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I love reading the German NEON magazine. The Art Directors Jonas Natterer and Ji-Young Ahn conducted an interesting editorial design relaunch that I want to take a closer look at in this blog post. The new cover page (bottom picture) shows a much more sharp-edged font. The old NEON font (top picture) looks a bit frumpy and bulky. The main topics are now formatted as axial justification (centered). The old NEON showed the main topics as left-aligned, one-lined paragraphs. You’ll come across axial justification (centered text) quite often within the new editorial design. The topics in the table of contents are centered (they used to be left-aligned as you can see on the top picture). In addition to that, red colour is used here and there for smartly steering the reader through the table of contents. The category "Nur eine Frage" (only one question) presents comments of Neon.de users. The old design (top picture) comes with a rigid, straight grid. The new design (bottom picture) reflects the design of modern social media channels like Google+ and Pinterest that does not have rigid grids on purpose. The new editorial design looks like social media channels the readership likes spending time on. The "Deutsche Geschichten" (German stories) have been pressed into a slim shape that is, however, still pleasant to read for the human eye. Also here, you see the Art Directors’ love for axial justification. Another repeating design element is the CTA - Call to Action. Red speech bubbles invite readers to become active in sharing their opinion etc. The headers in the new editorial design (bottom picture) look less plump as they are less spaced out and have upper and lower case letters. And – surprise, surprise – you see centered text again (old design: left-aligned, see top picture). Another newness are bent headers that look funny and edgy and are not too dominant. Opening pages for categories have been completely renewed. The new design (bottom picture) focuses on three big topics instead of listing all topics of the category like in the old design (top picture). A sharp-edged font gives the page the perfect oomph. The page number stands on its own now (bottom picture). Thus, the page makes a more solid, grounded, stronger impression than before. A clear structure instead of too much knick-knack: The redundant hyphen between page number and category has been banned. Headers and lead texts are now more modern and slightly remind of the design on mobile devices such as iPad etc. Old (top picture): left-aligned text, several text hierarchies and serif fonts gave the header and the lead text seriousity and a journalistic news feeling. New (bottom picture): Axial justification, no text hierarchies, clearer and sharper-edged font. All that creates a modern feeling that matches the NEON readership perfectly. A small font without serifs and a glass in 2D rather than 3D give the category "NEON testet die Parteien" (NEON tests political parties) a fresh oomph towards modernity. As a graphic designer dealing with editorial designs on a regular basis, I have to say that that new editorial design of NEON triggers the target group much better than with the old design. The only negative thing that I have to point out however, is the fact that the paper quality is still not very good. The opacity is still bad. Pictures slightly shine through the paper which increases the grey tone of text, furthermore this makes text more difficult to read. Paper with higher density would have looked more inviting and would make reading much more pleasant and enjoyable. But maybe the Art Directors of NEON think of that in the course of the next editorial design relaunch. #editorialdesign #desktoppublishing #magazine

The latest issue no. 1-2/2016 of Austria’s largest transport magazine "Blickpunkt LKW+BUS" is now available as print and app magazine for tablets and smart phones (iOS and Android). New is the special swipe effect that allows readers to swipe text boxes out of the display - a reverse pullout tab so to speak. This creates a great visual effect for picture-heavy stories. #editorialdesign #app #interactive

Today, HCG corporate designs celebrates 5 years. Yeehaaa! #anniversary #mountain #celebrate

Summer is coming up and the BBQ season is too. So it’s time to make our gardens and balconies more beautiful! A great thing I came across is this outdoor candle: The fantastic thing about it: These "wooden pots" are old pots from Indonesia used for ricing corn on the countryside. This outdoor candle brings a piece of exotic history into your garden. It burns for at least 50 hours and costs roughly 50 euros. You can order it online on depot-online.com by the way. #candle #outdoor

For me as a graphic designer, it’s very important to be inspired by beautiful things around me in order to fuel up with creative energy and power for my job. I’m lucky to live in the beautiful city of Innsbruck, the capital of Tirol, which offers me great inspiration. Here you see some great photos of my home: Obernberger Lake: Panorama lake Schlick: Tyrolean tapas (Auracher Löchl, Kufstein): Outdoor fun in Stubaital: Nordkette, looking down to Innsbruck: Alpbach (Copyright: Alpbachtal Seenland Tourismus): Skiing (Stubai glacier and Patscherkofel): #austria #holiday #innsbruck #tirol #tyrol #inspiration #mountain #nature #skiing #lake

