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 – 8/3/12

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 – 7/20/12

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

WMC Fest 2012 overview

As I mentioned in a previous post, I attended this year’s Weapons of Mass Creation Fest in Cleveland, OH. Throw out all of your preconceptions of your traditional, stuffy conference folks. This conference boasted of 20 speakers, 20 featured designers, and over 30 bands and it was like something I’ve never experienced…in a really good way. WMC Fest was founded by designer and illustrator Jeff Finley, partner of Go Media, a Cleveland-based, full-service agency. Jeff and his team have planned, organized, and executed an amazing experience for designers, writers, and creators in a centralized, mid-west environment that is Cleveland, Ohio.

This year’s activities were broken up into three venues; the Reinberger Auditorium, Saigon Plaza, and iLTHY Workshop. Fortunately for the organizers and the attendees, these three separate buildings are in close proximity to one other.

The Reinberger Auditorium boasts of a intimate setting for the speakers to give their talk, which at times may have been more intimate than the speakers would want. For several of the presentations, people spilled onto the stage while they did their talk. It kind of gave that punk rock show feel, which I thought was cool.

Saigon Plaza housed the 30+ bands for the weekend on two stages (inside and outside), as well as the pre-fest mixer, and a breakdance competition. Because of the heat that weekend, it made for a rather warm setting. Only after the sun went down, could you slip outside, enjoy several drinks, and escape the heat.

The iLTHY Workshop allowed 20 designers to showcase some of their work in the Art & Design Show gallery. Also inside the iLTHY space were many other designers selling their prints, T-shirts, books, pennants, and stickers.

Overall, Weapons of Mass Creation 3 was extremely fun and rewarding. I met some really great people and got to hear designers who I’ve admired for quite some time speak and had the opportunity to talk with them after their presentation on a one-on-one level. It’s events like this that transform (in my head, at least) well-known design superstars into normal, everyday people, just like you and I. We all do the same thing; create for a living. If we can connect at that personal level and leave the pretentiousness at the door, our community will continue to get  better and stronger. I’d like to thank everyone who had a hand in this year’s fest. It was a huge success and I hope to make it next year.

I will be making 2 more WMC Fest-related posts in the next few days, highlighting the speakers of this year’s event. Stay tuned.

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.

designblinks update

You may or may not have noticed that I haven’t made any new posts in over a month, so I’d like to explain why.

I went to Weapons of Mass Creation Fest in Cleveland, OH. My goodness that was an amazing experience. Not only did I get to hear so many inspirational designers and illustrators, I was able to meet other like-minded designers who were just as hungry, if not hungrier, to gather as many tips and to soak up as much inspiration as humanly possible in one weekend. I will expand on my time at WMC Fest in a upcoming post.

I also accepted a new job (same university, different department), so in the past few weeks, I have been finishing some larger and on-going projects for my previous department, as well as trying to get up to speed with my new department, which included finishing the interview process, accepting the position, and picking out new hardware and software. All in all, it was a long process, but well worth the move. I was with my former department for over four years and within that time, the department restructured several times. There were many road blocks and red tape, as you may have in any academic setting, but this was a great opportunity for me to join an newly-formed, fast-growing department, pretty much at the ground level. So I will be able to help them set guidelines, organize, and write policies that they will use in the future.

Because I’ve been busy with job-related things, I have been absent from my daily social sites where I draw my usual blog content from. That’s the main reason I haven’t posted anything in the past month+. Over this “extended blog vacation,” I’ve had a rebirth of sorts; working on changing the way I do things personally and professionally. That being said, I plan on making more frequent posts, hopefully two per week.

Thanks for sticking around.

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)

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)