Design and digital culture NEWS // August 2008
Som
de Lisboa is a state of the art audio-visual production studio
aiming at integrating music and technology.
Tim
Jarvis has been partner and Creative Director at London-based agency
The Profission Partnership and active in the fields of brand identity,
print and web. He has evolved his fundamental methodology to meet the
needs of his clients across all of these mediums.
Astounding
photography by Lyle Owerko. The
Africa series covering the Samburu people made me realize how body piercing,
especially ear extensions, are not by-products of neither EU or North
America underground fashion endorsers, for one.
Putting this aside, the light contrast and treatment as well as the
genuine candor we feel, make his work endearing and draws you to dwell
on the process of what he is seeing and capturing.
Don't miss an experiment he just released: the (vintage) Boombox project.
Just finding the items must have been like attempting to find a needle
in a haysack.
Ralf
Gellert likes people and it shows in his photography! Excellent
portrait and staging for fashion shoots.
Well
this photograph, Tony D'Orio,
has a sense of humor that can be sometimes a bit darkish, nonetheless,
the photomontages and retouching are quite amazing (and as you will see,
he has done a number of takes for a certain type of campaigns.
Joe
Wigdahl does not specializes in any particular style of photography
but his, have this story telling flavor, captured from every day life
or more staged for editorial work.
Everywhere
We Shoot 
has
restocked their portfolio. This creative duo is taking pleasure in
gigantic handbag attacking the city, a greasy hobo roaming the streets
in couture ... these are the stuff that dreams are made of, or perhaps
someone's delirious fantasy. But for Everywhere We Shoot, these are
the kind of things that happen in a day's work
Penelope
Dullaghan is
versatile her work ranging between illustration, fine art, type, patterns.
Her projects are stamped with a dreamy like signature, and her choice
palette mostly pastelle with contrasting accents.
Inclined towards family and lifestyle illustrations, she has been widely
published and her work awarded too.
Make
room for the kids because Tamara
Schlesinger shoots
them to perfection and as you know, most of the time they get restless,
her achievements are celebrating her patience and timing. Sweet!
Nutz
about food. Food as art. Foodie alert by Marcus
Nilsson whose photography is mouth watering and staged sometimes
quite dramatically. Reminder of the Renaissance natures mortes masters.
Gui
Borchet is an art director originally from Rio de Janeiro who has
a stunning portfolio has paid his dues working with some of the largest
agencies. First, I like the one page grid with big visuals that embeds
movies and multiple views of some of the projects and he says: “Scrolling
is fun” and he over delivers on that quote.
Now on to his actual realizations! Oh my! Everything is just excellent.
TokyoCube reshelves
the store with new products arrival which include a fashion line and
cool plastic figures such as the Sug
H60 by unklbrand.
Get
ready for lift-off! Grab a coffee, sit back and be patient because Weestar portfolio
will require your full attention for more than a few minutes, to fully
enjoy and appreciate.
“Graphic designer. Illustrator. Partner of JOYN:VISCOM studio,
now he is working and living in Beijing, focusing on the iconographic,
typeface design, toys, street art and other media, based upon different
kinds of iconographics.”
Mattis
Dovier is still a student and I really like his graphic design
and 3d experiments. At 19, he has a promising career ahead.
POL
OXYGEN issue 27 is out with a cover story that features SØLVE
SUNDSBØ
portfolio of portraits who is the Norwegian fashion and advertising photographer
whose colour-saturated, hyper-real prints offer a bizarrely beautiful
world.
Pierre
Vanni is an art director and his one-pager portfolio shows huge
graphics and when you mouse-over - starts a little slide-show. No words
- lets the work speak for itself.
RevistaColectiva is
a collective of artists of the world presenting new trends in art, design
and culture originating from Costa Rica and founded by Juan Manuel Betancourt.
Each issue is printed and a small movie is available for a quick view
of inside content. The articles for each theme are well-written too.
They are accepting proposals for their upcoming
issue: Planet Alert.
If
tragedy strikes what would you expect? A little help from your friends
and if as so happened to Justin Feller and his girlfriend who lost EVERYTHING
in that fire, help from anyone would be great.
If this prompts you to help - please do so by donating -
no amount too small when you start from nothing.
Couldn't
have said it better: “A self-developed artist, Robert
Hardgrave creates work both highly intricate and abundant with personal
symbols.” There is turmoil and spiralling chaos but his work is
still having a somewhat figurative appeal where the attention to details
prevail.
Take
a journey into the world of Diftype where
each pixel is filled with extraneous collage like details integrating
subtle nuances of 45 degrees lines, textures and graphic artefacts.
