#lettersociety

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Project 34: Reflection

Project 34 will be our final project. After almost 3 years of collaborating and creating alongside truly talented designers, we regret to announce that the Letter Society will be going on an indefinite break while we figure out what’s next. Our final project will be to reflect on what being a member of the blog has meant to each of us and how it has impacted our growth as creatives.

The posts will be added throughout the day on July 31st. Enjoy.

When we started the blog, the goal was to do projects that challenged us and encouraged growth in disciplines, techniques, and ways of thinking that were not part of our 9-5 careers. Since then and as a direct result of being a part of the blog, the majority of us have gotten new jobs and the time is simply not there to create posts that’ve receives the proper attention, thought, and time. We thank you for following along and ask that you continue to follow The Letter Society for future updates when we return.

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Project 32: (Re)Design an Experience

When given the prompt to redesign an experience, I wanted the experience to be something that I use on the daily regardless of it’s aesthetic, not because of it. I more-or-less immediately thought... 

I, as well as hundreds of thousands of people all over the globe use Reddit daily, but it has to be one of the most unattractive websites out there. That said, it’s incredibly well done in that it communicates information quickly and effectively to thousands of people a second. Then entire system is incredibly simple and that is why it works so well. In my redesign, I wanted to give Reddit a little bit of a facelift. Keep it clean and simple, like it is now, but add in some fun and unique functionality and aesthetics.

Reddit Front Page: 

All default subreddits have both an icon and a corresponding color. These elements can be used for anything from the default image for image-less posts to the header image for the respective subreddit as well as the subreddit’s primary color source. There are close to 50 default subreddits, this is just a sample.

Access your account information or contributing actions from a simple dropdown menu.

Sliding wayfinding in the primary menu system. 

Access all of the default subreddits as well as your subscribed subreddits and any subreddits you may be a moderator of in this hidden menu.

Simple up/downvote mechanism. 

Reddit Comment Thread:

Instead of the usual sidebar of rules and information cluttering up the space, I chose to “hide” the information using a sliding sidebar. The sidebar contains information about the post, subreddit, and rules.

Thank for watching! 

-Alex

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Project 30: Lights, Camera, Action (Part I)

For this project, I decided to design a tryptic of Martin Scorsese film posters. I chose these movies because (besides being my favorites) they all share common symbolism. I chose the tone-on-tone black/varnish to show that everything isn’t quite what it seems in those films. I also chose red, as that color is very important in all three films. The use of red in each poster symbolizes an important point in the film: an X can be found before any death in The Departed; the red of dawn before the final fight in Gangs of New York and the red tail lights at the beginning of the film in Goodfellas.

There will be a part II of this project: I was originally going to screen print these with fancy shiny varnish but it didn’t arrive in time. So stay tuned!

-Jenn

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Project 28: Presidential Campaign Logo

Hey guys! I had a great time creating this logo and wanted to thank everyone for having me as the guest designer this month.

When I started this project I couldn't decided who I wanted to design a logo for. I teetered between myself and a handful of other awesome people. Then I remembered Deez Nuts was running for president. Don't they deserve a logo too?

I wanted Deez Nuts to be taken seriously as a presidential candidate. Their logo consists of a strong yet approachable typeface and the symbol of two interlocking rings along with the slogan “Uniting America”. Ideally the symbol would live on its own, as did Obama's logo in 2008. 

-Alex

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Project 27: Follower Submissions

This was the first project where we invited our followers submit their creations and someone took us up on that offer. Check out Rachel’s submission above and the additional info below to see more of her work or reach out. If you’d like to submit for the next project, see the Submit tab in our main page’s nav for instructions.

Rachel Quast | [email protected] | rachelquast.com

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Project 26: National Park Badge Hunting - 100 Years

For this project, we were tasked with creating badges a la Allan Peters that were inspired by National Parks. After chatting with a friend it was brought to my attention that 2016 is the 100 year anniversary of the National Park Service (although its being celebrated over the course of 2015-2016). So, I decided to do some badge-work that honored this awesome milestone.

I created 4 badges all centered around the same ‘100’ type. I wanted to make the badges look distinct but have a consistent, hearty color palette that would tie them all together as well as incorporate a feeling of adventure and nature. I was experimenting with the design elements actually containing themselves without the use of a border.

I had so much fun goin’ huntin’ on this project and I hope y’all enjoy!

//Erik

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Project 25: City Flag - Seattle

I chose to redesign the city flag of Seattle because I will be relocating there this summer! Upon discovering the (sorry to say it) sad state of Seattle’s city flag, I was compelled to redesign it. I spent the last week in Seattle apartment-hunting and really felt a strong bond to the city just after that short time, which really helped influence my designs.

Seattle is an isthmus sandwiched between two bodies of water; Puget Sound and Lake Washington. Seattle’s geography was the main source of inspiration for the design of this flag. Although simple, the two blue-colored fields represent the dueling bodies of water, while the thin white stripe represents the city of Seattle itself, bisecting the two bodies of water.

Seattle is also known as the Emerald City (contrary to their current flag design, which displays one of their current “slogans” City of Goodwill), which I explored in some of the concepts above, but decided to stick with the tealish-emerald of the current flag as well as a deep nautical navy to represent Seattle’s rich fishing and port heritage. Above you can also see some additional flags where I explored the nautical theme. Even though there may not be any classic “indexes” of fisheries or other nautical themes in the final design, I can envision this flag flying high above docks and fishing boats or hanging from oyster bars and bait shops.

At the end of the day, I kept the golden rule of design close to heart: K.I.S.S. Keep it simple, stupid.

-Alex 

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PS: Thank you so much to the Letter Society team for choosing me as their guest designer for the month! I had a blast and can’t wait to see what you guys do next.

[lettersociety-general]

For Project 25, we are going to be (re)designing a city flag. It doesn’t matter which city. Just pick one and make a beautiful flag for it :)

There’s an awesome, brief video-recorded podcast by 99% Invisible’s Roman Mars that dives into this topic. I hope it can serve us as inspiration:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pnv5iKB2hl4