Design news | Feb 07
Dig my shoes! For Fall 2007, PF Flyers will debut the Perrin, the true fusion of a dress shoe and sneaker.
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To mark this momentous occasion, PF Flyers has incorporated unique Duckie Brown French textiles into the shoes in extremely limited-edition quantities.
He's got groove baby! Ricardo Marques wants to be a star and seems to be apt to deliver the right moves.
His website proves it!
Hint-hint to aspiring musicians, DO invest in building your online presence.
Web 1.0. Web 2.0.. Web 3.0??? Web 4.0?!?!? by Seth Godin
“The web changed my life. I can't live without wikipedia or Google. But ultimately, I'm disappointed. Almost every day, the web lets me down.
Web4 is what I'm really waiting for.
We need ubiquity to build Web4, because it is about activity, not just data, and most human activity takes place offline.
We need identity to build Web4, because the deliverable is based on who you are and what you do and what you need.
And we need connection to build Web4, because you're nothing without the rest of us.
Web4 is about making connections, about serendipity and about the network taking initiative.”
Use Ctrl+Shift+T in Firefox browser to reopen the last deleted tab! CTRL + E jumps into the Google search box... ain't that cool!!!
En primeur, lancement de PRAKTICA, version 6.0.
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Philippe et moi on se connaît depuis des lunes et tous deux nous nous sommes lancés dans la publication web et la mise en place d'un portail parce que nous partageons la même passion: le design!
Ce projet que Tristan Philippe a initié, est devenu la référence dans la francophonie et je vous propose d'évaluer la démo des nouvelles fonctionalités.
Je lève mon chapeau!!! Tour de force accompli avec brio!
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ndlr: PRAKTICA launches it's v.6 version that contains loads of updated, improved and new functionalities! WOW!
What is Graphic Design For? by Alice Twemlow
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One would expect that all designers would instantly know how to answer this question and surely I could, you could, offer smart and correct ones. So why make a book about it?
The title made me curious as to what could be added to what I already know and I was humbled by my ignorance and how, in fact, I was in dire need of expanding my knowledge base.
Written in a concise almost bullet like style, it is not one of those verbose thesis whereas the topic...
Master Plan (the movie) is about the power of Google.
The search engine, page ranking, advertising, access to information, products... and more!
Must see and read!
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ndlr: Hats off to Ozan Halici and Jürgen Mayer for their Bachelor thesis.
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via: Datasky
Happy Cog Redesigns by Jeffrey Zeldman
“Good redesigns work like my teacher’s hair. They are always an opportunity to fix or change a lot of things that aren’t obvious on the pretty new surface..”
Nobody says it better.
Typographic Alternatives to Helvetica by P.J. Onori
“Unlike some of the more humanistic and hyper-styled fonts, I feel the clean machinist fonts act as a neutral style element for a design. There are places where Gill Sans, Kabel and other unique san serifs just are not going to work, whereas I feel that the Helvetica-ish fonts will intrude much less with other styles.”
Helvetica and Alternatives to Helvetica by Stephen Coles
“Helvetica is a classic. Helvetica is played out. Each of these statements is true to an extent. The world’s most recognizable typeface will soon star in a new film that documents both its omnipresence and its timelessness.”
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via: Swiss Legacy
Luv the curves and spikes and unusual geometric volumes of Rothelowman architectural projects showing a new modern revival style.
Great work! From Australia with luv.
Naughty naughtiness from Monoface! Just click on the face parts or ask for a refresh...
Ohlalala! What an imaginative way to pimp your.. studio!
Printernational offers 10 Tips to better print design and more!
They've got a nice website too.
Conducted by MiresBall in conjunction with Luth Research and the American Marketing Association, the survey offers a broad snapshot of the state of today’s brand.
- “What are the biggest challenges facing today's brands?”
- “How often are companies revitalizing their brands?”
- “What are the most popular—and most successful—brand positionings?”
- “Where are companies spending their marketing budget?”
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Download
the survey
Download
the white paper
I'm a big fan of Frank Lloyd Wright who set out to build some of the most amazing homes and useage of unprecedented architectural details to adorn them.
