Design news | Apr 08
Tokyocube mission is to spread japanese design and they just relaunched their toy shop mostly stacked with vinyl figures. This is one of my fav, this Mickey!
Not hard to appraise what Kevin Cyr is obsessing about: renditions of beat-up cars, vans, motorcycles and the graffiti scene.
Andrew Schoultz epic-like and clashing movements paintings.
Pimp your walls! HomeStickHome offers a large arrays of adhesive stickers to adorn just about any surface! Although the site is en français, easy to browse anyway.
cool! Much easier than enterprising a DIY project.
GrowBots site features a cast of lovable and unique plush characters and also features limited edition silkscreen prints from Kenn Louis show titled “Anytime After Now”.
Mike Cerda is the editor of The Filmlot who published an interview with Aaron Rose & Lenny Mesina makers of Beautiful Losers. Reason I'm featuring this interview is because of the gruelling steps and not too pretty behind the scenes pittfalls and problems that are exposed, sometimes harshly. Secondly, because the topic of the film which “celebrates the spirit behind one of the most influential cultural movements of a generation. In the early 1990's a loose-knit group of likeminded outsiders found common ground at a little NYC storefront gallery.” is worth knowing about.
For any independent project we pursue — reminder we need sound advices and the experience of others do that.
PixelFonts.co.uk. A brand new font shopping website which features loads of pixel fonts. There's a massive 50% special offer on a bulk purchase. Buy the lot for half price. Hurry while this amazing offer lasts.
Another mostly white interface for Welcometocloud, website portfolio of Pierre Nguyen a graphic designer located in Paris, France with an evident penchant for fat fonts and the color black.
Jesse Kaczmarek is a designer and art director involved in branding projects. Some of the output is pretty slick. Memorable navigation the up and down arrows to scroll projects and the minimalist mostly white interface.
Solar, with lyrics by Robert Hodgin aka Flight 404 who has been one of the early flash adopter, now specializes in narrative and visual experiments using proce55ing.
Not only is the video mesmerizing and stream to glue literally to bot beat, music and lyrics, using music vizualization techniques.
The process behind is a must read.
More videos are available on his Vimeo profile.
Ever wonder who was the photagraph behind some of the Uniqlo campaigns who have these joyful and bounciful lot of people in it? Munetaka Tokuyama is. His inclination seems to be capturing models in movement which adds to the photos a sculpture like fluidity.
I'm always drawn to the fugitive world of children and as adults, to recapture the essence and innocence can be altogether impossible. Not in this case, introducing the stunning realistic 3d illustrations signed by Jacques Despres.
Just wish there were more to see.
What is Design For? A Discussion by Michael Beirut
“Have graphic designers shifted too much toward being persuaders rather than communicators?”
The 2nd episode of the Happyness Factory (produced by Psyop) is another jaw dropping animation with tons of mind blowing motion graphics fx. Sometimes sequels don't pull it - but this one won't disappoint!
If you're so inclined you can download the full HD movie which is available for the iPod too.
Mika's Marshmallow Train is a fantasy full little animation produced by Pandapanther. Probably one of the most repeated dreams of our youth would be living in a real candy land.
Spring cleaning — we are ramping up for the new website that we intend to launch sometimes late Autumn in celebratino of our 10th year anniversary. Since there will be a HUGE migration process, we're cleaning up the information architecture and deleting sections that are no longer relevent nor visited: the museum of offline sites is rip and so are the events archives, current remains; design forte reviews were transferred into the news archive. Other sections are under scrutiny.
Don't mind the flux — it's temporary. In fact, we're almost finish. It's definitely going to be sooooooo much better — we always feel lighter when our desk/studio/flat is clean.
Oops talking of cleaning up — we LUV U for linking back — but get really irked identified as netd_r_iver!!!
10 Best Firefox Addons for Designers
It's a wild-wild and ecclectic photographic world that Tomi and Cherry is capturing and delivering. Fashion has never had such a visually explosive treatment.
From Argentina with luv.
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via: NEW synthesis
MTASC is the first ActionScript 2 Open Source free compiler.
It can compile large number of .as class files in a very short time and generate directly the corresponding SWF bytecode without relying on Macromedia Flash or other tools.
London based design duo, DixonBaxi have garnered an impressive array of projects mostly oriented towards the now crowd in entertainment and advertising and their responsibilities are so vast, the only way to wrap it up is to see for yourself. Click away!
Corporate membership category broadens Icograda's voice for communication design.
