apple design chief talks!

shut up and listen. here's the man responsible for the creation of all those lovely white and aluminium boxes we know and love. jonathan ive - arguably one of the most influential people in design at the moment.

inspiring i guess. go and check out some of his work over at apple. (like you didn't already know where to go.)

words of advice

stuck? feeling lost? need a kick? then the following article is definitely worth a read (if your a design student). taken from core77 (the 'industrial design supersite', apparently) and written by allan chochinov.

i should probably take some of these points on board, though hypocrisy does have that warm fuzzy feeling...

have a gander at said article over here.

you got a big enough wall?

this ma-husive calendar was designed by the genius that is massimo vignelli way back when in 1966 and it's been a sellout since. the design has remained unchanged and can only be a testament to it's clean, simple design. timeless? most likely.

apparently it's so big that the pages can be recycled by using them as wrapping paper... hmm, i would of thought that would be reusing but whatever.

check more of this out at stendigcalendar to see the sheer scale of it (i've not a clue of the language, though if you hover of the blue dots you will get some shots of the beast) and to see more from the big man himself, head on over to vignelliassociates.

you suck at photoshops

time for more from donnie? me thinks so.


as per usual, more from this lot @ mydamnchannel. (chimone, if you haven't already, click it, these guys won 3 webbys for this series alone - it'll be worth it, i promise... sorta.)

spread the love...

...with tree-hugging cards! some more design mastery from bird and bee. this time, 2 cards, 1 for peace and 1 for love, with the word in question arranged in 100 different languages from around the world and in keeping with the theme of this, they're all printed on recycled paper and manufactured using wind power. to wrap this all up, a transparent envelope is provided to give the rest of the world a sneaky-peaky as it travels along her majesty's postal service.

great concept. great grid work. great set. great ethics. great design.

for more stuffs, head over to bird&bee.

lunar calendars

while we're on calendar design, i thought it'd be useful to bring up this one. produced by one of my former graphic teachers from my days at eccles college, ryan morley, and his design studio, bird and bee, these calendars track the stages of the moon throughout the year by use of a lunar wheel. printed as a wall poster and postable card.

as well as tracking the moon's journey through the skies, it also provides information on monthly moon phases, moon quarters, 'moonrise' time, moons rising sign, lunar and solar eclipses, solstices and equinoxes, sunrise and sunset times plus traditional pagan moon names and festivals - the latter of which seems quite interesting.

check more of his stuff out @ bird&bee.

it's raining, it's pouring (the old man is snoring)...

this is 'il pleut'. a french poem about the rain by apollinaire.

nope. i've not a clue what it says either, but it is a very nice piece of typography that really relates to it's subject. luckily some fellow named roger shattuck made a 'linear translation' of the poem:

it’s raining,

it’s raining women’s voices as if they had died even in memory,

and it’s raining you as well marvellous encounters of my life o little,

drops,

those rearing clouds begin to neigh a whole universe of auricular cities,

listen if it rains while regret and disdain weep to an ancient music,

listen to the bonds fall off which hold you above and below.

the old, handmade, typewriter-aligned feel gives the reader a real sense of the arbitrary, dripping patterns of rain on a window pane. a great example of how graphically descriptive of even the purest forms of typography can be.

tis always a bad day when one doesn't know what day it is...

calendars. some might say pretty boring but apparently it pays a pretty penny.

here is airside's annual calendar from 2004 till now. in classic airside fashion they're brightly coloured and highly illustrative. i really like how they have tried to deviate from the norm of the grid, but yet still kept the calendar functional and how they have tried (and succeeded) to do this in a unique way each year. i was a bit apprehensive about using a grid myself and have tried to do something different with it than the stereotypical 'box with dates'.

(click thumbnails to enlarge for your perusing pleasure.)

i guess you've already heard of these lot anyways, and if so, i'm sure you like their work. check more of it out over here. if you haven't, why the hell not?!

you suck it photoshop... #4

come on, come on, settle down and listen up... you might learn something.

mydamnchannel.

thou shalt always...

...kill. the ten commandments (a modern interpretation)

i saw this 'book' while in ok comics over the bank holiday weekend for fcbd. i kinda wanted to resist buying anything on free comic book day, i mean, yeh support the store, but on the only day of the year you can get them for free, why bother?! being only £1.50 and strangely intriguing in it's small, brown, wage slip envelope i thought it couldn't be any harm.

the little leaflet details ten new commandments which we all should try to do more often, revolving around helping other people and the environment. a very thought provoking little piece. the type work is nice and the images simple yet refined. bargain i say.

check out more of this fella's work over at newthink.

fcbd!

free comic book day 2008 occurred over this bank holiday weekend. an event that takes place every year to encourage people to get down to their local comic book stores. i am just getting into comics (and illustration for that matter) properly myself and so couldn't really pass up this opportunity. i somehow succeeded to get down to forbiddenplanet and okcomics in time on saturday and managed to bag myself 17 free books! pretty neat, the bag alone from ok comics makes it worth while.

hope to really enjoy reading these and get inspiration for starting to draw too.

check it freecomicbookday.

body copy?

[pun intended.]

sorry/bad idea.

sagmeister aiga conference poster.

touché to the 'vandals'

anything banksy can do, the national gallery can do better (apparently...)

over this bank holiday the cansfestival is happening in landan. a weekend long art exhibition celebrating stencil art. so it seems fitting to mention the grandtour project. set up by the national gallery, a possible backlash of sorts towards artists like banksy, self installing graffiti into prestigious galleries and juxtaposing other fine art like warhol's soup & monroe and monet's garden & sunflowers?

the grand tour project took reproductions of the old masters out into the streets of london, framed and hung. an interesting concept.

[photos from nationalgallery pdf.]

covered by the guardian. gallery here. 

no logo

in december 2006, sao paulo's mayor passed the 'clean city' law which effectively outlaws all billboards in the city. now the law has been enforced, the issues it raises, especially for graphic designers is certainly cause for debate and discussion.

couple of good articles over on adbusters, boingboing and businessweek (by creativereview's editor). flickr set with some amazing photos documenting the change over here.

ironically enough, murdoch's excuse for a broadcaster, sky used the situation to make an advert, explaining that they love movies so much, that they're not going to interrupt theirs with ads... srsly wtf?

whadda you lot think on this, comments?