Daniel Harmon

I found this poster series on the Communication Arts website.  In collaboration with the Arbor Day Foundation, the in-house design team at Nebraska Book Company made these to promote the purchase of used text books.

I love the balance of color, the paradoxical concept, and the way the illustrations use negative space, allowing your eye to instinctively complete the image forms. And notice the clever use of the inverted recycle logo to create the v in save—a nice little touch of visual wit.

Ironically, the tag line, “Buy a Book, Build a Forest,” reminds me of an anything-but-politically-correct bumper sticker I saw as a teenager in Idaho. Its message aimed to achieve the same end, just through different means. It read, “Save a Tree, Eat a Beaver.”

My oldest brother was in town visiting about a month ago. He’s a big fan of architectural design. I’m pretty partial to it as well. He told me about the Chicago Spire (now under construction). Ever heard of it? It’s an incredible structure! Once completed, it will stand 150 stories high. In comparison, the Sears Tower, the tallest building in North America, is only 108 stories.

The website is definitely worth a gander. It says the building is “inspired by nature.” Sounds like they’re just trying to vamp up its green appeal. I submit they change it to, “inspired by an industrial-strength tapered drill bit.” Now that’ll attract the tenants.

The Caterpillar corporate site I’ve been working on for the past few months went live today. Check it out here. There’s a link on Cat.com’s homepage too. The site focuses on the progress Caterpillar is making possible around the world.

I wrote a lot of the copy (an advertising term for text) on the pages. And I even helped with the writing on some of the scripts for the videos (voice over stuff). The designers did a great job, don’t you think? If you see anything that would improve the site, leave me a comment. Thanks.