Effective 1 April 2008, Icograda (the International Council of Graphic Design Associations) is introducing its first major new membership category since 2003. Companies committed to the value and advancement of communication design and who endorse Icograda’s professional best practices are now eligible to apply for membership. The new category offers general voting rights at the Council's biennial General Assembly.
Icograda is the world body for professional communication design. Founded in 1963, it is a voluntary assembly of associations concerned with graphic design, visual communication, design management, promotion, education and journalism. Icograda promotes communication designers' vital role in society and commerce and unifies the voices of visual communicators worldwide.
The vision, mission and core values of the council are collectively embodied in the statement 'leading creatively' and manifested through our members' diverse activities to use design as a medium for progressive change.
Mato Atom is a director and designer and he's put together a funky load of impressive and conceptually strong projects. He has collaborated with top international studios before being represented as director since may 2007.
Some of the spots are available on his website, enjoy!
What would result in 500 hours worth of work spread over a two year period? One of the early pixel based designer and flash developer aka drububu, Arjan Westerdiep enterprised this massive art piece - The ic-project!
Have a look. Watch the how to navigate movie which appears on the top left hand side. As you will see, pretty cool functionalities are embedded - like selecting a spot within the artwork just as you would with selection tool in Photoshop and a little movie of the making of the area will appear - or use the spacebar to have a zoomed in zone.
Hats off!
SIFON DG is a multidisciplinary studio in Buenos Aires, Argentina and do very nice projects in the fields of graphical design and animations.
Stand by your values! Awesome concept! The Rock is a recently completed project for a Church in Wellington, New Zealand. Brief was to reach people in an engaging way, break some conventions that dictate how churches should communicate. The website is mostly flash, with full CMS (AJAX/PHP/SQL/XML) to support it. Also a printed magazine is floating around the real world as well as the on-line version.
Since 1989, Jonathan Hoefler and Tobias Frere-Jones have helped some of the world's foremost publications, corporations, and institutions develop their unique voice through typography. Their body of work includes some of the world's most famous designs, typefaces marked by both high performance and high style.
Add Hoefler & Frere-Jones to your fonts bookmarks and more fonts resources are available in the toolbox.
Stefanie Augustine is an illustrator commissioned for mostly editorial projects with an evident emphasis on world political issues which probably explains the consistency of a darkish palette.
Equivocos is a made in Brazil tshirts collection designed by Felipe Guga! Lovely and extravagant bursting with vibrant colors! Really like the staging and photography too.
Have a look at this motion short by Amautalab who concepteptualize, directed and produced it. A making of (is available) of the NHK/RE-INVENTION project.
The Freelancer’s Toolset: 100 web apps for everything you will possibly need. Running a business for yourself means you have to be inventive and always on the lookout for a new and better way to get things done.
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via: Fuel Your Creativity
I prefer is not only an apparel brand, but looking forward to creating a platform for artists, designers and fashion workers. This seems to be the new mantra for big corporations going hype-hype and away.
Pretty intense and long to download, but as an immersive experience, definitely worth the wait. No navigation, mouseover + click to find your way around.
NOT TO SCALE is a collaborative agency of directors who specializes in creating all types of animated, illustrated and designed content for use across all platforms and media.
If you want to see great projects - check what they are showing. Recently UBIK won a British Animation award for the MTV 3650 a short about global warming.
MTV Brasil meets Processing! If you don't know what is Processing “it is an open source programming language and environment for people who want to program images, animation, and interactions” which was initiated by by Ben Fry and Casey Reas.
BTW dmtr.org is looking for designers and programmers.
Jody Gaffney has for the past 2 years been lucky enough to work with two indie music promoters in Dublin. He's gathered his favourite pieces for the first time. Take a look.
For grown-up kids, Jason Siu has become a consumate master of toy design. You probably have seen his sound speaker collection.
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Shown one of his spectacular piece, complete with a velours outfit and a smashing looking speaker system.
YO! Tiny Hearthead 'Series One' toys designed by Tesselate - gotta luv the keyboard keys for eyes! Smart!
Marius Watz repertoriates and operates under Unlekker. “He is an artist concerned with generative systems for creating visual form, still, animated or realtime. His signature is a brand of visual hedonism, marked by colourful organic shapes and a maximalist attitude. Most of his works deal with drawing machines implemented in software, live visuals for music or large-scale projections of plastic visual systems.”
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Absolutely mind-dazzling projects - some comprise movies to view the results! A must-see!
