Archive
New Site Design Coming in 2010
December 31st, 2009Howdy folks. Hope everyone is having a great holiday season. As you’ve noticed, I haven’t posted much in the last week and won’t resume until next week. Just enjoying this time off with the family.
Anyway, I just briefly want to mention that I’ll be launching a revamped site in about a week or so. I’m pretty happy with it and I think you’ll like it a lot. Emil Olsson of TypeNeu is doing all the coding and he’s implemented some awesome functionality. I’ll let you all know right before I switch over to the new design because the site will have to be done for a little while.
Also, if you look in the header, on the right, you’ll notice a small ad. AisleOne is now part of the Fusion Ad Network. It’s a great network that caters to designers, developers, publishers and creative professionals. The ads are small and for the most part well-designed and unobtrusive. I’ve always struggled with displaying ads on the site, I’ve been approached by many companies in the past, but this is the first time that I feel comfortable doing it. The network is great and this is an easy way to pay for the site hosting and other site related costs. I’d love to know what you think about the new ads since your opinions matter most to me.
This version of the site won’t be up for long so I plopped the ads at the top, but in the new site design I’ve placed them in a much better space that isn’t so distracting.
Well, that’s it for now. I want to wish everyone a Happy New Year! I’ll be back on Monday. Peace.
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Buddy Carr 39 Longboard
December 22nd, 2009I’ve been a busy bee lately.
I’m pleased to announce that the 39 longboard I designed for Buddy Carr is now a reality.
When Buddy contacted me almost a year ago, I knew right away that our collaboration would produce work that would make us both happy. Designing the Hello skateboard and the 39 Longboard have both been the most satisfying projects I’ve ever worked on and I’m pretty happy with the results. Working with Buddy has been an absolute honor and pleasure.
When we began thinking about the 39, Buddy told me that he wanted it to be a mix of classic surf graphics with a modern touch. I did some research and I was really inspired by the simple, two-tone surf designs from the 50’s and 60’s. The shape of the board also takes its queue from the same era, featuring a classic pintail shape. For the type, I wanted to use a typeface that had a mix of both classic and modern, so I decided on Modern No. 20, which I think works perfectly. Also, believe it or not, I used a grid system for this design. Worked like a charm, even on a shape like this. Overall, I think it’s a nice package, but most important, it rides like a dream.
You can grab one over at the Buddy Carr site. Enjoy, the ride.
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Limited Edition 2010 Letterpress Calendar
December 21st, 2009Category: Design, Grid Systems, International Typographic Style, Merch, Typography
Comments: 6
I have a thing for well-designed calendars and letterpress printing, so this year I tried to combine the two into a single project.
Now available to order is this Limited Edition 2010 Letterpress Calendar. The print features a calendar with the year printed in English, Italian, French and German. The 2010, the days of the week, and the edition number line are all printed blind, and of course, the type is set in Helvetica. Each print is numbered and signed.
The size of the calendar is 16.5″ x 23.5″ (A2) and printed on Crane Lettra Fluorescent White 110# (300gsm) paper, which is specially made for letterpress. The quality of the paper is superb and gives the print an extra special feel to it.
The printing was done by the fabulous Coeur Noir of Brooklyn, NY. I used these guys for my son’s baptism invites and they also printed all the Helvetica Film posters, as well as the Objectified poster. They simply rock.
This run is very limited, only 50 prints were made, so order one now for $70. You can check out more detailed photos here.
If you’re looking for an affordable framing option, I recommend picking up a good-looking, but inexpensive, IKEA Ribba Frame (19.75″ x 27.5″) and have a custom matte cut to fit it. This setup will run you less than $50.
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Research RCA Exhibition Catalogue
December 18th, 2009Peter of The Luxury of Protest has emailed me about this folded A3 catalogue he and Karin von Ompteda designed for the Royal College of Art. On one side the catalogue highlights seven students representing the seven different schools that comprise Research RCA department.
On the other, the entire student body is visually represent through an information visualization that shows the distribution of all Research students across departments. Each student was recorded with regard to school, department, degree type (MPhil or PhD), project type (Project or Thesis), status (Part or Full-Time), nationality and relationships to collaborators and funding agencies (arched connection lines).
