Want to see our (Italy’s) brand new logo? Here it is! (I am seriously hoping WordPress won’t stop working because of this.)

And here is the news about it.

I ain’t going around with that scribble representing me. It’s a joke, not only to our country but also to our design industry. I know you all thought I am Italian, but really, my name is Elizabeth Brown. I swear.

It’s almost Christmas time and presents fly around. Your neighbour stops trashing your flowers with the car. Companies make offers. My hosting company, SiteGround, is distributing gift certificates for people who want to buy new services.

Since all the people I know already have their hosting, I thought I’d let you guys know. If you are looking for a hosting company I can assure you SiteGround is a great one. If you want one of my gift certificates please leave a comment here and make sure you fill in your real email address in the comment form. I won’t spam ya. I’ll just send you the invitation.

Happy holidays.

Next Book, Big Book of Layouts

PRESS RELEASE
Los Angeles, Calif. – September 12, 2006 – Mayhem Studios recognized for design excellence. The Studios’ works will be featured in David E. Carter’s next book, Big Book of Layouts, which will be in book stores soon. The book will feature outstanding design layout works from around the world.

Mayhem Studios Contributes to Logo Nation Article

Mayhem Studios contributes to an article for Creative Latitude, Logo Notions written by Jeff Fisher, Say NO!LOGO to speculative “contests” and identity design requests. We were honored to be asked to contribute to an article concerning Speculative Work and Contests. How it negatively affects the creative community.

Jeff Fisher, the Engineer of Creative Identity for www.jfisherlogomotives.com, is the author of “The Savvy Designer’s Guide to Success: Ideas and tactics for a killer career. He can often be found preaching what he practices through speaking engagements at creative industry events around the country and writing for various design-related magazines and webzines.

www.CreativeLatitude.com is a worldwide community that unites various creative disciplines for collective promotion, education and ethical business practice.

Mayhem Studios’ recently completed projects

Recruitment brochure and flyer for Santa Monica College and the City of Santa Fe Springs. Mayhem Studios helped Santa Monica College and the City of Santa Fe Springs in developing the right message in their recruitment efforts. Which was a success, resulting in a great turn out.

Energy Contractors Product Sheet. Mayhem Studios helped Energy Contractors design a product sheet which is appealing and conveyed the proper selling points of their products, which helped to increase sales.

Clayton Real Estate brochure for Clayton Realtors. Mayhem Studios created a dynamic promotional piece that set Clayton Realtors apart from the rest of the Real Estate companies. Which has increased their clientele dramatically.

Calvin Lee is a graduate of Platt College and serves as a member of the Platt College Advisory Board for the Visual Communications Department and is part of the www.no-spec.com Committee. Lee is also the organizer and president of the Los Angeles Designers Association.

Mayhem Studios is a small award-winning design firm located in Los Angeles. Developing identity and brand recognition for the business sector across the nation. The Studio uses strategic and creative design with effective messages targeted to the client’s specific audiences to produce identity and branded collateral pieces, annual reports, brochures, logo design, advertising & interactive web sites. Additional information may be found at the Studio’s web site, www.mayhemstudios.com.

The NO!SPEC crusade has recently launched its web site in an effort to educate both creatives and those who buy their services about the dangers and damaging effects caused by speculative work and contests. The initiative was developed by a group of visual communication designers across the globe who share a common passion for their industry, ethical business practices and wanted to take a firm stand on the issue of speculative (“spec”) work requests. The site can be found at www.no-spec.com.

Over the past several years, there has been a disturbing increase in the number of spec-based “contests,” particularly in the area of logo design. In addition, more and more companies are requesting that creative projects be done on a speculative basis. Spec projects are those that provide no guarantee of payment for those submitting work. In essence, a creative (graphic designer, photographer, illustrator, writer, etc.) is asked to invest both time and resources into the project with the client only paying for the design they prefer. In many cases all intellectual property rights to the work by the creative are also forfeited to the client.

