If I Were A Designer - 21bis: Wooden Bic pen

More than ten years ago I challenged myself with a trend: making one design project per week during one year.

One of those ideas was a 4 colours Bic pen (a every day tool for my design job) with a body in a bit more precious materials (and maybe more comfortable) like leather and wood:

2 years ago I've seen that the brand made it (without crediting me for the initial idea) with a leather 4 colour pen!

Do you feel it's expensive as hell? Be quiet as here comes the idea in its afordable version: the 4 colour Bic pen in wood:

Well that's still not really comfortable and it still costs more than twice the plastic one when it seems to be a fine wooden on a plastic body (and you can feel that the pens have a rough surface to ride on or asmaller one to compensate the wood eight) but this was my idea!

Of course I bought one (actually its sold by 2).

Repost World Design Blogs

 20 years ago I was in Cuba for a training period.

Yep, like that.

A few years later the website AdmirableDesign (created by Gérard CARON) started a blog platform to share about design all over the worl (made by Joris BEBIN).

I participated with my cuban experience, also with deutsch and finnish ones.

I loved this exchange platform but then it went without maintenance and died.

I wanted to have a trace from this. Actually the idea emerged when I started to teach in 2015!

Every year since I've been saying I wanted to repost all of this as a good resolution.

It's 20 years since I've been in Cuba so I decided it was time to find and restore these archives as to repost these.

Also to repost the articles I wrote for the main site AdmirableDesign and why not my famous A Blog of Comics about Design (it should be published on Insta too, that could be a pretty way to make it alive again).

It will take time (I didn't started yet to search for it) and it will be on my other blog (sorry, only in french): design-et-identite.blogspot.com
.

If I Were A Designer #25: branding

I wrote about the graphic identity I made when I was a student 20 years ago which lasted 10 years before evolving.

I recently received a news from a firm I was working for telling me (well not only me you can imagien they sent it to every person in their contact list) it was changing its brand to conserve only the most famous of its portfolio.

That's how I discovered that brands I created in 2006 were still alive until 2023 and believe me I wouldn't thought about that at the time!

An emotion came and took the time to mature to these 2 posts!

 

With the brands I also created the very first logos. They rapidly have been re-worked by a communication agency  when the brands had received a positive feddback from potentiel buyers (so we can tell that some of my brands failed these first tests and some others passed but did not survive as long).

 

If I Were A Designer #24: graphic identity for orchestra

More or less 20 years ago when I was a student I entered the Musicampus association conducting an universitarian orchestra. For the first concert I had to put a poster in my school and I still remember I made it at midnight because I didn't wanted to be seen with such an atrocity in my design school!

So I proposed to the association board: " I'm not a grapic designer but I can do better!

_ Nice! Could you make the logo for the association too?

_ Why not!"

I'm the one who answered that last question: Musicampus was the official name but everyone was naming directly the orchestra so I made a graphic identity for the orchestra: 

The logo is directly inspired by a poster by Muller-Brockmann:

My logo was less geometrical, circle arcs represent the sections of the orchestra, the name is at the conductor place, there is a strict square around because it's calssical music but it's ripped by the yougness (and the amateurism) of the members.

Blue and yellow were the association's colours (well actually those were the colour of the university and I'm pretty sure they changed the year after).

At the time this graphic design was intended to implant the identity of the orchestra and I though it would need to be changed 5 years later by a more serious one.

It lasted more than 10 years.

The new graphic identity is nice. It's not mine but the circle arcs are still here!

.

If I Were A Designer #23-2: Future 2CV

In 2006 I've been asked by the magazine L'Action Auto-Moto to imagine the interior for the Citroën 2HP of the Future.

The main concept was to use 3 ranks of 2 seats in a thin but long vehicule.

I wrote here before how proud I have been to see I was right about a few ideas after that seing those used by international car makers.

 

Then I've posted here my own vision for a 90's 2CV and how it was close to what Citroën designers were thinking around by preparing the C3 ->

 

Let's get back on the 2006 project.

At the time I've met several people in this car design environment and every one was liking my part but disagreeing about the exterior design (done by the intern illsutrator and I'm very sorry I didn't found his name).

Recently I've seen the Renault Triber: small SUV crossover MVP for the indian market since 2019.

The mainlines lookalike what we published 15 years ago: shorted rounded sloping hood, narrow and high line, reduced overhangs...

Let's say the mainlines as I agree style isn't the same (and time alters memories so I didn't remembered our "futur 2cv" was so rounded and gross).

Okay, this time isn't about MY own work as I was in charge of the interior design but still I've worked on this project (and I even done a few ideas for the exterior as I had to work without their images so I had to draw it by myslef based on the phonecall explanations just to know where I was going).