Grumpy Designer

Maybe you're just trolling?

2011-10-18T10:04:00.003+03:00

Get a load of this. Canal+ ad for the upcoming world hockey championship 2012.

There are so many things wrong here I don't know where to begin. Perhaps the most disgusting quality of the ad is its view of the target group - hockey fans. Seriously, you're awkwardly comparing winter war to ice hockey and we're supposed to have a breeze of sentimentality? Or is it supposed to be funny? Maybe both? By making this ad you're sending a clear message: hockey fans are a homogenous group of low-brow morons who are easily seduced by a whiff of weird nationalism where honor exists only in the rink or on the battlefield.

Trying to simplify target audience can be useful sometimes. Underestimating and condescendingly trying to sell something to a pretty big part of the nation is fucking stupid. I for one, was considering buying the Canal+ package for hockey championships. Not anymore.

Startups and design

2011-08-05T08:36:00.000+03:00

Today I attended a lecture about startups by Steve Blank. Very inspiring and thought provoking.

Steve's talk was about the kind of startups that need invested capital and either go Google or broke. Freelancing.. well, we are what Steve calls "lifestyle entrepreneurs" and he said there's absolutely nothing wrong with that. Yet, there are many similarities between the mindsets of startuppers and freelancers. Certain resilience is certainly needed, as well as passion and the ability to adapt.

There was also something energizing about the way Steve talked about the startup business model, or lack thereof. Everything is under constant change and the product evolves with every iteration. The initial business idea can change fundamentally in the process - which is why it's important to keep busy at it, bouncing ideas and asking customers questions. So in fact, the evolution of a startup is much like the evolution of a good design.

Startups are all about evolution, just like design. Designers should be, too.

TeliaSonera's new logo

2011-05-17T08:32:00.002+03:00

Let's start with the BS that marketing came up with:

"- The symbol is unique, dynamic and unites us as a company. It symbolizes global and local connectivity at our customers’ fingertips. When customers see the symbol they will know that they are both part of the strongest local operator as well as the whole international TeliaSonera group of companies.

The symbol also manifests TeliaSonera’s heritage as one of the telecoms industry’s true pioneers."

Nigga please.

I have a theory of their train of thought. Being a huge corporation, they're afraid of making something unique and striking. This is only natural. Using abstract, symbol free graphics is a good strategy if you don't want to annoy anybody. Thing is, they could've made something timeless and classy yet retaining the references to IT but no. They had to be trendy. Trendy to the point where they add gloss to the logo and round the corners of the typography. Oh the typography of this one.. *shudders*

As they are a huge company I'm pretty sure the logo has a portion of committee design in it. It's a result of contradictory requirements. Still, the logo itself is really not a disaster. It's the flawed process and mentality behind it that bugs me. Business identities shouldn't follow trends nor should they be made generic.

Minecraft and design

2011-05-08T17:06:00.000+03:00

For those who have been living in a mine for the last year - Minecraft is a game where you build things out of blocks. Blocks and nothing else but blocks. There are different colours and materials but there are no complex shapes, just blocks. The game has no mandatory milestones or ending, just millions and millions of blocks. It's up to the player to choose what he wants to make out of them. Minecraft is essentially a big box of legos and that's the genious of it. You have a very restricted way to create things which leads to some mind-bending creations.

Same principle often applies to design as well. If you have a very restricted toolset, you often end up creating something far beyond the capacity of the given tools. Less becomes more.

Minecraft is also interesting because it always reveals something about the player. One player creates natural landscapes where others might build castles, underground halls, complex I/O systems, rollercoasters or replicas of New York. Some players finish one project before moving on to the next, others have dozens of unfinished constructs. One thing seems to be common to all players though. They're all hooked to their virtual box of legos.

Boardgame fun

2010-11-15T12:42:00.000+02:00

One of my own long-lived projects is to make a boardgame. I've been too lazy with that but just a week ago my brand spanking new desktop PC lost its will to live taking all the games with it so all of the sudden there was a game-related void in my day.

I already had some thoughts on the theme, rules and strategies of the game so I quickly drew a board and got to work. Soon I was ready to run the first test games and soon after that I had spent seven hours just balancing, running test games, thinking of new rules and not eating a thing. What a great fun! It's almost like solving a puzzle of sorts. There are so many things to keep track of in order to make the game truly enjoyable. No longer I hesitate to call myself a nerd. If I ever did.

25 beautiful websites

2010-08-20T21:00:00.003+03:00

Right. It seems to me that every other web design blog I have spamming my reader does these ALL THE TIME; Lists of nice looking, inspiring sites. Essentially there's nothing wrong with this. It's nice to see what people are up to and where web design trends are going.

