Netdiver Mag

Gorgeous computer sleeves inspired by NYC scenes designed by Evan Hecox. Watch the the making of video. Fascinating process.

Throwing a party? BBQ? Need a conversation piece in full retro-modern galore? Max Dalton an illustrator living in Buenos Aires, created a couple of cut out sets to build little scenes in your spare time, in only 15 minutes!

Terrific idea! Get the glue!

Motif: Sunday Barbecue

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Motif: Cocktail Party

Gotta luv Pierre Nguyen CD sleeve designs. Something else on my mind lately. Inspiring!

Synchronicity? As my upcoming vacation is filling lots of space in mind, found Paul Tebbott aka Horizon Fire who is a self-taught graphic designer and electronic musician of which I really admire his minimalist approach illustrations that show exactly what I will soon experience: taking a plane, feet in turquoise sea and catching loads of sun.

Check out Antoine Menard aka Konky portfolio. He is an Art Director and Motion Designer based in Paris – France, currently working at anonymous™ and has worked at Soleil Noir for five years prior. He’s received seven – yepp seven (7) FWA awards!!!

A-A-A-mazing! The (free) clean, minimal and totally gorgeous WordPress Themes created by Wpshower.

Featured: Imbalance (test-drive demo)

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Featured: Paragams (test-drive demo)

Takafumi Tsuchiya aka Takcom directed and animated (and compositing) the MV blocks Filler AM&PM movie. The concept was based on ‘screenager’, an animation by Jeroen Krielaars. Main materials are remixed from various opening footages of programs.

Gotta luv the diff tubes, computers and monitors used for the installation. Montage of embedded animations, wow, painstakingly assembled and creatively edited.

Uli Heckmann is into photography and he’s good at it. But strikes me most is the marching ants navigation! Wowie this is well done. Pick a section, such as people and an alphabet appears when mousing over showing behind a little of the referred to, picture. Next previous arrows and loading sequence all do same.

Now, that’s taking a concept and deploying it with brio!

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via: Alberto Villarreal

The Amsterdam based motion graphics and design agency Addikt produces the visual identity of this year’s DesignYatra, one of the biggest festivals on graphic design worldwide that takes place in September, Mumbai, India.

Geometric shapes interacting in a deconstruction approach with pop-art style colorization.

iPad Gripe Session by Khoi Vinh

“After a few months of owing it, I keep finding more and more uses for my iPad, many of them not possible on my Mac or my iPhone, and my affection for it keeps ratcheting up accordingly.

At the same time, there are at least a handful of irritating shortcomings on the platform that I’m impatiently waiting for Apple to address. I know it’s been less than a full year since the iPad debuted, and perhaps there’s a significant upgrade due soon, but for now, I find that using the iPad is more frustrating than it needs to be..”

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Additional reading: iPad no more

Oh so appropriately titled The Social Network, an upcoming movie about you know who with a tagline that makes him (it) quite recognizable: “You don’t get to 500 million friends without making a few enemies.”

Watch the trailer! Blockbuster upcoming!

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via: fflick

Lets you move music fast and easy. The platform takes the daily hassle out of receiving, sending and distributing music for artists, record labels and other music professionals. Anyone know or is using SoundCloud? I’m trying to gather information about it. Worthy? Not?

Sample this: J. BIEBZ – U SMILE 800% SLOWER

Would luv to have your opinion in the comments.

Freddy Boo restocks with new works. Luv the sparingness of lines in the engaging characters he illustrates.

Telephoneme is a hybrid live-action / animated piece about language working as a double agent, carrying a hidden meaning with it for reasons yet unknown.

Suggestion: read the .pdf to fully appreciate MK12 and Swedish Secret productions concept.

Right? Plain crazy?

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via: Mark Weaver

Sonja Hofmann has a penchant for sweets photography. Luv the unusual (lavender/lilac) palette and composition of the pictures features.

On a side note: hate the pop-up.

The Anti-Design Festival

As a response to 25 years of cultural deep freeze, the Anti Design Festival will attempt to unlock creative fires and ideas, exploring spaces hitherto deemed out-of-bounds by a purely commercial criteria.

Read the Manifesto:

We are living in an age where millions of colours became 256. Difference is the enemy.

Read the It’s Nice That interview with Neville Brody.

Upcoming: September 18-26

Jaw dropping! How about taking design many steps further by participating in a competition that consisted of creating a flowers carpet in Wentspils (Latvia)? Created by Kate Nikolaeva studio and based on Evgeny Kiselev graphic design sketch, their oeuvre ranked 3rd place on 50 participants.

