Why I get turned on by Cool Graphic Design

The truth is, I'm not a brilliant graphic designer. I wish I was but I just ain't. Competent yes, brilliant no. That's okay though because I might just possibly be a brilliant writer (feel free to disagree) In any case, I want to tell you a little bit about my attraction to visual things. You see, graphic design is something that's meant to be transparent. That means that the person looking at the advertisement is supposed to think "I'm going to run right out and buy some Charmin" not "wow, cool, what a great photo this is of Mr. Whipple."

Too bad for the advertising agencies because I've more often found myself contemplating the photo of Mr. Whipple and forgetting about running to the store for toilet paper. I love big bold designs. I love soft and sophisticated designs. What I love most of all is products that reflect their function. By that I mean that not only do they look good, but they are designed to be part and parcel of what they are. Does this make no sense? Take for example this little pad made for CostCo cashiers. Sure they could have made up pads with the CostCo logo on them. But instead the designers put a little pallet under the pad, the same kind of pallet that you see all over actual CostCo stores. This was not an inexpensive proposition and it says a lot about CostCo's executives that they took the creative, and more expensive route.

Over the last ten years of being a competent but probably not brilliant graphic designer, I've been collecting cool items like the CostCo pad and stuffing them into a box for some as yet unspecified use. Then it came to me: why not give out my own Academy Awards for all the super creative and bodacious items I've collected over the last ten years? After all, the advertising industry has been doing that for years. So here they are, all my favorites collected in the hall of fame. And the categories are:

Creative – these materials are just so lively and fun I couldn't help but love them.

Super Fun! - These youthful designs make even tedious and scary material quite palatable. 

Bold, Bright, & Bodacious – I have a predilection for bright colors and designs that burst out at the seams. These samples will knock your socks off.

Soft & Sophisticated – Turns out that I also like gentle and muted colors and styles. The items in this section sell quietly.

Form follows Function - These items reflect what they are in both style and design, like the CostCo pad above.

And... if you insist, some samples of my own graphic design work.