The TSDG design team is spearheaded by our creative director.
Andy Royston is an internationally-acclaimed graphic designer with a wealth of experience, in many creative fields, spanning many years. The design decisions made for your project will be made personally by our creative director. Initial design work is never the responsibility of anyone else within our organization.
This way, we can ensure that every one of our clients receives the very best TSDG has to offer from our international award-winning creative director. In the majority of cases, he will also oversee your project closely and this enables us to retain the extremely high standard of our work.
When your look is created, no matter what your project entails, we will be happy to explain the theories of its creative development. However, you may find the following of interest regarding the theories of color and of shape:
First design decisions - color
The colors selected for your project have nothing to do with personal preference. Colors have meanings; colors have emotions they generate, color has been the subject of extensive (and expensive) scientific research.
Color theory encompasses a multitude of definitions, concepts and design applications. All the information would fill several encyclopedias. A color circle, based on red, yellow and blue, is traditional in the field of art. Sir Isaac Newton developed the first circular diagram of colors in 1666. Since then, scientists and artists have studied and designed numerous variations of this concept. Differences of opinion about the validity of one format over another continue to provoke debate.
In reality, any color circle or color wheel which presents a logically arranged sequence of pure hues has merit. When we choose the colors for your project, these are not selected randomly; colors have psychological effects on the viewer and a great deal of subconscious information can be conveyed to the viewer through the use of color. These issues have been studied at great length.
What does this mean for your project? In the case of color, it depends on the medium used and this adds to the complexity of the colors selected. Colors will show differently on a computer screen than in print, for example. The important thing to remember with a website is that it is not a movie! A website is composed of coding - coding which would look like nonsense to anyone who has not studied the languages used, HTML, java etc. This coding is transmitted to your computer, and to computers all over the world, and each computer interprets that code into what you see on the screen.
Hereby lies the difficulty - and the skill required - as every single computer is different. But the issue is more complex than this....
People set their monitors differently. You may have never adjusted the color settings on your monitor but this doesn’t mean that they have never been adjusted by a computer repair person, the store from which you originally purchased your computer and so on.
In the Tangled Spider Design studios, some monitors are set to show lighter colors (monitors which receive direct sunlight from windows); others are set to high-resolution color (monitors in darker rooms). Two computers, with identical settings, would show different color variations depending on the amount of light they are receiving from external sources. Computer monitors emit color as RGB (red, green, blue) light. Although all colors of the visible spectrum can be produced by merging red, green and blue light, monitors are capable of displaying only a limited gamut of the visible spectrum.
Whereas monitors emit light, inked paper absorbs or reflects specific wavelengths. Cyan, magenta and yellow pigments serve as filters, subtracting varying degrees of red, green and blue from white light to produce a selective gamut of spectral colors. Like monitors, printing inks also produce a color gamut that is only a subset of the visible spectrum, although the range is not the same for both.
Consequently, the same art displayed on a computer monitor may not match to that printed in a publication. No device is capable of reproducing the full range of colors viewable by the human eye. Each device operates within a specific color space, which can produce a certain range, or gamut, of colors.
The RGB (red, green, blue) and CMYK (cyan, magenta, yellow, and black) color models represent two main categories of color spaces. The gamuts of the RGB and CMYK spaces are very different; while the RGB gamut is generally larger (that is, capable of representing more colors) than CMYK, some CMYK colors still fall outside the RGB gamut.
In addition, different devices produce slightly different gamuts within the same color model. For example, a variety of RGB spaces can exist among scanners and monitors, and a variety of CMYK spaces can exist among printing presses and desktop printers.
Because of these varying color spaces, colors can shift in appearance when you transfer documents between different devices. Color variations can result from differences in image sources (scanners and software produce art using different color spaces), differences in brands of computer monitors, differences in the way software applications define color, differences in print media (newsprint reproduces a smaller gamut than magazine-quality paper), and other natural variations, such as monitor age.
The psychology & symbolism of shape
Just as colors used for your project will be carefully selected, so will the proportions of shapes used. Shape can convey universal meanings, organize information and guide the eye. We have a spontaneous perception of shape that is probably connected with the deepest levels of our perception of the world. Shape is universal and can be understood beyond the limits of cultural identity. The endless interplays and variations of shape stimulate our curiosity constantly, with each shape holding for us it’s own expressive meaning and character telling us completely different stories from one shape to the next.
We respond to shapes emotionally. As designers, we use this connection between our emotions and shapes to our advantage. It is important to understand the influence of shapes on the perception of a design.
Shape can add its own meaning to a design, or simply reinforce the perception created by other design elements such as line and color. Shapes are universally recognized; people throughout the world, despite the languages they speak and their literacy levels, instantly recognize the Nike swoosh, the distinctive shape of a Coca Cola bottle, the Mercedes marque. This shows perfectly the importance of your logo.
