[&] An ampersand

If 7UP brought these 70s can designs back I would probably start...

Sat, 31 Oct 2009 10:39:38 +1100

If 7UP brought these 70s can designs back I would probably start drinking it.

The Clingstone House

Fri, 23 Oct 2009 13:45:00 +1100

I think I actually just died for a split second when I saw this house.. I would happily suggest you pay particular attention to the fact that in the third picture there truly is a classic picturesque boat sailing past. How can this be real? From freshome:

In 1961, the Boston Architect Henry Wood purchased this amazing island mansion with his wife for only $3,600 on Rhode Island’s Narragansett Bay. Today, the Clingstone House (designed by J.S. Lovering Wharton with artist William Trost Richards) is a warm all-wood home with a 360-degree view of the ocean. Three stories tall, the Clingstone House has a large center hall, ten bedrooms and total of twenty-three rooms total. It would be hard to find a deal like this on today’s market for that little money, despite the fact that the salt and water-wear from the surrounding ocean on the oak beams would make maintenance of this spectacular mansion ridiculously expensive. But hey, you do what you have to do to live in your own version of paradise!

Visual Acoustics looks like a wonderful visual treat full of...

Tue, 06 Oct 2009 09:06:00 +1100

Visual Acoustics looks like a wonderful visual treat full of breathtaking modernist architecture as photographed by Julius Schulman. Can’t wait for this film.

http://www.juliusshulmanfilm.com/

The Print Directory [Australia]

Thu, 01 Oct 2009 10:09:00 +1000

The Print Directory is now up and running at theprintdirectory.com.au.

This is a really great resource for designers or anyone interested in printing, binding and finishing services. It’s also a really great resource for students because there are featured articles on printing and finishing methods, demystifying processes such as foiling or letterpress (the two topics covered so far).

TPD is a free resource connecting Australian printers to designers, artists and publishers. The website aims to streamline the process of supplier selection by listing printers on the directory and highlighting their capabilities.

It looks like the site will be continually updated with information and listings, so it’s definitely one to bookmark.

Mid Century Home Style

Mon, 28 Sep 2009 16:49:49 +1000

I could browse these mid century home interiors all day long.

All images are from http://www.midcenturyhomestyle.com/.

Bari Zaki — Ardour Bookbinding B'zaar

Sun, 27 Sep 2009 13:16:00 +1000

Bari Zaki is a bookbinder who also crafts exquisite boxes, notecards, envelopes and vintage postal artifacts.

‘Envelopes hand-crafted from full-colour enlargements of vintage correspondence’ $8ea USD

‘A one-of-a-kind piece from the postal past is archivally attached on the front of a fold-over note card’ $7ea USD

‘You have snail mail. Elegant engraved notecard with matching tissue-lined pointed-flap envelope’ $8ea USD

Kyoto Quartet set; ‘Set of eight {2 of each pattern} envelopes (5” x nearly 7-1/2”) lined with Japanese Yuzen papers. Super-luxurious cards are edged in 23k gold’ $30 per set USD

Visit Ardour Bookbinding to purchase and peruse many more delights.

Discovered via the Letter Writers Alliance.

LIFE Magazines on Google Books

Fri, 25 Sep 2009 15:24:18 +1000

1,860 issues from the LIFE archive (1936-1972) are now available for your perusal on Google Books. Retro typeface and advertisement discovery potential is huge!

Via the lovely pica + pixel.

Chad Hagen has created some beautiful ‘Nonsense...

Mon, 24 Aug 2009 23:57:16 +1000

Chad Hagen has created some beautiful ‘Nonsense Infographics’

Illustration: Adam Simpson [UK]

Wed, 19 Aug 2009 10:58:02 +1000

This morning I was completely captivated by the work of Adam Simpson. I spotted his book cover for Sunnyside by Glen David Gold yesterday, and promptly noted his name down. Lucky I did, the rest of his work is spectacular.

Sunnyside book cover

I love the isometrics, imagination and masterful typography. Lots of tiny nooks and crannies in which tiny visual surprises are hiding.

A little more on Adam, from his website:

Adam Simpson graduated from Edinburgh College of Art in 2004 with a First Class Honours degree in Illustration. In the same year he moved to London to study at the Royal College of Art, where he began a Masters degree in Communication Art and Design.

His work encompasses design, animation and illustration - always with a strong emphasis on drawing.

Adam has contributed to major exhibitions and book fairs in London, Edinburgh and Bologna as well as numerous Japanese art museums.

‘Boundaries’ Commissioned by Conran and Partners, 2008

Extracts from ‘Let us cultivate the garden’ - a typographic book (2006)

‘Imagination Building’ from Wallpaper magazine, 2009

Visit Adam’s website for more fantastic work: http://www.adsimpson.com/

Events in Melbourne! Rick Poynor, Barbara Glauber, First Five Out

Mon, 10 Aug 2009 22:11:15 +1000

The State of Design festival may be over, but there are still some awesome events taking place in Melbourne over the next month or two. They are all AGDA-run but you don’t have to be an AGDA member to attend. All will be ace!

