Thinking for
a Living™

Running with the Beast

Running with the Beast is the latest album by zZz, a Dutch band from Amsterdam. Roel Wouters created a music video, the artwork and a series of posters that are mindblowingly cool. The project is about two artists who have created the conditions to capture rage in a systematic way – and capture it they did. Two colored cocks print their fight on a sheet of paper while making for an extremely satisfying visual in the video itself. Fantastic.

Optical Disc

I love these Optical Disc posters by Alex Broadhurst. Printed white on A1 240gsm holographic mirri in an edition of 50 posters, the design celebrates 50 years of the optical disc whilst paying homage to Gottlieb Soland’s 1957 grammo-grafik poster (pictured below). Printed by K2 Screen. Alas, UK only shipping!

How Very Tokyo

How Very Tokyo has invited a selection of progressive British graphic designers to express their relationship with Tokyo in poster form. Curated by Studio Kanna the exhibition will create a new multi-faceted portrait of the city, highlighting unexpected aspects of Tokyo from an outsider’s point of view.

The fourteen selected designers have collectively made England a more visually exciting place, and we hope that through this exhibition their energy and passion will similarly infect and inspire the Tokyo art and design scene.

Adam Hayes
Alexandre Bettler
Bibliothéque
Browns
Daniel Eatock
Europa
Graphic Thought Facility
James Goggin
North
OK-RM
Sanderson Bob
Spin
Value and Service

The Art of the Grid

Whether we admit it or not, grids are an essential part of our life. Without grids, our lives would be messier, uglier, and more confusing places to live in. The Art of the Grid products will keep your life in order! Write your shopping lists, practice your layouts, and keep your books and magazines on the shelves of grids that changed the history of design. Choose from Die neue Typographie, A Designer’s Art, Le Modulor, Raster Systeme Fur Die Visuele Gestaltung, Twen, The Gutenberg Bible and The Guardian. Concepted by Astrid Stavro.

As Real as it Gets

Really nice concept for this poster for an online software company. Real world Photoshop!

Creative Director: Hendra Lesmono
Art Director: Andreas Junus & Irawandhani Kamarga
Copywriter: Darrick Subrata
Photographer: Anton Ismael

Happy Birthday, Hermann Zapf

Put a candle in your dingbat. November 8th will mark the 90th birthday of calligrapher and type designer, Hermann Zapf. Responsible for hugely popular typefaces such as Palatino, Optima and Zapf Dingbats, this German-born designer has made an indelible mark on the world of graphic design. Read Hermann Zapf’s life story in his own words and view his Hallmark-commissioned video, The Art of Hermann Zapf which shows the master calligrapher’s hand at work.

Typotheque Sketchbook

Digging this limited edition, pocket-sized, no-nonsense calendar and sketchbook by Peter Biľak and Johanna Biľak that is available at Typotheque. The main features of the sketchbook are a weekly overview, year overview, and 12 different pre-printed grids. International holidays, design events and other days of interest are indicated on the index page, as well as on day overviews. The book is specially bound using the ‘Otastar’ method, which ensures that it lies flat when opened. Double crease in the flaps allows easy bookmarking of any page.

(Malin+Goetz)

As spotted on Blackbird, the always cutting-edge (Malin+Goetz) is opening a new store in the Upper West Side in an old Puerto Rican barber shop on 85th. I’m a bit obsessed with these guys thanks in part to their excellent branding work which was created by Anisa Suthayalai for 2×4. Make sure to check it out if you’re in town.

HunterGatherer

HunterGatherer is the studio and workshop of designer, animator and filmmaker Todd St. John. It was founded in New York in 2000 and works with a limited number of companies on a select range of outside projects.

In 1994, St. John co-founded the independent label Green Lady with designer Gary Benzel. Nylon Magazine described it as “to the designer T-shirt world what RunDMC is to hip-hop”. Benzel is a collaborator on various HunterGatherer projects, and also operates the Igloo store in San Diego.

This weekend, the 222gallery in Philadelphia will be presenting a selection of new works on paper and wooden sculptural work that St. John has been developing over the past 6 years.