The Oxford Dictionary defines a logo as ‘...a printed design or symbol that a company or an organization uses as its special sign.’ Corporate history has shown that a logo is much more than that to a company. It is the prima facie identity of the company. Rarely does one find a piece of corporate identity that can so effectively and quickly transform the perception of the company in the minds of the people as a logo can. No sooner does a company change its logo than it is suddenly seen in a different light and so is the company.
A logo helps attach adjectives to a company - smart, fast, tech-savvy, conventional, hip, boring. A change to a logo makes the audience sit up and notice (and often rethink) the company. The human mind has a tendency to attach personal or humane characteristics to something intangible as an organization image that helps the logo.
Most companies will require a ‘brand bible’ - explaining the acceptable and non-acceptable usages of the logo, typeface and brand identifiers. Successful logos throughout the world have certain characteristics that make them popular and memorable.
Good logos are distinctive, they are different to the rest. Even the fonts of these logos are designed in a custom manner - it could be a completely new font created or tweaking provided to an existing font.
Logos are the longest living corporate identity that an organization enjoys, sometimes more than the employees in the company. Successful logos stand the test of time - the shelf life of an average logo is considered to be around 20 years. Many have been around for much longer - the Mercedes logo, for example, was trademarked in June, 1909.
Successful logos are able to evoke desired images in the mind of the viewer. Logos facilitate carrying the desired corporate image to the consumer in the shortest possible time. Whether it is the font type that expresses this or the accompanying graphic and colors, the message that gets across to the audience.
Good logos look good on huge billboards, on business cards, on black and white fax copies, on gold embossed door plates - everything the company produces. The font and graphic designer should consider the media over which the logo appears while designing.
Logos in earlier times used to be very elaborate and ‘detailed’. Nowadays they more simpler, minimalistic yet elegant and attractive; somewhat a sign of people not having the time to look at detailed logos.
Logos have been around since ancient times. Traders since the 13th century used to mark their wares with monograms to claim ownership and right to title of the goods.
Fonts and typefaces
Fonts are computer typefaces. The fonts used for your project will be determined by our creative director. Fonts can be broken into two main types, serif and sans serif fonts. Sans serif fonts are considered to be 'modern' and first appeared at the beginning of the nineteenth century - the idea of dropping serifs at the ends of strokes didn't occur to the great many typographers who experimented with their shapes and sizes so much. In part, it is due to the inertia of scribes' tradition who, with their quills, simply could not produce a reasonably clean cut of a stroke. Undoubtedly, old typographers also knew the fact that was later confirmed by experiments: Serifs help the eye to stick to the line and thus facilitate reading.
The most influential type design of that epoch, the Futura font created in Germany in 1928, displayed the core of the Bauhaus ideology: strictly geometric outline, lacking any embellishments and just barely conforming to the historical shapes of letters. The resulting blend of geometric consistency and aesthetic awkwardness may be disputable, but it was at least something quite new, and therefore impressive, at that time. Now we're much more accustomed to the look of Futura (and its many derivatives), but the inborn radicalism of the font still shows through.
Professional designers almost always use traditional fonts - there is no place in professional design for 'cute' fonts. Designers are experts in font history - one thing absolutely necessary for working with fonts is knowing their history - what came after what and, more importantly, why.
Website: It is important to remember that, for the body text of your website, there are only a small number of fonts which can be used. These must be fonts which are installed on every computer and device which may display your site. These fonts are: Verdana, Arial, Times, Georgia and Courier. The old rule 'sans serif for online, serif for print' no longer applies. This dates from the early days of the internet when monitors had poor resolution, and this poor quality, combined with the serifs, made serif fonts less legible. Nowadays, computer monitors are more legible than, for example, newspapers or cheaper books. Below are some basic outlines:
Serif fonts:
Georgia is much easier to read than Times - Times can be very difficult for all ages.
The serifs lead the eye across the word and are more suitable for use when the viewer is over thirty five years old - as these people are more accustomed to serif fonts.
Serif fonts show gravity - they are appropriate for legal works, serious subjects such as medical issues etc.
Serif fonts are more traditional.
If your projects has elements of craftsmanship, antiquity etc. a serif font is more appropriate.
If long passages of text are used, serif fonts make them more readable.
Sans serif fonts:
Verdana is much easier to read than Arial - the spacing between characters is too small in Arial.
Sans serif fonts can be better for a younger audience as they have not grown up with serif fonts as the older generation have.
Sans serif fonts give a more casual feel than serif fonts and are less formal.
Sans serif fonts are more suitable for short copy
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