Thanks!
Brad

Today I discovered a great link with a lot more resources than I had mentioned, and wanted to send you there to check it out: 27 Best WebSites to Download Free Seamless Patterns Some are graphic, a few are pixel, but all seem to be pretty high quality. Enjoy!

With the recent announcement of Omniture’s acquisition by Adobe, I’m reminded of how many of the brands I’ve created over the past 10 years that have disappeared by being bought-out and absorbed by larger companies.

Here are some of the logos I’ve designed that are either soon to be no more (e.g. Omniture) and others that only live in my portfolio:

	Omniture Inc Entered into a definitive agreement for Adobe to acquire Omniture in a transaction valued at approximately $1.8 billion in Q4 2009. Omniture, Inc. is a leading provider of online business optimization software, enabling customers to manage and enhance online, offline and multi-channel business initiatives.
	Powerschool Inc Acquired by Apple Computer for $62 million in Apple stock in March 2001. Powerschool is the leading provider of web-based student information systems for K-12 schools and school districts. It’s online software gives school administrators and teachers the ability to easily and cost-effectively manage student records and gives parents real-time access to track their children’s progress.
	SkyDisc Acquired by Skymall Inc for $2.3 million of SkyMall common stock in October 1999. Disc Publishing’s “SkyDisc” is an interactive CD-ROM targeted to the business traveler that integrates highquality print, broadcast and online media designed to provide a mix of topics that entertain, inform and enhance the business travelers’ life. Every other month a new “issue” of SkyDisc is available free in airline seatback pockets to more than 400,000 SkyWest Airlines passengers.
	Serus LLC Acquired by Netopia, Inc for $3 million in cash and 409,556 shares of common stock in December 1998. Serus LLC, developer of Java-based web site development and web page editing technologies including its “SplashSite” web site builder.

While I’m sad to see my brands go, I’m excited to see the companies that they helped to gain enough attention to get acquired.

Surprised to see many of these past trends are still current, I thought, ‘I should blog this’. So here’s the first part in my series of logo trends from the past. Are these concept still current or just that, trends of the past? Old is new?

2004 Logo Trends from LogoLounge

	Glassine Glass-like or crystal-capped		Bubbles Representing motion, clean and refreshing
	Dialog Boxes Word balloons and speech bubbles		Substitutions Swapping letters for other font elements
	Letter Bars Stripes of a different color		Implied Letting the user get involved with the design by telling part of the story
	Universal People Giving a meaningless symbol meaning		Handmade The antithesis to computer-rendered design
	Arm Sight Human-like figure with arms up		Human Nature Human and environmental concerns
	Cave Rings Control of chaos through consecutive circles		Particle Fields Grid or repeating dots
	Prism Greater use of translucency, colors		Mezzotint Handcrafted, non-corporate, textured look

How big is glassine these days? And did the handmade look ever go anywhere?

All of this content was summarized from Logolounge.com. For many more samples, and better explanations (with credit who created the logos) visit their 2004 Logo Trends page.

I recently noticed that traffic to my blog article entitled IKEA is Coming to Utah and My Logo’s On It! increased, so I investigated why. I found it was because there was raised interest in IKEA based on this Time article The Font War: Ikea Fans Fume over Verdana published last Friday.

IKEA has always been one of those places that has been pretty clear on their brand. Buildings with their strong blue and yellow palette on the outside lead way to the inside where everything is labeled with unfamiliar names in a customized version of Futura. But all designers, and lovers of fonts are surprised to find out that IKEA has changed its catalog font to Verdana. Yes, VERDANA. (Oh the shock and horror of it!) Verdana which was specifically designed in 1996 to be readable at small sizes on a computer screen, it seems was never meant for print in the eyes of true lovers of type. It’s a ‘web’ font that’s clunky and outdates, especially in our new CSS world.

I for one (among many) mourn the loss. I understand that there are probably more issues involved (such as localization) that I may not know about, but Verdana in print? It’s a sad day for typography everywhere. And for corporations everywhere, note the outcry and remember that when you make the effort to develop a brand, your customers care.

IDSGN Article: IKEA says goodbye to Futura
Petition: Online petition against the change
TIME Article: The Font War: Ikea Fans Fume over Verdana

After collecting interesting links in my Yahoo Notes, on 3 or 4 different computers (home and work) and emailing myself dozen of things “to read”, I finally decided to give Delicious a try. I’m still trying to figure out the best way to tag all of the things I’m interested in, but have already begun to make it a necessary part of my daily process to save links and refer back to frequently accessed searches. Here’s the tag cloud for Brad McCall’s bookmarked links thus far. Hopefully I’ll be able to incorporate this tag cloud into my future “About” page on bradmccall.com as I’ve seen some other designers do.

