friday blinks – 8/24/12

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.

2012 Type Trends
See what’s happening in the world of type this year.
(via Creative Bloq/twitter)

FontStruct
This modular type builder allows you to construct, share, download and use actual fonts that you have made, using their palette of shapes and tools. Pretty awesome.
(via Creative Bloq/twitter)

The Setup
Interviews of various creative people asking what they use to get their jobs done. Unique behind-the-screen look.
(via Tina Roth Eisenberg/twitter)

Love the Box with Timothy Goodman
An illustrated guide on how to research, deconstruct, personalize “the box,” then go forth.
(via Print Magazine/twitter) (via Timothy Goodman/twitter)

Look/See Sun God Special Edition Sunglasses
http://vimeo.com/48176732
Portland-based designer Adam Garcia collaborates with high-end eye wear maker Look/See to create some killer sunglasses with tons of small details that make these specs highly desirable…at least to me.
(via Adam Garcia/twitter)

friday blinks – 8/17/12

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.

Cardboard Bicycle

Israeli Inventor Izhar Gafni challenges himself to create a complete, fully-functioning bicycle almost completely out of cardboard.
(via Timbuktu Magazine/twitter)

Jack Hughes’ scotch sipping, cigarette smoking illustrations
Lodon-based illustrator and designer Jack Hughes draws with a TON of style and grace. The subtle colors, shading, and beautiful textures make these illustrations even more alluring. Wonderful work, Jack.
(via It’s Nice That/twitter) (via Jack Hughes/twitter)

RJD2 AMA on Reddit
RJD2 is one of my all-time favorite DJs/producers/beat makers and although his career is based in the music industry, the create process is something that is essential in producing his music. The creative process is so different for some many people and you can find inspiration in just about anything and music is definitely a go-to source of inspiration for me. My friend Chris described AMAs as “celebrities, cool people, people with crazy jobs, people who have been through interesting circumstances come in and basically answer questions asked by the community.” The quote below was taken from RJD2’s AMA (link above):

“creative process often starts w/ sheer boredom, and resources. no planning. just doing. do do do. then throw away 90% of what you did. then do more. repeat process. then, you either have a good song or piece of shit. trash POS. release good song. easy as that.”

I realize this isn’t a music blog, but quotes like the one above is why I love RJD2’s style, music, and take on his work.
(via Chris Gustin)

20 Best iPhone apps for designers
The folks over at Creative Bloq have compiled a list of 20 sweet iPhone apps for designers, from time-management and typeface-finding to color palette collecting and simple and stout checklists.
(via Creative Bloq/twitter)

Dr. Seuss’ early advertising work
Interesting how Dr. Seuss’ style transfers pretty seamlessly into advertising.
(via Design Taxi/twitter)

friday blinks – 8/10/12

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.

Mars Wallpapers
Tymn Armstrong, an earthling designer, made some desktop wallpapers from the high-res panoramic photos that NASA released earlier this week, which were taken by their newly-landed rover, Curiosity. Thanks dude!
(via Tymn Armstrong/twitter)

Loyola community service site
Designed by Philadelphia-based designer Justin LaFontaine for the Philly-based 160over90 ad agency for Loyola University Maryland. Slick stuff.
(via 160over90/twitter) (via Justin LaFontaine/twitter)

Geometry Daily
No homework needed, just simple geometric shapes, every day.
(via Nate Navasca/twitter)

Jeff Rogers interview with The Great Discontent
The Great Discontent completes another great interview; this time with NYC-based designer, letterer, and maker Jeff Rogers. I felt a warmth run over me (no I didn’t pee myself) after reading his interview. He’s obviously proven that hard work and wanting to continually do better will get you around. Awesome body of work and wonderful advice, Mr. Frogers. Thank you.
(via Jeff Rogers/twitter)

Water Light Graffiti
http://vimeo.com/47095462
Created and by the team at the French-based agency Digitalarti at the ArtLab studio. The ‘Water Light Graffiti’ surface is made out of thousands of LEDs illuminated by the contact of water. You can use anything from a paintbrush, a squirt gun, your fingers or anything else that is damp to make the lights light up. Sweet idea.
(via Creative Bloq/twitter)

friday blinks – 8/3/12

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.

Making Geometric Type Work
Examples of some of the issues you will face when designing geometric typeface. Set up a strict set of rules, then break them.
(via Lost Type Co-op/twitter)

NASA makes “art”
NASA used Landsat satellites to monitor and document the changes taking place across the planet. In addition to doing that, they have captured some of the amazing aerial landscapes that Earth has to offer. Pretty amazing.
(via It’s Nice That/twitter)

Hampton Creative 10th anniversary chalk mural
Impressive time-lapse chalk mural. (sorry, couldn’t imbed the video)
(via Type Everything/twitter)

The most 80s-style commercial…ever

This spot for Hahn Super Dry has the most 80s references in it of any other commercial I’ve ever seen. Totally rad.
(via Mike Metz/twitter)

Bob Noorda overview
Bob Noorda was co-founder Unimark with Massimo Vignelli in the 1960′s. Check out the incredible logos, posters, and symbols he designed in his 56-year career.
(via Keenan Cummings/twitter)

friday blinks – 7/27/12

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.

