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Have you heard of James Jean?  While you might not have heard of him, chances are more than likely that you’ve seen and enjoyed his work. Among his list of well-known clients of various walks are: Prada, Target and Koji Igarashi (The creator of Castlevania). One of his starting gigs was the covers to Fables. Much to our delight, a finely crafted book gathered his gorgeous cover works during his run with Vertigo.

His work is of immense joy to behold, a blend of just the right amounts of classical rendering skills, a playful but mature illustrative sensibility with an international influence. The result of this is a timelessly enjoyable collection of work.The book holds itself to a high standard; it’s a huge format, it’s got solid binding, is printed on a high quality paper and a lot of care was put into the layout of the book. The sketches also provide a slight insight into his process in crafting the covers. It’s definitely an excellent thing to have if you’re a fan.

If you aren’t familiar w

ith James Jean’s work or is curious about his work, do take the time to visit his excellent portfolio @ www.jamesjean.com

The residents of Anthem office are happy and proud owners of James Jean’s Fables Covers Collection.

Weigy W. Samakoen - Aesthetic Enthusiast Anthem Art Books., Fables, James Jean

Whatever you may think of President Obama, you have to admit. The man knows that a strong and professional visual design is important. I was already aware of this due to his solid campaign logo and even the immediate re-design of the White House official website after he took office.

Now, Obama has released to new logos for other government initiatives the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act  and DOT’s TIGER plan :

I am actually not a huge fan of the TIGER one (U.S. Department of Transportation’s TIGER (Transportation Investment Generating Economic Recovery)  but, Obama understands that design is essential to positioning an idea successfully  in consumers minds or in this case, the minds of the American populous.

The logos were designed by Mode Project

Shawn Borsky - The Boss Logos & Branding

Forbes comments on the creative community.

Normally, I am pretty chill about magazines when reporting on subjects they do not understand. But, I feel like I need to comment on this article by Forbes, because

a) Forbes is a respected (and well branded) magazine.

b) They seem to have missed the point, since they take advantage of such creative services themselves!

I first saw this on David Airey’s  blog, a fantastic logo designer in his own right.  I am reiterating a lot of what he posted and most of the design community agrees with.

Essentially, this is not a new problem. Speculative work has been an issue in the design industry for sometime. see the NO!SPEC movement.

Forbes has posted a poorly researched and unbalanced look at the subject.  Are we supposed to be okay, with people telling us that design and development is easy and that anyone can do it? As many have said similarly, having Microsoft Word does not make you a writer anymore than having Photoshop makes you a designer. The design business is an industry that requires expertise and skill to excel in, and it is highly valuable. Why is it ridiculous to ask a fair price for it?

Look at Forbes themselves, I guarantee that did not get their brand, commercials, and website for a couple hundred dollars or before they signed a contract and retainer. It’s almost a double standard.

This article states that

“Now if you live in India or Peoria you can buy a computer and sophisticated software for a little bit of money and compete with big agencies–and they don’t like that.”

That’s amazing, I would love to know how you can get sophisticated design software for “a little bit of money”.

We are not a “big agency”, but I can tell you that I don’t like it either. CrowdSpring is based on the concept of essentially hundreds of designers working and 1 getting paid.  I apologize, agencies like us are definitley at a disadvantage because we pay our designers for their work.

I am mostly reiterating posts made by the design community but I think it is important that people realize that this is not an acceptable way to do business.

Here is a great post on the Logo Factory’s blog

Shawn Borsky - The Boss Anthem, Around the Office, Logos & Branding