After a lot of alterations and trials, i’ve finally come up with the 2nd version of my website www.designfountain.net. 

What’s more is that am looking forward to work with some really kickass people as i upload designfountain.net, version 2.

plz let me know ur comments and offer letters on it. cheers!!

The FontStructor font editor lets you easily create fonts, then generates high-quality TrueType fonts, ready for use. And share.

I found this article on Design Observer. I love this word play.
Click here to read Design Observer article…

Some of the wordplay which i like.

Brilliant Silhouette Masterpiece Theatre by Wilhelm Staehle.

Videos of speakers from Design Yatra 07

It was really exciting being at designyatra 07. It was time to learn more things; finding answers to our questions like, how to be a good graphic designer? How to present and package our work and ourself? How to do work that really makes you happy and many more of these questions.

But somehow i felt that with every speaker’s session, graphic design became more difficult. To me, graphic design now looks like an assembly of various professions; professions that are required for any project. Nowadays a graphic designer is a problem solver. He plays multiple roles of a motion designer, software thinker, psychologists, architect, technology thinker, sound engineer, strategist, marketing executive, and much more than what was perceived earlier of him. Maybe now graphic design is bit difficult but definitely more exciting.

Design Yatra 07 truly justified it’s theme, “Design Empowers Businesses.” It emphasized on not only being a designer but also having the ability to solve problems without any complaining. It told us about the importance of how businesses are helped by design solutions, and that design isn’t only about pretty pictures and clever lines but about growing hand in hand.

Wally Ollins opened the conference with his expertise and relationship with branding in the last 25 years. He shared his “6 big things in the last 25 years” presentation on branding with us. The highlight was on the ‘Big Idea’ which basically encompassed 4 broad directions of 1) Products, 2) Environment, 3) Communication and 4) Behavior. On brands, on what’s new, on logos invented and reinvented, on brands becoming significant beyond commerce.
When asked upon commenting upon his studio, he defined a studio can only be The Biggest or The Best and Profitable. He said that its not possible to be all the three at once. One can only be any two of the above and he chosses to be the Best and Profitable.

Stefan Sagmeister, the rockstar of the entire 3 day event, showed us some of his case studies. He made us think differently on what a portfolio is. “Everything I do comes back to me”. You will get same kind of job what you add in your portfolio. So the portfolio is not about what you did in the past, it is all about what you wanted to do and what you like to do.
He also mentioned to a couple of people in a one to one talk, post his sessions, that one gains nothing if he complains and doesn’t act on it. It’s all about making the best about what you have and to do something worthwhile out of it. As Sagmeister quotes, “Thinking life will be better in the future is stupid. I have to live now.”

Simon Sankarayya (Sanky), the founder of AllofUs; a graphic designer, a software thinker, a internet-technology geek. He is making graphic design richer with technology. I was blown off by his project on ‘The exhibition of Physics’, where he used an overgrown head of Einstein riding on a cycle. The solution was to make a 3D video game world where one would navigate riding the bicycle. He spoke about how experiences change when there is interactivity with people and more so over when that interactivity is tactile. It grips your audience firmly and gets all of its attention. At the end of the day he ran films by onedotzero, a couple of which were really creepy, strange but all of them were out of the box. Seemed to me that the films were nightmares or dreams of film makers of the previous night which were converted in a film today.

Kyle Cooper, an amazing story teller. We forget how long we were listening to him and he too forgot how long he was talking, full with enthusiasm and energy. His excellence in presenting himself, talking as if he was talking to each and every person in the auditorium in person, kept everyone totally under his spell. Kyle Cooper has directed over 150 film title sequences. He told his story about the making of the ‘Mimic’ film title and how he did his job resourcefully without any excuses. How inspite of the lady from the animal protection department being on the sets for the shot, he managed to fulfill the director’s demand of showing a pin-pierced bug. He was resourceful and applied the magician’s trick of arrow through the head with a connecting band in the middle. Similarly, he created a pin with a waistband in middle and place the bug in it, so when shot, the pin seems pierced through the bug with due respect to the animal rights. He taught us nothing is impossible if one uses his head and is resourceful.
His work includes the opening credit sequences of Se7en, The Island of Dr.Moreau, Flubber, The Mummy, Trilogy of Spider Man, Dawn of the Dead, Godzilla Final Wars, Mission Impossible and many many more. He also has done Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty and Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater video games.

David Kester, Chief Executive of the Design Council UK, refocused Design Council UK as a national strategic body for design with priorities around strengthening competitiveness in industry, driving innovation in public services and supporting the growth of our creative economy.
He spoke about his evaluation of design in UK. He explained the interlinking relationship of design and business in quite an interesting way of a ‘Love Affair’.
Along with it he showed us the difference made by design in the GDP of a nation.
It was like an eye opener to the facts related to business and design and knowing how the work that we do makes a difference in the economics of a nation.
The session was loaded with information. I wished we had more time for David Kester so that we could grasp all the info he gave over a span of time. But the key points that he highlighted opened our minds to the other significant side of design.

Carry Murnion from Honest added a very different perspective to design. He started with Rapcat. The video and the concept behind it was mind blowing. The approach taken was amazing. Rapcat supposed to be a mascot turned out to be a Rap star to having a webpage of its own. The entire campaign was huge and became global. It was the magic of thinking differently. He showed a very different style of design. He too inspired people to do what one really wants to do and carry on with it rather than waiting for someone else to give such an opportunity.

Clever Sowood gave an excellent presentation about papers and printing solutions. He explained how inks react differently to different paper and what kind or printing is beneficial for certain kind or papers. He gave many basic tips like adding cyan to black to make black richer and many more. He seemed to be a solution to every problem we’ve faced in printing.

Simon Dixon and Aporva Baxi opened their studio, Dixon Baxi in the Winter of 2001. Young fresh graphic designers with great knowledge about music. They’d designed motion and music together. They shared with us case studies of MTV, VH1, Last FM and F1. Another leap towards modern solutions with great design.

And here was the perfect end to a perfect seminar with who else but Michael Johnson. He was a perfect package of good design + presentation. He was aware of the global warming happening and was working towards helping save earth. He also welcomed any suggestions to be a part of this mission. A couple of his fantastic problem solving works included the making the email obsessed generation get back to using stamps. He made using stamps fun, packaging 10 fruit and veggie stamps with 76 add-on stickers. The whole idea was not only to use the stamps but have an interactive experience. These stamps carried with them an anticipation of what’s coming to you in your next post as it offered one an opportunity to create their imaginations on stamps. I really liked the bunny one though, was pretty creative and loads of fun.

More Th>n was another identity very well designed as it was taken forward not only without specifically using the logo but also while tying on your keyboard by using the greater than sign ‘>’.

Think London was amazing as it gave the freedom of incorporating every feature of London and being so flexible to use but still maintaining its identity.

Similarly the logo for the collaboration of UK Japan 2008 was simply excellent. It was solved with such simplicity that one really thinks, why didn’t I do this.

You can go on and on with Michael Johnson’s work as its not only really good but so refreshingly simple. This guy was the perfect end to what was started by Wally Ollins.