friday blinks – 5/25/12

Here is a list of sites we’ve come across throughout the past couple weeks that we think are worth sharing. We call it friday blinks.

5 Questions, 1-word answers, with designers
I think designer Jon Eslinger is on to something here. Great concept and follow-through. And you can’t mess with Draplin’s honesty and makeupwordisms. Love Jon’s work, too. Simple and strong.
(via Aaron Draplin/twitter) (via Jon Eslinger/twitter)

Travel Channel stamps
Designer and illustrator Tymn Armstrong illustrates a bunch of stamps of locations around the world for the Travel Channel’s website. Nice and clean, as usual.
(via Tymn Armstrong/twitter)

Type to charts

You usually don’t need directions on how to use a typeface, but this one is super awesome. Font Font’s FF Chartwell is a stout font, that will turn your plain type into of seven types of graphs (Bars, Bars Vertical, Lines, Pies, Radar, Rings, Rose). Pretty slick way to use Open Type’s powers.
(via Erik Spiekermann/twitter)

Dutch kids paint dad’s furniture

And this dad isn’t going to ground the kids for months for going to town on his freshly-built furniture, either. Dutch designer Lucas Maassen pays his 3 boys, Thijme (9), Julian (7) and Maris (7), 1 euro each for each piece of furniture they paint, so painting as quickly as possible is the key. They can work 3 hours per week due to Dutch child labour laws. This is a very interesting concept and watching one of the boys paint a little happy face under the mirror made me smile and reminded me of my son.
(via It’s Nice That/twitter)

Freelance Real Talk
Designer Breanna Rose gives some tips and tricks, as well as some background, for how to run a sucessful freelance business. As she says, “freelancing isn’t all puppies and rainbows,” but utilizing some of her practices might give you the upper hand next time you’re working with a client. I haven’t used some of these tactics, but I’ll have to give them a shot for my next freelance project. Check out her posts on Studio Sweet Studio: The Beginning, Moodboards, Pricing (Part One), and Pricing (Part Two).
(via Studio Sweet Studio/twitter) (via Breanna Rose/twitter)

friday blinks – 5/18/12

Here is a list of sites we’ve come across throughout the past couple weeks that we think are worth sharing. We call it friday blinks.

Brooklyn Nets logo redesign critique
An Adobe Illustrator/Jay-Z colabo fails to meet the mark. The Fox is Black and New York-based Jon Contino pull this new mark apart, for good reason, too. Mr. Contino also threw together a few quick and very solid options and some corresponding opinions. Take note, Jay-Z. HOVA!
(via Elias Jones/twitter) (via The Fox is Black/twitter) (via Jon Contino/twitter)

The New America poster
This amazing 3-color + blind deboss letterpress poster, designed by Portland-based Nando Costa and printed by Portland-based Keegan Meegan & Co. was created to promote Nando’s short film, The New America, which was a fully-funded Kickstarter project as of October of last year, and is planned to be completed by late June, 2012. This film will be completely made from over 600 pieces of laser-engraved pieces of wood, which were illustrated by Nando himself. Crazy awesome.
(via Under Consideration/twitter)

Handmade logo
The Swedish Design and Branding agency Snask created a new identity for the Swedish Handicraft Movement’s 100 year anniversary, embodying everything that SHM is all about. Making thing with your hands. Really awesome stuff.
(via Daniel Bruce/twitter) (via Snask/twitter)

Facebook soundtrack designer corrupts files on purpose
Los Angeles, CA-based creative director/designer/illustrator Rob Sheridan, with the help of Nine Inch Nails frontman Trent Reznor, purposely added and took out text from data text from the publicity stills provided by Sony for the album art of The Social Network. The result is quite awesome. I might have to give this a try.
(via Chris Allen)

Japanese artist paints realistic goldfish with paint and resin

Japanese artist Riusuke Fukahori paints goldfish, layer-by-layer, then pours resin on top, making them appear to come alive. It’s quite amazing.
(via Dylan Moore)

In other news…
Chris Streger and his To Reslove Project are at it again. Now, it’s time for the re:resolution! Jason Hines has stepped up and set up a shop with society6 (here) and Chris has asked everyone else who participated in this wonderful project (I guess that means me, too, eh?) to follow suit. Maybe if we all were bad about following up on our resolutions, this will help us get back on track. I know I have swayed a bit from my resolution, so it’s time to get back to it.
(via Chris Streger/twitter) (via Jason Hines/twitter)

friday blinks – 5/11/12

Here is a list of sites we’ve come across throughout the past couple weeks that we think are worth sharing. We call it friday blinks.

Poster series designed in the spirit of public radio
Minneapolis, MN-based illustrator/designer Ross Bruggink illustrated a series of posters based on his four favorite NPR radio shows. Ross has been so kind as to provide said illustrations as high-res, downloadable jpgs. Download. Print. Share. Thanks Ross!
(via Ross Bruggink/twitter)

Aaron Draplin talks with some Young Creative Brits

The Young Creative Council sits down (via Skype) with Mr. DDC himself, Aaron Draplin. Go to art school if you can, work late, and make cool shit. Wise words from a honest, wise man.
(via Aaron Draplin/twitter) (via Young Creative Council/twitter)

NYC in (stop)motion

This amazing look at New York City highlights the fact that this city never sleeps, utilizing crazy stop-motion techniques. Photos/video by Rochester, NY-based Josh Owens.
(via Matt Knisely/twitter) (Josh Owens/twitter)

Fail Better

Very neat, hand-cut paper look illustration video showing how to keeping your nose on the grind stone…again and again and again.
(via Greg Fisk/twitter)

Ferocious Quarterly, Issue 3

Team Ferocious and friends have done it again. No.3: “Be Prepared.” The survival issue is on the presses and looks to be available next Wednesday (5/16) through their website and in stores in June. From the preview, it looks amazing.
(via Ferocious Quarterly/twitter) (via Nate Utesch/twitter)

In other news…
I discovered some designers via twitter this week, two of which just launched new sites. Their collective work is really great. Check them out and follow them on their respective channels.

Chris Rushing: New York City-based designer and illustrator
(via Patrick Macomber/twitter)(via Chris Rushing/twitter)

Brent Couchman: San Francisco, CA-based designer and illustrator
(via Evan Stremke/twitter) (via Brent Couchman/twitter)

friday blinks – 5/4/12

Here is a list of sites we’ve come across throughout the past couple weeks that we think are worth sharing. We call it friday blinks.

Saul Bass: Logo Ass Kicker
The average lifespan of a Saul Bass logo is 34 years. That is amazing, and what all of us should strive for when we design things. Long life and little change.
(via Aaron Draplin/twitter) (via Christian Annyas)

8-bit NYC explosion

(via Chris Allen)

Draplin shares his notebook collection
Be careful of the crack. 35,000-40,000 dpi at 100%. What a cool collection.
(via Aaron Draplin/twitter)

UX vs. UI, for cereal…
The differences between UX and UI, shown visually with cereal. Very smart/easy way to look at and understand the difference.
(via Jay Schaul/twitter)

Adobe CS6 packaging and branding
Adobe will be releasing Creative Suite 6 this Saturday, May 7. I like Adobe’s take on “these are tools for everyone,” but it dances on that line of “everyone’s a designer just because they have the software” mentality, which I don’t necessarily agree with. A very cool way to highlight what each program/creative suite can do, without going into the technical, sometimes yawn-inducing specs. I’m not sure if CS6 will be a must-have like CS5 was touted as, but as always, I’m sure there will be some sweet additions.
(via Tim Austin/twitter)