Such a great example of collaboration =))

Pictures on Behance and Facebook!

Talking about colors, this is totally flipping me out! Colour-in (your) Dress?!?! Outstanding concept by Berber Soepboer.

Found this beautiful color tool for the iPhone, Color Stream lets you create and store color palettes, that are either created from scratch, or generated from a photo, or even auto-generated using a built-in color schemer (which supports analogous, monochromatic, triadic, and more!).

Works beautifully too!

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via: Tiffany Wardle

Niiiice website!!! Freshthrills a boutique design studio spearheaded by John Merlino (user experience) and Kingsley Harris (creative) who combine insignt and creativity to establish and nurture brands. Simplicity, code perks with just enough design vavoom.

A mentor once said: “You are ignorant till you ask.” There you go, I am asking. A) What is this graphic please? I’ve been bumping on such that seems all different somehow..

B) What is it for?

Nessim Higsom (IAAH) and friends, Josh Stearns – Kenneth Robin have re-envisioned perhaps of what MTV once was?

“After a year and a half of blood, sweat, tears, and frankly a ‘lil procrastination, YYY / Channel Y is re-launched. With more people experiencing the web on TV and TV on the web, this new iteration of Yes Yes Y’all is right where it needs to be.

As one of the first passive experiences online, the site resembles what MTV once represented – a fusion of entertainment and enlightenment. At a party. Lounging on the couch. Seeking the new. Finding the inspirational. This is how YYY is to be embraced.

Music has long been the basis of the site, and as visual artists it’s a natural evolution to have innovative eye-candy creep into the mix. After all, in many, many cases, the beauties of each are not mutually exclusive.

Bumpers have been created by the YYY team and are meant to function as segues into the curated content so keep an eye out for those as you consume the content from the site.”

ENTLO.1A is a product design studio who explore the limits of daily wares and push them to expand into fun and useful.

Featured: Escondiendo (hide your P.J.)

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Featured: Deparet (wall desks)

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Featured: Taça (cookie dipping cup)

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via: deliveredinbeta

Will Scobie is an illustrator with a unique style: based around the idea of the continuous line and graphic simplicity. He draws fun and unusual illustration for design companies, publishers, advertising agencies and other diverse clients worldwide.

Simple never looked so good!

Don’t know how Jeroen Hofman managed to capture these extraordinary photographs of animals that usually are bred and killed to become fur coats and adornments. Painfully making the point.. which I guess might be: (re)consider before you buy.

The Poolga Shop is officially open. Offering unique handmade iPad and iPhone sleeves. Niiiice!

Couldn’t agree more with Sean Klassen from Legwork Studio: indeed, this website is on code and programming steroids. Appealing and overall, fast driven as the sports represented. Complete with nice kicks, pix, videos, cause and more: Airwalk!

Prototype 600°F Bruiser – Black/Lake Blue are my fav!

Currently savoring Kokblog and you probably figured out it’s related to cooking and you are right. In fact, it’s a neat recipe blog with really-really nice evocative illustrations and the handiwork of Ms. Johanna Kindvall who pings from Sweden or New York City (and many other places too).

Recipes are told in a story-telling way – sometimes with funny and endearing anecdotes.

Another brilliant mix media project, this time for Molen Kitchen, that involves paper sculptures by StudioSpass.

BirdWatching is a socially driven, international organisation and the only one of its kind. Its core team consists of young and practicing graphic designers that are passionate about design and live and work around the world. Their common aim is to connect, support and promote female graphic designers internationally.

Get fame and fortune from the Twitter API by John Allsopp

We all enjoy having a few adoring fans and the great thing about social media is your latest work might just go viral. A project that looks great and also does something interesting .. that’s worth talking about.

Enter the social media APIs.

An API, is a back door into a service such as Facebook, Twitter, Google or YouTube that allows a programmer to add much of the functionalities those services offer to your own project.

The mashup is one result, for instance here in the UK. We had a very snowy winter, and Ben Marsh created UK Snow which takes users’ snow reports from Twitter and plots them on a Google map using the Twitter API to gather the data, and the Google Maps API to plot it.

Ok that’s pretty nerdy (and even useless to you) but, consider these:

What would you do if you could just grab data and functionality from your favourite Web 2.0 service? What social media functionality could you add to your project to improve your users’ experience?

Don’t let the pre-packaged widgets stifle your imagination.

With a friendly programmer, stable, free and open APIs, you could add social media functionality to your project and, with a little luck thrown in, maybe get yourself some mass adulation..

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About the author: John Allsopp based in Scarborough, UK, is proficient in deeply technical stuff and helps people improve their business online. Nothing trashy, just continuing improvement.

