Jacek Utko is an extraordinary Polish newspaper designer whose redesigns for papers in Eastern Europe not only win awards, but increase circulation by up to 100%. Can good design save the newspaper? It just might.

New York 2008 from Vicente Sahuc on Vimeo

This video is a beautiful, mesmerizing piece of work.  Objectively, it is little more than some candid, street footage (admittedly taken in Manhattan) spliced together and laced with a nice soundtrack. Tthose words technically do describe the video — which could easily instead have formed something banal and pedantic — but instead of a snore, the video is a work of art. The magic ingredient — the alchemy which transforms slo-mo candids of people walking down the street into a lush painting of a city in motion –  is the convergence of talent, determination, and vision. And the result is a work of art instead of 3rd-rate documentary filler.

The video is impressive not only as a piece of art, but as a vivid example of how an artist (or designer, or artisan) with vision can make great things with even a minimal amount of tools. Sahuc wasn’t using fancy, high-end equipment. He didn’t have a lighting crew or a budget. He took what he had and made it work.

In other words, as designers our work is not limited by our lack of a new G5 Mac, or CS4, or even our programmers’ (un)willingness to build AJAX interfaces with rounded corners. No. If we can mine our instincts and skills to hone a clear vision, even the crudest of tools can be used to create elegant, enchanting results.

I love this story. This “graffiti artist”, Poster Boy, took his very limitation – no money to buy supplies – and from that limitation established his art form. I think there is a lesson there for everyone who works in a creative field. Often, when presented with a blank sheet, a huge budget, and to deadline, the result is stasis, wheels spinning and gears churning, but no true progress. Meanwhile, when faced with limited resources and a hard deadline, so often the result is inspired (though not always polished) work.

You can debate whether Poster Boy is defacing property or committing a crime, but you cannot argue that his work is creative, funny, and thought provoking. The fact that his only tool is a razor blade makes it all the more remarkable.

Kicker Studio designer and author Dan Saffer speaks about the designing and documenting for gestural interfaces. Kind of long, but worth a watch.

I guarantee that you will love this video. For a high-def, albeit briefer, version, visit Capacity’s site.

Although it is tons of fun and entertaining to watch, what is most compelling is the huge leap forward displayed here in the notion of what a logo and a brand can mean. Conventional ideas of brand identity, shaped by decades of emblems and tag lines, still seem to confine it to a word mark or a glyph. This campaign demonstrates how much more fertile ground there is (for the right brand, of course) to define and display the vibrancy of their identity.

The idea is that Cartoon Network is a palette of characters (the Noods) who interact – and not just a cable chanel with an animated bug in the corner of the screen. It is brought vividly to life by first showing us cute but featureless dolls who are then injected with personality by pops and bursts of color and motion. The brand is alive. It is interactive, fun, and playful. (Of course the phenomenal soundtrack plays a key role). Try and get that message across with a logo and a tag line.

For more background and analysis, a good write up from CartoonNothing:

The latest jewel in [LA-based Capacity's] crown is a massive rebrand for Cartoon Network built around Noods, blank Dunny-esque figures created by the crew at Kidrobot. Props to CN for dreaming up such a clever, collaborative concept.

Capacitys CN montage starts off in a minimal white space but builds in complexity and vibrancy as more characters, environments and seasons are introduced. [...] Yoda reducing General Grievous to a puddle of paint [is] a clever way to deconstruct the underlying concept of the rebrand.

The frenetic soundtrack (also created by Capacity) tinges the entire montage with a playful 8-bit tone and moves things forward with a cheery optimism befitting such a grand undertaking.

I might have to rip that soundtrack into an MP3.