Lately I have been studying the work of Kwaku Alston, his photography and use of light is amazing, as a result I’ve been trying to introduce more colour into my photography. The winter sunlight in Ireland is usually saturated by gray and its seldom that the sunlight really shines through the clouds to illuminate the colours below but last Sunday morning while out walking I saw the sun breaking through the clouds creating this magnificent colour throughout the Wexford countryside. See the images below.

Sometimes the simplest everyday object can be used to form a strong visual metaphor that remains in the viewers mind long afterward, as shown in the two bicycle themed adverts below. The beauty of advertising is that you can use something totally alien to the product to help promote it.

The advert above left is a perfect example of that, a bicycle is used to suggest a woman is going to get Woman’s Day magazine on her bicycle. Gene Federico design shows us an excellent example of how by substituting an everyday object with letter forms, it can make a visual that sticks in the mind for its uniqueness. Federico took advantage of the close proximity of ‘go out‘ by using the letter ‘o’ in both words as wheels. Its a brilliant visual metaphor that grabs the viewers attention and drags them in to read the support copy. Another example of the clever use of bicycle wheels in advertising is Arnold Schwartzman’s 1984 Los Angeles Olympics cycling poster. Schwartzman organised three cyclists to ride close enough together to form the five Olympic rings. Photoshop was not used in this photograph and the cyclists had to complete hundreds of laps in the velodrome to eventually capture the perfect composition to form the symbolic Olympic rings. Both adverts are highly memorial and unique in their clever but simple use of bicycle wheels.

The prospect of advertising in wheel manufacturing for the likes of Campagnolo, Lightweight, Zipp, etc are endless. We will revisit the use of bicycles wheels in other advertising and branding at a later stage.

Cycling to work can be dangerous for the best of cyclists, so wearing a helmet is something I’d definitely advocate. The problem is, most people I know don’t like to wear helmets simply because they feel helmets will make them look silly.

So when I found this new range of helmets by YAKKAY I thought what an excellent way for people to wear helmets as they cycle to work. The YAKKAY helmets are not like the usual ’space age’ helmets most cyclists use, they are as stylish as a cycling helmet can be and fully adjustable as seen here. The Danish team behind YAKKAY philosophy for bicycle helmet design is “where safety requirements and style are united and equally valued.” There is definitely a need to highlight the dangers of not wearing helmets cycling now that so many people are taking advantage of the Cycle to Work Scheme – at least now people have a contemporary solution to protect their head that is both safe and fashionable. Images by Yakkay

From left to right: The helmets shell, Paris hat with ear warmers, and a girl wearing the helmet

Hat cover models from left to right - Luzern, Cambridge, Paris and Tokyo

Best branding practice is to generally keep the design simple. Strong two colour brands that can be reproduced well in black & white, printed clearly small or on fabric is a sign of an effective design. However to design a simple logo that engages the viewer is the difficult bit. I’ve highlighted two examples of simple but brilliantly designed logos that engage the viewer, FedEx and P+T logos are very similar in their subtle visual cleverness.

Federal Express old logo below was in need of a brand refresh so when they rebranded in 1994, they decided to reflect their ‘nickname’ FedEx in their identity.

When designing the new logo, the designers introduced a quirky feature, a subtle arrow between the ‘E’ and the ‘x’, see the pink arrow right. The close proximity of both letters to each other gave the logo type an arrow in negative space without inferring with the original typeface itself. The logo itself was applauded for its cleverness and simplicity by introducing an arrow that suggested forward movement.

Thirty years earlier, P&T (1969)- Post and Telegraphs logo was designed by Irish designer Damien Harrington in the famous Kilkenny Design Workshops. The P+T logo was quite a shift from conventional Irish design at the time. It was a type of modern logo that wasn’t being designed in Ireland at the time. The  lowercase initials of Post and Telegraphs were used to great effect by introducing a plus sign (+) in between by using negative space. It was quite the achievement to design such a modern logo at the time but even more impressive was the design was accepted by an obviously forward thinking Post and Telegraph.

The subtle, smart and humourous qualities of both the FedEx logo and P+T logo are very obvious. FedEx were applauded for their forward thinking rebrand but Damien Harrington’s P+T rebrand is every bit as impressive today as it was 40 years ago when it was designed in the Graphic design section of the Kilkenny Design Workshops.

Found this photo I took a while ago of a garage fallen into disrepair.

It got me thinking about how garages and shops from years ago have all but disappeared. Not so long ago if you stopped at a petrol station, it was only to buy fuel or get your car serviced. Garages back then were simple – no sign of shops, breakfast rolls, meal deals, matching uniforms or the glaring lights and primary colours of some multi-national’s corporate identity.

Obviously the products available at modern service stations make good business sense – by offering a diversified range of goods the customer is more likely to buy something else on impulse. But its a pity to see that old garage closed and abandoned. Small town businesses throughout Ireland are currently taking a hammering in this recession.

Hopefully people will return to local independent producers, services and shopkeepers to keep local people in employment, local money in the locality and to help stop their local businesses disappearing into the past like the garage above. Once something unique to the community is lost, it’s very hard to find it again.