Follow JohnAllsoppIM on Twitter

‘Oh My God What Happened and What Should I Do?’ by Leif Abraham and Christian Behrendt aka Innovative Thunder.

“This book is for everyone who wants to move into the digital era of awesomeness. We’re currently experiencing a time of change – a change during which a whole generation is evolving; this generation is growing up with an entirely new media behavior. It can’t imagine a world without new media.”

Got it free for a tweet!

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via: Florent Stroppa

Of Ecuadorian and Chinese descent, Marisa Jahn is an artist whose work explores, constructs, and intervenes natural and social systems and, a MIT graduate in Visual studies.

Ranging in practice from deeply personal to highly participatory, her work often relies on the collaborative authorship and distributive intelligence of surrounding people and situations.

Discover her latest endeavor: Bibliobandido – a public art and literacy project. Simply awesome!

For the love of typography! Tom Davie operating under studiotwentysix2 has assembled these posters. Lovely work!

Was asked about books I would recommend as introduction to graphic design. Here are two. Well documented. Easy read.

What is Graphic Design? by Quentin Newark

Explores all the issues that shape design today: economics, ethics, technology, theory, and developments in other arts. It looks at how graphic design has evolved over the centuries, from the development of book printing in medieval Germany to the present day, including magazines, corporate branding, television titles, films, and websites.

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What is Graphic Design For? by Alice Twemlow

A guide to the world of graphic design, examining what successful design is, how it works, and how graphic design communicates a message to its intended audience.

Another making-of, this time the Loufovsky imagined by Varial. 7 min video that synthesizes 600 hours of work, 500 gb of data, 30 photoshoots, 3 months of R&D and 20 final mounted on black rococo frames artworks.

Presenting OpenIDEO. It’s a place where people design better, together for social good. It’s an online platform for creative thinkers: the veteran designer and the new guy who just signed on, the critic and the MBA, the active participant and the curious lurker.

Watch the introduction movie. If you like, get involved.

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via: Derek Kinsman

Damien Vignaux is ELROY a French art director / director / photographer / DJ, living in Berlin. His website is a fast loading stackfull of visual projects that range a large spectrum mainly related to entertainment.

Champion Sound 15 – Flyer & Poster + Making-of the illustration by Martijn van Dam

40 Awesome Free Fonts for Big Headlines by Ahmad Hania

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via: fontfabric

Although I really like the wall of thumbnails with a huge searching box for the Forsman & Bodenfors website and the background changes that reflect your searches, I wonder why – when following a project thumb it leads to an all black background? In my opinion, this breaks the flow.

You, what do you think, works or not?

Animals and bugs are serving as sections icon on Simon Collison website. Past the weirdness and first visual impression, you will grow an appreciation for the taglines that defines these. Such as “Potted Biography” and “Bloody Facebook”, for example, because he does state: “Warning this content is wry and deranged.. but 100% trustworthy and bonafide.”

Wit always puts me on high alert intellectually and indeed found a pearl for you. Access his Thoughts on FOWD 2010 with loads of references.

First experience with Flipboard by Stella Gassaway

Downloaded the Flipboard app for our brandy new iPad and it alone, makes the iPad worthwhile. Both the iPad and Flipboard are pretty sweet. Upon opening the app, initially what you see, are your content zones, each with a category.

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You can add your Twitter and Facebook accounts. Right now control is limited to these two. Taxonomy and your social network(s) drive the content you see, and you’ve never seen an RSS feed look so good.

It’s wicked fast and the origami-style flip behavior, feels perfect.

The magazine is beautiful, inviting, and easy to use.

The interface can be a bit confusing when you step in and out of Flipboard and the web. Most disconcerting — things disappear, well reposition themselves, as the content updates. This is probably the most difficult aspect of fluid magazines.

How do I find that again? Maybe it will be easier when social networks create a level of importance — then conversations begin.

We’ll see.

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About the author: Stella Gassaway [ stellarvisions : communication architects ] instigator : disruptor : thinker : doer : artist works and thinks visually, but self-involved design tinkering bores her.

Follow Stellarvisions on Twitter

Looking for a way to sell yourself to potential agencies to land gigs as a developer? Killa Appz is probably the most audacious, crazy, creative yet way to self-promote.

Must see!

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via: Mark Ferdman

Hailing from New Zealand, just found Supply who in their own words, “sweat blood, forget loved ones birthdays and neglect our housekeeping in the service of good creative.”

Pretty extreme but so is their work: extreme as in extremely good. Luv the website backgrounds, texture and the fact it includes keyboard navigation. Have a look.