Have a look at his art from code Generator.x software website too.
Excerpt from the book Transcending CSS. The fine art of web design by Andy Clarke
“CSS is not designer friendly.. One factor is that as a technology built to help solve design problems, CSS is not very designer friendly largely because it was created for designers by technologists rather than by other designers.”
This statement reinforces the fact that integrators must be at the service of designers in order to render the interface and validates, why so much crappy websites exists. It also renders void that preconceived idea that a web developer may have the intrinsic habitility to really understand design. As far as I know, it will work only when there is a willing collaboration, humility and flexibility.
Stefan Lucut has got his mind and talent all over the place: print, identity, web, poster, illustrations. Original grid and interface for his website too.
If you're a designer — like me — you're always looking for new fonts - and you will no doubt appreciate what's in Reserves (rsrvs).
Need more? Check the toolbox.
What is the difference between a brain cell and the universe?
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Chris Gloag is a veteran photographer whose first review appeared on Netdiver in 2003. Since then, he has deepen his skills and delivers compelling pictures. Still think his portraits are by far his best work.
Also, he is still using his name has a tiling watermark giving his flash portfolio a deconstructed effect and some edge.
Luigi Bussolati had done this photographic experiment of shooting staged interior spaces from the ceiling giving us, the viewers, a way to appreciate a totally different perspective. Pick the design section to view.
Pretty cool!
Victoriana meets pop in Susan Burghart illustrations, and it's all about the work! She started out as a graphic designer who could draw, after completing her master degree, she decided on being a full-time illustrator.
Nice website interface too.
Jeremiah Ketner is the brilliant mind behind sMallandRounNd and has been building a solid reputation as a visual artist. He draws inspiration from Japanese aesthetics, packaging design, magazine ads and urban graffiti. Just found his Piko Toys collection which are available for purchase (as well as other sweet artificats such as skins for iPhone).
They're sooo yummy and huggable!
Gotta luv this! Nameless is a web design Bristol, London, Glasgow, Cardiff, digital media creatives, usability, accessibility, SEO agency and their website is sports a simple interface with fun captions... like stating they are not just web monkeys!
They've delivered a roster of projects - one of their most recent being a flash website using smart icons for navigation for Gloster.
Sonni is located in Argentina and designs and illustrates cute critters and all sorts of projects as well as street art and exhibitions. Gotta luv the many signatures he designed around his name which are constantly rotating.
Jean-Philippe Delhomme is an illustrator that works for mostly high fashion and upscale retail outlets and hotels. He was commissioned to work with many fashion magazines and has he states — he catches the ironic captions depicting the snubbery and attitudes of the fashion addicted.
Lee Woodgate is an xtra talented València based British illustrator who just relaunched his portfolio website. Graduated BA Illustration UEA annex, UK 1994. Over 10 years experience as freelance illustrator.
Département Féminin is an online boutique that uses a travelling flash interface with drawn line arts all black and white with legs walking (guess right, they are in the shoes and related accessories business) around reproducing the actual interior of the boutique.
Slickier than slick, the new Un.titled website! The agency specializes in design and art direction and as you will see, they know how to deliver compelling results.
Chose this screen capture as a tongue-in-cheek play on their company name — so often modern artists have series of Untitled canvas.
Peter Richardson is an up and rising star animator operating as Fake (Studios) interesting play on words! Rarely for me to include two URLs from the same studio but really, you can't miss his Hersheys Peanuts dance duo — do pay attention to the shadows and reflection on the foil. Aren't the moves believable?
You must absolutely watch the Tlingit vs. Haida animation! It's pure visual 3D fluidity of movements... with gorgeously painted characters whose surfaces replicate frame after frame.
Peter and I were introduced through mutual friends recently while attending SXSW. We discussed the difficulties and superlative joys of animation.
Expressive illustrations by Jens Bonnke which squarely challenges some of the social assumptions of the day using minimal elements.
In pod we trust - Gestalten now offers all of their filmed interviews and documentations as real podcasts and will cover all areas of contemporary visual culture, including graphic design and typography, product and furniture design, architecture, photography, art and more. The podcasts will offer a broad range of documentaries, interviews and features individuals, projects and companies that are vanguards of visual culture.
Boompje studios create original artwork and graphic design by revisiting the 45 degree angles, deconstructed objects and layered forms giving life to out of this world staging to set forth the message of their projects.
Look at me Design is the online portfolio of Sara Haraigue who is a graphic designer based in Paris. With such a domain name - how can I say this - it does ant up expectations and you, should make sure to deliver.