12th August: Rick Poynor

20th August: Barbara Glauber

and 3rd September: First Five Out — For Love or Money (Twitter: @firstfiveout)

Cristiana Couceiro [Lisbon]

Thu, 23 Jul 2009 10:30:00 +1000

This morning I am really enjoying the work of Cristiana Couceiro. There is also an interview with Cristiana over at Untrendy Graphics Blogzine that is worth a read.

Via the wonderful Beyond the Pixels blog.

Paper beats Internet

Fri, 17 Jul 2009 22:17:31 +1000

Paper beats Internet is an ‘analog’ social networking site that is a

home for entries that focus on exploring the use and relationship between hand-rendered type and images. The work is a dialogue between students and invited guest contributers with professional backgrounds in design, illustration, fine art, writing and other disciplines

It’s like a forum where threads start as drawings and all the replies are drawings.

Below are some great illustrations from the site, all copyright their respective owners.

Lisa Vanin:

Yoonkyoung Shim:

Graham Roumieu:

An example of a thread and its responses…

Minsu Kim:

Clayton Hanmer:

Stephanie Yung:

Spam Art

Wed, 15 Jul 2009 17:30:00 +1000

SPAM! We have all seen it, ignored it, deleted it, perhaps despised it. But sometimes it might just be worth hanging onto and glorifying. Alternatively, continue to ignore it and just enjoy the work of others who have done the glorification for you.

You may wish to go ahead and purchase yourself a copy of Linzie Hunter’s Spam Project; a book of 30 hand-lettered postcards based on the subject lines of spam emails.

Brisbane-based design collective Inkahoots have also take a similar idea and turned it into the wonderful work below. I am particularly interested in 19th century design devices and embellishments at the moment (like folded ribbons and fancy borders), so I am especially fond of the way the spam text is incorporated into this.

Visit Linzie’s website for more of her work.

For more information on Inkahoots, see interview in Issue 4 of Typotastic (available at artsy/designy bookshops) or visit their website.

Typography, bookbinding, zine-making and letterpress printing workshops: Back2Basics [State of Design Festival, Melbourne]

Wed, 15 Jul 2009 13:08:00 +1000

If you are in Melbourne and you enjoy letterpress printing, bookbinding, hand lettering or zine-making then this is for you.

Back2basics 2009 is two days of workshops for creative professionals and students. Taking you back to the roots and heart of graphic design, these workshops will inspire you to discover a new future.

Some highlights:

Type & Drawing Tour
For the lovers of type and design, Andrew Ashton of Studio Pip and Co. has developed a walking tour to take in the sights and sketch type samples while burning a few calories. Starting at Wimbledon Ave and Brighton Rd Elwood, the tour will take in the astounding variety of anonymously developed type design just waiting for those prepared to hunt it out and develop the raw material for their next type odyssey. (I can’t believe I am not going to this…)

Type Workshop
With the the recent resurgence in the interest and practice of “hand-lettering”, this workshop will focus on the variety of contemporary examples of handdrawn graphics and type. From Dwiggins through to Ed Fella, an informal presentation will be followed by discussion. The second part of this workshop will be more practical, with various projects, both individual and in collaboration.

Letterpress Printing Introduction
Workshop participants will learn about the capabilities of letterpress, receive their name set in a linotype and learn how to make a photopolymer plate to print on an original Heidelberg Platen Letterpress.

+ zine-making, bookbinding and more.

I am devastated that I cannot participate because I have a wedding on one week, and am in Sydney the following. But if you are free, you must go! It will be spectacular. I am clearing my July diary for 2010, I think.

Location: RMIT Brunswick, 25 Dawson Street, Brunswick & Melbourne Museum of Printing, 36 Moreland street, Footscray

Phone: +61 3 9380 4440

Cost: $70 for AGDA members, $120 for non-members.

More info over at AGDA.

[That reminds me...] Pattern & Embellishments

Tue, 14 Jul 2009 23:17:00 +1000

Today I saw this lovely piece of work for Madam Madsen by Tim Bjørn whilst reading the selective and inspiring blog designworklife.

This made me think of other inspiring work I have been seeing lately that use pattern in a similar way. Firstly, it reminded me of Jessica Hische, (previously featured) and her wonderfully intricate embellishments, and secondly of the wonderful Marian Bantjes’ complex, highly resolved work.

Jessica Hische

Marian Bantjes’ Restraint typeface

And thirdly, it reminded me of the Kolam patterns that I also saw very recently on the equally wonderful BibliOdyssey.

Kolam (as it is known in Kerala and Tamilnadu) is form of sandpainting using rice powder that is traditionally practised by female members of the family outside the home. They are thought to bring prosperity to the home.

Images from BibliOdyssey

According to Bibbi Forsman:

“The basic pattern is a mathematical construction of beauty, one single line with no beginning and no end.”