Bastardised

Finally it’s here! Bastardised, is the culmination of the global identity project created by Bunch. Bunch decided that it was time to rework our corporate identity and base it around the overarching theme of Made in Bunch.

The book showcases the wealth of creativity, beauty and humor found within 289 of the Bunchisms specially selected from 750 contributions. The hardback, 208 page book was printed in Croatia by Kratis, with paper by Igepa and was self-published by Bunch.

Letters & Ligatures

House Industries presents Letters & Ligatures, a new exhibition of prints, patterns, installations and sculptures based on their 15-year excursion into the alphabetical world, at Shepard Fairey’s Subliminal Projects. The show opens on November 8th and runs until December 5, 2008.

Wonder Years

Published by ROMA Publications and ArtEZ Press on the occasion of the 10th anniversary of the Werkplaats Typografie, Wonder Years: Werkplaats Typografie 1998-2008 is a record of work made by over fifty participants to the Werkplaats Typografie program. Beyond an anthology, the archive represented here is an interpretation of a design school history, compiling its items according to a rather subjective, incomplete and inimitable set of entries. The 10 years story of the Werkplaats Typografie is narrated by a group of current participants, intersected by annotations, voice over and parallel readings from Stuart Bailey, Uta Eisenreich, Paul Elliman, Raimundas Malasauskas, Karel Martens, Armand Mevis and Willem Oorebeek.

Wonder Years can be purchased directly from the Werkplaats Typografie or pre-ordered from Stand Up Comedy in the US.

Lou Dorfsman (1918-2008)

Lou Dorfsman, who for more than 40 years designed every aspect of the Columbia Broadcasting Company’s advertising and corporate identity, including the set of Walter Cronkite’s newsroom and the typographically elegant sign system for CBS’s New York headquarters, known as Black Rock, died on Wednesday in Roslyn, New York at the age of 90.

Guidelines for Online Success

Have you ever wondered why your websites didn’t quite match up to the success of your competitors or peers? Have you ever looked at other sites and thought: Why didn’t I think of that? Have you ever spent too much time trying to find basic information that was buried deep in a needlessly complex website? You are certainly not alone and Guidelines for Online Success aims to change that by bringing together some of the world s most highly acclaimed designers and developers, spanning every continent, all of whom share their knowledge and experience.

With chapters arranged by subject (interface and design, marketing and communication, technology and programming, technical advice, content/content management, and commerce), a clear do/don t structure, and plenty of real world examples of successful and award-winning websites, this book has all the advice and examples you will need to give your personal or business website an edge on its competitors and also win industry acclaim as well as respect from your peers. Your visitors will thank you.

Christopher Doyle Identity Guidelines

Christopher Doyle is a genius – and a very funny guy. It seems that this Sydney-based designer has done a few too many identity projects with his current employer, the Moon Group, and as result he decided to create a set of guidelines for himself. He began to wonder how his personal identity would be documented if it were considered in graphic design terms. The results are hilarious and quite well-crafted.

Adhering to Colour and Graphic Device guides will ensure consistency while allowing for the evolution and variation of my identity. Incorrect use of these elements will confuse not only myself, but those I interact with.

Incorrect uses of my identity include Tucking and Tying. These examples show how even the smallest alteration can dilute and confuse my identity, affecting overall perception.

My identity can appear in either full colour or black and white (mono). In both formats the core colour palette, consisting of 100% black, must be present at all times. When appearing in colour, the secondary palette should consist of a number of variations and combinations, all of which must complement the core palette.

Download the Christopher Doyle Identity Guidelines in PDF format and enjoy them for yourself.

A Timely Debate

In 1972, graphic designers Wim Crouwel and Jan van Toorn debated their ideas and beliefs before an audience at Amsterdam’s Museum Fodor. On November 2, in commemoration of that now-historic night, the pair will converse before an audience once more at Felix Meritis in Amsterdam. Register by October 25, 2008 at Premsela.

12 in 12

12 in 12 is an accompaniment to a lecture given by Craig Oldham to the students of University College Falmouth. When Craig was invited to give a talk he didn’t want to resort to the usual ‘show and tell’ approach as he felt there are more suitable people to tell the story of The Chase, his place of employment. He decided that it would be more useful to the students to speak of the things that they would really like to hear about the industry they’re entering. Thus, he gave his account of 12 things that he had learned in his first 12 months as a designer.

