3 posts tagged “identity”

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Required listening: The Golden Tide

Dec 17, 2008
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[Cross-posted] Sonia Yee was kind enough to provide me with a preview of Part Three of her series, The Golden Tide (see earlier post here), which appears on Radio New Zealand National each Sunday at 2.30 p.m. from December 28. I’m thrilled with this episode, which airs January 11: she chose some of my better quotes and discarded my non sequiturs, for which I am very grateful. This is required listening: this is not “a Chinese programme” per se. The musical score is outstanding, as is the post work. It is a commentary about cultural identity, and about what it means to be a New Zealander. In a nation where everyone, including the Māori, can trace their roots to another land, we need to understand issues such as pigeon-holing, marginalization, stereotypes, assimilation and identity.

Anatomy of a business card

Jul 25, 2007
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[Cross-posted] I am getting new cards tomorrow—digitally printed. While I prefer offset, the cost is just too unreasonably high compared to digital. And they mark another little step at Lucire as we retire the “eyes” screened image that has been part of the stationery since the 1990s.
The eyes were put on to the stationery to save costs. When the cards were designed, in an age of offset printing and spot colours, we had a plate already made featuring the eyes from the corporate ones (at Jack Yan & Associates). They contributed to the cards and actually lifted the design, plus they gave a clear link back to the parent.
After nearly a decade (the ﬁrst years of Lucire saw us simply use JY&A cards), it was time to abandon the image, given that the reason for their use no longer existed. Digital printing is a very different creature, allowing for endless customization. And most of the team favoured a clean look. I just wish the type was sharper with digital, but the layman will never notice.
We used the traditional Lucire typeface for most of the sans serif details, including the ‘A JY&A Media publication’ endorsement. A second title will follow pretty much this look. The serif typeface is Kris Sowersby’s Slabb, which was launched in Lucire’s print edition just under a year ago.
I was tempted to see a watermark, featuring the cardholder’s name in 48 pt type, slanted at 8 degrees, as the background for the left half of the card, but we removed it after discussion. I think the removal of all screens was the correct decision.
The cards are also multilingual: they are meant to reﬂect the languages spoken by the cardholder and most Swedes will agree I am a long way away from being able to feature their language. It does mean that my degrees no longer feature on mine—I may have to give out my corporate ones if I need something in a more academic context. Having fancy-pants degrees seldom comes up in a fashion magazine discussion.
Bored with this design? This link will alleviate that. The creative business cards there are clever, just not totally practical for our purposes.

It’s 1973 again

Feb 16, 2007
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BBC Life on Mars

Life on Mars Series 2 Trailer x2

The BBC went all out earlier this week with Life on Mars’ second and final season. Before the programme started, the TV ident changed back to 1973’s, with the BBC 1 Colour wording (before that geometric monstrosity that came in 1974). Both are below. It ties in beautifully to earlier promos (above) that had the 1973 style. (BBC Wales did a similar treatment, though with the different aspect ratio of televisions, they are re-creations. In addition, Arial, which the Welsh one is set in, was not designed in 1973.)
The BBC logo itself lacks a little verisimilitude—the designer seems to have just used Neue Helvetica and slanted it a tad more—but on the lower resolutions of TV screens, few would have really noticed.