But when many of those feeds feed me the exact same sites to inspire me, I just can't help to think that they're quite inspired themselves. And of course, there is no attractive web design outside of US or UK. Or maybe it's just too damn hard to find any since you can't just google "Best websites of Albania."

I know, the lists are great and easy filler and people just love them. And they're often seemingly useful. They're made of really nice-looking, usable sites that have positive impact on designers. But when everyone is following and even copying these lists, web design as a whole starts to conform and a standard of good design is born out of repetition and consensus. I may be exaggerating but that's what I'm seeing right now.

Could be that I'm just lazy picking up all the most popular blogs to my reader, maybe I should search more stuff to read.

Wrong kind of "patriotism"

2010-06-29T11:05:00.003+03:00

Lately I've spotted many company names which have "Suomi" in them. Suomi means Finland in Finnish. Finnish people and businesses tend to pride themselves as being honest and of strong backbone. This leads some upcoming entrepreneurs to think that it's a good idea to prefix/affix their company name with "Suomi".

Now here comes the stinging and stinking irony of it. Businesses doing this are most likely rotten to the core. They have absolutely none of those qualities that they so desperately want to be connotated with. Probably because of the parasitic nature of their business (which they are very aware of) they try to sprinkle some flakes of integrity on top of the SHITcake that is their business.

My sincerest condolences go to the legitimate, established companies that have come up with the same idea, probably years ago. I hope this new, "patriotic" wave of vampires doesn't affect your sales.

Bristol street art

2010-06-11T12:28:00.008+03:00

Last week I visited England (not London though). Usually I plan my trips pretty well and plow through internets to see what's there to see. This time I didn't - it was all planned for me. All but this particular surprise.

I had no idea that Bristol has this graffiti/street art area called Stokes croft. Practically every single building had a huge mural painted to it. Enough with the words and sorry for the picture rich post.

Edit: Thanks to Elpats for spotting the artists!

Artist: Zase. This one was actually quite far from Stokes croft.

Artist: 3dom.

Vernin and Mr. Jago painting away.

These lightbulbs could be seen in many places. Boy & Girl by Fake.

Artist: Dan. Love this one.

Artist: 3dom.

We had our share of pork pies during the trip.

Artist: Sepr & Epok.

This one was commissioned by a bakery.

Artist: Phelgm.

Artist: Leah Heming.

Artist: Motorboy. Some of the pieces were more political. Or stickers in this case.

Artist: Phelgm. Hiroshige revisited.

Artist: Copyright.

Artist: Nick Walker. Quite a few butterflies too in Bristol.

It's MY font!

2010-05-17T17:11:00.003+03:00

Now that all decent browsers support proper font embedding, more and more typographically interesting sites have been popping into existence. It's all good - internets is looking better than ever and keeps developing and diversifying. However, there is one thing about this that I just can't stand: MY favorite font, Museo, is being used by people other than me.

This is unacceptable! I spotted Museo first and embedded it before any of you even knew that it can be done! I'm warning you: keep your filthy, chubby nerdfingers off! Just because I gave a link to it doesn't mean I want anyone to use the font. I just want you to check it out, bow to my excellent taste and walk away. If I see any of you using Museo - especially in web, I will kern you in half and feast on your beaks and terminals!

HTML5 and CSS3

2010-05-10T22:41:00.003+03:00

I wouldn't be much of a web designer if I didn't comment them in my blog. Problem is that these two new players don't mean anything to those not interested, so I'll try to have some fun trying to turn these arbitrary strings of letters and numbers into something fun or just daft.

You could compare HTML5 to a leatherman. Neither of them is really too confusing or complex. They just do things better than before. They are relentlessly logical, very user-friendly and you can take down a space mutant with either one.

To me CSS3 is much like a box of foreign chocolates. I'm anxious to feast on them but I know for certain that there are some that I will taste and go ewwww. Also there are quite a few that I cannot offer to my clients no matter how much I love them. You see, in order to eat a CSS3 chocolate you need a tableware called browser. Google Chrome or Firefox are like sporks - handy and extremely useful no matter what you eat. Internet Explorer on the other hand is like trying to eat with a watermelon. You can only squash the chocolates.

And yet many people willingly choose the watermelon.

Post-Japan aftertaste

2010-04-08T21:25:00.004+03:00

That was quite a trip. Tokyo was a magnificent sight viewed from TMG. As for the cyborgs, samurai and geisha I was slightly disappointed not to spot a single one. Instead of trying to sum up the entire trip, I'll go into a couple of interesting details.

