These book covers caught my eye immediately as I was fumbling through mid century design archives. The designer who created these was Richard Paul Lohse for the swiss architectural magazine Bauen + Wohnen. The actual booklet size is about 13 x 9.4 inches.
Images via joekral Flickr & info via The Wiedler Collection.
All new designspiration from Australian based design studio, War Design. This project was for CTA, a technical adhesive company. The goal was to reflect a new level of professionalism and technical advancement in their field and I believe they’ve done that in a strong manner.
Wouldn’t you agree that the system put into place for the Prohesive, Polyblend, and MCB product lines make them sing? The unfortunate thing is that these bags will see the trash can all too soon.
Via Lovely Packaging.
If you’re just tuning in to part 2 of the Hipstamatic iPhone camera app review, you can catch part 1 here. This set of photos is from this past week around Seattle. I used a combination of lenses and flashes to get the effects that I wanted. Once again, the best part about this app is that its fair unpredictable which leaves room for interesting results every time.
If you have photos taken with the Hipstamatic app, feel free to post your results in a link, in the comments. I would love to see how yours turn out.
It’s funny how you stumble upon things online. I found these 1970’s Traveller Series games quite randomly and noticed how completely different the design was for games in the 70’s versus games now (ie. Life, Batman). Growing up I wasn’t that into games but I still do enjoy a good one from time to time. My favorites being Yahtzee, Zilch or even Polish Poker.
These pieces were created in the 1960’s by the graphic design pioneer Peter Seitz. It seems to me that Seitz’s work revolves a lot around forms (triangle, circle, square, line etc.). My favorite is the urban/regional studies institute piece. It uses an expressive intersection of shapes that really draws my eye in.
Images via Walker Art & Ryan Gerald.
Cargegie Mellon University is the home to a very large Swiss Poster Collection. There are more than 300 works ranging from 1970 to present time. This collection was established by Swiss graphic designer Ruedi Ruegg and Professor Daniel Boyarski.
The Collection contains work by designers such as Max Bill, Paul Bruhwiler, Ruedi Kulling, Herbert Leupin, Josef Muller-Brockmann, Roger Pfund, Ruedi Ruegg, Niklaus Troxler, Wolfgang Weingart, Kurt Wirth, R. Schraivogel, Cornel Windlin, and many others.
Check out more posters and information on the Swiss Collections website. » CONTINUE READING THIS POST
The 1967 world fair in Montreal, Canada was held together by one unifying object–the Expo 67 logo. Quite possibly it is one of the most cleanly executed and memorable World Fair logo’s to date. The combination of the timeless icon combined with beautifully kerned type (set in the Optima Roman typeface), really unified the core ideas behind Expo 67.
The theme of this World Fair was ‘Man and his World’. Every pavilion in one way or another, represents this theme of man to the world around him. The designer responsible for this logo was Julien Hébert, a Canadian industrial designer. At the soul of this logo is Hébert’s conceptual use of an ancient sign representing man–vertical line with arms outstretched to either side–close in proximity to represent friendship. The symbol representing man is repeated in a circle, extending the conceptual representation of unity of mankind around the world.
It’s a wonderful feeling to look back at older art & design. This particular group of images, sourced from a pool on Flickr called Mid-Century Modern Art & Design, are just a few of many that I really enjoyed.
Don’t let the great image of the Sands Motel fool you. Maybe at one point in its life it was an oasis but now, its far from it. I included this image because of my personal recollection of the motel and also because I wasn’t aware that the Sands Motels existed anywhere but in downtown Boise, Idaho. In the image above it looks gorgeous and like it was the hot spot. That certainly wasn’t the case in Boise back in 2002.
The Sands Motel as I know it, was a trashy, run-down motel where drug deals and prostitutes went down. The sheets of the beds had burn holes, the knob of the sink came off to the touch and fell down the sink (whoops), and lastly the TV. My brother and I were little and of course wanted to watch some TV (more than likely to get our minds off the fact that this motel was sketchy) so our dad hardwired the TV back into working order because someone had cut the wires off the back of it for some unknown reason. On top of that I believe that when our dad went into the lobby to get a room, the guy was sleeping in his chair with his arms falling back to each side and his head tilted over the back of the chair, looking like he was dead. If this wasn’t an indication that we shouldn’t stay here, then I don’t know what was.
Alex Varanese is a stunning graphic designer based out of San Francisco. His work has a very unique and retro feel to it, using experimental type to really make each piece sing. Initially the detail is what I was drawn to, but after reading about Alex on various sites, I realized that the majority of his work is true 3D Illustrations. It’s extremely hard to tell because each piece has been completed so extensively. I could only imagine that each one of these pieces was substantially time consuming.
I would love to take the time to learn how to work with a real 3D program such as Maya or 3ds Max. It seems like there is so much that could be done design-wise. If you have any other great 3d design links, feel free to share them.
Hit the jump to see larger images.
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These images are of a 1960’s magazine called Venture. It’s a shame there really isn’t that much information about the magazine.
Via the Retro America Flickr pool
This project, brand and identity development, was for long time friend and photographer Ian Matteson. Ian is an action and commercial based photographer out of Salt Lake City, Utah. Along with Ian’s action and commercial work, he shoots a lot of film/fine art photographs. As the project progressed, I realized just how great it would be to incorporate these other areas into core components of his brand. We both have put in endless hours working on this project and really are excited to have this portion of it completed.
Objectives & Goals
Our first main objective was to develop an identity for Ian that really complimented his style of photography also keeping his long and short-term goals in mind, while at the same time, enabling him to stand out among others in the photography industry. After talking about these goals we came to recognize that simplicity was key in this case. We needed people to remember his name through his work and needed to be unique in the way that we were doing it. A brand that was cohesive would in itself set Ian apart from his competition.
Logo Development
Before diving into headfirst into the design, Ian and I sat down (mostly via iChat) and researched current and past photographer logo trends. Based upon our research, we saw a pattern. It showed that generally the more successful photographers opt to utilize their name as their logo. In some cases, Ian’s competition also did this, but completely lacked the visual stability throughout their brand and the uniqueness of the logotype.
The few sketches above show alleys that were explored. Although my initial icon sketches didn’t make the cut, they still provided a point in which I could look at how an icon could assist or take away from the main logo. This was the point where we really questioned tradition and steered away from using an icon. There would be no case where Ian would need to use one and going back to our original goal: We want people to remember his name–not an icon.
» CONTINUE READING THIS POST
When large typography and monochrome color combine, I fall in love. This is without a doubt, one of my favorite package designs this year. The product, Ms men by Mesoesthetic, was designed by Espluga + Associados a Barcelona based design group. If anyone from Mesoesthetic just happens to be tuning in I would love to get my hands on some of this product.
These are just a few of the web designs done late last year for Shwood Eyewear out of Portland, Oregon. The website itself was to be built in HTML/CSS with jquery components and a full-browser Flash video player. This project is one of many more to be included in the new portfolio the next few weeks.
When mixed, large type and beautiful images always get me. This project by Studio 8 blends the two together to form a beautiful booklet. It’s aim is to raise awareness about the destruction of the Amazon rainforest. The booklet is made from only one sheet of FSC certified paper, folding out from the cover into a 12-page concertina, maximizing the sheet usage and minimizing waste.
So you’re about to start the best project in the world and are thrilled to have it in your portfolio. Fast-forward twenty days and you’re now wishing that you’d never agreed to do this project because your client has forgotten why they hired you as a designer–to build something really great. It’s safe to say that that most of us in the industry have experienced a similar situation. Feel free to vent your story in the comments.
Hit the jump to read the comic and have a good laugh.
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