Marketing: Fab.com vs Made.com

Marketing emails: Fab.com (left) vs. Made.com (right)

Given that one of Fab.com's recent marketing emails was over 4,000 pixels tall (4,665 px, excluding the boilerplate legal and unsubscribe copy), I find it hard to believe that they're curating the best in design objects.

Instead, the riotous visual design of all the colourful objects, models, patterns, textures seems to communicate that they're determined to have me to buy something, anything at all. It's a complete information overload: the subject alone takes up four lines of text and there are over thirty different product images. Hardly curated and hardly relevant.

In stark contrast is Made.com's approach, whose emails I happily open and read, if only to dream about one day having a beautiful, spacious couch. A clean, elegant design with attention to white space and specific, carefully chosen information, the focus is clear and obvious.

While I realise that these two companies have slightly different offerings and demographics, it's clear which company is design-centric and which one is focused on making money as quickly as possible.

Pena Palace, Cintra, Portugal

The Bowler Series: Pip Pip

The Bowler Series

The Bowler Series – click to enlarge

These three posters are something I've been working on for a while now. They're by no means finished but they're getting close enough that I thought I'd post this snapshot.

The series is inspired by a number of things: living in Britain, the works of P.G. Wodehouse, commuting in London and the oh-so British "polite notices" that one sees in shops. And although the posters could be seen as similar to a popular, ubiquitous, now-tired British poster, their intent is instead to question the proprieties of British traditions and etiquette which have faded, leaving only the trope behind.

From the Archives

Some old concepts that never made it to the production stage.

Inspired by Experiment Jetset.

A more refined take on some rough lettering. It eventually became a split-fountain screenprint.

Title Design: They Live

The first few titles of John Carpenter's "They Live" are very straightforward: white serif type on black. However, the presentation of the title instantly disrupts any false sense of normalcy by being much larger and hand-written. The scrawl of the lettering makes it feel like a message or warning, an excellent sentiment given the plot of the film.

What I particularly like is this lovely treatment for the title once it appears on screen: