History of Diamond Design: Vol 1


Ask any seasoned designer to go back and look at their work when they first started their career and you will almost always be met with groans and sighs. Many designers are also caught off guard and tend to avoid looking at very old work they’ve done because, well, it just doesn’t feel good to go back and look at something you used to think was acceptable and maybe even were proud of at the time, and realized just how thick those rose colored glasses are.


As painful as it might be to go back and revisit old designs, it can also show just how much you’ve learned over the years. You can see the obvious mistakes you’ve made and instantly think of improvements to your work. Designers also shouldn’t beat themselves up too hard either. Design trends change, software abilities change, you change. It’s not always about how little you knew then, sometimes it’s about how much things shift and change over the years.


So I’d like to start ripping off the band aid here at Diamond Media Solutions, and take a trip down memory lane. Sometimes you need to look at where you’ve been to see where you might be in the future.




Let’s begin all the way back to 2006. As much as this hurts my eyes, it’s interesting for me to see these automobile companies that are long gone (Pontiac and Saturn). I’m pretty happy this kept the amount of fonts to a minimum, but the style of this thing just screams car sale newspaper ad from that time period. Yikes.

Jumping a year to 2008. Things are getting a bit more complex. We’re still clinging to that trusty Impact font, but now we’ve moved into THE THIRD DIMENSION with these headings. Now we’re starting to get a sense of depth coming through the page.

2009 is upon us, and it looks like we’re starting to play with more color schemes as well as piggy backing off one of the hottest television shows in the US that year.

This was a concept mailer from 2009 where user interaction starts to become a focus. While there’s always been prizes and gifts included with most automotive events, finding out if a customer was a winner has always been rather boring. Here we introduce multiple scratches and a decoder game.

Well, I think that’s enough cringy nostalgia for one day. Keep an eye out for the next installment when thoughtful design really starts to take a central role in our creative process!



Keith Stewart is the Creative Director for Diamond Media Solutions.


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