I published my first package to the NPM registry this week. I was expecting it to be really difficult but it was surprisingly simple.
As I was working on the first open source project for my company, I wanted it to look cool and to mimic the style I’d seen on a lot of other packages – the organization name preceded by an at symbol (“@”), followed by a slash (“/”) and the package name.
This is called “scoping” a package, where the scope is your organization. …
I joined the Labour Campaign for Mental Health team in October 2017, and quickly became invested in designing a new brand that would improve our recognition and reflect the professionalism of our campaign.
After joining the Labour Campaign for Mental Health I spoke to our Director, Joseph Croft, about my desire to help with the campaign’s graphic design. I work in Marketing, and I care passionately about mental health, so designing a brand for a mental health campaign is essentially my dream gig. I was delighted when Joseph said, “go for it”.
Relative to other Labour campaigns (of which there are many), LCMH has a large profile. However, I didn’t feel the quality of our branding matched the quality of our work.
Earlier this week I published four examples of great political design, from the iconic Obama “Hope” poster to the infamous Vote Leave bus (coach).
I was immediately reminded of two things — firstly, that not all political design is good; secondly, by my friend James, that good design doesn’t always deliver a successful campaign. By that measure, bad design doesn’t always result in loss (as evidenced by the fact Manchester United still managed to win the 1992–3 Premier League while wearing this abomination.)
So I’ve put together the opposite number to my article on great design — four examples of…
Today is the 70th anniversary of the creation of the National Health Service. One of the defining moments in British political history, the creation of a public health service is undoubtedly one of the Labour Party’s greatest achievements — it’s even described as such on their website.
I’ll leave the history behind its creation and the current, austerity-induced issues it faces to others because I want to focus, predicatably, on design within the health service.
It had no universal branding to speak of when it launched on 5th July 1948. Until the launch of its now-ubiquitous brand, it was widely…
Some are obvious. Some are controversial. All are good design.
This weekend I visited the Design Museum’s Hope to Nope exhibition.
Chronicling ten years of political design, Hope to Nope aims to show how political engagement, and the means by which we engage, has changed dramatically since the heady days of Barack Obama’s ridiculously popular MySpace page.
The exhibition, on until 12th August, is a celebration of intelligent design in politics, and inspired me to consider four of the most effective, recent campaign designs, listed below. It is by no means exhaustive so please comment your own favourites below the line.
Hope, Shepard Fairey, 2008
On Wednesday, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez won an historic victory for the Left in America, and overseas movements can learn a lot from her campaign.
I’m inspired.
On Wednesday, the Democrats elected Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez to be their candidate for Congress in the New York district of Queens and the Bronx. A former hospitality worker and member of the Democratic Socialists of America, the 28 year-old ran on a platform that wouldn’t sound out of place in a UK General Election — free healthcare and university education for all. Shelly Asquith, a Labour Party activist and columnist for the blog LabourList, this morning commented on the parallels between Ocasio and the current leadership of the Party.
Proximity to the establishment and big money won’t wash, and…
Hear me out.
While pretty universally derided as a BAD THING in the world of design, Comic Sans — yes, that parody of a font — is actually amazing.
It has been given a hard time by designers, banned by a model parliament, and become something of a nerd’s go-to April Fool’s joke.
Take a closer look at this typographic fiend, though, and you’ll discover a font far more interesting than most.
For starters, Comic Sans, created by type designer Vincent Connare in 1994, is designed to be disambiguous — that is, every letter is unique. Letters like b and d, or p…