The blossoming cherry trees are often seen in photos with a lake or a park. I was a bit surprised to see that this fragile and brief display is also a green light for public drinking. In the Ueno park there were big trash cans and tarpaulins set on the tarmac to facilitate this. It was a shame we were on such a tight schedule - could've been great fun.

Japanese sure like their manga. They like it so much that even the most serious and official warnings and instructions can be illustrated by some freaky pink cartoon character. This reflects maybe the most intriguing aspect of Japanese society. The extremely inhibited behaviour, social norms and coolness has a very visual, vibrant and mad side to it.

Pre-Japan anxiety

2010-03-16T11:58:00.006+02:00

I'm flying to Japan this thursday!

My expectations on design, cultural curiosities and everything from street signs to TV ads are set quite high. Possibly too high - I'm pretty much expecting Tokyo to be a scene from Ghost In The Shell or Akira. Cyborgs can be seen everywhere, there are only skyscrapers and it's always night. Millions of billboards are the only thing that light up the dark, futuristic city that is ruled by corporations and Yakuza.

And surely in Kyoto there are no modern buildings what so ever but the railway station. Samurai walk the streets in full armor, all kinds of crafts are practised in the street, geishas glance us from behind their fans and everything is straight from a Hiroshige painting.

New visuals!

2010-03-03T12:07:00.005+02:00

I've finally upgraded the visual side of Grumpy Designer. Lately I've been exploring and implementing the possibilities of using non-standard fonts in web. It all works great, as instructed here but only as long as the fonts are on the same server as the actual site. It means that if you have a site or a blog that is hosted elsewhere and you don't have access to its root (Blogspot for example), you can't see the custom fonts on Firefox. There is a workaround as described here (scroll down to cross-site font usage) but I didn't understand where the code should go.

I really like the font I'm using in headings here at Grumpy Designer. It's called Museo and it has three weights available for free here.

Possupedia

2010-01-28T22:34:00.005+02:00

In the past few years my faith in politics has slowly turned into numb and dishonest belief that "they'll probably do their job ok." Well, just lately this numbness has changed into something very different.

Possupedia (A free translation could be "PiggyWiki") is a site promoting pork eating. You can find recipes and info about which part of the piggy's ass is the juiciest. Visually or technically the site is nor SHIT or outstanding, just bland. The happy pig with a chef hat is somewhat disturbing though. Is he going to cook himself?

What makes this site something else is the politics behind it. Finnish ministry of agriculture and forestry has generously spent €257 000 on promoting ham. Now I'm not sure if this site is the only thing they got for their €€ but it's not even that relevant. If all the money was spent on Possupedia, just imagine there's much more foul language in the next paragraphs.

I'm having very mixed feelings about this. Not something good mixed with bad like a coffee-flavoured energy drink. It's more like getting your shit pushed in while having a root canal. On what grounds is it ok to spend €257 000 to get people eat more pig??!! Yeah, sure, It's not that big of a cut from their 2.7 billion budget but it's still a lot of money spent on SHIT. On top of it all, the site is only getting the attention of animal rights activists..

It's this kind of news that seriously piss me off and they just get more and more absurd. If all the hypocracy and fucking about would happen in some preschool instead of our government it would be funny and cute. Now it's just disgusting and frustrating.

Neat upcoming stuff of 2010

2010-01-13T16:05:00.005+02:00

Blender 2.5

Blender is finally turning into something that a human being can use. It used to be a bloody awful mess of menus and buttons combined into one of the most unintuitive UIs I've ever had the misery of using. Well, testing is a more appropriate word since I couldn't take the humiliation for more than few hours. The 2.5 version should be out very soon and it's going to improve the UI quite a bit. The magnitude of the update is like turning a chainsaw engine into a V12.

Jagged Alliance 3

One of the best series I've ever played. I think there has been rumors about JA3 since the first man-ape came down from his tree but maybe it's for real this time. Should be out before april, we'll see..

SHITloads of money and interesting projects

Well obviously.

Even more delightful package design!

2009-12-02T09:08:00.004+02:00

I ran out of my usual cheap dobbeldusch and went to buy some more - even nerds like me have to take a shower sometime. It is widely believed that under a shower, especially if there is soap involved, nerds start to hiss, squirm and under prolonged exposure turn into grayish dust. I assure you this a myth.