As a serious architectural / product design student gotta to have seen some of his work and secured a couple of relevent compilation books as future references.
Here's a small project put together to show you some of the houses build in Hollywoodland.
Definitely more than fluff.. fluffco strong strides are demonstrated with the array of projects served and self-created.
As they say: “Fluffco doesn't manufacture sweet whipped marshmallow spread or cotton swabs. We're a two-person creative partnership based in Toronto with a focus on web design.”
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For example, the MakingRoom Magazine (on hiatus) has got a fantastic example of Matthew Curry aka Ninjacruise painting processes from beginning to end accompanied by an interview. Fantastic!
From this
To this
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ndlr: Final painting can be seen in the slide-show.
A tad bit too darkish in the navigation area, humanot still shows a good portfolio.
The Wurstminster Dog Show is now live. Artists were invited to reserve a dog breed on a first come, first served basis.
Part of sales benefit a Portland pet emergency hospital.
Shown talented Scott Renden aka Yosoh golden retriever version.
Just got my socks knocked off! Do you known Big-Giant! Firstly, you've gotta see their website. The beauty of dynamic info trees that behaves as a fanning script and eye guiding details.
First class projects too.
Also, as they say, to keep their artistic and creative juices going, they founded UNKL Brand. Gotta luv the cute Unipo collection.
JPG Magazine is for people who love imagemaking without attitude and was created by the husband and wife team of Derek Powazek and Heather Powazek Champ in 2004 with a simple goal: to honor the fantastic work coming from nonprofessional photographers all over the world.
It's published 6 times a year and everything in the magazine comes from you!
Submit, vote, if you like it.
MediaStorm is a multimedia production studio based in New York City and collaborating virtually with creative resources around the globe. They're looking for a few good men/women!
The Rasterbator created Matias Ärje
Have you ever gotten close enough to a billboard to see all the strangely captivating multicolored dots that form the image? Now, thanks to the work of a clever Finn, you can make the same kind of beautiful halftoned enlargements of your own photos.
MAP is currently seeking advanced Flash developers in the LA/OC are. You like actionscript, yes?
Ditch the DRM, says Jobs
Today, Steve Jobs is pledging to get rid of DRM (Digital Rights Management) from music.
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Thoughts on Music by Steve Jobs
“..some have called for Apple to open the digital rights management (DRM) system that Apple uses to protect its music against theft, so that music purchased from iTunes can be played on digital devices purchased from other companies, and protected music purchased from other online music stores can play on iPods..”
What a fantastic idea!!! Readymech(s) are free, flatpack toys for you to print and build.
BL:ND is looking for a Head of Production. Candidate has, at minimum, 4 years of experience as Head of Production or equivalent, managing 5+ million in billings in post production industry.
Barkley has got openings for
Copywriter - Senior - Interactive
Creative Director - Interactive
Video Specialist - Creative
Tour Manager-Mobile Marketing - Sponsorships & Events
I luv toyz and I just found the Little Molly collection designed by Kenny Wong.
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via: Artoyz which has managed to build a nice site that offers optional views of a toy and panning over content holder for description in some sections.
The Movement design studio portfolio site uses a small bar code like navigation and scrolling through the section. Interesting.
A great interview with talented Jillian Tamaki by Illustration Friday.
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“I think that setting out to "find a style" is sort of pointless and limiting. As students, we were very much encouraged to develop our basics, experiment with media and not lock ourselves into finding a marketable style.
It was through this process that I realized that what I enjoy most is the process of drawing, which I have tried (and struggled!) to keep my focus for years now.
I think my style is an evolving thing, as I try to improve my drawing skills while staying loose, minimizing reliance on the computer, and resisting the urge to overpolish –the warts are what make the drawings interesting!”
Steve, green our Apple in 2007!!!
“We love Apple. Apple knows more about clean design than anybody, right? So why do Macs, iPods, iBooks and the rest of their product range contain hazardous substances that other companies have agreed to abandon?