1. Understand what graphic design means to you.
2. Be honest with yourself about your strengths and weaknesses.
3. A portfolio is for life, not just for an interview.
4. Placements matter. Do them.
5. The design industry is small, everyone knows everybugger else.
6. Participate with other people and share your ideas.
7. Graphic design is just a job, but being a designer is different.
8. Fall off your bike. If you don’t fail then you are not trying.
9. Life and work exist outside of London.
10. Designing is only about 20% of your job.
11. Have a life outside of design.
12. Work hard and be nice to people.

Grid Systems

YouWorkForThem is proud to bring you the release of our Fall 2008 Men’s and Women’s tees and sweatshirts, including this beauty which plays off the classic book of the same name. Grid Systems is a limited edition T-Shirt designed and produced by YouWorkForThem. Nab it while you can.

Container Color Systems

Loving these container color systems posters by Antrepo Design Industry. The graphic simplicity and saturated colors hit the sweet spot for me. I’ve got to get my hands on these!

All Images Copyright © 2008 Antrepo. All rights reserved.

Dawdle & Gape

Dawdle & Gape is the traveling 2008 Yale Graphic Design MFA Thesis Book show. The upcoming exhibition is at the Central Academy of Fine Arts in Beijing, China from October 24–30, 2008. Future venues to be announced.

Raking Leaves in the Wind

CREATE BERLIN will host the exhibition Raking Leaves in the Wind, an exhibition by Berlin-based Canadians Julien Vallée, Eve Duhamel and Brent Wadden, featuring playful graphics, drawings, paintings, animations, and paper installations. The show will be up from October 29th through November 28th.

High5

If you are in Japan in November, make sure to check out HIGH5², a design conference organized by HITSPAPER™. The theme of this years event is the “Black Box.” Our brain is constantly processing input and information, artwork, language, and sometimes emotion and sentiment. Currently only economic and social success is emphasized, neglecting emotion.

This years speakers are Artless, Kouki Tange, Nam, Qubibi, Stefan Sagmeister, and Wieden + Kennedy Tokyo / +CRUZ. The conference begins on November 24, 2008 at the Yokohama Osanbashi Hall.

Art on the Underground

In recognition of the 100th anniversary of the symbol of London Underground and London’s transport system, the Roundel, which was refined by Edward Johnston in 1917, Art on the Underground have commissioned 100 artists to make brand new works of art that are inspired by the Roundel. The artworks are currently on show at the Rochelle School in Shoreditch, London, until October 30 and a selection of works will be exhibited on the Underground during September and October as posters and leaflets.

Pictured above is a poster design created by James Ireland.

This Year 2009

David Bennett of This Studio has produced an A0 promotional poster in the form of a calendar for 2009. This Year 2009 is the second in the series of these minimalist calendar designs. Check This Studio’s Flickr for more pictures of this beautiful piece.

The Story of YWFT

To mark the launch of a new and improved YouWorkForThem, here’s an account of how the site began. The beginning never really starts on the first day, so let me backtrack a little and give my account on how the site was created. I had just left my job to go freelance. At the time, I had been selling typefaces with Test Pilot Collective, an old type foundry that I created with some of my friends. When I quit my job, I also changed a lot of things in my life and decided that I was going to start reselling my typefaces on my own.

At the time (early 2000) I was talking with Michael Young online a lot. He was living in DC and working for the internet company, Vir2l. Mike had just developed a typeface himself and we had also just started working together on personal projects. We quickly began working on client projects together and started WeWorkForThem (our design studio based on our personal work) while we watched huge start-ups crashing all around us. There were next to no jobs available in the field of design and starting up a company like this was suicide. Another crazy factor is that we never have worked from the same location. For the most part, Mike worked out of Baltimore after moving from DC and I was in Minneapolis/St. Paul.

