Since the art of story telling is one mostly associated with reading a (paper) book, newspaper or magazine, how does one translate the same linear qualities online? Would a 430 ft lateral scroll do the trick?
Well this is what the band Orba Squara choose to do to celebrate their 2nd CD release. They hopped on a bus for a 10 days journey “to play music, meet new people and see what they’ve been missing” and had the website constructed around that story.
Watch out for the nice contextual typographic treatments!
Sublime Woods illustration by Mika Mäkinen based in Helsinki who embedded selection of works in a pretty nifty flash functionalities website.
The fastest Firefox yet! “Things move quickly online, and we’ve beefed up the engine that runs Firefox to make sure you can keep up: Firefox 3.5 is more than twice as fast as Firefox 3, and ten times as fast as Firefox 2.”
Upgrade now! ND luvs Firefox!
Justin Cooper from Society6 (making things good, by making good things) announces that Clemens Behr receives IDA Emerging Designer Award.
“Barcelona based Clemens Behr aka Everthing and me says garbage bags and cardboxes are cheap, beautiful, offer a lot of space, are always available, quickly to process, work without electricity and are actually meant for other purposes.”
Dig everything up! It’s worth it.
Doug Alves aka Nacionale keeps soaring higher and higher. His restocked portfolio shows an exquisite array of projects brimming refined details with just the right dose of edge.
Design is too important to be left to the thinkers by Robert Brunner.
“Recently, at a conference reception (think wine and cubes of cheese), a well-known and influential member of the academic community said to me: Design strategy is far too important to be left to designers. What a pile of crap, I think..
.. great design is more than an object: It is an idea. An idea that permeates everything.”
via dogdaydesign
Being human is more and more of a challenge nowadays. Not easy to see clearly what is going inside our soul either. The Confabulaciones series “explore the fragility of our psychic states” states Mapi Gil 
a talented artist who lives in Barcelona.
Presenting Merchant No. 4 collection of of hard-to-find everyday objects from independent designers. Design Objects We Love — Hand Soap would make for a surprising gift any day and a great conversation piece!
Although published in 07, really like this visual assemblage of simple or complex forms in the Recycled issue of lelab.
MAKE (visual) made my day! The totally believable and funny tale they have built for the 2009 Palm Springs International ShortFest opener which combines multiple film making mediums to reflect diversity and offerings (3D animation, stop motion, live action, etc) just blew me off my chair and made me ROFL.
Awesome movie!
Bria and team, hats off! You do our industry proud!
Part of our anniversary bash, we invited special content scouts to contribute 10 project reviews on the topic of their choice and do a mini-interview.
Presenting #8 in the series: Paper/Glass: Liquids Here by Michael Brenner
“This curated selection of drinking glasses was inspired from a drink of water the other day. We often overlook items that we use daily and often dismiss thoughts about who, where and how these various vessels have come to existence. Specimens included here range from the iconic NYC Deli cup to hand crafted crystal service sets.
Many of the designs have reinvented the common drinking glass into explosive works of high concept art.”
Well they wear their name and it fits like a glove. Meet Truly Design a visual communication studio and be not disappointed, because they know how to truly design. Luv their logo too!
Recuperation taken to a new lighting level. Skin Flint Design have a diverse and ever-changing collection of incredible lights that would otherwise have been lost with the buildings they were rescued from and they’d like nice people to look at them and maybe give them happy homes where they are loved!
Showing a unique table lamp by Philips
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Showing an English reading lamp
Brett Ryder merits the undispute title of a wild master of the most improbable elements assemblages. By infusing them with meaning, results in jumping at you right smack in you face illustration concepts.
Joel Castillo has worked for a myriad of publications and his style, reminescent of the early board game Monopoly. Simple and bold at the same time, indeed perfect match for editorial assignments.
Yellena James is spinning high quality artworks whose organic elements and swirly forms seem to spiral around an invisible vortex. Hypnotic by their sheer beauty.
Jaime Hayon le magnifique! Jaime is a Spanish artist-designer who as a teenager submerged himself in skateboard culture and graffiti art, the foundation of the detailed, bold-yet-whimsical imagery so imminent in his work today.
After studying industrial design in Madrid and Paris he joined Fabrica in 1997, the Benetton-funded design and communication academy. In a short time he was promoted from student to head of their Design Department. 8 years later, broke out on his own, first with collections of designer toys, ceramics and furniture, followed by interior design and installations.
He is proof that with uncompromised originality, just look at his self-portraits series, hard work and focused pursuit of a vision, everything is possible.
For an inspiring look at his processes — Jaime Hayon Works — is a must.
Part of our anniversary bash, we invited special content scouts to contribute 10 project reviews on the topic of their choice and do a 3 questions mini-interview.
Presenting #7 in the series: 10 Up & Coming Hong Kong Designers by Chapman Tse
“How is Hong Kong design scene doing? Discover the 10 up & coming Hong Kong designers I have selected.”
Gutta luv how Kyle Bean designed his DIY typo made of cardboard boxes to write his name on index of his portfolio website. Another promising talent that has a knack for creating 3d elements and design montages.
Le Sens Propre is a modern version fairy tale, whereas the fairy is the Mom (who fixes everything) and the moody kid, as usual, is the central character. Must admit that even though storyboard is a bit choppy and lighting unequal, there are some very good moments and the visual fx are impeccable and quite beautiful.
via DesignJournal
To a NEW designer (an open letter)
You are fresh, you are out, you are entering the field, you are charged, you are ready to storm the industry and imprint your mark with your wits and talent! Great! I would like to share some thinking paths to munch over and pitfalls to avoid so you can successfully make it happen and avoid common mistakes befalling inexperienced designers.
Why is that?
We all were newbies.
There will always be newbies.
We all need to be newbies.
HOME, a movie by Yann Arthus-Bertrand, is a must see documentary with imagery that will simply take your breath away. Luckily the full feature (1:33 min) is available on the Home channel which includes supp footage (making of).
“Scientists tell us that we have 10 years to change the way we live, avert the depletion of natural resources and the catastrophic evolution of the Earth’s climate.”
Prep the popcorn, beverages, xtra seatings for friends, family this week-end and watch a truly moving movie.
Home our final frontier!
GDI09 is the online showcase of 2009 graduates of BA(Hons) Graphic Design & BA(Hons) Illustration at the University of Brighton. Some of this year’s aspiring yearlings are definitely making some noise for themselves and will pop-up in the industry arena to claim their spot.
Is this another intricate 3d digitally enhanced shape? A designified flourish under great lighting fx? Well Q1 is in fact one of the metal sculptures created by Eddie Goh. He definitely has a great (spatial) eye, sense of balance and composition with a tad touch of irkiness that is intrincate and intriguing.
Don’t miss Unity made of compressed paper, Embryo and War Peace 11 pieces.
Uniqlo strikes again with another viral idea, this time a weather based calendar. Way too much fun to pass up. The accelarated frames movies are splendid.
For a little while you can see in real-time what’s the weather forecast in Motnreal. Check on the right side column; today: cloudy/rain!
Kewl uh?
Kyun Soon Park dreamy and ethereal illustrations. Particularly like the rich red overtone in his work. Rare to see. Showing: Wired.
Read my type! In this case touch my type, she’s embroidered her type(fonts) as part of a “typographic investigation into the materiality of print”?!?! Ohlalala what a jaw dropping feat Evelin Kasikov has enterprised. Geez whiz!
via Velinas
Is this a new pixel project? In some ways yes, but the scope, the sheer scope is — GIGNORMOUS! These are screen captures of the 3D map of Hong Kong city à la Google!
Be patient it takes a little while to load. Pan across and see it render on the fly. Ain’t that amazing or what?
via kito11
New foundry on the block: HypeForType! Alex Haigh (Thinkdust) dedicated over a year from concept to completion, hardly sleeping more than 2hrs a night (geez talk about resilience and being driven), to fulfill what he saw as an unprecedented opportunity: bringing some of the most talented people together to produce one off creations.. uh.. typefaces.
Introducing the inaugural series by Si Scott, Alex Trochut, Jon Burgerman, HelloHikimori, and Luke Lucas.
Jeff Kulak has a quirky sense of humour (read is about section). Luv this cover for the New Year’s edition of Mirror Magazine which is a great example of his illustration style.
Wanna see what creating for yourself a powerful niche for your skills and services? Peter Schafrick photography is such a paramount example of liquid journeys taken to the hilt.
How does one do that? Any clues?
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Well it seems a “retoucher” is involved. Who gets credit for what? Schafrick or MacLeod? The photographer or the retoucher? What do you make of that? Post it.
Organic substance meets motion graphics artist Moresoon who generated the brilliant Tales of the Unexpected movie.
Richly built and edited photographer portfolio. Don’t miss the hauntingly beautiful photography essay by Salva López: La Costa Gris.
via Diseco.es
Lula is a multi-disciplinary art and design partnership based in Sweden. Introducing a prolific collective portfolio website. Best viewed from top to bottom.
Mostardesign hang their visual concepts on the edge using repetitve patterns, shapes and typography.
Aaron Leighton is an illustrator with a fascination for tribal artwork, cartoons, anthropomorphic objects.. and bugs!
Showing a self-promotional piece.
“Some ways of implementing copyrighted material are considered fair use. Certain forms of parody are considered fair use, as long as they don’t become a new work or product that directly competes with the content being parodied.”
Excerpt from Indie Publishing edited by Ellen Lupton.
What do you think of the following example? Which is the original?
