Exclusively sponsored by Domtar, GDUSA presents it annual selection of leading creatives who exemplify the ‘designing for good’ movement.
Tag: design
Gus Granger
Gus Granger is a Dallas-based brand design and strategy consultant.
Dio Jensen
Dio Jensen is a designer, educator, and illustrator.
Cornell Beard
Cornell Beard is an associate designer at Minneapolis design firm 10 Thousand Design.
Kelli Miller
Kelli Miller is the co-founder of creative studio And/Or, a creative production studio known for intelligent humor and bold, systematic design in motion.
Arturo Martinez
Arturo Martinez is a culturally connected strategist who brings a rich and diverse experience to conceptualize creative ideas through a passion for design thinking, visual design, and understanding.
Kacy Lamb
Kacy Lamb is the Art Director for Children’s Hospital of Colorado.
David Langton + Jim Keller
Langton Creative Group is a digital branding firm that designs visual and messaging solutions that start with a strategy.
Sarah E. Rutherford
Sarah E. Rutherford is an Associate Professor of Design at Cleveland State University.
Andrew Brynjulson
Andrew Brynjulson is an award-winning designer, art director, and brand strategist who has spent over 10 years in the marketing world.
Leslie Greenly Smith
Leslie Greenly is the Smith Marketing and Communications Director for Harford County Public Library, a recognized innovator and leader among the nation’s public libraries.
Sam Aquillano
Sam Aquillano is the Founder and Executive Director of Design Museum Everywhere.
Rinat Aruh
Rinat Aruh is Co-Founder and CEO of Aruliden, an award-winning design agency that specializes in purpose-driven product design, branding, and creative strategy from zero to launch.
Nancy Abbott
Nancy Abbott is the Senior Graphic Designer at the DuPage Children’s Museum (DCM).
Heather Barbis
A creative problem-solver, Heather Barbis is the founder and lead creative of HB Design, a design studio based in Morro Bay CA.
Gianmaria Schonlieb
Gianmaria Schonlieb is a Creative Director at Lyft.
Pam Tremble
Pam Tremble is the lead graphic designer for executive administration at Oakland County, Michigan.
Valerie Aurilio
As General Manager for Landor Chicago, Valerie Aurilio drives collaboration, consensus, and innovation in service of big – and meaningfully different – ideas.
Annabel Mangold
Mangold Design is an award-winning boutique design and brand strategy studio located in Napa, California led by Annabel Mangold.
Jennifer Bergamini
Jennifer Bergamini founded Alamini Creative Group (ACG), an integrated creative agency specializing in branding, website development, and marketing communications, in 1997.
Kelly O’Halloran
Kelly O’Halloran is a Minneapolis-based graphic designer and artist.
Designers Resilient In Adversity
A GDUSA reader poll sponsored by Verso Corporation, papermakers extraordinaire, reveals a surprisingly positive can-do attitude among graphic designers in the face of adversity.
Carsation Becomes Skedaddle
Carsation becomes Skedaddle with rebranding from The Gate NY. Graphics support the value proposition of fast-turnaround, online used-car sales.
LogoLounge 2020 Trend Report
The LogoLounge 2020 trend report is an observation on the logo industry: the ideas here can push your design skills to the next level and keep the trajectory moving to the next iteration.
Counters
There are more than enough idioms in our language that lambast the individual that can’t spot the obvious: They can’t see the forest for the trees; Couldn’t see it if it hit you; Hidden in plain sight; or a personal favorite, Can’t see a hole in a ladder. Though questioning a designer’s perspective can be […]
Mazes
Mazes and their inception have always puzzled me. In classical times, I can imagine them being laid out and pruned within an inch of their life to amuse the owner of some well-healed estate. On the other hand, I can see that they could have been a way for the elite to dispose of boorish […]
Sisters
Humans have a desire to achieve a level of balance and harmony. We like to create order. As a rule, order can give us a sense of wellbeing. This is all part of a much bigger psychological conversation associated with the Gestalt theory, but for the purpose of this trend it’s driven by our comfort […]
Chexmelt
Sometimes an aesthetic meets it demise and no one remembered to tell it. A bit like my feelings for designs that trod out the old circuit board solder pathways careening around like a pair of Tron cycles abruptly flaring out to terminate in a silver dot cul-de-sac. That technology probably took us to the moon […]
Bevel Tips
Each trend report manages to identify a shape or two that rapidly populate every designer’s kit of parts like words that enter the news cycle based on a sheet of talking points. Every pundit uses the phrase like it spontaneously leapt to their lips, and every designer uses the shape of the hour with the […]
Petri Dish
We’ve always thought of a petri dish as a fully contained eco-system that investigates bacteria and other phenomenon. Those clear dishes serve as our little round window into discovery of the unknown, while sealed to protect us from their content. Exactly like these logos. These micro views of a macro world are tightly cropped shots, […]
Variable Type
When evaluating the lift-off thrust of any trend, success is often measured between the born-on date and the rise to critical mass. If momentum doesn’t build, you’re doomed. On the other hand, popular trends tend to burn out overnight. We find variable type on a strong pace to have an influence on logo trends for […]
Blackletter
Hard to throw too much shade at a font that was Europe’s only choice from the 12th to the 17th century. Blackletter fonts never completely vanished and became the preferred text for Germany, which probably explains its recent resurgence with the vast array of microbrew pubs dotting corners across the globe. It’s never truly been […]
iDrops
I like to imagine the conversations that take place in designer presentations I’m not privy to. After you’ve worked with enough clients you start to recognize some of the signs of client fatigue that lead a designer to give in on this thing or that. I picture the designer whose work has been stripped down […]
Handout
Take a look at this beautiful array of hands that are abundant this year. Dramatically different in illustration style, and beyond the hands themselves, there’s one distinct commonality: They all have something either hovering above them or we captured these elements in free fall. This may be symbolic of the magical essence of the relationship […]
Bolts
A symbol is only a representation of a thing or concept. We know a human heart looks nothing like the symbol we use to represent it. Nor does a star, or fire or a cloud. The ancient Greeks used a symbol for lightning that looks nothing like our modern-day interpretation. And our interpretation, looks nothing […]
Twinkle
Those that follow this report annually may recall a few years back we identified the expanded use of four-pointed stars to which we assigned the name Sparkle. At the time, this group was fledgling, but typically appeared as a non-aligned star avoiding jingoistic or religious connotations with more points. Four points was enough to get […]
Cornered
As designers, I cheer on any of our ilk that creates a product so engaging that the public becomes inextricably involved in it. I mean isn’t that one of our ultimate goals‒to captivate the public and create a symbol that can’t be ignored? Optical illusions often do that as do single perspective murals that shift […]
Letter Illusions
There are those things in life that can make us feel uncomfortable or on edge, but that captivate us nonetheless. It’s the old theory of a train wreck and not being able to look away. We may fain an objecting posture, but inside we want to take it in, secretly wishing we could stare at […]
Chiseled Shadow
Demonstrating dimensionality of form is a foundational way of shifting a flat image from 2nd, to at least 3rd gear. Finding that hybrid between committing to gradient tone and graphic surfaces that imbue reality and a simple vector outline really only offers up a handful of tricks. Shadow has long been a staple of the […]
Covidesign Spotlight: Design-Forward CDC Safety Signage
When the pandemic hit, the founders of Indiewalls felt compelled to rethink how to facilitate their network of artists’ work. So they launched Indiesigns – an e-commerce shop for COVID-19 signage with a design-forward aesthetic.