Almost immediately, we started saving money to create a website where we could sell fonts on the side. By the end of 2000 we had contracted a friend who began coding the site. We concepted the site and had it ready to go by the middle of 2001. Everything was made from scratch. No pre-existing software was used.

At first, the site was going to be a conceptual shop with different divisions, much like Franklin D. Roosevelt’s New Deal. We had developed two shirts that coincided with the concept but towards the end, evolved our concept to be a regular shop. When we went live, we had one poster, two cd’s, three shirts, and around 30 typefaces.

I had been importing books from over seas at the time for friends – mainly books like Grid Systems in Graphic Design and Typographie. I still remember the buzz of getting 10 copies of Grid Systems for my friends. At the time, it was impossible to find a used copy for much under $200 dollars, as it was out of print for a number of years. I imported some books for the store to resell but they came a couple of months after we had been open. I remember posting the books online and watching them sell out in a couple of hours. Funny enough, when I ordered them I remember talking to Mike Young about how I hoped they would all sell within 2 months. After that, I knew we should start to sell books.

We also were the first to sell “modern-ish design” as stock art. We had tons of extra icons that we had built for client work laying around and we drew more to create larger sets of icons. It’s funny to think that we are selling work that we had billed out for tons of money being sold for such a small amount on the site. It was a total rush to see work that you had just developed go live on the site and be so well received from your peers.

Originally, we had viewed the site as being a platform for our friends to sell their design work, so we hit up all the artists and designers we knew and asked if they had any work to sell via the store. Everyone said they had something to sell, but they never finished it. A couple of our friends came through, but we had really expected YWFT to be a much larger platform. Over time we have moved towards this goal, but it has taken a lot longer than I had expected.

The site kept slowly growing and growing, so much so that I had to get interns to help me out with the shipping. Keep in mind that we were doing this out of a small three bedroom townhouse. One of the rooms was my office, another room was bookshelves and my bedroom was sleeping and shipping. What can I say? I came out of a generation that had the mentality of doing everything yourself. Eventually I could not do it anymore from that location and had to ship the book portion of our business to Michael Young, which he managed for the next two years before he moved out of the country. We now have a small warehouse where we work and ship from that is located in Minneapolis, MN. I have one employee and the other Mike has some employees as well.

When starting the site, we set our goals to surpass anything that had been done before in the field of design. We treated every designer with a lot of respect and generosity. This is very important for us, as we are designers ourselves and we see what’s happening around us. We understand the design community is small and we want to help it grow in terms of both quality and education.

YouWorkForThem is still a small site and I run into designers all the time that have no idea who we are. I believe the store really has made a positive impact on the field of graphic design and hope that it will continue to do so for years to come with the support of our fellow designers.

WeWorkForThem is the creative duo of Mike Cina and Michael Young, the founders of YouWorkForThem, a store and award-winning group of artists that produce some of the most groundbreaking design work available today.

Sizes May Vary

Sizes May Vary references the varying standardized formats and systems used within graphic design. Part sketchbook, part reference book and part notebook – it is a space for composing and visualizing layouts, sketching and developing ideas, taking reference and making note. Designed by Mark Boyce and published by Laurence King Publishing Ltd.

Making Cents

In September 2008 Sagmeister Inc. participated in Droog Event 2: Urban Play. The public art installation consisted of 250.000 eurocents placed on the floor, covering more than 300sqm on a square in Amsterdam. The coins spelled out the sentence “Obsessions make my life worse and my work better”. The piece is part of the series Things I have learned in my life so far by Stefan Sagmeister.

Frank 2.0

Friendly neighborhood designer, TFAL™ author and all-around good guy Frank Chimero has updated his site. Watch and learn.

Dangerous Curves

“In Dangerous Curves I have attempted to show both emerging and expert designers how, in an age of computer-dominated design, the designer can turn to their very own hands for both inspiration and solution. The only way to create a logotype that is truly unique is for the designer to transcend the limitations of the available fonts and typefaces on the market. Dangerous Curves provides a roadmap for that very worthy endeavor.”

Synth Eastwood

Synth Eastwood is back with a new brief entitled Cycles. Cycles will take place on Friday the 24th of October in FilmBase, The Button Factory, Meeting House Square and Temple Bar in Dublin. The deadline for all submissions is Monday the 13th of October. All forms of work welcome. See the Synth Eastwood site for submission guidelines.

