AisleOne. A visual journal on design, photography, film, music and culture.
The Penguin on Design series has been extended with four absolutely gorgeous reissued books on artists Bruno Munari, Marshall McLuhan, Susan Sontag and John Berger.
Yes Design was approached to redesign the covers for the four titles and they did an outstanding job.
I love the simple and minimal design and pure white wasn’t used in the colour palette to create an history feel. Just perfect.
Must. Get. Full. Set!
You can read more at Creative Review.
Typographic Posters is an excellent site by Andre Felipe that catalogs only graphical or typographical quality poster designs. Any design can apply and then be given access to the site where they can upload their own work.
It’s already shaping up to be an excellent collection with amazing work. Some notable additions include This Studio, David Barath, Michele Genghi, Toko and yours truly.
The poster pictured above is one I’ve been working on but still need to finish.
So as many of you already know, I’m freakin’ obsessed with grids. A lot of designers either don’t want to be bothered with grids or just don’t understand them, so I wanted to spread the love a little.
So I created The Grid System.
It’s basically an ever-growing resource site on the topic of grid systems and anything associated to it, like the golden ratio and baseline grids. My goal for the site is to be a one stop shop for all designers to learn about grid systems, how to design them and how to use them.
The site features links to articles, tools, books as well as templates and other goodies. I’ve also added the ability to show the grid that the site was built on, this way visitors can learn about the structure and how it was applied to the design. Let me tell you, it was a pain to get everything to sit on the grid and baselines and to stay consistent across multiple browsers. As of now, the site lines up perfectly with the grid in Safari and Firefox on a Mac. I assume it would be the same on the PC but I haven’t had the time or a computer to test it. I do plan on making it work in all major browsers on both platforms, even the dreadful IE.
I’ve also partnered up with YouWorkForThem to bring a great collection of books to the site. Over time the site will grow in content (I have a backlog of articles and tools to post) as well as features. I plan to add a forum where people can chat about grid systems and design in general, and other small things like wallpapers. Additionally, I’ve created a Flickr group as an extension of the site.
Check it out and let me know what you hate and what you love. I’d love to know what you think.
Daniel Powell is a recent graduate of the University for the Creative Arts at Farnham with a superb portfolio. His portfolio is small but every piece is of top quality.
I hope everyone had a safe and happy Thanksgiving. For all the readers overseas, sorry about the short hiatus.
We start off the week with some excellent work by London based design agency Structure. I particularly love the work they did for BlackBerry.
I have no clue how I’ve never heard of Jean Widmer. I’m disappointed in myself but I’m also giddy from the discovery! This morning I came across this brief article over at Grain Edit that includes some of Widmer’s work. I was instantly blown away and had to know more about this talented designer. I spent most of the morning researching Widmer and his work. Here’s what I’ve found.
Jean Widmer is a Swiss graphic designer who is responsible from introducing Swiss modernism into French graphic design and who eventually became a leader of the graphic design community in France for more than 40 years. Up until recently Widmer ran an agency in France called Visuel Design.
Unfortunately, much of his work is very difficult to find, online or in print. Pictured above are posters he designed for the Centre de Creation Industrielle which are just breathtaking. A few years back there was an massive exhibition of Widmer’s work at the Centre Pompidou in France. You can see some photos of the event here, here and here.
There was also an exhibit at the Herb Lubalin Study Centre of Design and Typography at Cooper Union in New York that was held from Autumn 2002 to 2003. The exhibition, “Jean Widmer, a devotion to modernism, itinerary of a designer from Zurich to Paris” featured a large collection of Widmer’s work and was accompanied by a 96 page catalogue. Gotta see if I can get my hands on that one. Anyway, here is a small gallery of the Cooper Union exhibit.
And finally, here is an interview with Widmer conducted by Graphis. Apparently Josef Müller-Brockmann was a big influence on him. Nice!