A cutting edge company shouldn't be cutting lives short by exposing children in China and India to dangerous chemicals. That's why we Apple fans need to demand a new, cool product: a greener Apple.”
Raymond Hiawatha Thunder-Sky was a clown on the most serious of missions... reshaping his world and ultimately ours too..
The journey of an authistic person.
Now that's a cool initiative! Design-Feed is a design feed aggregator. They hand-pick the most interesting design related RSS feeds and present them in an easy-to-browse format.
Cultivator Advertising cultivates big and bold graphics to show their work! Check it out.
All about Michael (Lau) and Gardenergala by himself
He's world famous for his toy designs but the Gardeners collection stands out because of the initial and continued concept around it. Quite a story!
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Cult Figures by Arthur Lubow
Find out more about the design toy industry, dating back to 2004 this article is definitely worth a read because it will introduce you to the context, some history and who are pack leaders.
New fad??? Designers dressing up walls with funk? QORA & SHAÏ do so with a 70s retro feel.
Nice! FUNKYPUNKY is born out of streetlife style but there are more goodies that makes up to become an out of the ordinary portfolio website for Nikita Obukhov. Apart from using dangling wires it shades the selected section and on click, brightens up.
Really like the icononographic treatment that works as content frame for each project.
I have
no clue as to who has created this project but hand
painting just got notched a step higher. As a rule of publishing,
make sure you always cite your source.
Can you believe the patience?
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via: Erize (nice logo)
Reminds me of the days of where blueprint paper was used for layouts... way before layout softwares were available. Check out how BMF is using hand drawn illos.
The level of user interaction and comic strip style is maintained throughout their website.
cool! From Australia with luv.
You're never too young nor is ever too late to pursue your dream and Josh Smith is doing just that.
In my view, he's just at the beginning of an awesome career as a photographer.. as you can see from his URL, still a student!
Here's to many more like him who undertake realizing their aspirations!!!
Just luv her precious and delicate style! Illusanne is soooo about elegance and refined lines. She takes advantage of her uniqueness by having created as collections, what she terms Black style whereas body parts are solid black and the Happy Bella style.
Now that's being creative!
So iPhone is released! Is it worth all the fuzz and buzz??? Gotta to admit that it looks pretty slick.
Lovepics issue #2 is out and it's yummy and packed full of design!
The Portal directory in the Toolbox has been completely revisited, shaken up and tweaked for relevency. If you need more divingboards...
On a side note, it is somewhat surprising and sad, that some longlasting pioneering design news sites have gone bye-bye, staled or unkempt...
It takes a lot of time and luv to maintain such sites. Showing your appreciation is really important. Some folks out there work really hard to filter, review and write about the industry.
Humbling.
Oh the beauty! Sophie Griotto has completely redesigned her website and her work keeps on being better and better. No wait, have you ever seen such elegance, sparingness of lines, beautiful compositions and movement in lifestyle / fashion illustrations before?
She has reached poise and maturity in her art style.
Hats off to a powagirrrl!!!
Chris Haughton aka vegetablefriedrice has a knack for nailing his projects into supra-simple concepts.
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ndlr: He just did an interview with DesignBoom about People Tree which is a japanese and uk based fair trade clothing network. Find out why is fair trade important and we, as designers will do so much good, if we get involved.
Firm and nice steady hand apparent in Rhonda Mulder editorial illustrations who shows also a special luv and interest in portraying animals.. lots of dogs as you will see.
She has a wide variety available and she's that good!
Nice flash site for Yammat with rotating backgrounds and springy content holders that also rotates around the interface when using the navigation!
Paper Prototyping by Shawn Medero
“As interfaces become ever more complex and development schedules seem to get shorter and shorter, you may find it useful to give up your user-interface modeling software for awhile in favor of something simpler.
All you need is..”
Art in Hong Kong has got a really nice flash site to promote their events. Like the mixed drawn lines with parnaphelia of objects. Good sequencing inside sections.
BTW if you have an idea, they're always looking for exhibit proposals.
Presenting the short film ///DEFACED\\\ by Lorcan Finnegan a filmmaker/illustrator/designer living in Dublin operating under Lovely Productions.