Graphic Design on the Radio

We highly recommend listening to this broadcast entitled A Layperson’s Guide to Graphic Design by Adrian Shaughnessy which aired as part of the London-based radio station Resonance FM’s Free University of the Airwaves. Shaughnessy had 30 minutes to introduce graphic design to a non-professional audience. You can read an edited version of the transcript at Design Observer.

Also, be sure to check out Graphic Design on the Radio which was a series of one-hour shows broadcast in the Summer of 2007 on Resonance FM. The programs featured interviews with leading graphic designers who talked about their work while playing music that inspired or influenced their work.

The Art of Self-Promotion

Students at the London College of Communication who recently completed a year in the industry have produced an exhibition entitled Shameless, The Art of Self-Promotion as part of the London Design Festival to showcase their experiences from the year. The students have drawn together their newly found experiences, knowledge and understanding for this exhibition to emphasize a topic that was key to their own professional practice; the clever and sometimes desperate ways students find employment post university. The show will be at The Sassoon Gallery from September 18th through the 23rd.

Los Logos 4

Gestalten’s best-selling Logos series has documented and indicated design styles and trends in contemporary logo design worldwide. At 568 pages, Los Logos 4 provides an overview of current developments and advances in logo design. This authoritative compendium is the largest volume to date showcasing a collection of over 5,000 examples of stylistic approaches by designers from around the globe.

As a side note, two of the previews of Los Logos 4 on the Gestalten site show logos that our company submitted. With 568 pages to choose from, we were lucky that our work appears so many times there.

Nagi Noda (1973-2008)

A moment of silence for Nagi Noda (野田 凪 Noda Nagi), the talented, eccentric and boundary-pushing artist, art director and fashion designer from Tokyo. Noda passed away this past Sunday, September 7, 2008, at the young age of 35 after surgical complications from injuries sustained in a traffic accident the previous year.

80 20 100

To celebrate the 80th birthday of Wim Crouwel and 20 years Nijhof & Lee, 100 works by Crouwel will be on display at VIVID gallery in Amsterdam from October 11 to November 23, 2008. The exhibition will be accompanied by a fully illustrated catalogue designed by David Quay.

The Storyteller's Art

The Storyteller’s Art, a forty-year retrospective of the design work of Kit Hinrichs, is now on show at the University Library Gallery at Sacramento State. The exhibition presents more than 200 pieces of his work and is up through November 15th.

Hinrichs will also give a lecture at the University Union’s Hinde Auditorium, Tuesday, October 7th from 4:00–6:00 p.m. He will discuss his unique approach to narrative design by presenting a series of case studies from his career.

Via the Pentagram blog.

A Brief History of Emil Ruder

To know where we’re going, we’ve got to understand where we’ve been. Lucky for you and me, we find ourselves in the midst of a historical design revival. Both students and veteran creatives alike appear to be making concerted efforts to blow the dust off our collective roots and discover how our craft came to be. Look around and you’ll notice an explosion of historically influenced design, typography and illustration. My own infatuation is with the International Typographic Style that emerged from Switzerland in the 1950’s.

Past examples of structured grid design and typography by Swiss masters such as Josef Müller-Brockmann continue to influence both print and interactive design to this day. However, after realizing there is no shortage of Müller-Brockmann fan clubs, I wanted to explore some of the other, maybe lesser-known founders of the International Typographic Style. My search led me to a typographer and designer by the name of Emil Ruder (1914-1970), who played a key part in the development and dissemination of the Swiss Style.

Born in Zurich, Ruder began his design education at the early age of fifteen when he took a compositor’s apprenticeship. By his late twenties Ruder began attending the Zurich School of Arts and Crafts where the principles of Bauhaus and Tschichold’s New Typography were taught, leaving an indelible impression on Ruder.

