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 – 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 – 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 – 4/13/12

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.

100+ Pictograms
Designer Daniel Bruce has crafted some really slick-looking pictograms for free download/use. Thanks man! Great stuff.
(via Nate Navasca/twitter)

Brian Cummings website
Designer and illustrator Keenan Cummings created a website for his dad, who is a very talented voice actor. I followed the faces as Keenan created them on dribbble (1, 2, 3), and the end result is really awesome. I love how each one of the faces ties into a specific type of voice. Oh, and check out the little flying Brian Cummings twitter bird. Nice touch!
(via Keenan Cummings/dribbble)

Mercedes makes an “invisible” car

(via Mike Metz/twitter)

Edgar Pin-up calendar
No, it’s not what you’re thinking. No scantily-clad ladies here. Just old fashioned-looking photos pared with a magical grid of dates below. WOW.
(via Under Consideration/twitter)

Weapons of Mass Creation Fest 2012 Sneak Peek
Jeff Finley, founder of WMC Fest, leaks the the speakers and most of the featured designers for this year’s Fest-tivities. It looks like a solid line-up. I really hope I can make it out this year.
(via Jeff Finley/twitter)

In other news…
Austin, TX-based type wizard Simon Walker launched his new site recently. Check it out. It’s totally bad ass.
(via Simon Walker/twitter)

I have decided to switch up the look of friday blinks. I’m going to go through the Pantone book, starting with PMS 100, and include quotes, along with the date and PMS number. Hope you like it.

friday blinks – 3/30/12

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.

App that locates NYC subway art
The ‘Arts for Transit’ app, “created by the Metropolitan Transport Authority and app firm Meridian, tells the locations of hundreds of artworks throughout the historic New York subway.” Find the sculptures, murals, installations and other works dating back to the 1980s, as well as background info, photos, and audio or video podcasts about each artist. Nerds will also like this app. It will guide them to bookstores and help them find a particular book in the store. It’s like a nerd magnet.
(via The Creative Finder/twitter)

How Creativity Works
Interesting NPR interview with author and editor Jonah Lehrer, about his new book called Imagine: How Creativity Works. I think I need to take more breaks. It seems like I’ve been overwhelmed lately, hitting more walls (creatively and physically) than usual. Also, a short promo video from Jonah Lehrer.
(via my wife, Holly Gatton) (via UCDA/twitter)

Tiny cards
What a better way to make a point that you work with small businesses than to get super tiny business cards? That’s what one Alberta, Canada-based bookkeeping business did. Measureing 1” x .6”, these little guys were letterpress printed by Minneapolis-based Studio On Fire. They had to make a special die just to cut them down to size. Brilliant!
(via Cranky Pressman/twitter) (via Studio On Fire/twitter)

Ten Steps to Becoming the Designer You Want to Be
Great list of 10 things to do on a regular basis to be all you can be, design-wise.
(via Linda Sanderson)

Dan Cassaro rides the Highway
Designer, illustrator and highway extraordinaire Dan Cassaro shows off his newest type masterpiece. Highway, which was initially created on the road, traveling across the U.S. of A. this past summer, then completed in his home studio in New York. Check it out and safe driving.
(via Grain Edit/twitter)(via Dan Cassaro/twitter)

3/23/12 – friday blinks

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. And with the e-wizardry available to me, I have made it look like I didn’t forget to post this on Friday. Tricky, eh?

One Minute With Jeff Rogers
Great little interview with NYC-based illustrator and designer Jeff Rogers.
(via Jeff Rogers/twitter)

Project Re:Brief
Google introduces an amazing idea to re-envision four of the most iconic advertising campaigns with the help of their original creators, to develop a new way to experience the brand and campaign through the web.
(via Riley Cran/twitter)

Illustrated Longshot Magazine recap
Longshot Magazine’s second edition, “The Debt issue” was created in 48 hours by a team of thousands of writers, editors, artists, photographers, programmers, videographers, and other creatives. A majority of the work was done in the Gawker Media offices in NYC, but some was done remotely in Portland. This is a view of how it all went down, through illustrations and tweets.
(via Kern and Burn/twitter)