What an original script idea and captivating plot. Luv the way the illustrated characters are animated and incorporated in the video itself.
Hats off!
Luv the campaign FlavorInnovator did for Cal State University East Bay “to reduce binge drinking among youth (12-17) and young adults (18-25), and related community problems that contribute to youth binge drinking.”
Source Creative is an upcoming UK based agency who does serious to not so serious work.
Become Interactive is looking for a senior developer.
RINZEN always working on the fringe of edge. Not always equal in their output value, their creativity is boundlrss.
Worrell is looking for a Marketing/PR Guru.
Do you have a silver tongue? Do your friends think you’ve really got a way with words? Can you become the life of the party at the drop of a dime? Are you passionate about the world of design, including product, fashion, graphic, and web?
Luigi Valente is a young architect with an emerging and promising vision of space! Someone to watch for.
Marketing your design firm: how to brand yourselves as well as you brand your clients by Adam Lerner
“..If all firms did so, the design consulting industry would be populated with branded firms positioned around their own unique attributes. Instead, the current state is an industry with largely undifferentiated firms positioned around the same attribute: innovation.”
Well somebody has gotta do it and they are: PTP engineered green recycling technology processes and products. Their website attempts to convey this with a familiar à la Matrix interface environment.
Not bad for engineers huh?
Alberto Cerriteno has completely revamped his illustration portfolio and he keeps on getting better and better.
Oh my goodness, ice cream never looked this good! Welcome to an amazing sweet parlour based in sunny Madrid, and if you are around, indulge. But as far as their website goes...
Check BajoCero website complete with a 3D interior which shows more than a virtual parlour delight.
I am completely floored by the interface design that is complete with a 3D interior which shows more than a virtual design delight.
All photography work is of tantamount quality and nothing is spared to give you a mouth watering experience.
The logo is the first thing that caught my eye and then the simple white chrome with tints of gray gives it a sense of purity, cleanliness and professionalism. Who would not want a complete stainless steel kitchen and resist its appeal?
Visit both sections (storefront and kitchen) from top to bottom, all details are exquisite and so are all their products.
Fantastic, beautiful, delicious!
Assortment of portfolios to discover
/ Matt Cipov check the field studies to view his illustrations
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/ Jen Callejo is still a student and a promising talent. Luv her etchings.
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Byroglyphics astounding portrait illustrator with a really personal touch.
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/ eepmon deliriously expressive print and other media works!
Wayfinding Systems by Lance Wyman
Brief and to the point with loads of visual examples. Learn from a master.
“Wayfinding offers the designer an opportunity to reference the history, culture, and essence of place in an immediate way that will be seen and used on a daily basis. An effective wayfinding system can be a visual ambassador..”
Although really-really slow loading, the patience required to view TEAMT website is worth it. The all white 3D avatar character is so beautiful and will shape change when you choose a sub-section in the Design area.
From China with luv.
Surprised by innovation! Check Beta Clan which will evolve to become a collaborative music project.
Enterprised by Danny Kamhaji who is a motion designer.
2006 was definitely the year of Rorschach inkblot which was used in every conceivable way, but bear with me here. Guess what you are seeing here apart from another of application of this design trend?
The GAGE/CLEMENCEAU website is home to a talented architectural firm and they own the concept with brio.
When a construction company goes soft selling, we know that hard knuckled industries usually hermetic to design and manicuring their brand, are starting to get it!
D.BRAIN is a construction company that knows the power of images.
Absolutely cool website with tons of pictures. If you're into interior design... here goes.
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This little gem was designed by D.MIND.. don't know if they're related or not. On a side note, see how you can stretch the outline of a paperclip to become a minimalist portfolio website.
The Dumbness of Crowds by Kathy Sierra
“Community. Wisdom of Crowds. Collective Intelligence. The new emphasis on net-enabled collaboration is all goodness and light until somebody gets an eye I poked out.
Is it merely a coincidence that Apple, run by (as James Gosling put it) “a dictator with good taste” leads the way in tech design, while risk-averse companies using design-by-committee (or consensus) are churning out bland, me-too, incremental tweaks to existing products?”
