BP has more issues than just their identity

Sean Farres / Creativity / Graphic Design / News / Transportation

The environmental catastrophe happening in the Gulf is horrific. No one really understands the ecological consequences from this mistake yet. In a CBS survey, 70 percent disapproved of BP’s response. Designers agree too and are using their voice to express their disapproval. Greenpeace is asking for a redesign of BP’s logo.

View Logo Gallery

Enter the Greenpeace BP logo redesign competition

Learn more about the Deepwater Horizon oil spill

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Poor Logo Design – NC Education Lottery

Sean Farres / Creativity / Graphic Design / Local

One symbol which represents NC in the worst way is our current lottery logo. The mountains and lighthouse are child’s scribble. Our beautiful Blue Ridge Mountains are mushy mounds of dirt. Our beach coast is a stack of bobby pins. North Carolina Education Lottery you are a winner in poor graphic design. Please play again.

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Ad Barns – An Unexpected History Lesson

Sheila Crosby / Creativity / Graphic Design

Over the holidays, my family and I traveled to Ohio to visit relatives. In the southern part of the state, I snapped this picture as we drove by.

I didn’t realize at the time that much has been researched and documented about the Mail Pouch barns, as they are referred to. I just thought it was a cool nostalgic image. In my quick search for more information on these barns, I discovered a book called Advertising Barns: Vanishing American Landmarks by William G. Simmonds. From this book, I learned that this campaign lasted 100 years and this ad has been painted approximately 50,000 times. (The words along the bottom of this barn used to say “Treat Yourself to the Best.” )

Growing up in Ohio, I can’t say I recall seeing these barn advertisements but I’m glad I had the chance to learn a little history about them. I hope they continue to stand the test of time.

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Reuse our Recycling Presentation on Prezi

Alexander Hussain / Graphic Design / Interaction Design / New Technology / Web & Software

Our friends over at Prezi just released a new feature – Reusable Prezis.  This new feature allows you to start with an existing presentation that was created by any member who chooses to share their work – you can keep the layout, keep the content, improve it, or just mix it up however you like.  We are excited to say that our presentation for the TriUPA Design Challenge is one of the featured Prezis selected for the initial feature rollout. We can’t wait to see how you use it – please share our work with the rest of the world as you see fit and be sure to let us know if you find it helpful for any of your upcoming presentations.

For those of you who don’t know already, Prezi is a fun and unique alternative to PowerPoint.  It does away with the concept of “slides” and has helped us find interesting ways to share the “big picture” during our presentations, especially when we are speaking in front of larger groups.  It is a relatively new tool for our team, but we have found that it gives us a little edge that helps to set our work apart. We hope it will do the same for you!

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Warning labels, should they make you laugh?

Sheila Crosby / Graphic Design

While in my neighbor’s garage last week, I happened to glance down at a stack of clear storage containers and noticed this sticker on the inside of each lid…

While I realize that silly warning labels have been well documented, seeing a new one always makes me laugh. Are there people out there that would store a live baby in a clear storage container? A toddler? Maybe there are and this company felt it was their responsibility to point out the obvious dangers of doing so.

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Healthcare reform

Sean Farres / Creativity / Design Inspiration / Graphic Design / Green Technology / Human Factors / Industrial Design / Medical / Trends

One medical brand incorporating good design is Help Remedies. The simplicity is genius. The greatest feature of the medicine is no use of excessive fillers. What stands this product out even more is the packaging. Its main message is how it can heal me. What I like even more is that the packaging can go in the compost. Does your Advil do that?

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See our new recycling system!

Sean Farres / Community Involvement / Creativity / Design Inspiration / Graphic Design / Green Technology / Human Factors / Industrial Design / Local / User Research

What a great meeting at the TriUPA & HFES Carolina World Usability Day event. HumanCentric had the opportunity to present our new recycling solution to this year’s design challenge. It goes without saying we were the clear winners in the design challenge (well… we were the only entry, but let’s not get caught up in the details…). The audience was very receptive and had lots of great questions about our process, information graphic and in-home bin prototype. Click here to view our presentation.

Many audience members wanted our solution implemented across the Triangle to jump-start awareness and increase recycling. HumanCentric is very excited about the community support and would love to have our vision for a better recycling system become a reality. If you would like to join our campaign for a greener Triangle please contact Alexander Hussain at HumanCentric. HumanCentric’s next steps are to connect local government officials to present our improved recycling solution.

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IKEA’s font switch–is it a big deal?

Leigh McClure / Graphic Design / Human Factors

Dear IKEA Font Haters –

Evidently a war has ensued over IKEA’s switch to Verdana font as opposed to the Futura font that was used in the earlier catalogs. There are a lot of individuals who are “up in arms” about this switch. We decided to take it to the streets (or the cubicles as the case may be) and see what people thought…

Source: geeksugar.com

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