When I'm 20 - I will design like Niklas Lundberg :)0
These
two girls from Ittestudio have more inclinations to design anything on
anything for anything and their blog aka PopPervert just
shows the dazzling array of their shared interests.
When
will they ever learn??? by Carole Guevin
I find it incredibly naive that some marketers think that because people
flock somewhere a market suddenly exists, becoming yet another slice
in the pie of potential revenue-generation for corporations to grab.
Fundamentally, a community, unless based on buying power, will do exactly
what and why it was started for in the first place, and anything added
to it, unless more functionalities will twist the model out of place.
So under the guise of facilitating communal activities was there, laying
all along, the big rampant lure of reaping big bucks?
Does it mean that if you create a large enough user base that it will
instantly turned into big wads of (advertising) dollars?
What should have been done in the first place is perhaps include the
monetizing model from the get go. For example, what if Facebook was available
to a monthly fee to join, there probably wouldn't be 300 millions users
to boot but let's say that there were 10M paying 5$/month it would still
turn out a hefty 50M$ a month (and lowering the numbers on either side
(users/monthly fee) would still be incredibly profitable because your
expenses would go down accordingly).
It's hard to have any sympathy.. lesson here: before you launch - think
it through.
- - - - -
Many
New 'Friends' to be Made Online, But What About Dollars? by Gregory
M. Lamb
Social Network Websites Are Booming. If Only They Could Turn a Profit. “It's
been a huge disconnect between traffic to social network sites and revenue.
People clearly, especially on the social networks, [are] not particularly
interested in clicking on the ads.”
Can
Social-Networking Sites Make Money? by Bryant Urstadt
Advertisers
Shun User-Generated Video by Anick Jesdanun
Net
Video Ads: Attention Vs. Annoyance by Anick Jesdanun
Gary
Hutswit: “I think that, especially today, it’s crucial for
us to re-examine how we make and use consumer products at every level.
And if you could get all of these designers and design experts together
at a dinner party, what would they talk about?
Objectified, the film
will hopefully represent that conversation.”
Si
Scott is the brilliant mind behind a little film he did about drawing,
and drawing he knows! His use of repetitive and concentric lines make
up for art nouveau like elegant illustrations.
We could say he is seriously addicted to the serif effect!
Helen Rush and Nicki Field don't
what you to call Agency Rush an
illustration agency, because it is so much more. They provide an exclusive
creative service, managing projects from commission to production and
more. They offer strategic advice on changes of direction, instigating
new initiatives and nurturing careers.
Tomas
Pena who declares himself part of the Spanish design underground, has
worked with prominent graphic design studios and put up a little gem
of a reel!
Cristina
Guitian is
an illustrator whose line arts adorned huge installation as well as
editorial and print assignments. Her naive like characters reminds
of childhood drawing attempts but her compositions denote concepts
that are mature.
When
using geometric forms and real or imaginary lines to create art like
yet commercial photography, I think about the work of Kim
Holtermand.
What I find especially worth noting is that not only the compositions
are almost always using a strict linear grid but also the two pre-dominant
palette: greenish/cyan and grayish/pink enhance the surreal or dreamy
like textures and light.
Amy
Pelletier is
another talented photographer with a somewhat humoristic edge and irky
style of composition. Definitely someone to watch.
Designed by Engine Digital
who happens to have a couple of job openings: interactive designers,
producers, intermediate flash developer and more.
Time
is precious especially for geeks. That’s why Geexoo - the geek
feed hub has been launched. Geexoo aggregates
the latest feeds from top blogs from over 30 tech topics.
Eva
Lindeman has
a simple typographic and word based navigation as well as columns of
little icons to display her graphic design and illustration work.
The
Survey, 2008 by A List Apart
Calling all designers, developers, information architects, project managers,
writers, editors, marketers, and everyone else who makes websites. It
is time once again to pool our information so as to begin sketching a
true picture of the way our profession is practiced worldwide.
Heard
this sentence? You know quality when you see it! Well this is what would
best define Chris Ro graphic and editorial design projects aka ADearFriend.
Just upgrade me with 10% of his imagination power and I should be ok.
The number of original treatments and quality of composition is staggering
not withstaking how some layouts really trick the mind.
Worth visiting from top to bottom!
VEAUX is
an online talent market that helps fesh creatives sell themselves, and
picky buyers find the choicest cut of artistic goodness around. Simple
interface, bright colors, yummy!
Design and programming by Synthetic Infatuation.