Well I admire her guts and her talent, which she has plenty no doubt. Especially like her print designs work of vinyl/dvd sleeves as well as posters.
Julien Pacaud is another collage and mix media illustrator whose work has been published in many high profile magazines.
When my laptop hard disk died down around Chrismas time having delayed buying a new one for - hoping that the lifecycle would break another record.. You know, for a small miracle.. well right smack in the midst of a tel conf with a client - it was kaput! So I scrambled to buy another one and spent about 2 weeks with a friend geek - to boot out Vista. Don't wish this on anyone - although we succeeded, it was a nightmare!
JF found this article and I urge you to read and act upon it!
Save Windows XP! The clock is ticking by InfoWorld
“Microsoft plans to end most sales of Windows XP on June 30, despite a deep reluctance by many business and individuals about moving to Vista. InfoWorld believes such an expensive, time-consuming shift with problematic benefits should not be forced on Windows users, so we have decided to rally XP users to demand that XP be kept available indefinitely.”
Join the 101,434 people so far who have signed the online petition.
Seth Rieder is an interactive designer hailing from Minneapolis, Minnesota who just recently graduated. Well since all his pieces are kind of mumbling jumbling over each other the unusual navigation — granted it's a system scrolling horizontally — ads a sense of perspective and makes for a cool layout. Nice touch with the mouseover captions - you get just enough information.
Wonder when pop-ups will disappear though .. sigh-sigh ..
David Capra was recently named one of Australia top 25 artists under the age of 25. His style is based on randomness and thirst of discoveries rumaging his grandma cupboard, kindergarden sketches to build the collages.
His website has an irky wall that displays exactly that.
Gracia + Louise is the collaboration between an illustrator and mix media artist whose combined styles make for sweet victorian-retro like projects.
Hudson-Powell developed this piece for “Kitty’s Secret House” exhibition in Hong Kong. Using ARToolKit Augmented Reality software they tracked 3d shapes and faces onto realtime footage, letting the viewer see themselves with various abstract heads on a screen in front of them.
otoshimono meaning lost and found in Japanese and serves as a metaphor for the mind of talented illustrator, Andrea Innocent, who is a self-confessed nipponophile. She tells her stories of the bizarre and quirky through detailed digital illustration and her current work is an ongoing exploration, in a contemporary context, of aspects of Japanese popular culture from an Australian perspective.
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I had already been quite impressed by her poster for the Fantasia festival - although at the time - did not know it was her work.
Gi Mayo is a fashion illustrator who was on assignment for some of the biggest shows, recently covering the Fashion Week.
She claims having traveled a lot and studied in many different schools in different countries. Everything she have seen and learnt grew to be her influences and inspirations.
Getting Real is the business, design, programming, and marketing philosophies of 37signals — a developer of web-based software used by over 1 million people and businesses in 70 countries.
Here are the 16 chapters and 91 essays that make up the book free to read online. You can buy the .pdf or paperback too.
Jason Fried is a brilliant entrepreneur and an eloquent and articulate presenter communicating simply, complex issues.
1,000 True Fans by Kevin Kelly
“The long tail is famously good news for two classes of people; a few lucky aggregators, such as Amazon and Netflix, and 6 billion consumers. Of those two, I think consumers earn the greater reward from the wealth hidden in infinite niches..
..A creator, such as an artist, musician, photographer, craftsperson, performer, animator, designer, videomaker, or author - in other words, anyone producing works of art - needs to acquire only 1,000 True Fans to make a living.”
Sydney based artist Lang Leav uses pastels and pixels to weave the enchanting world of art, fashion and books named Akina. Since its inception, the illustration based fashion label has established a cult following worldwide.
Gotta luv these! Finest/Magma website is just what I think works best for any online portfolio. Nice white space with the upper section filled with visuals of their projects.
Why it works so well? Because - and as you will see the site is available in german only - you don't really need to be able to read. Seeing is enough. You get it. They're good and versatile.
Slick, elegant and simple! Must see!
TAXI is everywhere — well at least, at 100 issues later! From the 100 Quotes by 100 Designers, I picked these that resonate:
Today, I think it’s hard for even graphic designers themselves to draw the line between graphic design and art. — Laurence Ng
Globalisation means more than merely a bigger market place for designers. — Linda Fu
Without the media, design awareness will not exist. — Song Kee Hong
The best advice I can give to an ambitious designer is: stop talking and start listening. — Michael Beirut