I recently posted several of my new logos (a couple that you’ve seen on my outdated website) on Logospire. Their rating system and comments make it easy to find out which ones people tend to like the best.

I’d recommend visiting the site if you enjoy logos, or just need inspiration for your next design.

After my blog post the other day on A Tidbit on Graphic Design Trends, I started noticing many of the people I follow on twitter talk about design trends in logos or web design, etc. Whether you agree with these trends, follow them, enhance your portfolio with them or ignore them all together, I just thought I’d share a few things that came to my attention.

Last week we presented 10 Web Design Trends For 2009, our review of the most promising developments and techniques in web design that may become big in 2009. In the first part we covered embossing letters (”letterpress”), rich user interfaces, PNG transparency, big typography, carousels and media blocks.
This post is the second part of our review. It presents design trends for 2009 in terms of layouts, visual approaches and design elements.

Article Includes:

• Out of box layouts
• One page layouts
• Multi-column layouts
• Huge illustrations and vibrant graphics
• More white space than ever
• Social design elements
• Speaking navigation
• Dynamic tabs
• Still large search boxes
• Category visuals
• Author icons
• Icons and visual clues
• Tag index (instead of tag clouds)
• Illustrations in blog posts
• Watercolor
• Handwriting
• Retro and vintage
• Organic textures, tiles and photographic backgrounds
• Badges
• Price tags
• And ribbons

2009 ushers in something new, something experimental, something outrageous. More will be the new less. Strong visibility and passion are the dictating themes.

Article includes some great examples of:

• Psychedelic Pop Backgrounds
• Origami
• Tactile Logos
• Arabesque
• Classic Modernism
• Pictograms
• 80′s Geometry Lesson
• Typographic Logos
• Street Art
• Puzzle Patterns

My dad was a Contractor by trade, and owner of his own business called “McCall Building Company”. Jokingly he asked me one time if I wanted to take over the family business and I can only imagine my face looking back. Though I love architecture and have considered it as an alternative profession, building is hard work. I have much respect for those folks.

My Dad was and is a great builder, a talented craftsman who’s built many beautiful homes and structures. And yet, he’s never built a home for himself.

That’s how I feel about my portfolio site sometimes. I’m always designing for everyone else, sometimes I forget to design for myself. In fact, my current site at bradmccall.com has been there since I initially launched it in March of 1999. Yes folks, that’s 10 years ago next month. I’ve updated the text content as it’s changed as well as adding this blog (still with the default template – blah!), but things are still very much 1999. (Silly little frames and all)

So in celebration of bradmccall.com’s 10 year anniversary, I’m launching it again.

But not quite yet.

I’m currently finalizing the templates, creating the designs (and recreating and recreating), and then beginning to gather the portfolio files together. Here’s a 30,000 foot view of my files as they stand (sorry it’s not clickable!):

I’ve got probably a thousand samples of work I’ve done over the past 10 years, but have begun pulling the logos together.

This website has served me well over the last 10 years and has made me lots of money. But as with all good things, it’s time to retire it and try something new.

The most interesting part for me was, which usually is the case on these type of articles, is a bit of a debate that the article prompted in the comments section of the blog post. Starting with a comment from Jeff Fisher of Jeff Fisher Logomotives, someone who I have great respect for, who said:

“When a graphics industry expert proclaims something a current ‘design trend’ it is a ‘breaking news’ message to designers everywhere that the specific ‘trend’ should be avoided from that moment on – rather than followed by a thundering flock of design sheep.”

He called it his “annual design trend comment.”

I’ll let you read the comments on the blog there and participate in the conversation if you’d like, but one of my favorite responses to the debate was from Fred Showker, someone who I haven’t run across online before. He mentions in one of his comments about the “acid tests” that any logo has to go through. Tests such as scalability, black-n-white, screen printing, stitching, etc. He says:

“Too many people rely on process color, and computer effects to “carry” the design — or lack thereof.”

I’ve run into problems in this aspect as well with several of my logos. Though I’ve tried to discover in advance through creative worksheet questioning on “how” my client will use the logo, sometimes they don’t always know. It’s not long until a fancy “online only” logo gets stitched on a hat.

I enjoy looking around and seeing where trends are going and what new innovative ways graphic designers are using to represent their client’s brands. But as graphic designers we’ve got to keep the basics in mind and remember that logos are as practical/functional as they are beautiful.

Join the conversation! –>Logo Design Trends 2009