Images — Bibbi Forsman

There’s such a rhythm and balance to these patterns and designs, and I love the craft and the mathematics involved in its traditional practise.

A few other delightful aspects of Kolam:

“Through the day, the drawings get walked on, rained out, or blown around in the wind; new ones are made the next day. Every morning before sunrise, the floor is cleaned with water, the universal purifier, and the muddy floor is swept well for an even surface.”

And my favourite:

“In olden days, kolams used to be drawn in coarse rice flour, so that the ants don’t have to work so hard for a meal. The rice powder is said to invite birds and other small critters to eat it, thus inviting other beings into one’s home and everyday life: a daily tribute to harmonious co-existence.”

(both—Wikipedia)

These characteristics of the practise reminded me of part of an essay by Ros Moriarty called Interpreting Visual Language: Aboriginal Australia (in Open Manifesto 2, 2005). Moriarty explains that the Indigenous Australian mark-making process similarly rejects the idea of art as precious, and immediately after being made a mark will naturally start to deteriorate and disappear.

“The diametric opposition between Indigenous and Western approaches to art, applies equally to signage. While a Western artist might often create a work to hang in a permanent location, to be reviewed and assessed, judged and acclaimed, the immediacy of Indigenous art making has no such aspirations. Whether gouged from rock on an inaccessible cliff face, scattered in ochre on the ceremony ground, or slathered in river clay on an initiate’s body, patterns and symbols are about the meaning of the moment. Their spontaneous beauty lacks artifice or self-interest. The very act of their creation is to pass knowledge, re-enact process, ensure meaning will pass to each new generation.”

Photo

Sat, 11 Jul 2009 18:20:13 +1000

Art & Street Type: (Ben) Eine [UK]

Tue, 07 Jul 2009 22:22:37 +1000

On my train ride home today I was looking at graffiti and marveling at the typographic mastery that sometimes surprises me amongst walls of scrappy tags and figurative murals. Then this evening I read about Eine’s work, over at my love for you is a stampede of horses, and it tied in so nicely with what I had been pondering earlier. I’m also pretty grateful to be introduced to Eine, though I feel I am somewhat behind the 8-ball.

On Thursday, July 9 Carmichael Gallery will play host to The A – Z of Change, the debut LA solo exhibition of Eine. Internationally recognized for his super-sized lettering in urban areas, Eine will unveil a new body of works on canvas that combines his trademark typeface, a vivid color palette and provocative imagery to powerful effect.

If I were in LA and not four squillion miles away in Melbourne, I would surely be checking it out.

There is also a Google Map of his letters in & around Shoreditch, UK.

All photos from Carmichael’s flickr set.

Art & Design: Aaron Moodie [Melbourne]

Tue, 07 Jul 2009 19:10:40 +1000

When I was busy spending more money than I had in MagNation the other week, this copy of Voiceworks caught my eye—not least because of its use of my favourite colour.

The design is striking, the typography is inventive. It was glossy and neat and flat. I immediately had to have it, though I had no idea what the magazine was or what it contained. Further inspection revealed that it contained new writing (laid out wonderfully) by young Australians — fantastic.

: Cover of Voiceworks, Designed by Aaron Moodie

The inside cover revealed Aaron Moodie was responsible for the design and so off I went on a tiny key-tapping research mission.

His website reveals that he is a Graphic Designer with 8 years’ experience but has “an interest in pretty much anything that involves making things”. He has worked on everything from magazines to typefaces, books to logos, websites to interfaces.

: Page from Sneaker Freaker, designed by Aaron

: Aaron’s Walrus Typeface

He has also worked on quite a few websites, including one for The Pond, a summer pop-up bar from Pure Blonde beer. Sadly it appears that I missed his first exhibition of artworks by the Platform Artists Group in the Majorca Cases last month (Centre Place, Melbourne).

: PSP Rhythm logo

: PSP Rhythm

Aaron has a diverse and impressive body of work. He’s prolific and consistently inventive in his approach, especially when it comes to web design. Check out aaronmoodie.com, and you can also follow Aaron on twitter and check out his Flickr page.

loobylu, Melbourne illustrator and sewing extraordinaire (and...

Tue, 07 Jul 2009 17:50:05 +1000

loobylu, Melbourne illustrator and sewing extraordinaire (and whose blog I must have been reading for at least 4 years), now has a Tumblr — and when I saw this I just had to reblog it! Any typography nerds will love this, and anyone that just likes a good fox!

The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog - for realz! (via @huyckd)

Illustration, Art & Hilarity: David Fullarton [USA]

Mon, 29 Jun 2009 16:40:11 +1000

These artworks are part of David Fullarton’s installation in the offices of a Houston radio station, called What I do when I’m supposed to be working.

The works were placed in amongst other flyers and notices in the office. It is part of the Sisyphus Office project which involves artists who wish

to highlight art as an integral and necessary distraction in our day to day life.

Below are some of those necessary distractions.

- words to live by