Set in Akkurat and Didot and offset printed in single color (PMS Black) with yellow gold foil stamp on Arjo Wiggins Curious Metallics White Gold 120 gsm paper.
Gorgeous. Wouldn’t expect anything less from Peter.
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This Studio + Twenty Ten Poster
December 16th, 2009Category: Design, Grid Systems, International Typographic Style, Typography
Comments: 4
It’s that time of the year again and the uber-talented David Bennett has released his mouth-watering 2010 calendar poster. The poster is set in Europa Grotesk and printed one color on a 80gsm stock. I just received one in the mail and it’s stunning in person. If you ask him nice enough he might send you a copy.
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Experimental Jetset CAPC Catalog & Poster
December 16th, 2009Category: Design, Grid Systems, International Typographic Style, Typography
Comments: 8
David over at SeptemberIndustry spotted this gem on Experimental Jetset’s Myspace page. A gorgeous set of print work EJ did for an Heimo Zobernig exhibition in Bordeaux. The work includes an A2 folded to A5 Invitation, A4 Catalog and a massive poster.
I love how the minimal design really makes the poster stand out in a public environment. Exceptionally strong and stunning visual.
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Matthijs van Leeuwen
December 14th, 2009Matthijs van Leeuwen is a Netherlands based designer with a solid and diverse portfolio.
I really love portfolios like this. You can quickly scan the entire body of work and when you make a selection, you’re presented with a high-res photo of the piece. Those two elements are the key to a great online portfolio.
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Lucas Nasson
December 14th, 2009Some lovely work here by NYC based designer Lucas Nasson.
Pictured here is a poster for an event at Lincoln Center. Love the black & white and the grid. The image is a little tall but worth it to see the entire piece.
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Photoshoptimize — Optimize Photoshop Performance
December 10th, 2009Yesterday I was searching around for tips on how to improve the overall performance of Photoshop. I found a bunch of good ones, but there was no site that included them all, at least not in a clean, simple layout that’s easy to read. So I decided to quickly put together a page since I figured it might be useful to others. I call it Photoshoptimize. Clever huh?
All these tips have improved overall performance, especially with redrawing the image when zooming or panning. Some of these tips might not fit your workflow, but the more you do the better.
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RE — C Type Family
December 9th, 2009RE — C is a lovely new typeface by the talented Emil Olsson that is based on mix of french elegance and computer aesthetics. I personally love the “R”.
It’s available in 3 weights (Light, Regular, Bold) and only in upper-case characters. You can get the entire family for only $47 or individual weights for $19 each. A bargain if you ask me.
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Typographic Conundrums
December 8th, 2009Category: Books, Design, International Typographic Style, Merch, Typography
Comments: 1
Conundrums is a striking new book, designed by Harry Pearce of Pentagram, that presents a collection of typographic puzzles constrained by three simple rules: one box, two colours, a single typeface. The typeface used is AG Old Face designed by Guenter Gerhard Lange in 1984 for the H. Berthold AG type foundry.
Beautiful. You can grab a copy for only $10 at Amazon.
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Dieter Rams
December 7th, 2009Category: Design, Design Legends, Events, Grid Systems, Industrial Design, Merch
Comments: 14
Image courtesy of September Industry.
Seems like there’s a ton of stuff going on around Dieter Rams and his legendary work.
There’s the “Less and More — The Design Ethos of Dieter Rams” exhibit at the Design Museum in London.
To coincide with the event, a book with the same name will be released by Gestalten this month which features all of Rams’ products as well as selected sketches and models. They also have a video interview with Rams on their website.
The excellent design agency Bibliotheque has created two stunning posters dedicated to Rams’ legacy. The first, which is pictured here, is titled “Dieter Rams’ Ten Principles” and features his ten principles for good design. They were commissioned by Vitsœ to create the poster, which is currently available on their site.
The second lovely poster they designed is titled “Dieter Rams T1000″ and features an illustration of the Braun T1000 shortwave receiver. It will be screen printed and should be available this week.
And finally we have the retrospective book “BRAUN – Fifty Years of Design and Innovation” that celebrates 50 years of the Braun brand. The book is slated to be released in 2010 but you can pre-order it now through Amazon.
Wheew! That was a lot! Enjoy.