Contests, or creative competitions, are a particular concern as they offer the allure of notoriety and potential cash prizes. The trend has even moved into the corporate world where large companies, with more than adequate resources to pay fair market value, are holding competitions to procure their creative needs. Typically, the winner receives a prize that is below market value for their design. In many cases the contest sponsor takes ownership and all rights to all submissions.

Through its site, NO!SPEC provides resources and information for creatives about the nature of spec work, how to identify it and how to take a stand against it. In addition, the site provides businesses with information about why making speculative work requests is both harmful to the creative community and potentially dangerous for their business. NO!SPEC also provides information about how buyers of creative services can ethically procure creative services.

The NO!SPEC initiative includes contacting designers, educators, businesses and organizations, creating NO!SPEC promotional materials, protest letters, and developing petitions. In the future there will be NO!SPEC material for educators to use in classrooms, and more.

With the international support of NO!SPEC, we ask that you please join us in promoting professional, ethical business practices by saying NO! to spec.

NO!SPEC crusade
www.no-spec.com
Contact NO!SPEC

[tags]design, business, graphic design, desktop publishing, web design, creative, communications, visual, photography, illustration[/tags]

PDFs are not longer confined to the 2D world. With Acrobat 3D, one can publish, share review and interact with 3D elements within a PDF document. Yes you read right, I said interact. 3D items can be embedded in a PDF document and the viewer can rotate, move, zoom them and a few of other tricks.

Acorbat 3D is much more than this and I invite you to head over to Adobe and have a look. For a demonstration of what can be donw, download this PDF.
[tags]Acrobat, 3D, Adobe, PDF[/tags]

Los Angeles, Calif. – January 27, 2006 - Mayhem Studios announces recognition for its graphic design work. Business card designs for three firms are featured in David E. Carter’s, The Big Book of Business Cards. Designs from more than 600 firms, 37 states and 20 countries submitted entries.

Mayhem’s clients include Fagerholm & Jefferson Law Corporation and Emtek Products, Inc. Their business cards, along with Mayhem Studios’, were among the more than 2,200 business admissions showcased in the publication.

John W. Fagerholm, of Fagerholm & Jefferson Law Corporation, gives high praises for the Studio’s production.

“I have had so many great compliments on my cards. I appreciate the time that Mayhem Studios took to listen to what I needed and figure out the solution,” he says.” In the past, I have not been able to find business cards that were professional enough to say, ‘I can handle whatever you throw at me’ but at the same time say, ‘I’m hip enough to be practicing entertainment law.’ Mayhem Studios found the right combination.”

Calvin Lee, Owner/Creative Director of Mayhem Studios, is excited not only for pleased clients but also for the recognition.

“We’re excited to be recognized for our strategic client design work,” Lee comments. “This award is affirmation that we are doing the right thing for our clients.”

In addition to its inclusion in David E. Carter’s, The Big Book of Business Cards, Mayhem Studios recently contributed to an article on identity design written by Jeff Fisher of LogoMotives for Creative Latitude. The Studios’ efforts are also highlighted on several Web sites including iStockphoto, Area of Design, Design Inspirations, Art Years and Creative Latitude’s “Graphic make-over’s.”

Lee is a graduate of Platt College and serves as a member of the Platt College Advisory Board for the Visual Communications Department. He is also the organizer and president of the Los Angeles Designers Association.

Mayhem Studios is an award-winning design firm, developing identity and brand recognition for the business sector across the nation. The Studio uses strategic and creative design with effective messages targeted to the client’s specific audiences to produce identity and branded collateral pieces, annual reports, brochures, logo design, advertising and interactive web sites. Additional information may be found at the Studio’s web site, http://www.mayhemstudios.com/.

The Macworld conference on January 10, was one with no lack of surprises. The biggest one being the new MacBook Pro, Apple’s Intel based laptop. ZDNet UK shares with us their first view:

Jobs claims that Intel’s Core Duo will deliver performance that’s four to five times faster than what you’ll get from Apple’s prior-generation PowerBook G4. The 2.59cm.-thick MacBook Pro weighs 2.54kg and includes a built-in iSight camera, an ExpressCard slot and an Apple Remote for navigating the company’s Front Row media software. Two versions will be available in February: a £1,429 (inc. VAT) model with a 1.67GHz processor, 512MB of RAM and an 80GB hard drive; and a beefier £1,779 (inc. VAT) model with a 1.83GHz processor, 1GB of RAM and a 100GB hard drive.

