#margo chase

[velvetsilkstar]

Whimsigothic In Design

1. Bill Bruford's Earthworks – Heavenly BodiesDesign, 1997. Illustration – Dave McKean

2. MirrorMask: The Illustrated Film Script of the Motion Picture from The Jim Henson Company (Hardcover)

3. Paula Abdul: Spell Bound (CD), 1991. Art directors: Melanie Nissen, Margo Chase. Designers: Nancy Ogami, Margo Chase. Typographer: Margo Chase.

4. Legends from Fairylandby Holme Lee

5. Artwork By [Art Direction, Design] – Chris Bigg, Vaughan Oliver

6. Vaughan Olivier - calendar March (1990)

[womenofgraphicdesign]

Margo Chase (American, 1958-2017) · Remembrance

“Chase died on July 22, 2017 after the plane she was piloting crashed in Apple Valley, California. Her distinctive style helped define a decade of graphic and type design in the mid 1990s.” (source)

Women of Graphic Design would like to extend our condolences to all those touched by Chase’s passing.

“Over the past 20 years, Margo's highly expressive work has been seen in movie posters for Bram Stoker's Dracula; on album covers for top performers like Cher, Madonna, and Prince; and in ads for brands such as Starbucks, Target, and Procter & Gamble. With a background in biology, Margo migrated to the world of graphic design, where she brought a unique, organic quality to logos, lettering, and identity design. Never one to live life passively, Margo... developed a love for competitive aerobatic flying in her own high-performance plane.” (source)

More remembrances of Margo’s impact on the world: Design Observer & “Final Flight: Margo Chase, a Great American Designer” by Kristin Ellison

h/t @garadinervi & Fonts in Use

[nellysketchesnstuff]

I'm sorry your hero is dead and you don't have fudge.

My friend, who has fudge, as I told him about Margo Chase’s death, pretty much

[heathertolerfso]

The mind of a designer is a mind like no other. A designer looks at many perspectives, collects information for many sources to design a simple or complex campaign. The campaign is usually dictated by upper management who submits an RFP to the designing while also hoping for the best.

Having your creative director, designer, on staff with you, immersed in the culture of the brand will help when it comes to creating something that is authentic to the identity of the company. The creative director can also ensure that your resources are properly allocated, and used to the best of their ability.

According to our text, Designing Brand Identity, there are many benefits to hiring a Creative Director to oversee the branding and design process. There’s a level of maturity in workflow and design that comes with the decisions made by a well in-formed staff thanks to a Creative Direction who is well rounded in how to communicate and how to design for us (Wheeler. p. 115).

Three take aways from this course...

1. Research is EVERYTHING. Dig as deep and you can, then go deeper. If you do it you may find something extraordinary for create an amazing bran die

2. Start in Black. It’s easy to design a logo in color, but if you can get it right in Black and White, you’ll have further troubles in color. 

3. Margo Chase. We lost Margo last weekend, but the best aspect of this course and the one before it was finally having a female designer to look up, such as Margo. 

Wheeler, A. Brand Identity: An Essential Guide for the WholeBranding Team. Retrieved July 27, 2017 from                                                                                                                                                                                                      

[christenrobinson]

Brand Development

Experienced design directors should join senior management teams who oversee brand building because brand management as a whole is a communicative process that requires input from both design and management to be effective. In the style guide example developed by Margo Chase for Starbucks, Margo explains the communicative process that took place between the design team and Starbucks to develop a signature program of product that would make their brand recognizable even without the green logo on it that Starbucks was known for (Chase, 2008).

To do this the design team had to be able to dissect Starbucks brand to determine what the brand was actually made of and how this could be best defined in a way that would make the brand stand out and reflect their brand promise all while yielding a fresh perspective. This is also considered the initial research phase according to Alina Wheeler in Designing Brand Identity, which is also where one of the most common mistakes of miscommunication can occur if external design teams and companies begin a project like this without including the internal design team. The internal design team can assist the external team with challenges and insights that may be needed to make things happen and needs to work with the external team to fully embrace and understand how best to implement the new design system (Wheeler, 2013)..