Constructivism Colabo
In 1923, the poet Vladimir Mayakovsky joined forces with painter, photographer, and designer Alexander Rodchenko to start a two-man commercial design business. The rest is history. Together, they created some of the most visually-captivating and memorable ads to date. The style that they created is still influencing today’s “punch-you-in-the-face” style of advertising.
(via Steven Heller/twitter)

The Chicago Neighborhoods Project
Go Media interviewed Chicago-based designer Steve Shanabruch, the creator of this sweet project, which is to brand each Chicago neighborhood one at a time. Good stuff.
(via GoMedia/twitter/blog) (via Steve Shanabruch/twitter)

Foundry Collective’s new website
Not only is their new site extremely crisp and clean, their identity work is so damn good.
(via Luke Bott/twitter) (via Foundry Collective/twitter)

FontFont interviews Frank Chimero
A fantastic interview with Brooklyn, NY-based designer Frank Chimero, where he explains his choice of FF Quadraat for his book and website, Shape of Design, as well as his thoughts on Kickstarter-based projects, why he wrote the book, and his explanation behind using a non-traditional text typeface for the book.
(via Frank Chimero/twitter) (via FontFont/twitter)

Make your work matter
James Victore wants to give you a hard-on (through design, that is) and encourages us all to make work that is a gift to your clients and the world.
(via Chris Streger/twitter) (via James Victore/twitter)

friday blinks – 7/20/12

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.

A Beast Every Week
Organized by Seattle, WA-based designer and illustrator Ellis Latham-Brown, this collection of beasts were created by some of the best designers and illustrators in the game. Check them out and be afraid…be very afraid.
(via Susan Locascio)

Making trash beautiful
Four dudes (Russian maybe?) paint, letter, and draw on people’s trash and they do a killer job of it.
(via Dylan Moore)

The most impatient book ever

An anthology by the best Latin American authors, printed with light- and air-sensitive inks that will completely disappear two months after it’s opened. You better not be a slow reader like me. The reasoning behind it is to get the names and stories by these up-and-coming authors out there in the public eye. It
seemed to work. They got lots of press and people wanting this first edition. The
producers of this book plan on making more of these types of books in the future.
(via Matt Griffin/twitter)

Zippo etching

New York-based Jon Contino hand-etched some really awesome Zippo lighters over the past year. Click photo above for full size.
(via Jon Contino/twitter)

Yume Ume branding by 160over90
160over90, a Philly-based agency does a knock-up job on the branding of a Japanese kitchen based out of Gainesville, FL. Punny copy and clever illustrations.
(via 160over90/twitter)

In other news…
The chatter is all over the twitter machine…Charlotte, NC-based designer, illustrator and creative director Matt Stevens has a new website. It’s pretty great.
www.hellomattstevens.com

friday blinks – 7/13/12

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.

The Great Discontent interview with Aaron Draplin
Take the afternoon off, read, and go kick some ass. Serious motivation jammed in this interview.
(via Print Mafia/twitter)

Mike Rohde: The Sketchnoter

Mike Rohde shares his “sketchnoting” technique; a great way to reference and remember your notes. Don’t take boring notes anymore. Also, a bonus of Mike’s book cover process.
(via United Pixelworkers/twitter) (via Mike Rohde/twitter)

The best all-over camo printed shirts ever

Very clever and simple idea.
(via Printmaking Journal/twitter)

Font Bomb
Blow up any website. No hackers needed.
(via Mike Metz/twitter)

Designed Space
Gives you a peek into some of the world’s coolest agencies and their spaces, going from larger shops all the way down to a two-person team.
(via David Sizemore/twitter)

And in other news…
Over the past week, I have rolled over 9,000 all-time views. I’m sure most of them are by me and Russian spam bots, but I think they are really observant, design-savvy people who happen to live in Russia. I’ll take what I can get, so thanks for the views,  Lyubochka, Pankrati, and Svyatoslav.

Also, be on the look out for a 2- or 3-post wrap up of WMC Fest next week.

friday blinks – 6/1/12

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.

For startups (or anyone, really), this is how design works
Great overview of what roll design plays in business, and how important it is to successful.
(via Candice Chu/twitter) (via Wells Riley/twitter)

Make a better creative brief
Keep it simple, keep it flexible and include strategy, rules, and dates.
(via Division of Labor/twitter)

Octo sketch process by Brandon Rike

Awesome process hand-drawing to vector illustration by designer/illustrator Brandon Rike.
(via Brandon Rike/twitter)

Advice for designers getting ready to start a studio
Some wonderful tips for anyone wanting to open their own design studio, or even how to run a studio.
(via Alonzo Felix/twitter) (via Rob Giampietro/twitter)

The Great Discontent interviews Dana Tanamachi
“Sometimes your limitations can be a launching pad into an unexpected story.” A wonderful quote and an absolutely fantastic interview with the extremely talented chalk artist/designer Dana Tanamachi. Do yourself a favor. Sit down, take a nice, long break, and read this interview if you haven’t already. Dana has some really good insite. She mentions speaking at some universities…wondering if she would travel to southwest VA to speak to the VCD students at Virginia Tech? Let me know if you’re interested, Dana!
(via The Great Discontent/twitter) (via Dana Tanamachi/twitter)

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)