So, I'm searching for my regular brand from the lineup and this orange fish catches my eye. On a closer look I notice that it's from the same illustrator as the manic dog-elephant! Wow! The package has a baby fish being washed by mom- or dadfish. I think they're blowfish because they don't have scales but tiny spikes. They do have the same amphetamine eyes as the elephant creature and seem just as happy in their strange acidic realm.

Couldn't just leave it on the shelf now could I? On the downside I will smell like gummi bears until I run out of this delicious goo.

Delightful package design

2009-11-06T12:14:00.005+02:00

A while back I spotted this in a grocery store:

(Picture taken from here, hope you don't mind.)

Obviously I had to buy one just because of the package. Look at it! A bright pink elephant, jogging about on some small clouds wearing a sweat band. Absolutely delightful! And it doesn't stop there, oh no. His pupils are clearly dilated indicating a drug abuse of some description, he has lost his elephant ears in some tragic accident forcing him to steal a pair from a golden retriever and he has little horns too!

The juice was also pink and sweet.

Political print ads

2009-10-04T16:54:00.003+03:00

Every time there's an election I get disappointed. Not because the voters have a memory of a goldfish and vote the same greedy idiots over and over again, but because of the print ads. I'm quite confident that half of the politicians get their ads done by their nephew whose greatest merit is that he can make the text red in MS Word.

Here's a step by step tutorial on how to make a Finnish political campaign ad:

1. Open a new document in Word or Paint.

2. Copy-paste your poorly extracted photo into the middle of the document.

3. Make a circle to the bottom-right corner of the ad and type in your candidate number in white.

4. Mention your party somewhere.

5. Make up a tagline like "For the little people" and place it diagonally somewhere. Font should be Impact.

And you're done!

Need for Speed Shift

2009-09-25T12:53:00.003+03:00

Ages ago I was complaining about the Need for Speed series taking a turn to SHIT. Well, the latest incarnation has almost restored my faith; NFS:Shift is great fun. I don't have a driver's license and the closest thing to real life racing I've ever been is go-karts. Therefore I don't REALLY know how a Porsche Cayman or Bugatti Veyron handles but with the latest NFS I might have a clue. Don't get me wrong, Shift is by no means a simulator but it's no longer pure arcade either. It takes a lot of practice to master the Zondas and Ford GTs and whatnot. Even more practice for me because I use a gamepad to drive but it's a lot of fun. There's a little victory in every corner.

Designing candy

2009-03-12T10:35:00.003+02:00

Has anyone else noticed that candy design is totally out of date? They keep making all the same figures and shapes: fruits, cola bottles, cars, animals etc. Ok, there are many many things that are pictured in wine gums and chocolates but hardly any provocative, current or otherwise interesting images are being turned into candy. I can easily come up with some examples that would be instant hits.

Goth-candy. Liquorice-razorblades, red drops of blood, hard spikes and some soft hearts maybe. Wrap this combination into a coffin-shaped cardboard box or just make the usual plastic bag look like old stone-cobbled wall and watch the candy aisle go black with emo-kids.

Gangsta-blings. Dollar signs, 9mm guns, apple bottom booties and all dat shiny ice (=diamonds). And of course a price tag to match the wallets of the 10-year old white wannabe-gangsters.

Fairtrade yummies. Ok, this probably exists already in some form but it could be improved. All the necessary and unnecessary information of the product has to be printed on the package. Not just the calories and ingredients, I mean EVERYTHING. Transportation methods, wages of the workers etc. Candy shapes could be cannabis leaves, peace signs and McDonalds logo which would taste awful.

Curiosities could also be profitable but not as lucrative as the concepts above. Celebrity-shaped chocolates (maybe done already), ultra-low-fat candies that wouldn't taste of anything at all, political wine gum figures..

Mark my words, someone will make this happen and gets SHITloads of dough.

Short rant about gaming

2009-01-23T12:40:00.004+02:00

I don't know if it's just me but it seems that all games today are SHIT. Even though the games are more and more technically advanced and on occasion they even have a decent plot, I'm not impressed. Could be just me getting too old but I want to complain nevertheless.

The whole gaming industry is playing too safe. And when I say industry I mean the big dogs. Today it's just too damn expensive to try something new because if you want the game to actually make some profit, it has to sell about zillion copies. And what makes the game sell, keeping in mind that the target audience is that kid next door whose baggy jeans look like they're about to drop?

Guns, swords, explosions and tits. The bigger the better. Not only are they underestimating the kid next door, they won't even give him a choice. I mean, he is probably buying the game with guns and tits if there are only a handful of alternatives. And don't get me started about sports games, racing "simulations" and stuff, they've all been the same for years or taken a massive turn for the worse like Need for Speed series.

