I attended the Irish premiere of Public Enemies yesterday evening. The new film, directed by Michael Mann, is based on the life of 1930’s American gangster John Dillinger, played by Johnny Depp. The film hadn’t even made the final cut (as the end credits had yet to be added) but I was one of the lucky few who got to see it in advance of its worldwide release (thanks to movies.ie for the tickets).

Set during the Great Depression, the film is an adaptation of Bryan Burrough’s non-fiction book Public Enemies: America’s Greatest Crime Wave and the Birth of the FBI. The story focuses on the true story of criminal John Dillinger and FBI agent Melvin Purvis’s efforts to stop him (Purvin is played effectively by Christian Bale). Concentrating on the gangster’s last years (1933 – 1934), Dillinger is portrayed as a Robin Hood type character, whom was somewhat idolized at the time by a public that was bored, broke and struggling during a depression. His manipulation of the press and his tendency to rob banks while letting the customers keep their own money added to his appeal at the time.

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I have been featured in Smashing Magazine’s latest article “How To Create A Great Web Design CV and Résumé” by Kat Neville of safetygoat.

Kat devised a CV design challenge/ competition in which ten Web designers had to design the same résumé in only a few hours. Each designer had to translate a fictional character, Steve Stevenson’s work experience, education and interests into their own unique style. A summary of good tips for Web designer résumés is featured at the end of the article. If you’re interested in taking the challenge yourself, visit misterstevenson.com for all the rules each of the designers followed and the chance to add your own entry.

If you are interested in learning about my design methodology, please continue reading below.

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I have been meaning for a while to write a regular feature about logo design. These posts are intended to provide a place for designers to come to for inspiration and to find out more about a variety of different logos. Please feel free to discuss these logo designs. And by all means, please recommend or suggest a logo for future posts.

Photo owned by →Unity (cc)

The first logo that I have chosen to feature in this series of posts is “I Love New York” by Milton Glaser. What better logo to begin with!

Logo: I Love New York
Designer: Milton Glaser
Typeface used: American Typewriter
Colors used: Black and red
Interesting fact #1: Glaser did the work for this logo pro-bono
Interesting fact #2: The logo is said to be the most frequently imitated design in logo history
Distinguishing features: The logo includes a rebus. Glaser used a red heart symbol (♥) to represent the word “love” in his design. The use of a heart as a symbol for the word “love” has been widely imitated since then. All of the other elements that make up this logo – black capital letters in the “American Typewriter” font – make the red heart symbol stand out even more prominently.

Glaser created the design in 1977 based on Wells Rich Greene’s advertising campaign “I Love New York”, which was developed to promote tourism in New York State. (more…)