Quodrant is
a design studio headed by Jack Tan. He is an art director and programmer.
His experience lies in the interactive domain. He is very intrigued by
music, culture, manga and film.
Flash website with projects listed with animated thumbnails and a load
of little movies.
Wanna
see a good example of launching a website as a start-up? Check out Enfatico.
Industry heavy-weights make up the team, I guess that is promising. No
portfolio yet. Just the pitch of what they will can and will do. Smart!
A space to watch!
Liz
Wolfe is powagirrrl and
knows the power of eye candy.. literally! Her photographic compositions
are quirky and original and follows the path of the unexpected!
Oh and she makes (shocking) pink rock!
Leandro
Lima a young brazilian web designer, graphic designer, flash designer
and illustrator recently developed a website for Jet a
fashion brand. Sweet interface, awesome palette and nice use of flash.
YKM proves
their point in being an interactive marketing communication agency that
has the know-how. Using a large roster of huge images.. the captions
are sometimes funny, but all are really smart! Bright and red!
Designspotter is looking for new guest bloggers and jounalists for their magazine. If interested in working with them - please send an email to Markus Gogolin.
David
Arias is a just recently graduated graphic designer with a penchant
for strategic branding and visual communications. Gotta luv the grid
simplicity of the interface with big size thumbnails for his portfolio
web site.
YOO is
a design-focus property devlopment company enhancing quality and adding
value through design and notwithstaking, the brainchild of Philippe Starck
and John Hitchcox.
They make pretty and upscale, naturally.
I
thought that crazy interfaces had somehow disappeared, well LUST
/ RANDOM just proved the contrary. Nothing usable, incredibly complex
and hard to decipher, but hey, this is what they do:
“Design philosophy revolve around Process-based and Generative-based
Design.
Interested in exploring new pathways for design at the precarious edge
where new media and information technologies, architechture and urban
planning and graphic design overlap. Topics include graphic design typography
abstract cartography mapping architecture urban media installations archiving
data-visualizations random mistake-ism fonts type design new media interactive
webdesign internet www art big bang chaos.”
Glossy,
shiny, trendy, bubbly, exhuberant, expressive, excessively good graphic
design and art direction.. for just about any media possible, including
interior installations. Gee whiz... an almost mile long porfolio of eye
candy they've produced thus far.
Did I say prolific too?
Fairspot
published a fresh new interview with graphic design legend Hillman
Curtis. This might be one of the last interviews before Hillman becomes
a famous producer on the big screen!
BTW Hillman said tata to his
lavender long standing website! Here comes spanking new and looking totally
crisp and clean - in white accented black.
Jesse
Hora restocks his portfolio with new illustration and graphic design
works.
Just
found this pearl - Emigre repository
of essays on the philosophy of design and others on type and typography.
Want more design references? Vist the Toolbox.
Colorful
and funky idents and design by Black
Marmalade which was born in the fall of 2004 as a way for DeChazier
P. Stokes-Johnson to have a change of pace from the sometimes static
life being an art director at an advertising agency brings.
Since he has art directed, designed, & illustrated, for some of
today's top brands.
How
Do You Walk the Line Between Work and Home? Share Your Best Practices
With ALA.
Years
ago I wrote this simple sentence: “What's the use of human intelligence
if it serves only to destroy?” and wrote this essay. This is not
a political call to action! This is REALITY! We do something about it
and we survive. We ignore it and we disappear.
{dare} to change the
World by Carole Guevin.
If
you're into photography especially retouching and matte painting - get
ready to see seriously mastered skills owned by Eugenio
Recuenco, who is a photographer extraordinaire.
Don't miss his frescoe like composition!
Mind blowing!
Subnormals,
streetwear, streetart, skate and streetwear, shirts, hoodies, accessoiries
and all stuff urban wear.
Fabulous
footage of the making
of a Nina Ricci ad spot by extraordinaire photographer and director
Eugenio Recuenco, art direction by Eric Dove, where you can view small
scale set, blue screen takes and more.
View the final
version to appreciate all the work it took to get there.
Dave
Kinsey aka KinseyVisual is
an artist who likes working spontaneously, and utilizing a range of mediums,
he constructs multi-layered, textured environments easily likened to
the complexities of contemporary life.
Dominant - strong strokes, red and black with subtle undertones and
details.
All
white one page portfolio that shows an impressive list of design projects
and illustration and photography and typography. Visual goodness brought
to you by Manuel Pozo.
No flash, upon click, thumbnails are enlarged. Enough in there to keep
busy for a while.
-> more news
^