What really ticks me off is that there are so few genres or themes in these hamburger games: cliché-filled fantasy, world war 2, shooters with more or less scifi-elements and worst of all, sterile scifi. People and "aliens" running around in clean spaceships, wearing jumpsuits and shooting with guns that go "psssh" or "wzzzp". Yes yes, I know it's all funny, nostalgic and shit but how about trying some other kind of scifi for a change? I haven't seen proper steam- or cyberpunk in years.

The angry Lego-men

2008-11-13T10:48:00.003+02:00

When shopping for groceries in any of the bigger supermarkets I usually walk through the toy aisle. Just can't resist it. Couple of weeks ago I was once again checking out the RC-cars, board games, toy guns and all that. But none of that makes me stop and take a closer look, I only stop at the Legos. The new police station and medieval castle both looked very nice but then I made a horrific observation.

Lego-men don't smile anymore! At least not all of them. I mean, the world is undoubtedly headed straight to hell but this is a clear and terrifying indicator of the speed. There's nothing new about 10-year old kids getting pissed at the metro station but this is truly depressing. The last plastic fortress of innocent childhood has been invaded by the cynical and ruthless adult world and its tiny citizens are now "cool". I know, they had swords even back in the 80s' and their heads came off easily which allowed some very gory scenes but they were happy and optimistic in their little cubic realm.

I just can't see any reason to change that. What is the selling argument behind this shittiest design flaw EVER?!

Insightful logo

2008-10-06T12:38:00.009+03:00

It's monday and I had to get up 0710. If those are not valid reasons to be grumpy I don't know which are. And yet I'm not feeling grumpy at all. In fact, I'm going to be jolly and throw praises around like trebuchet-based web-layouts.

Check out this logo:

One of the very best I've ever seen. Ok, the "futuristic" font is quite bad but my entrails are not trying to escape its vicinity by exiting me through every imaginable oriface. Quiksilver makes clothing and plywood boards for people who want to break them and their bones by hitting their faces and/or limbs to asphalt or icy snow at tremendous speeds. This is all very difficult to explain and it don't make sense to anyone but the people doing that stuff so I'll just move on to the logo.

There's a mountain which symbolises the icy snow, a wave that symbolises the big waves which I forgot from previous chapter: there are also those who like to ride their plywood boards on gigantic waves in countries far away from Finland. If you look at the wave, it's inner curve looks like the head of one of them plywood boards. Ingenious! All the essential bone-breaking elements in one logo. In fact, even that futuristic font has a function now that I think of it. Its tight turns look like all those backwards-bent knees and elbows that are the inevitable consequence of riding plywood boards at speeds mostly associated with dragracing cars.

I mean wow. Not only does this logo please the eye but all its subtle suggestions of breaking your bones must speak directly to the hearts of the people wanting to do so.

One contradictory logo

2008-09-16T08:30:00.011+03:00

Ok, this is sort of old news but who cares! New logo of the Music Centre in Helsinki:

My initial thought was, as usual "This is SHIT!" It's nigh impossible in any print media if it needs to be scaled down or printed in grayscale. There's just too much going on, it's very restless and undefined. Spacing is crap and the color-blind people will probably get some sort of fit just by glancing it. Oh, and don't even get me started on their so-very-trendy color scheme at their site. Turqois and brown, wow! No one has ever thought of that before!

But no, it's not shit. Mostly because it's daring without trying too much. So what if it can't be printed in black & white onto a postmark? Even the very very obvious connection to this can be forgiven, solely on the account of standing out. Almost every logo has a solid, filled area. It's always nice to see something different that doesn't fall into the trap of phoniness. Oh, and the arrangement and scaling of the dots is almost hypnotic if you stare at it for a few minutes at 8 AM with an energy drink still pumping through your veins.

First grumpy entry

2008-09-09T11:21:00.004+03:00

Looking at truly terrible design regardless of media is a lot like watching American (or Finnish for that matter) Idols. At the surface, you feel amused and criticise the subject with harsh words. Dig slightly deeper and you find yourself feeling sorry for the "artist". Have they totally lost their self-criticism? What exactly is making the poor thing to perform/design? Maybe friendly but misleading and unfounded comments from peers and co-workers?

And yet, it feels good, doesn't it? For some reason, you get a little kick out of it. A tiny, often somewhat unjustified childish ego-boost doing its part to strengthen your professional self-image. Of course, you can't build that self-image on such feelings. Still, I bet everyone feels occasional superiority looking at another crappy website/poster/photo/whatever thinking "My god that is SHIT."