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ndlr: Complementing must read article Digital Maoism: The Hazards of the New Online Collectivism by Jaron Lanier
Mutlu is into product design with a decisive modern direction and an extensive collection both for home and office.
From Italy with luv.
One Cellular Sensation by Jeff Howe
“Here’s some advice for designers: Next time you make a cell-phone call, look at the display and imagine your finest design on a 2.5-inch screen. Pocket- and palm-friendly mobile technology is becoming more ubiquitous, if possible, than the PC, and visual entertainment is shrinking to fit it.
With 2 billion such devices expected to be in circulation by year’s end, the mobile revolution could prove as transformative for design as the internet was 10 years ago.”
Tom Nagy shoots for a living. Mostly involved in panoramic landscaping assignments, some of his photo retouching are quite compelling.
There is a making of section to learn more about the how to of selected projects.
Brilliant work!
“There is a fine line between an entrepreneur and a crazy person. crazy people see things that others don't. what seems to differentiate the entrepreneur from the crazy person is that the former gets other people to believe in his vision.”
— Anita Roddick, the Body Shop founder
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via: Tomatic
They're just doing their Tank! Floating 3D red cube deconstructing to reveal sections. Nice flash website that shows their capabilities.
From Chili with luv!
What happens when psychedelic art style circa 70s meshes with graphic design talent from sunny California? An interesting breadth of mostly printed expressions: Steven Harrington.
Long time resident, BUPLA has got a hooplah new portfolio website.. aaah! Long live!
They already know how to play, Gringo is a young interactive agency that likes movement and show so with a surprising flipping cube as proof.
From Sao Paolo, Brazil.
Book me up Scotty! Oh my, this is just the kind of minimalist retreat that appeals to me. Luv it, BASICO a new small hotel on the beach.
Take a look at the sink area - luv the exposed pipes and industrial fawcets.
“Love the re-use, re-cycle philosophy of the hotel. Interior design by awarded Hector Galván. Cool website too” says Alberto.
Couldn't agree more!
Christopher Lee aka The Beast is Back has a packed load of new illustrations and toys in the making.
Shown the Impossible_Circus print is available for purchase!
P22 type foundry now offers most of their fonts in Open Type format.
Yummy candy land characters and dense hyper realism portraits and illustrations by Oksana Badrak
Rachel Domm is mostly a lifestyle illustrator with an edge. Talented!
Naughty-naughty Converse Russia website has a panning interface with dangling navigation (hard to maneuver) and quite irreverent (the peeing russian doll is out of line and a sign of poor taste).
Full of bells and whistles effects, shows nothing new here since other other projets like Style Wars and Just for the F of it for ex, had similar animations and design feel... gotta grant it is still quite an assemblage of technical prouessess.
Fontastica shares some of their pixel patterns, from 8x8 pixels to 16x16 pixels. The use is the same as for pixel fonts. It can also fit flash projets.
Pixel fonts available too, I particularly like the Z_teatime_serif.
Gotta luv the intensity of her illustrations. Her style can be best described as somewhat impressionist but instead of using small strokes, large spots with vivid and contrasting colors create the perspectives.
Zina Saunders is a capable portraitist with a striking useage of colors. She has been a professional writer-illustrator for 15 years and has shifted from general illo to reportage.
People Of Our Time “is on a global mission to create the largest online collection of people's thoughts, opinions, and hopes for the future, with the aim to build an honest and intimate portrait of people today through their individual entries.”
Beautifully made website too!
The amazing and mostly polical art of Steve Brodner! Now that's a master cartoonist!
He's just released Fredom Fries which comprises over 350 of his illustrations.
A new photography + graphic design studio Werberw is looking for a fotograf, webdesigner and programmierer.
The realistic and old world master feel illustration art of Peter Cusack!
Joseph D. Fiedler painterly mixed media illustrations with somewhat of a 40s / 50s retro feel.
/ Motomichi just reloaded a new website! Same great projects from a talended illustrator and toy designer!
