- English below -

Bu civarlar son zamanlarda biraz sessiz kaldı. Madem öyle yeni yılı bahane edip hem 2011′e ait bazı haberleri paylaşalım hem de 2012′ye dair yeni ve heyecanlı planlardan bahsedelim.

2011

Ülke, iş, ev ve hayat değişiklikleri derken bir hayli çetrefilli geçen 2010′un ardından geçtiğimiz sene, özellikle ikinci yarısı itibarıyla, suyun yavaş yavaş yolunu bulmaya başladığı bir yıl oldu. Öncelikle Temmuz ayında kurum kimliği tasarımı alanında tecrübeli tasarımcı Serdar Benli ile çalışmaya başladım. Düzenli olarak hizmet verdiğimiz müşterilerimiz arasında Tofaş ve Arçelik, Koç Üniversitesi gibi Koç Grubu şirketleri bulunuyor ve ilerleyen zamanlarda beraber yaptığımız bazı işlerden örnekler paylaşma fırsatım olacağını umuyorum.

Geçen yıl aynı zamanda harf tasarımı alanında da hem sürpriz işler hem de kişisel projeler açılarından verimli oldu.

Bunların içerisinde en heyecan verici olanı Amerika merkezli Palmercash Tees’ten “Love” tasarımımın firmalarınca tişört olarak üretilip satılmasını talep eden bir email almak oldu. Elbette “tabi ki evet!” diye haykırdım ve uluslararası perakende satışlarını takiben kendi sitelerinden de satışa sunuldu. Bayanlar için beyaz üzerine pembe desenli üretilen Love tişörtlerini dilerseniz sitelerinden satın alabilirsiniz, hatta bence hemen şimdi, şu saniye buradan dileyin!

Bunun haricinde freelance çalışmaya devam ettiğim dönemde Laranzuh adlı bilgisayar oyunu için tarhanadan bile yazılar yazdığımız şahsına münhasır logolar hazırlamıştık. Ayrıca Zeynep’e kendine has bir Z harfinden oluşan sosyal profil resmi ve blogger Oxy için de uçuş uçuş bir kişisel imza geliştirdik.

Ayrıca 2011 yılında kişisel bir proje olarak, bu blogda da çok sayıda örneği olan Diary projesine başlamıştım. Benim için öncelikli olarak yeni yöntemler denemeye yönelik bir pratik olarak başlayan bu proje zamanla başka bir yola evrilerek (bkz. 2012) bir nevi amacını gerçekleştirmiş oldu. Muhtemelen zaman içerisinde farklı formatlarda tekrar kullanılacak bu çizimler ancak şimdilik eskileri bir arşiv olarak Flickr’da topladım.

2012

Son bir kaç aydır, alelacele defterlere çizdiğim kelimecikleri instagram üzerinden paylaşıyordum. Bir nevi Diary projesinin şehzadesi olan bu gayet spontan ve bir o kadar da terapik harf karalamaları, zaman içerisinde minik bir de Tumblr sahibi oldular.

Yeni yılda ise Super Duper Type adı altında süper düper geliyorlar. Özgün harf ve font tasarımı ile sürpriz başka çalışmaların olacağı Super Duper Type hakkında yakında daha fazla bilgi vereceğim ancak şimdilik yapım aşamasındaki sitede yağan logolara bakıp sevinebiliriz: superdupertype.com

Ve tabii o zamana kadar süper düper karalamaları Instagram (@didemogmen), Twitter (@didemogmen) ya da superdupertype.tumblr.com adreslerinden takip edebilirsiniz.

Barış ve sevgi dolu mutlu seneler!

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It has been quite silent around the neighbourhood lately. So let’s take up on the excuse of the new year and share some past news of 2011 with some new and exciting plans for the 2012. 

After all the mess 2010 had brought along with cross-country moves and major life changes, this past year things have started to look up especially after the second half of the year. I’ve started working with Serdar Benli in July, an experienced designer in visual identity design based in Istanbul/Bodrum. Some of our regular clients include major Turkish companies such as Tofas and Koc Holding companies like Arcelik, Koc University which soon I’m hoping to share some of the work we’ve produced. 

