Archive
Dieter Rams Less and More
August 31st, 2009“Good design is as little design as possible.”
Damn right. Words to live by.
Dieter Rams is one of the most influential industrial designers of this past century. Jonathan Ive, Senior Vice President of Industrial Design at Apple, is heavily influenced by Rams’ work. You can see huge similarities between Apple and classic Braun products in their simplicity, beauty and function.
From November 18 – March 14, The Design Museum in London is having an exhibition titled “Dieter Rams Less and More”. The exhibition will showcase Rams’ inspiring designs for Braun and Vitsœ. I might have to head to London just to see this.
To satisfy your fix, here’s a short documentary of Rams, a Dieter Rams Flickr group and a Braun Flickr group showcasing the classic Braun designs.
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Grid Calculator 1.3
August 27th, 2009A new version (1.3) of the excellent Grid Calculator has been released for the Mac. The main feature of this upgrade is the ability to calculate grids for web design. It’s the only stand-alone app that I know of that supports both print and web. Pretty sweet. I’ve been told that the PC version is coming soon.
Here are some more new features:
• Inches and Points support.
• More paper sizes (DIN, ANSI and Arch).
• Great new time-saving feature “Copy Settings” introduced — NO more back and forth!
• Modified “Quick conversion” section.
• Web designer friendly, use Points in 72 ppi resolution and calculate your grid.
Get Grid Calculator 1.3 for Mac OS X
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LemonAid Beverages
August 26th, 2009One of my favorite design studios, BVD, just finished up some stunning new work for the German company LemonAid Beverages. They created a simple and eye catching design for the new drinks ChariTea and Lemonaid. BVD also selected a classic bottle design on which the graphics are silkscreened instead of using labels. I’d drink this stuff even if it tasted bad just because the design is gorgeous. Also, definitely check out the LemonAid site by demodern. The typography and videos are awesome.
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Michael Kosmicki
August 25th, 2009Michael Kosmicki is a graphic design student at Central Saint Martins College of Art & Design, and his work simply blows me away. I’m amazed at how refined it is, but what I love the most is Michael’s classic sense of style. A lot of his pieces feel like they’re right out of the golden age of Swiss design. Perfect in every way. If we did any print work here, I’d hire this kid in a second.
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Voice Over Magazine
August 23rd, 2009A lovely publication by Iaspis and Sternberg Press that examines staging, theatricality, and performative strategies in contemporary art practices.
Art direction and designed by Stefania Malmsten and Ulrika Hellberg, Voice Over’s gorgeous cover is printed in silver foil and the entire magazine is set in Chronicle Text and Chronicle Display by Hoefler & Frere-Jones.
Overall this is stunning work, the interior layouts are to die for.
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Tankboys
August 21st, 2009Category: Design, Grid Systems, International Typographic Style, Typography
Comments: 5
Tankboys is a multidisciplinary Venice based studio founded in 2005 by Lorenzo Mason and Marco Campardo, focusing on cultural, artistic, editorial and
design project.
Every piece in their portfolio exhibits beautiful typography, strong grids, and a minimalist approach. It’s great to see the International Typographic Style still thriving. Tankboys have become one of my favorite design studios, up there with Experimental Jetset and The International Office.
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Replica Type Specimen
August 19th, 2009I have a thing for type specimens, they get my juices flowing.
This specimen booklet of Norm’s excellent typeface LL Replica is incredibly detailed and beautifully designed. The specimen documents the entire design and development process of the typeface, as well as the problems encountered during the process. The booklet also includes a complete character map.
Designed by Norm
28 pages
Format 216 x 288 mm
Printed in 4 spot colours by Druckerei Odermatt, Dallenwil/Switzerland
Price CHF 36.- (incl. postage and packaging, worldwide)
The Replica Specimen book was printed in a limited edition of 500 copies and is available from Lineto.com.
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Chocolat Factory Identity System
August 17th, 2009Here’s an great example of a well designed graphic identity that doesn’t over do it and supports the content. Designed by Ruiz+Company for Spanish chocolate company Chocolat Factory, the identity features a clean sans-serif (which looks like DIN) and a wonderful color palette. Reminds me of the gorgeous identity system for Brooklyn Fare.
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The Lost Poster
August 13th, 2009Category: Design, Films, Grid Systems, Industrial Design, International Typographic Style, Merch
Comments: 5
We’re all familiar with the silver Objectified poster, but Michael C. Place designed a second version with a white background and silver objects and black text that wasn’t used. It’s now being released as a limited edition letterpress, printed in metallic black and silver ink, on Crane’s Lettra 300gsm paper. Sounds like heaven.
It’s being printed by the awesome Brooklyn based Coeur Noir Letterpress, the same folks that printed the Helvetica poster and my son’s baptism invitation. They do stellar work.
Only 100 will be printed and you can grab one for $125.
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Mike White
August 12th, 2009I love seeing work from young designers, especially when it kicks freakin’ ass. Mike White is a recent graduate of the Bath School of Art and Design and his portfolio is filled with quality work. I personally love the simplicity the colors of this HUD poster.
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HypeForType Updates
August 6th, 2009HypeForType has done a massive update with a ton of new typefaces. HypeForType is definitely becoming a great resource for well designed typefaces.
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80 Magazine
August 6th, 2009Category: Design, Grid Systems, International Typographic Style, Typography
Comments: 2
I’m back in action folks, sorry for the short hiatus.
While I was away I came across this new blog called 80 Magazine that features classic design and typography from the 50’s and 60’s. It instantly has become one of my favorite blogs to read by featuring work by Gerstner, Brockmann, Lohse, Crouwel and Emil Ruder, who’s poster is pictured above.
The blog has a lot of pieces that I’ve never seen, including this collection of posters by Emil Ruder.