Photo Essay #1

For our first photo essay, I figured what better subject to pick than craft beer. These days what’s on the outside of the bottle is just as important as what is inside. I headed to Corridor in Laurel, where I was presented with no shortage of interesting uses of typography. Some were better than others at conveying their message. Some didn’t seem to know what their message was in the first place.

How Many Fonts is Too Many Fonts

Lots of fonts doesn’t have to be bad. DuClaw’s Sweet Baby Jesus branding pulls it off. The beer to the right, however, fails miserable. In fact, I struggled to figure out what was going on. I’m still not sure what the name of the beer is.

Using Typography to Illustrate Concepts

Dull/Boring

Feminine

Fresh

Hip

Overused

Respect

Typography All Around Us

Walking around Corridor was fun, but typography is everywhere, and I found plenty of cases of cool typography just walking around my neighborhood. It turns out Relay has a lot of very cool signs both historical and for advertising.

 

Weekly Inspiration: Living, Learning and Growing with Gaiam

I wanted to continue my weekly inspiration posts with a theme – logos. This week a local yoga studio happened to be having free classes, so naturally, I happened to see the logo for Gaiam, a maker of yoga products, multiple times. They also happen to make a meditation app I use on my phone.

According to their site, Gaiam is a fusion of “Gaia” (a term for mother Earth) and “I am” – a term perfect to describe the company’s mission that incorporates awareness and preservation of the earth and all its resources.

The logo is yet another great example of how something simple can have a very strong message behind it.

Weekly Inspiration: The Stories Behind UMBC50

Given that I’m only 26, it may come as a shock that I’ve spent nearly 26 years at UMBC, but I actually have spent most of my life on campus. It has truly become my second home, and at times I fear I may never be able to leave, but I digress. This weekend, UMBC celebrated their 50th anniversary, so it seems only fitting that my weekly inspiration be UMBC’s UMBC50 logo.

UMBC’s 50th Anniversary Logo

For such a big milestone, the logo is relatively understated. Yet, despite its simplicity, it manages to convey a myriad of stories and messages. First and foremost, you notice the school colors – black and gold. They color the walls, sidewalks, and everything in between on campus, so a logo wouldn’t say UMBC without them. You’ll also notice the classic UMBC logo above the mentions of both grit and greatness, two attributes UMBC has begun proudly touting about the members of its community.

A sense of community is above all what students, faculty, staff, and alumni seem to return to when discussing what UMBC means to them. Behind the colors and words of the logo, its the sense of community that manages to shine through UMBC’s 50th anniversary logo. For those of us at UMBC currently and those that have walked the sidewalks in the past, the logo brings back our own memories, but also connects us to all the other memories made at UMBC during its 50 years – memories of graduations, conversations with classmates, parking woes, and never ending construction – stories that surprisingly seem to transcend beyond what years you were on campus.

I look at this logo and in so many ways it captures UMBC. It’s small and unassuming, much like the campus at first glance, but it also captures UMBC’s grit, the perseverance to aspire for greatness over the years that has allowed UMBC to rise to the top of lists dominated by much more renowned schools.

Above all, the logo captures a feeling that’s hard to describe unless you’ve been to UMBC, but step onto campus, and you feel it immediately. To convey that in such a simple logo is inspiring.