Past year has also been productive in terms of some surprise commissions and self-initiated projects on lettering design. 

One of the most exciting moments has been to receive an email from the US based Palmercash Tees requesting to produce and sell my “Love” design as a t-shirt. Obviously I responded with a screaming “Yes!” and after a period of international retail sales, the design is now up for grabs on the Palmercash online shop. You can still buy the t-shirt, a lovely ladies top with a girlish pink design on white and in fact you should do that now by clicking here right away!

Also during the time when I was freelancing, I’ve worked on creating logos featuring various custom lettering styles for the up and coming video game Laranzuh. I’ve also developed a personal Z initial for Zeynep to be used as a social network profile image and an online signature for the blogger Oxy.

Again in 2011, I’d also started the self-initiated Diary project with many examples also featured on this blog. What started as a means for personal exploration evolved over time into another direction (see 2012) fulfilling its purpose at least for now. These sketches will probably find their use somewhere else in time but currently I’ve collected them all in a set on Flickr.

2012

For the past few months, I’d been sharing some very quick sketches of words via my instagram. An offspring of the Diary project, these spontaneous and highly therapeutic type doodles moved to a small Tumblr site after a while.

The new year will see them joining super duper forces under the name of Super Duper Type. Soon I will give more information about what will feature custom lettering and font design as well as some other surprise side projects but for the moment we can happily enjoy the logo fall over at the website in progress: superdupertype.com

And of course until then you can always visit the super duper doodles on Instagram (@didemogmen), Twitter (@didemogmen) or superdupertype.tumblr.com.

Peace and love, happy new year!

“… I should set down a few thoughts of my own, in the hope that they may be useful to a reader who is fairly new to the subject, has an interest in type and perhaps some acquaintances with it, thinks (as I do) that it is more important to be able to judge the quality of designs than to have an encyclopaedic knowledge of them, but does not yet feel sufficiently equipped to make a confident assessment of the merits of a type. I have supposed that he or she may be bewildered by the number and variety of type faces now current, suspicious of the high-powered promotion of some of them, and disappointed that the journals that deal with typography do not provide the same sort of critical analysis of type designs as is given to new literature and the performing arts in the general press.”

Walter Tracy, preface to “Letters of Credit”, 1986

Quoted by Kris Sowersby of Klim Type in the comments section of “We Don’t Need New Fonts” by Peter Bil’ak.

I’ve recently collaborated with Laranzuh, a mystery adventure game currently in development in Turkey and independently produced by Batu Eritenel.

Laranzuh uses real-life photographs instead of computer generated visuals and this is where I come in as a designer by creating the props to be used in the photo shoots of the storyline.

For the first stage design development, we’ve worked on creating logos and related items for brands featured in the scenario. All designs needed to be suitable for the settings of the story, a fact which made it one of the most interesting design projects.

Our collaboration with Laranzuh continues with more design development work in the near future. For more information about Laranzuh, please visit the website: www.laranzuh.com

Tarhan Aci

Aside from the way Tarhan Aci is featured within the game the two separate words in the name combined, it reads ‘the one who sells tarhana’ - which is a traditional powder-like Turkish soup ingredient. We wanted to play on this pun while developing the logotype so I created the final lettering based on the letters drawn with real ‘tarhana’:

Pharmaceuticals

The storyline of Laranzuh also needed the development of some medicine brands. We generated new brand names making sure they don’t already exist in the market. Since they are to be shot in real life during the production, we also developed the full packaging for these items and will be sharing the in situ images later after the production.

Vitaktif

The Vitaktif logo is developed for a vitamin brand to be used on the packaging of a B12 vitamin box. I initially worked on several script styles which then developed into the final version along with a marque design.

Aksanar

The letterforms of the Aksanar logo take their inspiration from the hand drawn company logos found on the old Turkish medicine packaging. In order to keep the vintage and raw calligraphic style in the final logo, apart from a few tweaks I kept the changes on the first hand-drawn version to minimum.

And here are the rest of the designs we’ve developed for Laranzuh all featuring custom lettering.

Ginkgo Biloba packaging lettering

Anosin, logo for a painkiller brand