Fair use or plagiarism? Post it.
They LUV design! It shows! We show it!
The power of colors on our mind and imagination is demonstrated in the most original ways by these examples.
77rpm Moving notice in Hong Kong
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Herr Mueller Heart for Healthy Living Magazine
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Heimatdesgin Kreativ.stars im Juni poster
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Jude Buffum Home Owner’s Manual
Talk about having some fun, watch the PLAY @ Otaku Festival movie that shows familiar characters and 6 different games based on each letter of their name which is a promo of their newly released magazine.. aptly themed PLAY!
Presenting the new life of the party! “Digital Confetti is an interactive event installation with a weather balloon, projection, and maracas. Custom software and hardware is used to create generative confetti graphics, text and sounds as party goes shake maracas at the balloon.”
These two selections from Studio SEEK an image creation powerhouse lead by the fantastic duo, Austrian born, Nina Gorfer and the Swedish American, Sarah Cooper, nail what their approach to photographic composition is all about. They’ve come a long way since I met them first in San Jose a couple of years back when they were finalist in the Adobe design achievement awards for their Seek Vol 1 collection.
Dare they do, with an unrivalled measure of skills and success.
Matt Stallings is a terrific illustrator and great admirer of films which influence his approach on how to present a subject or construe a concept.
Yummy! Marshall Mashumaro “was a little boy who ate so many marshmallows he turned into one! How scary is that? But…he’s just about the cutest little marshmallow boy ever!”
From an original 64 Colors sweet character!
Step into Tim Van den Broeck “world and encounter flowing forms and snaky shapes, swirling through sleek compositions past erupting mountains of colour. Inconspicuous characters will be crossing your path, trying to sell you sheer imagination with their slick expressions or silly gestures.”
Joby Sessions website has got a nice loading sequence, quirky little animations to frame a photographer portfolio who is most active in the celebrity music industry.
Gotta luv the group picture taken for Any Forty a new fashion label.
I want my 15 minutes of anonymity poster was created by Alberto Garcia who is “philosophizing about the fact that everyone now has no privacy by choice, and applying the principles of pop art to Warhol himself, I “re-wrote” his famous quote about the 15 minutes of fame.”
Splendidly choreographed photography by Bagrad Badalian. The sheer intensity of the moods, cadrages and lightings all work to make a visual concert that nears perfection.
Part of our anniversary bash, we invited special content scouts to contribute 10 project reviews on the topic of their choice and do a 3 questions mini-interview.
Presenting #6 in the series: My 10 Favourite Contemporary Pattern Designs by Ana Montiel
“I’ve always been a pattern lover. I see no limits on pattern applications, imagine planes, plates, bikes and even tattoos! In this article I tried to select the most eclectic and inspiring pattern designs that talks and inspires me. I tried to avoid the “normal ornamental ones” to focus on more uncommon results.
Hope you like the selections.”
Erik Otto with his background in illustration, design, and graffiti has eased himself into this space where salvage wood get a new stint as art. As you can see the little skewed house is a trademark of his paintings and installations.
Gotta luv the power of self-publishing! He just released, the Paper, Graphic & Wood vol 2.
Want a quick history lesson (upon mouseover, name of person appears and links to respective Wikipedia bio)? Or just marvel at the complexity of the Famous People Painting “Discussing the Divine Comedy with Dante”? Can you imagine the time it took to accomplish this?
Painting by Dai Dudu, Li Tiezi, and Zhang.
Juxt Interactive has relaunched a new swanky/funky website using WP, really far departure from what they’ve built in past years since becoming one of the pioneering flash dev/des agency.
Wanna piece of nostalgia? Close Up interview with Todd Purgason!
Another tidbit of news, VizualPV3D a Flash Visualization Application that provides a GUI interface to create and manipulate objects in 3D scenes using Papervision3D which was created from scratch by a total friendly geek, Gary Stasiuk, is available for download.
Free! Help yourself!
The Interpretation DVD by You WorkForThem
Opening on a twin picture of an enigmatic woman the next chapters takes you through a languid, mesmerizing and somewhat hypnotic trip through a strange kinda underworld subdued colored organic landscape.
Visuals by Michael Paul Young
Soundtrack by Michael Cina and Ghostly International
View a sample movie.
An award winning packaging project from the german agency Korefe. Their work for The Deli Garage has an irresistible industrial feel, with tongue in cheek illustrations and spot-on typography. Definitely an agency worth keeping an eye on!
Above is perhaps best known for his trademark graffiti style arrows that have cropped up around the globe. Placed inconspicuously “above” crowded streets, these pointed designators generally feature a single, emotionally charged or ultra simplistic, yet thought provoking descriptor.
This talented urban artist also creates gorgeous large scale type forms. His typographic murals are awe inspiring and larger than life. He makes the process of typography look like child’s play as he deftly wields his spray paint can to create public works of inspiration.