We live in the 21st century. Terms like email, Skype, co-working, cloud computing etc. are very common in the digital times we live in. „Modern working“ is the name of the game and „modern collaboration“ is becoming a business standard as globalization is rising – that’s at least what I thought. I’m a graphic designer working for different clients in different businesses from different countries. The majority of my clients is located in Germany (I am in Innsbruck, close to the German border). However, I also worked for companies from other European countries, from Asia, Australia or North America so far – they all were happy with working with me. This is possible because I always make sure that the communication works smoothly and I’m also available at times that suit my clients. You always hear that companies want to work with people that are flexible and open for modern communication – well, that’s the theory. Everybody wants to be hip and modern, which is good for the image, right? Well, the practise often looks a bit different, what I found out in a few talks with potential clients that are only 150 km away from my office. And I also encountered that phenomenon at the Tiroler Exporttag (Tyrolean Export Day) in summer 2015. In talks with Austrian business delegates that are responsible for different countries, I heard that it’s necessary to have an office in the country you intend to export to. Even – you won’t believe it – in the service industries like graphic design! I talked with business delegates responsible for the USA, the UAE and Singapore for instance. Everywhere I went, I heard the same story. Incredible. I was really surprised. Graphic design, service industries – in theory, I could even work on the moon and the end result for the client would not be any different. Of course given that the communication works perfectly. Does „modern collaboration“ really exist only in theory? Are examples in real life exceptions? I can hardly believe it, but it seems to be true. Of course it’s good to discuss certain things in person, no doubt about that. But it’s sad to see that obviously so many businesses block themselves from benefiting from working with professionals from outside that bring whole new perspectives into the company. I’m not only talking about graphic design here, but about the whole spectrum of service industries out there. When thinking of „modern collaborations“, it looks like many businesses don’t practise what they preach. Maybe some managers are simply too narrow-minded or conservative, I don’t know. But you would expect a bit more open-mindedness in the 21st century, don’t you think? #business #export #globalisation

What comes to your mind when thinking of Holland? Cheese, tulips, windmills, a mind-altering substance being sold in shops where you might find or might not find coffee and ... of course – wooden shoes! I have never had the honour of trying on authentic Dutch clogs. As they probably feel as uncomfortable as they sound, I chose to buy soft „wooden“ shoes at Amsterdam airport a while ago. (What else can you do while waiting for a connection flight ...) So I thought I research a bit on Dutch wooden shoes and here I want to show you some outstanding models. The "Münsterländer Holzklumpen" proove that also Germans have a sense for nice wooden shoes indeed. Some models are really elegant. Seen on bluedelft.com . This model I discovered at putinstyle.com . Don't ask me what this has to do with the Russian president ;-) Seen at eggeller.com . Seen at fiskarscraft.typepad.com/my_weblog . When thinking of wooden shoes, the designer Patricia van Lubeck sets the standards for extraordinary models. My soft clogs from the airport in Amsterdam - convenience meets "taste". #holland #amsterdam #clogs #fashion

Summer time is travel time. So I went to South America to explore some of the greatest spots of Peru, Ecuador as well as the Galapagos Islands. As a designer I find it really important to get inspirations from different angles. Below you see a few photos that I took of beautiful things I found on my holiday: (Copyright photos: Helene Clara Gamper) #ecuador #per #galapagos #inspiration #holiday

Today’s blog post is about the web design of the probably most famous festival in the world – Tomorrowland. Originating from Boom (Belgium), it now also takes place in Atlanta (USA) and Sao Paulo (Brazil). The festival’s concept was perfectly translated into the design concept of the website. Playful flowers, vintage style paper with burn marks and an interesting grid effect in the background definitely transport a feel of fantasy and dreamland. You see at first sight that design professionals worked on this website. The corporate design was perfectly executed here, very well done! http://www.tomorrowland.com My next blog post features a festival in England ... #posterdesign #tomorrowland

In this and my upcoming blog posts over the next weeks, I want to show you some web and poster designs of some great festivals. Let’s start with Mardi Gras (4 March 2014) that takes place in New Orleans (USA) every year. It’s indeed a very colourful and carnivalesque festival. You can’t deny the European origin from the Medieval Times. The purple colour gives a feel of magic and fantasy which is great. Also the combination with the green colour is okay. However, the green is too dark and when you scroll down to the bottom of the website, you see that the dark green looks very old-fashioned and not nice. Tradition and vintage yes, but old-fashioned? Please not! Instead of dark green, the designer should have chosen another colour or another shade of green. http://www.mardigrasneworleans.com In my next blog post I feature a festival in Belgium by the way ... #posterdesign #festival #mardigras

When I was in South America this summer, I also visited the possibly most beautiful city of the continent: Quito, the capital of Ecuador. I already knew that the Ecuadorians love good food. What was new to me, however, was the fact that they have their own shop for Ecuadorian chocolate. Republica del Cacao processes local cocoa and wants to create a feel of adventure, discovery, authenticity and real, genuine chocolate enjoyment. The corporate design on the website as well as the POS store design transport this feeling perfectly. That is not only chocolate at its best, but also branding that is taken into practise perfectly. Also want a unique branding that really sells your products? Get in touch with me! #branding #chocolate #ecuador #quito #pos #shop

The first time I came across the so-called miniature effect was when watching the Eurovision Song Contest a few years ago. The video trailers shown shortly before each performance often featured shots of public transport in the miniature effect. Today, this technique is still used quite often on TV and on photos. And this is how the miniature effect works: The desired object is placed in the centre of the picture, the top and bottom parts (i.e. a quarter of the picture) are made slightly fuzzy. This creates an optical illusion as if the sharp objects in the centre were miniature objects. This way, a train track could almost look like a model railway for instance. The miniature effect has become so hip that it is featured in many cameras already – in the actual photo taking process and/or the photo editing section. But also Adobe Photoshop offers this feature and you can use various settings to perfectly manipulate the picture. My camera is the Nikon D5100 and it comes with the miniature effect too. Below you’ll see some examples of the miniature effect compared to normal photos when taking shots of the Arocs truck of Mercedes-Benz: normal with miniature effect normal with miniature effect normal with miniature effect Copyright: Helene Clara Gamper / HCG corporate designs #camera #mercedes #miniature #nikon #photography #truck