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

Even after the multimedia and computer discounter Saturn had got rid of its slogan "Geiz ist geil" (translates "Tight is right."), the "tight is right" mentality still lives in some parts of our society like an undefeatable bacteria. So it is not suprising that there is a new discounter in the design field: Tailor Brands. Just one thing beforehand: Tailor Brands does not do corporate designs but only logos. A visual identity or a successful branding is not even offered by Tailor Brands. Minimal effort for maximum success? Aha. Alright. I wanted to test it and find out how good or bad Tailor Brands really is. Based on my own business HCG corporate designs, I chucked on the automatic logo creation machine on the internet, because I wanted to see how the HCG corporate designs logo would look like according to the Tailor Brands algorithm. What is positive, is the fact that Tailor Brands seems to understand that a logo is not just a nice looking symbol but requires more background information. But Tailor Brands stops exactly there. The name, the business and a few keywords are apparently enough to generate a logo. Many "industry standards" are scanned through to create my logo. Industry standards? What? A logo has to transport the USP, the unique selling proposition and what makes the business stand out from the competitors. The opposite of that is industry standards. Tailor Brands obviously thinks that I as a designer should have a logo that looks similar to another designer’s logo. By then, my mind filled with design expertise got very frightened. I augured ill. And that’s exactly how it turned out to be: The logo result didn’t surprise me as a designer. However, the level of unprofessionality was shocking. Tailor Brands chucked a logo on my screen that had zero message, didn’t transport my business’ philosophy, was full of typographic mistakes, had a horrible kerning, an unprofessional size ratio between logo type and symbol and to make matters worse, the logo looked like as if I had a bakery but not a design agency. Correct logo Logo crated by Tailor Brands Conclusion: Years of design expertise, complex situations and understanding the company’s philosophy, target groups and future plans simply cannot be replaced by an automatic algorithm on the internet. This was once again proven – this time by Tailor Brands. Thanks for that confirmation, Tailor Brands. You also want a professional corporate design? Simply send me an email ! #branding #logo

I have news for those of you who still believe that tablets are just a „toy“ for the young generation. You are not totally wrong, but these numbers might knock you off your feet: 46 % of the 14 to 29 year olds in Germany have a tablet, an amazing 42 % (!!) of the 30 to 49 year olds, as well as 34 % of the 50 to 64 year olds have a tablet (BITKOM). This negates the thesis of tablets being interesting for the youngsters only. It is really astonishing how fast those handy devices are becoming more and more popular. Beginning of 2013, only 13 % of the Germans aged 14+ owned a tablet. This number doubled by beginning of 2014 to 26 %, and rose again until autumn 2014 to 34 %. The vast tablet boom might be based on the fact that they are very easy to use. Let me give you an example: My mother (born in 1958) was hesitating a long time to buy a tablet until I could convince her to buy an Apple iPad. She is a woman that considers smart phones with touch displays "high science". She has neither a smart phone nor is she working with devices that I would call "technologically advanced". Everything "too complicated". After a few weeks of using the iPad, she said to me "The iPad has been the best investment for years and I would never want to give it away." She is not the only one having such an aha experience. According to a survey, 58 % of the Germans would not want to miss their tablet any more. Hence, optimizing content for tablets (may it be a web shop, magazine or just an ordinary website) has become crucial if you want to be successful with your product on the internet. But what about smart phones? Only 20 % of the Germans above 18 download one to maximum two apps per month (source: FOCUS, comScore). Practical apps (most of all Facebook, Whatsapp, Instagram, Maps, Youtube) seem to be enough for the smart phone users. The demand for new, more or less "usefull" apps is stagnating. The smart phone app market is still rising by 27 % per year on a global scale, but in Germany only by 12 % (App Economy Report 2014). Particularly Asia shows high growth rates here, in Europe the market is more or less saturated. #app #ipad #tablet

This year’s IAA Commercial Vehicles in Hanover showed many exciting new vehicles and technologies. Many visitors and journalists from all over the world came to see what’s new in the business. Here are photos of my personal highlights: (Copyright photos: Helene Clara Gamper / HCG corporate designs) In the course of the IAA Commercial Vehicles, I designed issue no. 8/2014 of Austria’s largest commercial vehicle magazine "Blickpunkt LKW+BUS". See it here as print PDF, here as iPhone app or here as iPad app featuring many interactive functionalities. In addition to that, my film partner Ashley Wiggins produced an exclusive short film: Also want an editorial design for print or an app magazine? Or you want a professional video? Simply send me an email , I’m looking forward to hearing from you! #bus #truck #commercialvehicle #iaa

The infamous Glastonbury festival takes place in Great Britain every year (this year from 25 to 29 June). I saw a poster with some confirmed live acts. As soon as I saw that poster, I thought of an advertisement for a BBQ sauce or a BBQ party. Black, red, white combined with Stencil like fonts is not really a good idea. What did the designer think when doing this? I would not want to know. Also, the official Glastonbury poster is a shock moment for the eyes. A pro could not have done this – maybe a designer that retired 10 years ago. But: The website definitely makes up for that design faux pas! A great and consistent typography scheme and colours that perfectly match make the website look just fantastic. It transports a vintage and hippie style feeling what stands for the festival. Poster: Flop Poster: Flop (BBQ sauce or festival? Who knows.) Website: Top! http://www.glastonburyfestivals.co.uk/ #glastonbury #festival #posterdesign

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

Off to good old Bavaria! This year’s Oktoberfest takes place in Munich (Germany) from 20 September to 5 October. The website of the world’s biggest beer festival brings goose pimples to every designer. It more looks like a tourist booking website rather than a website for a great, international festival. They should definitely have a think about that. However, a nice design can be seen on this year’s official poster for 181st "Wiesn". The posters that won #2 and #3 in the contest are a bit disappointing from a designer’s perspective as they don’t really transport the spirit of the Oktoberfest. The winner poster does so though. http://www.oktoberfest.de The next blog post is the final part of my festival design series and it features the UK! #festival #posterdesign #oktoberfest

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

I'm very happy to announce that app magazines are now part of my service range. Well made app magazines enjoy great popularity and create a new and intense reading experience. Moreover, they help publishers generate new profit with new advertising possibilities. As I regularly work for publishers, I am familiar with the workflows and can perfectly implement my editorial design expertise into creating app magazines. Simply send me an email for more information. #app #android #ios #digitalpublishing

Off to the beautiful city of Antwerp (Belgium)! The Summer Festival (what a revolutionary name ...) took place there on 28 and 29 June this year. Here we see a mix of bright colours and rubber raft style coolness. They tried to include elements of flat design into the website which looks okay but you can tell they were desperate to follow the flat design trend. But all in all, the design is really nice. However, the inconsistent usage of typography is a negative point. Different fonts that don’t match as well as a full justification that creates ugly gaps between words reveal that people not familiar with design messed around with the website. Screenshots from the website www.summerfestival.be : In my next blog post I take a deeper look into the web design of the probably most famous festival in the world ... #posterdesign #festival #summerfestival

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

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