“My illustrations are heavily pen and ink based, whilst incorporating photography and screen-printing throughout much of my work. By exploring the initially ordinary, I find inspiration in “everyday” architecture, objects, packaging, possessions and pop culture.”
Zoe More O’Ferrall 
a lovely new talent!
This is the website of the docu-film Waterlife, an epic story of the Great Lakes which may be nearing “irreversible collapse”. Director Kevin McMahon sets out to document the people, its ecosystem, and the beauty of Earth’s 20% surface fresh water supply. Music by Brian Eno, Sigur Ros, Philip Glass and Daniel Lanois among others.
No more excuses for not having a portfolio online. KROP Creative Dabase introduces a new industry standard for online portfolios. Spend your energy promoting your portfolio, not building it!
Joining is free forever and will never have advertisements!
Nathalie Pollet is Pam et Jenny, a graphic designer in Belgium with a wonderful eye for creative design solutions. Beautiful typographic treatments and wonderful colour palettes a plenty, this is great work being displayed on an equally excellent website.
Chow Martin is.. Heist! Meaning the pseudonym is the combine efforts of twin brothers showing the illustration side of their work, while running a design studio for commercial assignments! Ingenious strategy!
Was just about ready to present this ‘new’ illustrator to the world — and caught up with the the facetious supercherie — while looking for a bio. Tada! Unmasked and now we get 2 for 1.
“Heist-Toronto is a boutique art direction, design, and illustration studio established in 2008 by Sean and Colin Chow. The twin brothers draw upon their combined experiences in the fashion, arts and cultural markets to create tailor-made concepts and aesthetics for both private and commercial clients, locally and worldwide.”
They generated a fan frenzy unrivalled in the history of modern music and their discography is unrivalled as well. Wanna be part of the band? New game released that affords us just that.
Let’s hear a round of applause for the splendid trailer:
The Beatles: Rock Band
Boone Oakley manipulates YouTube in an unexpected way to create an engaging user experience filled with humor.
It takes all of about five seconds to recognize the talent of West-Coast art-duo Meomi . Their website is a showcase of visual and interactive delight, hi-lighting not only their multi-faceted design and illustration work, but also their deep sense of style and eye for composition. Their vector work is deeply layered, full of color and brimming with emotion.
They have created a rich visual language through their character design and fun, engaging stories that bring a smile to your face.
Fresh out of school, eager, talented and on the ready for assignments, a long time ND friend and protégé, Nicolas Ortega has officially launched NXRX his new pad on the web.
Luv his style and graphic design/print works!
Lovers aka Jonathan Calugi is a veritable one man show. He creates modern, fresh vector collages and stylish, powerful type forms. His dense, mezmerizing patterns are completely engaging and leave you with the sense that there is always something new to find amidst the curves and angles of these intertwined compositions. The Italian illustrator’s type forms are based largely off of basic shapes, but with a sincere complexity that makes them fresh and accessible.
UVA are a British collective who currently work on large responsive installations, as well as performance pieces.
They create works that are curiosities, imaginative, explorable, interactive/reactive, emotive and powerful. Plus, LEDs are really fun.
Zigmunds Lapsa is from Latvia. Just finishing his internship in Amsterdam, he’s ready to roll. As proof, he has compiled a very nice portfolio. Promising talent.
This is probably one of the worst nightmare that can happen to an editor, someone reporting that one of your covered artist may be a fraud. This is worst than navigating a perilous sea. Worst than breaking into personal perceptions instead of objectivity. Worst that can happen to someone’s reputation. Threading with circumspection and for the sake of justice or at least wanting to offer room for debate, shown are samples of the so called copycats.
Make sure to read first this post and review the samples provided here and state what you think in the comments.
So in your view, is it or not plagiarism?
Part of our anniversary bash, we invited special content scouts to contribute 10 project reviews on the topic of their choice and do a mini-interview.
Presenting #5 in the series: Architectural Website Strategies by Elsye Alam
“In what ways do architects distinguish their websites, despite of practical basic items that have to be conveyed, such as News, Projects, Info, Profile and Awards? This review is covering unique architectural websites elements, from website mood, rendering techniques, project icons, firm branding to navigation strategies that architects use to state their design voice.”
Anita Fontaine work “affectively bridges the divide between the long-held distinctions between reality and artifice, imagined and real-world dreams, virtual and actual territories. Her explorations into new technologies are radical, free spirited and on the brink of innovation.. exploring mimesis through virtuosic displays of verisimilitude.”
Mouthful? Now get your eyes full.
3650 is a “short film for Mtv Worldwide to help raise awareness of the effects of global warming. A combination of live action and animation. A globe in a classroom was shot on 16mm which was then tracked and populated with cg toy-like clouds, cars, planes, and cities.”
via Arturo Aranda
