Back to the Future- 9/30/09

To open, the Back to the Future movies are some of my favorite movies I've seen. That being said, the most iconic thing from that movie is the DeLorean. Of course they chose it because it was a current and sleek car at the time, but they made it all their own with some fairly simple design changes for the movie. Before I get to deep into it, here is the original car.
This car at the time, and now to a certain extent, still feels pretty futuristic. The gull wing doors are very unique and the stainless steel body is very sleek. However, this basic design definitely didn't look much like a time machine. I think that the biggest and most important design choice was the big exhaust wedges on the back of the car. This makes the car look like it's pushing out a lot of energy and makes it feel more powerful. They also changed the back window area of the car and added some sort of huge engine looking thing, once again, making the car feel so much more powerful than the original design. And of course, they added all of the wires that light up on the side of the car. Once you go inside you get the iconic flux capacitor, which is what makes time travel possible, and the interface that tells Doc and Marty where and when they are traveling to and from. I think that this was a very imaginative design for a time machine. I can't think of any improvements because it works as a homemade time machine. It feels like something that could actually be built by a mad scientist with enough money. If you started changing non-essential things like color and tires, etc, it would lose a lot of it's homemade charm. Anyway, I have always liked this design and felt that I should weigh in on it.

Mouse Design- 9/30/09

We use a computer mouse constantly this day in age. When I started thinking about this, I realized that the overall design of the mouse hasn't changed that much since its inception. This is a very early mouse used by Douglas Englebart in "The Mother of all Demos" where he showed off many new technologies on a personal computer such as word processing, video conferencing, hypertext and various other things. Anyway, this is the mouse.
Now sure, this does look a lot different than the mice that we use today, but all of the basics were there and this was shown in the 60's. But in the 80's we had the standard two-button mouse and that has remained intact ever since then. The mouse I use today is a logitech wireless mouse. This is it.
I'm not saying that the design and the ergonomic aspects haven't evolved over the years, but the basic blocky shape with buttons are still there. The overall navigation aspects haven't changed that much with moving a cursor on a screen by moving the mouse. I think it's one of those, "if it isn't broke, don't fix it," type of deals, but the basic design has remained the same for forty years. I think it's time to evolve to touch screens, but if we have to stick to mice, I found a couple of cool examples on the web. Although these aren't very practical, they are certainly imaginative and change up the standard mouse quite a bit. Here they are.Clearly the designs still have the functionality of a mouse but instead of being just an average mouse, they are also a handgrenade and a spaceship. I'm actually quite surprised that this idea hasn't caught on more. It seems that companies have been very profitable selling computer acessories so why hasn't this taken off? Well, I can't really answer that question but I do like to think that things that I see everyday and would consider their designs as boring, or at least have become boring over time, can be spiced up this easily.

Logo Evolution-9/9/09

So, I started thinking about logos as I was drinking a Coke. I realized how simple the logo was. All it is is Coca-Cola written in cursive. So, to relate it to the blog, I began to look at various logos online until I stumbled upon the evolution of the Shell logo.
I think that this relates perfectly to assignment two. They are changing the logo with minimal effort to improve it. To preface this, I am not really going to dive into the history of the company, but simply discuss the logo with my point-of-view. That being said, the logo began very simply. It's really only a front view of what's obviously a seashell. Things get interesting with the next design, where the standard Shell logo begins to take shape. In 1904, the logo became a top down view of the shell. It is still much more intricate than the current shell design. It looks to almost be a photograph. The next version loses a little intricacy but also adds some more inking, which seems to replace some of the former lines. The logo doesn't change again until 1930, where it begins to look much more a design than a literal drawing of a shell. The edges are much more rounded and the border is a heavy black line. In 1948, color, according to this picture, is added as well as the name of the company to the logo. Once again, the logo seems to gradually become more streamlined. The border has become more intricate but the edges have once again become more rounded. In 1955 they updated it with much less lines and changed the title to red. This change isn't all that drastic, but it does keep streamlining the design. In 1961, the logo only added a red background to the design. Not much to say about that one. Now, in 1971, the logo takes shape to what we know today. There is now only seven lines and a thick red border, still with the yellow interior. This logo has remained basically the same until now. In 1995 they changed the color a little and in 1999 they removed the text, but that's really all.
The point of this description is to show that Shell has seemed to treat their logo as the way we treated assignment two. Sure the changes early on where pretty drastic, but when their brand became widely known and popular they couldn't afford to change anything too much or they would lose recognition.

The Death of Superman Design- 9/9/09

To begin, I love reading comics and Superman is my all-time favorite hero. As I was growing up and becoming aware of comic books, The Death of Superman event was just getting underway. This is certainly my favorite cover from this series, and I would like to analyze and critique it.
First, I love this cover because of the simplicity of it. Superman's iconic cape, beaten and tattered and blowing in the wind. Even without the text, anyone picking up this book knows that something very serious is wrong with Superman. There are some, presumably rocks, keeping up the stick that is holding the cape. We can see some people mourning Superman's death in the background while the left and right border are framed by some high rise buildings. I also notice what seems to be Lois Lane and a few others mourning in the background. However, what I find most interesting about the cover is the sunset in the background. It seems to contrast the bleak and ominous cape flapping in the wind. It also has a very painterly quality to it which I believe contrasts the realistic cape and buildings very well. The color choices are bright in the foreground and get extremely dark near the buildings. Once again, this contrasts the sunset which has purples, blues and yellows. I'm pretty sure that the sunset also represents the sun setting on Superman's career. Of course, I'm assuming this but I think it is a fair assumption.
Although I do love this cover, I do believe that it could be improved in a few simple ways. First off, I see no reason why the text is really needed. I know that it was for sales, but I don't think anyone that was aware of what was happening in the comics didn't know what this issue was going to contain. I also don't care for the way my eye follows the title, to the cape, to the text at the bottom. I think that the cape could be moved a little left or right and maybe tilted at a bit of a steeper angle. This may sound drastic, but I would maybe even remove the buildings and just make it the cape with the sunset behind it. I do like the color choices and am pretty sure that I would keep them basically the same.
That being said, this is one of my favorite covers in comics and I think that it served its purpose perfectly back in its time. But looking back on it, I do believe that it could have been slightly improved.