The laptop is quite expensive but is it worth the price? Read the rest of ZDNet’s article.

If you didn’t go to the Macworld conference and have not yet read the news about it, here are some articles you can read so you can get in the know.

As bias as I am, being one of their Editors, I am going to show you first the coverage by Designorati. Our In-House Editor, Vadim Litvak attended the conference and has provided rather detailed information about it:

• Macworld Conference: Quark Releases QuarkXPress 7 Beta Program
  Tuesday, January 10—Quark announces the QuarkXPress 7 public beta program at the Macworld conference. Though the program is not yet released in its final form…
• Macworld Conference: A New Update for OS X Tiger, an Overview of Aperture and iLife 06
  After the overview of Apple’s achievements in the digital music market with iTunes and iPod, Steve Jobs, Apple’s CEO, moved onto the enhancements of Apple software…
• Macworld Conference: iPods and iTunes Rule the Digital Music Market
  Where did you buy your mp3s? I could tell you that you have probably purchased them from iTunes and I’d be correct 85 times out 100…
• Macworld Conference: The Goods
  The Powerbook is dead, viva la MacBook Pro. The Macbook Pro comes with 2 Intel processors, at 4-5x faster than the Powerbook. Apple touts it as the fastest notebook ever…

Because Quark released the beta version of QuarkXPress 7 I have taken this opportunity to have a look at the program as it stands so far. Have a look at my review of the QuarkXPress 7 Beta.

Macworld.com provided live coverage during the expo. You can see it here. This site also has plenty of articles about the new releaeses of the conference and it’s a great resource for those who want to find out everything about it.

Do you want to see the MacBook Pro in action? Know how good (or bad) iLife 06 is? Do you want a post-Macworld report? Then check out The Unofficial Apple Weblog.

There are tons of other sites that cover the Macworld expo, but you not only risk to spend the rest of your life reading them all, I’d do the same providing all the links here. So what about watching the expo itself? You can with Apple’s webcast.

All right I tricked you. I wanted you to read the resources I provided before telling you that you could watch the expo itself. I just wanted to share with you the articles I spent time finding. If you didn’t make it there, hopefully these will make up for it. Enjoy your conference.

Tags: macworld, macbook, iLife, Apple, Mac, Macintosh, Quark, quarkxpress

Many people in the design world might have probably heard about the dispute involving LogoWorks. Some of the logos presented by LogoWorks seemed to have been used and owned by other companies.

This is an instance that shows a possible market void in the world of design. A company providing design services, such as logos, should always have the clients in mind when doing so. If they cared about their clients and not just about making a few bucks, they would make sure their logos would be quality work and would not be copied from somebody else. It ruins the branding of the clients who use the logos as they are just copied “company identities”. That said, somebody who just buys a logo off a site like LogoWorks obviously doesn’t understand or isn’t bothered about branding, as it’s very unlikely that pre-made logos which do not target the company’s target market would forward any type of marketing strategy.

As I stated before this seems like a market void–companies who want to get cheap logos look for places where they can get one, often overlooking the positive effects that a well marketed company image can have for them. Factually we have two conflicting worlds here: the world of the professional designers who obviously want to get a proper exchange for their valuable work and the time they spend in designing and develop a branding strategy for their clients, and the world of the small companies/clients who might not afford certain expenses.

The answer to this would probably be designers whose only or main target is small companies as it is very likely that their fees reflect that. Yet designers’ work is valuable whichever type of client they work for/with. A better answer would probably be to educate clients on the importance of branding and marketing and how a pre-made logo cannot substitude a proper researched logo which is tailored for the client’s target market. Clients should be educated on what is behind the creation of a logo and how the work that goes into it will actually put the client in the position where he can afford things like proper promotion. Associations such as the the Professional Graphic Design Association can help achieve this.

Related links:
PGDA: Code of Ethics
Creative Latitude