Academia would continue to play a major role in Ruder’s life, though it would naturally evolve into the form of teacher rather than student. In 1947 he took a position as the typography instructor at the Schule für Gestaltung, Basel (Basel School of Design). Ruder, along with the great Armin Hofmann, developed a program structured on principles of objectivity in design. He broke away from the subjective, style-driven typography of the past and encouraged his students to be more concerned with precision, proportions and above all, the role of legibility and communication with type.

“Typography has one plain duty before it and that is to convey information in writing.”
-Emil Ruder

Ruder was also fond of asymmetry, a concept he found in Japanese texts on Zen philosophy and tea drinking. He arranged his layouts and typography with careful attention to counter, shape and white space. His projects “developed sensitivity to negative or unprinted spaces, including the spaces between and inside letterforms” (Meggs 325).

Hans Arp, Emil Ruder and Armin Hofmann at the Basel School of Design in 1961. Photo: Marguerite Arp-Hagenbach

To achieve the harmony and balance Ruder desired, he instructed his students on the use of mathematical grid structures and the selection of style-neutral, sans-serif typefaces developed in the early 50’s. For Ruder, the most notable of these typefaces were the twenty-one fonts named Univers created by his friend, Adrian Frutiger in 1954. Ruder and his students engaged in endless typographic and layout explorations with the vast array of weights in the Univers family.

“Emil Ruder saw my first specimens of Univers and was so delighted with them that he designed and published many works with this type in association with his Basle students.”
-Adrian Frutiger

By the mid 1960’s the school, and Ruder, were in high demand. Some determined would-be students waited up to three years to get in based on the very low acceptance rates. Ruder was known to only take on two or three students per year.

After more than 20 years of teaching, he compiled his concepts, expiriments and philosophies into a book titled, “Typographie.” Originally published in 1967, this masterpiece is considered by many to be the quintessential textbook on typography. You can see some great examples of spreads (along with a ton of other fantastic specimens) on insect54’s amazing Flickr photostream.

A page from Typographie. The phrase, “nach Mass” translates to, “made to measure” Photo: insect54

Ruder was also writer and editor for a popular trade publication of the time called, “Typografische Monatsblätter” (Typographic Monthly) published by the Printing and Paper Union of Switzerland. Printed in German, French and English, this journal, which covered topics such as printing techniques, illustration, typefaces and layout, helped to spread the principles of Swiss design on a global level. Once again, look to insect54’s collection of covers and spreads. I’d love to get my hands on copies of these.

In 1962, Ruder and typographer Aaron Burns (one of the three founders of ITC) founded the International Center for the Typographic Arts (ICTA) in New York. Unfortunately, there is little information available on the ICTA which has been listed as inactive since 1970.

It was Isaac Newton who wrote, “If I have seen a little further it is by standing on the shoulders of Giants.” I believe that long after he is gone, Emil Ruder continues to provide inspiration and guidance to a whole new generation of creatives who will ultimately design the future of communication.

Image Resources

1. International Typographic Style Flickr Group
2. insect54’s Flickr photostream
3. foundstudio.com.au Swiss Posters Flickr set

References

1. Meggs, Philip. A History of Graphic Design. 3rd ed. New York: John Wiley & Sons, Inc., 1998.
2. Thomson, Ellen Mazur. The Origins of Graphic Design in America, 1870-1920. Yale University Press, 1997.
3. Devroye, Luc. ‘Type design in Switzerland.’ School of Computer Science, McGill University. 1 September 2008.
4. Linotype. ‘Linotype Font Feature – Adrian Frutiger Traces.’ 14 April 2008.
5. Desain Grafis Indonesia. ‘International Typographic Style.’
6. Wikipedia. Emil Ruder, Armin Hofmann and Adrian Frutiger

Shane Bzdok is an art director and designer at BBDK, Inc. From our home office in Santa Fe, New Mexico we collaborate with a network of graphic and product designers, programmers and photographers worldwide.

Specimen

Specimen will be showing at the Pôle graphisme Chaumont from September 10th to November 8th, 2008. The show consists of three exhibitions, all of which are dedicated to books and publishing, a theme initiated by Fanette Mellier.