It’s a wrap! Curated paper goods by Felt & White. Check out my a quick-wrap up search to show you a selection of funky and beautiful.

Featured: Adams Morioka Notepad

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Featured: Marjorie Wrap

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Featured: Haute Cuisine Recipe Cards

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Featured: Kick Litter

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Featured: Design Army Tofrom Wrapping Paper

Jeni Alfuso is a photographer based in LA and her work consists of wedding and I will photography mostly. There is density and emotion, the lighting and staging err between off the beaten road and the expected traditional shots.

Striking most? Some compositions are so precious, could easily have been teared off some of the top interior design and lifestyle magazines.

School will be back shortly and it’s fine time to introduce you to one of my fav. I’ve been following Hyper Island (located in Sweden) since almost onset and the sheer amount of top of line creatives that have graduated and who are moving and shaping the design world is unsurpassed.

Want to find out more about HI and why its different? Watch this video: Hyper Island in a Nutshell.

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Every year, a graduate website is released but the Cloudania version, is very different. Based around keeping in touch and networking as well as exploring avenues of creative experiments together – they created a nation from scratch.

(Was invited to teach, hope to do it soon.)

Check it out!

Valero Doval moved from his native Spain to London after studying fine arts in Valencia. Having received a Creative Futures Award from Creative Review magazine in 2005, he began taking on freelance illustration commissions.

Humoristic absurd approach for these retro vintage people inserted in modern situations collages.

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via: Zettelkatschen Magazine

Baby you can ride my card! Just loving the concept of the Barclay Coaster movie. Now how would you like to use this to get to work? Fantastic and realistic matte painting. Real technical gem.

Must see.

Blowing me away right now! Canvas Cycle: True 8-bit Color Cycling with HTML5. Art by Mark Ferrari. Code by Joseph Huckaby

Design a cover for Guy Kawasaki’s new book a print design project is stirring a cloud of reactions around crowdsourcing and spec work. Not familiar with topic, check No!Spec website.

Debbie Millman (current AIGA president) got my attention with this tweet:

“The value proposition for crowd-sourced spec work is such: client gets limitless choice, designer gets privilege of providing choice. Hmm.”

Retweeted this post by Zerofee (an ethical design agency based in London, UK)

@debbiemillman I’m not sure ‘designer’ is a term yet earned by those taking part in spec work processes, is it?

And Zerofee answered my retweet:

@netdivermag I think @debbiemillman’s position on crowdsourcing is that it is spec work – in other words, unacceptable.

And Debbie Millman answered back:

@netdivermag Spec work takes advantage of designers by asking them to work for free until (or if) the client deems work worthy of payment.

Then Icograda suggested this:

@debbiemillman @netdivermag someone should tell @guykawaski this! Seen his book cover brief?

Privately, Michael Urman DM this:

“Not sure if you’ve been following this ‘contest’ thread. Guy Kawasaki has posted a book cover contest.”

Which I read from top to bottom. Do welcome your opinion and before you do, please read it too, so you acquire perspectivve in ref with some of the reactions.

Now, and as Andrew Cohen says:

“Wait we are talking about spec AGAIN?”

Guess we are.

So what do you think?

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Featured: Julie Lockwood entry

Pod à porter designed by Michiel Cornelissen, is the easiest way to wear your music – even if you’re not wearing much. No more headphones dangling by your knees; no more ripping the buds from your ears when you take off your jacket.

Genial and beautiful!

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via: Josh Spear

Many Mirrors by Jasper Hauser.

Love this making of. See how the logo of the Kaleidoscope App was designed. “And so that’s why we focused on it’s unique characteristics instead of the object: playful, colorful, triangular, circular.”

Five Tips For Making Ideas Happen by Scott Belsky

1. Avoid a reactionary workflow

2. Strip projects to three primary elements

3. Measure meetings with action steps

4. Reduce your insecurity work

5. The creative process is about surviving the “project plateau.”

Feeling ambivalence towards the Sample Gallery blog design. Appreciation for the do it different approach which by using huge turquoise (a bit faint as a color choice imo) titles scrolling over each blog entry and their approach to covering exclusively the best blogs out there.. the constant title repitition makes it somewhat hard to view the content behind.

So what do you think, works or not?

CreativeApplications was launched in 2008 by Filip Visnjic, architect, lecturer, new media technologist. Ever since his first Apple Mac in 1994 he discovered passion for software and which application is used decides the outcome, whether this be productive or aesthetic.

Visit the blog for OSX, Windows, Linux, iPhone, Web Apps, Flash, Physical Interfaces, Max MSP development, Processing, etc. news.

