Open Cycle

Posted on July 1, 2013June 28, 2013 Posted in Design, Industrial DesignTagged cycling, identity, minimal, print1 Comment

Open Cycle

Open is a bike company that develops high-end mountain bikes, who’s guiding principle is “Relentless Simplicity”. They stick to this is in every aspect of the company, from product line-up all to way to the industrial and graphic design of their frames. These have to be some of the most beautiful bikes I’ve ever seen. Not only are they made out of carbon, and weight almost nothing, they sport a streamlined frame design, and a very minimal graphics. Something that is almost never seen in the cycling community. Most brands slap their logos all over their bikes, but Open has shown great restraint, and it has paid off.

Beautiful.

Designed By Apple

Posted on June 12, 2013June 27, 2013 Posted in Design, Motion GraphicsTagged animation, minimal, Motion Graphics, video8 Comments

At the start of this year’s WWDC keynote, Apple showed this great video that describes the emotion that goes into creating each product. The video is aesthetically beautiful, and the motion graphics along with the sound design make it a joy to watch. I’ve watched this over and over again. I wonder who created it. Anyone know?

Comedown Machine Cover Design

Posted on April 25, 2013April 26, 2013 Posted in DesignTagged distressed, minimal, packaging, print, vintage1 Comment

the-strokes_comedown-machine-1

I’m not into The Strokes, but I am into the cover design of their latest album, Comedown Machine. It was designed by Brett Kilroe and Tina Ibañez of Runner Collective, and the minimal, distressed design is a tribute to an old RCA package design for their recording tape. Looks like it was a fun project to work on.

Via ISO50

Dieter Rams in Conversation with Deyan Sudjic

Posted on February 6, 2013April 26, 2013 Posted in DesignTagged Design, function, minimal, product

Here’s a great video of Dieter Rams discussing his famous products with the director of London’s Design Museum, Deyan Sudjic. The chat was filmed at Vitsœ in 2008.

Dieter Rams Good Design

Posted on February 6, 2013August 16, 2013 Posted in QuotesTagged Design, minimal, Principles, Quote

Good design is as little design as possible.

A Responsive AisleOne

Posted on January 15, 2013 Posted in DesignTagged CSS, minimal, mobile, responsive, site, Typography, web37 Comments

New year, new design. I’ve been wanting to redesign the site for a few months now with five goals in mind:

Strip it down and make it more minimal
Improve typography
Make it responsive
Allow for bigger images
Allow for non-image posts

This new design addresses all five.

Because I don’t have very much free time these days, I started with a purchased theme and modified it to my liking. Visually, I simplified it a great deal. Some might think it’s too minimal, maybe even boring, but I think it serves its purpose well. The typography is greatly improved. The entire site is set in Proxima Nova, which at larger sizes is a pleasure read. No more tiny type. The main text is now set at a large size with spacious leading to make reading easier.

Now that mobile devices are a large part of everyday life, I wanted the site to be responsive. Unlike the previous design, this new design presents an optimal viewing experience on a phone, tablet, and desktop browser.

It also allows for more flexibility in terms of post formats. The previous design I was constrained within a 450px column for the images, so it didn’t allow for larger images. With the new design I can post images up to 690px wide. Bigger images means more details. I also want to make more posts that are just text, for example quotes or this post. This single column design presents text only posts in a better way. Videos also work well, so expect to see more video posts in the future.

Overall, I’m pretty happy with this new design, and I think you will be as well. I’ve tested it as much as I could, but I’d love to hear from you folks on what you think and if you see any issues.

Enjoy.