Retrospective-One

Kemistry Gallery has asked eleven previous exhibitors to create pieces to celebrate four years exhibiting outstanding graphic design and illustration. With a lineup that speaks for itself, Retrospective—One is bringing together Experimental Jetset, Eine, James Joyce, Parra and Geoff McFetridge among others in a line up of graphic design all-stars. Pieces include hand-drawn typography, one-off collages, lightboxes, print editions, and objects showcasing the breadth of graphic design both as a communication form and as a aesthetic skill.

I’m a bit late on reporting this, but wow, what a line-up. If you’re in Shoreditch, don’t miss this show. In the meantime, you can read Wallpaper’s review of the show here.

The show poster was designed by Proud Creative.

And Kemistry likes pink too.

Get Inspired

Frank Chimero’s inspirational design posters are now available for purchase at Frank’s store. Aimed specifically at designers, the topics range from various truisms to snarky tongue-in-cheek comments.

The Italic Poster

The silkscreened edition of The Italic Poster, designed by Eivind Søreng Molvær, is now available for purchase. Printed in an edition of 100 on Plike Black 140 GSM paper from GF Smith, the posters are silkscreened with white ink and are signed and numbered on the back by the designer himself. Postage, packaging and handling are all included in the price of 35 GBP. Please allow 10 days for delivery.

25ah

25ah is Dana Bergquist and Jacqueline Jacoel. To say that they are fond of typography is an understatement. From their office in Stockholm, Sweden, this talented duo creates simple and beautiful works that illustrate a sophisticated use of typography and color that results in truly timeless design solutions. Click and be inspired.

Dear Lulu

Dear Lulu is a test book researched and produced by graphic design students at Hochschule Darmstadt, Germany, during an intensive two-day workshop with London-based designer James Goggin of Practise. The book’s intention is to act as a calibration document for testing colour, pattern, format, texture and typography. Exercises in colour profile (Adobe RGB/sRGB/CMYK/Greyscale), halftoning, point size, line, geometry, skin tone, colour texture, cropping and print finishing provide useful data for other designers and self-publishers to judge the possibilities and quality of online print-on-demand – specifically Lulu, with this edition.

Music, design and improvisation

I highly recommend viewing this clip of Bill Evans on creativity and self-teaching that was taken from a 1966 documentary entitled The Universal Mind of Bill Evans. In the clip, the brilliantly original jazz pianist has an intense conversation with his composer brother, Harry, on the nature of creativity in jazz. It’s amazing how his lessons on improvisation within musical frameworks applies to the craft of graphic design.

On a related note, in this session from Webstock 08, Liz Danzico explores what it means to design in the age of frameworks and investigates their governing principles – learning from existing models as diverse as jazz music and oral cultures. Emphasis has shifted from editor to reader, stories have gone from individual to social, people are relying on patterns rather than interfaces. But as we move from designing artifacts to designing systems, are there new guidelines at work? We want users to be able to control their own experiences, but how do we ensure they have the right tools to do so?

The pursuit of change

Below is a short excerpt from a thought-provoking article entitled Creativity? The pursuit of change that was written by friend and colleague, Carole Guevin. Carole is internationally recognized through her work as editor and founder of Netdiver, an online magazine and international design portal that has been doing its thing since 1998.

“Consumerism is pursuing the potentiality of an endless dream stream of profits for a few and, exploitation of the most. There is a lot of brainware involved in figuring out the best way to construct cheap and sell a lot. Problem ‘solving’ is mostly attached to return on investment (ROI). As the downfall of the industrious rip of earth resources is surfacing, we are now facing a whole new ball game where a paradigm shift is required, shoving once again creativity to the forefront.

Relegating the pursuit of the creative process to the farthest realm of societal awareness is no longer possible! Now exists a planetary emergency and thus a new urgency to revive the value of creativity!

In our fast changing world, the foreshadow of a networked economy that sustained so much hype in the past couple of years, comprises an underlying fundamental truth: all problems are intertwined and interconnected somehow. In a world where distance, time and boundaries have shrunk to the size of your backyard – whatever happens elsewhere is no longer possible to put either out of mind or out of sight.”

Amen sister! Download the article in it’s entirety here.