The People’s Pennant
Celebrate the everyday achievement with a hand-made in the U.S.A. limited edition felt pennant! Cool idea brought to you by Jessica Heltzel and Tim Hoover (of Kern and Burn book fame), and great identity work from Eric R. Mortensen.
(via Eric R. Mortensen/twitter)

Courage, Faith, and Cocktails
James Victore has dreamed up a doozie this time. Five full days, James Victore and 5 of today’s top creatives, and eight guests. All of these wonderful things come together for a dinner series, full of work, thinking, and discussion.
(via James Victore/twitter)

 

friday blinks – 3/16/12

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. Sorry there are only 2 links this week. I’ve been crazy busy lately and haven’t been paying much attention to my twitter feed.

Design Resources for people who design things and then print them
A fantastic resource for print designers.
(via Amelia Liarakos)

Instagram for people who love type
Fontli, a social network for type enthusiasts, accessible through your iPhone, can be used to take, share, and even research the usage of just about any typeface out there. What I find really cool and a great resource/idea is that you can tag it with the font name, designer, or foundry. Only connected to MyFonts, though.
(via Erik Spiekermann/twitter)

Free Font Friday
30 Free Fonts list from DesignModo (via GoMedia/twitter)

friday blinks – 3/9/12

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.

James Victore’s YouTube Channel
This dude is full of energy and I love it. It’s so refreshing to see someone who’s been in the game this long and still full of piss and vigor. Inspiring and impressive.
(via James Victore/twitter)

Glasgow Press’ Impressive promo
Glasgow Press just sent out a letterpress promo pack featuring 5 postcards with lyrics from songs by some of graphic designer Kerr Vernon’s favorite Glasgow-based bands. Awesome.
(via Creative Review/blog)

Interview with Adam R. Garcia
A beautifully-shot interview and with the very talented creative director, designer, and illustrator Adam R. Garcia, created by Portland-based designer Ryan J. Bush. “Move around. Be an idiot. Be a part of the community. Make things that are compelling and meaningful. Think about what you make.” Nice ending, too. It was nice to see Adam break out from those very deep thoughts.
(via Greg Fisk/twitter) (via Adam Garcia/twitter)

Camera + Drill = interesting view of our world
French designer Oscar Lhermitte straps a digital camera, filming at 15 frames per second, onto a drill that spins 20 revolutions per second. I could totally see this treatment as a title sequence for a movie.
(via Under Consideration/twitter)

Advice from John C Jay
Great list of 10 tips from Wieden+Kennedy’s John C Jay. I especially like #7.
(via Greg Fisk/twitter)

Free Font Friday
Practice Foundry, a Canadian-based, “independent type foundry and a collective space for showcasing the work of amateur type designers in Canada.” They want to beef up the Canadian typographic presence with a pay-as-you’d-like model. Pretty sweet idea, eh?
(via Dylan Moore)

friday blinks – 3/2/12

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.

Jumpman HTML5 site
WOAH! Super slick.
(via Chris Streger/twitter)

Triforce Tribute
Design + crafts + everything Zelda. I never played the game (ZELDA NERDS REVOLT!), but can get behind some serious geekery for the game. This show is sure to be very successful.
(via David Sizemore/twitter)

Jeff Rogers makes a font baby
Beautiful two-ply, hand-made font by NYC-based designer/illustrator Jeff Rogers.
(via Ryan Feerer/twitter)

Annual report powered by the sun
Austria Solar commissioned the first annual report powered by the sun. Its content remains invisible until sunlight falls on its pages. Design work by serviceplan campaign. This is really cool.
(via David Sizemore/twitter)

Weapons Declassified: Jeff Finley
Weapons of Mass Creation Fest founder Jeff Finley gets featured, and talks about how WMC Fest came to be and the concept behind it. Pissed I won’t be able to make it up to Cleveland this year for WMC Fest. Next time, Gadget…
(via Jeff Finley/twitter)