A Vietnamese restaurant isn't really the type of place to find good graphic design; however, there is one located here in Nanaimo behind Costco called "Pho Boi", which specialises in traditional Vietnamese Pho (beef) soups. It's one of my favourite restaurants since it opened and offers good food at low prices... I went there for lunch earlier today and noted how well done the menus were (sadly I didn't have my camera at the time), and decided to check out their website, which is what I am going to discuss.
The home page of the website looks like this:
A cable-box instruction manual for Shaw struck me with some really good design. I've always liked their style and they strive to be different, and something as simple as an instruction manual for a PVR wasn't overlooked by their designer(s) either.
Over this strike session I've found myself becoming quite the alcoholic; however, thankfully my tastes are expensive enough to find some decent packaging.
Heineken Brouwerijen, located in Amsterdam Holland produces the famous --obviously-- Heineken beer. Since it's popular enough and not your cheap, piss-water American beer (not to mention how beer to Germanic Europe is like wine to the French) they took some time and effort in making their boxes look appealing.
In an article written by Beatrice Warde in 1932, Miss Warde compares good wines to good typography, quoted: "almost all the virtues of a perfect wine glass have a parallel in typography".
She begins by asking the reader whether or not they would select an elaborate golden grail or a delicate, pure wine glass that is crystal clear and colourless to drink their wine from. She claimed that, at the time, most people would chose the elaborate goblet, rather than the clear thin glass because it is the sensation of drinking the wine out of something so expensive and rich. She says that only a few would chose the thin delicate wine glass to drink from, the "vanishing tribe. . . [of] the amateurs of fine vintages", because those are the people who would rather see the beauty of the contents, then dress it up to make it look appealing.
The structure of the glass in which you drink the wine from is as important as the structure of the page in which you type the words on. If there is no structure in the glass, the wine will spill; if there is no structure in the page, the type will not be balanced. I think her ideology is very interesting and quite applicable. Fine wine lovers would definitely relate to the fact that a wine glass can even effect the taste of the wine, and to see the colour of the wine is equally as important. Basically, to be De Stijl about this, abstracting or simplifying the wine to its purest form without any decoration reveals how beautiful and elegant it is on its own. The same with type.
I will have to admit I did not get out much at all during this break. Upon leaving school to go and hide in a dark room for a week, I managed to snap a picture of some wonderful helvetica type, only to find my phone glitching and croaking in time of need. Curse you, technology. I guess I have to stick with these button pins.
