: Controversial Cigarette Labels

admin — Tue, 20 Mar 2012 20:06:53 +0000

Have you heard about the controversy erupting over the new warning labels that the government has mandated for cigarette packs? According to an article on Time.com, a federal law took effect in 2009 that mandated a new and graphic warning label be placed on all cigarette packs. These labels would cover 50% of both the front and back of the cigarette carton. Tobacco companies are also banned from using branded merchandise, sponsoring social events, or giving away free samples.

The 2009 Family Smoking Prevention and Tobacco Control Act is intended to sway people from purchasing tobacco products, convince people to quit, and prevent people from ever beginning to smoke. The tobacco companies are arguing that being forced to advertise the government’s anti-smoking agenda on their product is a First Amendment violation.

The judge who ruled on Monday in federal appeals court that the law is constitutional claims that these labels will better communicate the message to youths and the illiterate, therefore she feels that the labels are more effective than the text-only warnings.

The labels have yet to appear on cigarette cartons and as the legal battle continues, who knows if they ever will.

What do YOU think?

From an ethical perspective, does the government have the responsibility to the people to effectively warn the people of the harmful effects of cigarettes? Is this the right way to do it? Have they gone too far? Is this a violation of First Amendment rights?

From a design perspective, can the government interfere with the branding of a legal product? If you were a designer, how would you deal with designing for tobacco companies if these labels do go into effect?

Design is a powerful thing!

Has it been taken too far? Does design for the sake of good justify the interference of a company’s branding?

UPDATE: Promotional Calendar Scores ANOTHER ADDY!

admin — Mon, 27 Feb 2012 16:24:28 +0000

UPDATE 3/28/12: We were just notified that out calendar won ANOTHER GOLD ADDY and will be moving on to the NATIONAL LEVEL!

2/27/12: We’re excited to announce that our 12 Things to Do Before the World Ends Calendar has won a GOLD ADDY from the Canton Ad Federation.

As we brainstormed for a Holiday self-promotional, we recalled that according to the Mayan calendar, we’ll be toast come December 21, 2012. So we began compiling a kind of bucket list for the year, with one resolution for every month, including “Take off the whole month and go to the beach” in August and “Dropkick the groundhog if he sees his shadow” in February. Using simple illustrations and bright colors, we hoped to bring a light-hearted attitude to our impending doom.

A little bit about the ADDYs:
The ADDY Awards is the advertising industry’s largest and most representative competition, attracting over 50,000 entries every year in local ADDY competitions. The mission of the ADDY competition is to recognize and reward creative excellence in the art of advertising.

It is a three-tiered competition. Because of our GOLD, we qualify for the regional tier. After that is the national level!

We’re pretty pumped over here at desantis creative!

Jitney Show Artwork

admin — Wed, 08 Feb 2012 21:48:22 +0000

This month, the Two River Theater is featuring August Wilson’s Jitney. We thought it would be fun to share how we arrived at the artwork you see around town.

We started with the title treatment which was featured by itself in the season announcement brochure released last fall. We did some type explorations which played up the timeframe in which the play takes place: 1977. Then we came up with the idea of using a license plate font to render the title. We toyed with the idea of altering the title to read like a vanity plate, “J1TN3Y”. However, it was agreed that the title would not be as quickly readable, so we went with the more straightforward rendition of the title.

Once the title logotype was established, we moved on to the full artwork. We brainstormed together with the theater about what would be the appropriate visual to sell the show. At the beginning, the theater was enthusiastic about trying a collage approach for the entire season’s artwork, so we worked up ideas for several of the shows using the collage look. We would use the color palette established in the season brochure, which assigned a specific color to each show, and gather different images that all contributed to illustrate what the show was about. We eventually settled on approaching each show individually and uniquely. For Jitney we tried a few different focuses, including using a portrait of the author, August Wilson, whom the theater felt had a strong enough draw and recognition to be the feature of the show.

Ultimately we went with a terrific portrait of Mr. Wilson by David Cooper, which shows him standing in front of a wall of sheets of paper, showing his writing.

Field Station: Dinosaurs – Branding

admin — Mon, 06 Feb 2012 16:14:49 +0000

For Field Station: Dinosaurs, we had the unique opportunity to brand a new theme park to open this summer featuring full scale animatronic dinosaurs. The client had a specific idea in mind, in which these dinosaurs were found at the site, and a fleet of scientists descended on the area and set up a camp.

Following that approach, the whole look and feel for the park and for the park’s materials would be a little rough and grungy to recall a military/scientific operation. The logo is intended to look like it would live comfortably on utilitarian objects such as the sides of crates, on tents and on rusty chain link fences. We went with a stencil look for the word “dinosaurs”, paired with another eroded typeface to give it that worn, used look. By having the word “Dinosaurs” stenciled, we are alluding to the possibility that the field stations can incorporate other discoveries aside from dinosaurs, which gives the brand an additional conceptual layer. It was also important to include the Manhattan skyline, since the park’s proximity to the city is an important selling point.

Having the dinosaurs rise above the name and skyline gives a sense of the large scale of the dinosaurs. And by using 3 different dinosaurs, we have the flexibility to expand the brand across the different applications we will be doing, including the park’s signage, merchandising and their advertising.