We are Build

Michael C. Place of Build updates his always inspirational site with new work. Established in 2001, Build has forged an international reputation as a forward-thinking design studio with an exceptional eye for detail. Pictured above, a gatefold album design for the Los Angeles-based musician Flying Lotus. Photography by Timothy Saccenti and sculpture by Commonwealth.

Champion Don't Stop

The always inspiring Geoff McFetridge, an artist and designer based in Los Angeles, recently relaunched Champion Don’t Stop. Geoff was once the art director for the Beastie Boys’ Grand Royal Magazine and went on to launch Champion Graphics in Atwater Village where he has developed designs for posters, t-shirts, textiles, motion graphics, advertising and film production. Amongst his recent ventures; a wallpaper company called Pottok Prints and a skateboarding company by the name of The Solitary Arts. Geoff is also a member of The Directors Bureau.

A prolific designer, Geoff’s minimalism and playfulness is reminiscent of the of the work created at Push Pin Studios by Seymour Chwast and Milton Glaser. Clever concepts are communicated quickly through a refined graphic simplicity. Geoff probably puts it best when he explains his process as follows, “Invention must be countered by consistency, complexity with simplicity, decoration with purpose.”

Follow developments with his work though his blogs at Pottok Prints and The Solitary Arts.

Israeli Stamps

Last year Grain edit posted this article about a beautifully designed set of stamps from Israel. Google revealed that The Ministry of Type had a better image and bit more information. The series depicts the environmental concerns of air, water and noise pollution. The stamp above represents air pollution and depicts a butterfly visiting flowers. These were designed and created in 1975 by an Israeli artist and sculptor called Eliezer Weishoff.

Houston, We Have a Problem

Seattle-based Houston is the brainchild of Matt Clark. Part artist, part designer – both fashion and graphic, Matt’s work is always original and highly creative. I don’t know all that much about him aside from the fact that he produced the cover for Modest Mouse’s Good News For People Who Love Bad News and that at one point in time, his site sold clothing and other original works of art by himself and many others.

Photography by Jeff Minton & Houston.

UNICEF Type Book

Create/Reject introduces Fifty Designers’ Current Favourite Typefaces. 100% of the cover price goes to UNICEF’s Myanmar (Burma) Cyclone Children’s Appeal in the wake of Cyclone Nargis that hit Myanmar on 2nd May 2008.

Contributors: 2×4, Adam Hayes, Alan Dye (NB: Studio), Alexandre Bettler, Angus Hyland (Pentagram), Antoine+Manuel, Ben Freeman, Ben Parker (MadeThought), Bibliothèque, Cartlidge Levene, Claire Warner (Browns), Domenic Lippa (Pentagram), Daniel Eatock, Daniel Lock (NB: Studio), eBoy, Eike König (HORT), Experimental Jetset, Farrow, Fernando Gutiérrez, Fuel, Hector Pottie (Third Eye Design), Henrik Kubel (A2/SW/HK), Hi-ReS!, Hyperkit, James Goggin (Practise), James Greenfield (BB/Saunders), Jeremy Leslie (John Brown), Jerome Rigaud (Electronest), Jessica Helfand (Winterhouse), Jon Dowling (SEA Design), Jon Forss (Non-Format), Julian Morey (abc-xyz), Lionel Hatch (The Chase), Matt Simpson (Stereo), Michael C. Place (Build), Michael Johnson (Johnson Banks), Mogollon, Nick Bell, Paula Scher (Pentagram), Paulus M. Dreibholz, Pixelgarten, Ralf Metzger (North), Simon Earith (YES), Spin, Stefan Sagmeister, The Designers Republic, Why Not Associates, Wim Crouwel, Zak Kyes, Zamir Antonio (Eat Sleep Work/Play)

Manystuff Reflet

Manystuff presents Reflet, an exhibition at Espace GHP in Toulouse, France that will be showing from June 20 to August 2, 2008. Manystuff likes to challenge contemporary designers by delivering a specific topic from them to develop their concepts around. For their first exhibition the theme will be “reflection of a landscape.” Participants include Le Club des Chevreuils, Yoann Dovier, Hey Ho, Jean Jullien, Benoit Lemoine, Damien Poulain, Superscript and Pierre Vanni.