By working together the external and internal design team would embody the characteristics of “strategic innovators” in consideration of the Maturity Model for Design Management. According to this model, strategists are what you have when the brand’s external team develops a new identity in coordination with the internal team who provides input on company priorities for the brand. Innovators are where the internal and external team collaborate during the development in a way that the bonded team serves as brand ambassadors and primary counsel to the executive team regarding brand initiatives (Wheeler, 2013).

Three takeaways from this course that are important to me as a media designer are to keep things simple, tell stories, and communicate. These key things are what will serve to keep your designs fresh, relatable, and sustainable. When your audience be it clients or a target group of customers are able to grasp your ideas because they make sense with clear simple rationale, can relate to your story telling which helps to humanize the experience they share with you, and sustain a relationship with your work through established communication, this ultimately helps to ensure your success as a media designer which is my ultimate goal.

Resources:

Wheeler, A. (2013). Designing Brand Identity: An Essential Guide for Branding the Whole Team. John Wiley & Sons, Inc. Hoboken, NJ.

Chase, M. (2008). Creative Inspirations: Margo Chase, Graphic Designer: Style guides. Retrieved August 28, 2016 from https://www.lynda.com/Design-Documentaries-tutorials/Style-guides/685/38839-4.html

[julisastone-blog]

Design Directors in Senior Management

The branding experience begins with the design, therefore, it is essential for experienced design directors to join senior management. As a part of senior management, creative directors will be able to oversee the brand from all angles with access to the right people to redirect or change it. Wheeler writes that “[c]ompanies that value design as a core competency tend to be more successful in their marketing and communications (2012, pg. 114). The design expresses the feel of the product that encourages and draws in brand loyalty. This concept relates back to the lecture by Dr. Phillip Kolter: Marketing (2012). He discussed the four levels of marketing:

1P: Doesn’t like marketing but knows its necessary; only concerned with communication

4P: Likes to have a plan and focuses on: product, price, place, and promotion

STP: Understands market segments and has a 4P plan for each

ME: Marketing is Everything. Brand starts with the customer and in order to make money you have to spend it first.

An experienced design director in senior management puts the company in a ME category according to Dr. Kolter (2012). It leads to a solid and well defined brand. This is evident in the relationship between Margo Chase and Starbucks. Starbucks has their own strong design team that works with Margo Chase. The relationship reflects the “brand builder” level of Cohen Miller Consulting’s Maturity Model for Design Management (Wheeler, 2012; pg. 115). The design team understands the usefulness of having an outside design team brand the company to ensure that the brand remains focused. However, Margo Chase is unaware of how Starbucks will use their designs. Therefore, they must generate designs that can be applied to nearly any form of product (bags, cups, wall décor, clothing, etc.) It is a trust that Margo Chase understands and knows what Starbucks wants. Also, that Starbucks’ internal design team is capable to adhering to the standards and design rules laid out by Margo Chase (Chase, 2008).

   References:

[Chicago Humanities Festival]. (2012, November 26). Philip Kolter: Marketing. [Video file]. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sR-qL7QdVZQ

Chase, M. (Author). (September 4, 2008). Typography Tutorials. Creative Inspirations: Margo Chase, Graphic Designer. [Video File]. Retrieved from http://www.lynda.com/Typography-tutorials/margochasegraphicdesigner/685-2.html?org=fullsail.edu

Wheeler, A. (2012). Designing Brand Identity: An Essential Guide for the Whole Branding Team. Retrieved 27 June 2016.

[onaclarke]

And because I’m sure a few people will be curious, here are the classic Susan Kare Mac style icons I made for the typographers featured in the brochure: Susan Kare herself, Stefan Sagmeister, Margo Chase, Jeffery Keedy, and Zuzana Licko.

[experimentalcomposition]

GOOD and EVIL posters

Designer: Margo Chase