Its been ages since I last updated this blog but I thought I’d take a little bit of a time out to update the site about a topic I feel quite passionate about.

Recently on Twitter I noticed a link floating about to a petition regarding Palm Oil, now I really don’t like Palm Oil for a number of reasons. To keep my ranting down to a bare minimum its used in so many products but it remains unlabelled, everything from soap to bread and butter.

The EU report on the Oil labelled it as unsuitable for human consumption since they didn’t know what the long term effects of eating it might be but it does have a high saturated fat content. Companies are still using it largely as a bulking agent in order to maximise profits. The problem is that as consumers we should have the right to choose to buy it or not and for all ingredients to be listed on the packet.

There’s an awful lot of talk about sustainable Palm Oil but why should it be in there at all? Especially not when we’re also destroying natural habitats of Elephants, Rhino and Orangutan in order to procure it.

http://www.call4.org/campaigns/clear-labels-not-forests/

http://www.greenpeace.org.uk/

Theres a lot of buzz out there on the internet about CSS3 and how its new coding features will produce a faster more visually attractive web. I came across some great tutorials already online here are just a few of them.

http://designshack.co.uk/articles/introduction-to-css3-part-1-what-is-it
http://www.kremalicious.com/2008/04/make-cool-and-clever-text-effects-with-css-text-shadow/
http://kilianvalkhof.com/2008/design/almost-cross-browser-text-shadow/
http://css3please.com/
http://www.css3.info/preview/
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Bad design isn’t something I particularly enjoy talking about but its quite easy to be critical and point the finger at things that are ‘bad’. but I’d like to approach this question of why do people like bad design?

I think partly its to do with education, many clients don’t want good designs. They want something they perceive as being good and from a graphic design point of view they aren’t always the best solutions to the project.
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When I was studying for my undergraduate degree I read one of Noam Chomsky’s books. I was impressed by the well thought out arguments and I’ve always been interested in new media philosophy.

If you’ve never heard of Noam Chomsky hes widely known as an American linguist, philosopher and political activist. Born in 1928 as a Jewish person growing up in Philadelphia he experienced first hand social and political upheaval of the 30′s.
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You might have heard the term letterpress being banded about on the internet. But what exactly is it?

Letterpress is a form of relief printing using a printing press and moveable type, the kind of printer invented by Gutenberg in the 15th century. Modern industrial letterpress techniques are different from the traditional version which uses a photopolymer plate to reproduce digital art.
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I recently sent off an email to Masterchef contestant Stacie Stewart and I suddenly realised what a minefield the internet is and how difficult it is to get started up if your essentially a novice.

A lot of people think that just by having a website people will visit your delicately crafted home on the internet, but thats just not true. To run a successful website it can take a lot of effort and time.
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I was listening to the news on the radio recently, which is something I don’t do very often. It featured an article about the a sculpture by Anish Kapoor set to produce the worlds largest piece of public art in Middlesbrough.

In case you don’t know anything about it the piece is called Temenos and be located between the Transporter Bridge and Middlesbrough Football Club. It’ll have been 10 years in the making and cost £2.7m. Temenos is however set to become just one of many sculptures as part of the ‘rejuvenation’ of Middlesbrough, Stockton, Redcar, Hartlepool and Darlington set to cost £15m.
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In my series of artists I admire I’ve chosen for the next one, Dante Gabriel Rosetti. I did say I would pick a dead artist this time!

Rosetti was a poet, illustrator and painter perhaps best known for his work with the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood during 1848 as one of its founding members. Together with William Holman Hunt and John Everett Milais the brotherhood founded what could be considered as the modern art industry, selling prints of work and illustrating books. This made art more commercial and more public but retained the ideology of the Pre-Raphaelites.
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On Tuesday I picked up a copy of The Metro, which was running an article about how logos are ‘dead’. But whats wrong with a good well designed logo?

A logo is broadly defined as a graphic mark or emblem used by organisations to promote and assist public recognition.
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It’s been a while since I last posted to my blog and to break the silence I’d like to continue looking at some of my favorite artists and designers.

This time its the turn of Lou Romano.
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