What if the most talented people got the best opportunities? Welcome to the Era of Creative Meritocracy by Scott Belsky

“Imagine a world where the best ideas have the best chance to succeed. No more favoritism that places the wrong people on creative projects. Cut out the middlemen that arbitrarily recommend cost-efficient talent over the most deserving talent. Forget the corporate nepotism that appoints leaders based on relationships over merit.”

Digging the duotone Svicolando campaign (three days of culture and fun but just one main-theme: recycling) by Lorenzo Richiardi aka numeroquattro. Other good projects in his portfolio, don’t miss it.

MoviePeg: the simple, elegant and portable solution that holds your iPhone and iPad so you don’t have to. Digging these! And really nice website to boot too.

Very very very pretty triangular gradient shape (wish I had designed that) as well as splash landing page design dressed in a deep purple textured background for the Kaleidoscope application.

Not really sure what it does though. Enlight me.

Part of a branding course assignment, Pintzeta, is a jaw-dropping exercise that Moshik Nadav completed. He created a logo, business card, stationary, branding book, website, iPad & iPhone applications and a Special Hebrew Typeface for it. Whew!!!

Check it out! Don’t miss the USB key packaging.

Stunning field of rice art! See how planting crops for food is also turned into meta illustrations in Japan. Awesomeness! Must see.

The purity of Michael Wandelmaier lines are not flat but have a subdued perspective likening his work to those of Japanese master illustrations we have grown familiar with.

His palette is vivid and saturated, always warm and rich in contrast. His grids filled with exquisitely dramatic details. Conceptually? Pretty out there.

If Apple wants to be a major player it needs to start behaving like one by John Naughton

“This has implications for all of us who follow these things.

The mainstream media, for example, need to discard the rose-tinted spectacles through which they have viewed Apple ever since Steve Jobs returned to the helm in 1997.

Apple is no longer the Lucky Little Company That Could but a looming, secretive, manipulative corporate giant.”

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Apple’s brewing shitstorm by Dave Winer

“I don’t think the problem is with the iPhone 4.

I think what we’re seeing is Apple’s charm wearing off. The Reality Distortion Field bubble is about to burst.

Their run as the Exceptional Company is about to end. And they’re going to be the last ones to figure it out.”

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Before moving on, just one more thing about that press conference by Rex Hammock

“The Friday fiasco displayed also that when the management of “the message” doesn’t go according to the way “they” want it to go, they stop being insanely great and just start being insane.

It’s really hard to blame them. Apple fanboys (and despite my denials, I clearly am one) have done all we can to prevent Apple from developing the skills necessary to respond to the type of skepticism and negativity every other company or cause must face on a daily basis.”

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In the rise of all the tidal media wave, I’ve said and say it again, my fear is that we’re entering the age of Apple vs Whatever Company that opposes them.

We’ve seen what M$ vs Netscape (and all others led to). Just think of IE6, if you are amnesic.

What about the no Flash policy for the Safari browser on Apple mobile devices, which is clearly violating the Postel’s Law (which says you should be liberal in what you accept. Another reason Postel was wise. It helps keep the web from breaking).

The Safari browser working on computers does NOT use the mobile one elective code. So, what gives? It is a deliberate decision. Shame.

Luv my iPhone, hate the iPad current version and market stunt.

Screwing up with the core community is not a very bright strategy. What keeps a company going is not $$$ but developers endorsement.

Apple, walk the talk of your slogan: Think Different.

Valentina D’Efilippo is a graphic designer with a multi-disciplinary background, the Triangle exploration which is a master degree project, shows her appetite for creativity and innovation in all its formats and media.

I Do (and Don’ts). Wedding etiquette dictates many do’s and don’ts for the happy couple. But no prenuptial protocol is more important than the look of the wedding dress. The Summer/Fall issue of Washingtonian Bride & Groom takes a look at the latest wedding fashions and planning faux pas – a creative project that inspired designers to declare "I do."

Creative and Art Direction: Design Army
Photography: Cade Martin
Hair/Make Up: Dean Kraph Stylist: Pascale Lemaire

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Have a look at their Behind the Scenes video of the project! Jake and Pum et al, did it again!

Inspiring. Who wouldn’t want to work with such a great team (and project)?

Now this is kind of exciting application that will make me jump right back on a iPad (read why I don’t own one right now). Flipboard attempts to be the world’s first social magazine and if they succeed at delivering what they have enterprised (watch the video), oh my, it will be splendido!

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In beta, ready for download on iPad. Follow them on Twitter if you want to contribute to the development. They are very open to critiques.