Tag Archives: Photo

The Iconic Wrigley Field Sign

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We’ve arrived at long last and at great expense to our respective marriages at Wrigley Field without wives or kids. For baseball fans, this is something of a holy site, and I’ve often wanted to have a photo of me in front of this sign (I’ll Photoshop Shea out later).

Typographically or design-wise, there’s nothing special about this sign, but there are a few places like this, where a sign so thoroughly represents a place. Las Vegas has one, national park entrance signs are frequently photographed, and on road trips, who hasn’t pulled off the highway to take a picture of a “Welcome to Hawaii” sign? (Okay, bad example.)

Signs are among the first representations visitors see upon arriving at a site, so we say make yours worth photographing!

Crocodiles do not swim here

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crocodiles

One of the advantages of presenting sessions on graphic design is that people think of us when they take pictures of amusing signs. For some reason, people also think of us when watching the TV show “The Biggest Loser.”

This photo arrived courtesy of James Massey, who earned a Certified Interpretive Planner credential from NAI a few years back. The great thing about the sign in this photo is that is a springboard for discussions about what could have been done typographically or design-wise to make its message—that you should not swim here because there are crocodiles—more clear. (The word “Crocodiles” could have been set in a different color. The border could be red instead of blue to signify danger. The words could be rearranged so that “Do not swim here” appears first. And so on.)

After showing this image during classes and training sessions for the last few years, the consensus is that the crocodiles themselves are the target audience, which explains why the sign has been placed so low to the ground.

If you have images you’d like to share, send them to us or post them to our Facebook page.

Color Palettes: They’re All Greek to Me!

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degraeve

First, I have to offer my sincerest apologies for the terrible joke in the headline of this post. It’s not funny and it’s never been funny, but this post involves Greece and it’s the law.

We wrote some time ago about a website called Kuler that generates color palettes from photos. Nerd Herd member and friend of IBD Amy Ford turned us on to another site, www.degraeve.com/color-palette, that does something similar. I decided to use this site to generate a color palette for the program guide for the NAI International Conference in Greece, which starts in just two days.

As any designer should when letting the computer do his work for him, I started with an idea of what I was looking for. I found a photo that I considered iconic of the Greek coast, where the conference will be held, then let this website suggest some color palettes. (This can easily be done in Photoshop with the eyedropper or color sampler tools, but it’s always interesting to try out new resources.)

ic2009-program-p8Of course, I didn’t accept the website’s palettes as gospel. I started with two colors from the “vibrant” option and made one a little darker and the other a little lighter to increase contrast. The result is a palette that is consistent with my original vision and appropriate to the region where the conference will be held, while also serving the basic design needs in terms of contrast and legibility.

See the result in the thumbnail page image posted here.

How to do it: The DeGraeve Color Palette Generator asks you to enter the URL of an image. To do this, find a photo online, then control-click (on a Mac) or right-click (on a PC) on that photo. Depending on the browser you’re using, you’ll get an option like “View Image” or “Open Image in New Window.” When you select this option, your browser will open the image in its own window. The URL that appears in your address bar is what the color palette generator is looking for.

Paste the URL in the field on the DeGraeve website and click “Color-Palette-ify!”