unsolicited opinions on random things
50 States, 50 Designers – each one creates an illustration around their state’s motto. See the gallery here. More are posted every day.
My favourite is the one for Florida designed by Two Arms Inc, above. Sidenote – who knew that was Florida’s state motto? I guess they couldn’t find an original one, so they copied the motto for the entire country.
[via DesignWorkLife]
I love Uppercase Magazine, and look forward to each issue. But I’m really looking forward to Issue 8, which is set to arrive any day now. Uppercase asked a bunch of letterpress shops and artists to donate samples of their work to share with Uppercase subscribers. Each copy will feature a small letterpress sampler, and a few lucky lucky people will get all of the samples (over 50 items).
Have a look at Uppercase’s Flickr page for images of the letterpress samples. Check the Uppercase blog during the month of February for updates on the giveaway.
You know I love me some gorgeous fonts. But sometimes when I look at my (giant) collection of typefaces, I’m not sure which one to use for a project. Or I need some inspiration on how to use the type well.
Lately I’ve been turning to two websites for help – Beautiful Type and Fonts in Use. Both feature photos and screen shots of type being used well in the real world. Beautiful Type will often credit the designer, but Fonts in Use takes it one step further – they’ll tell you exactly which typefaces are being used, and how, via a well-written editorial on each piece. So helpful!
The design blog world is all a-flutter with Matchbook Magazine – the latest in a steady stream of shelter/lifestyle mags (seems everyone’s still trying to fill the void left by Domino).
I’ll admit, I was a bit skeptical about Matchbook. I only have so many hours in the day, and as much as I love wasting time online, a magazine has to be really great to hold my attention. So I checked it out, thinking I’d give up after reading a few pages.
But then I stumbled on this page:
I want just about EVERYTHING here. Look, there’s a bookplate that says “This book belongs to Avery”!
And then I kept reading, and saw articles about Anna Bond (of Rifle Paper Co), Peggy Guggenheim, Princess Margaret (who knew she was an “it girl”?), Burberry, Jemma Kidd, Warby Parker… and that’s just in the first half of the magazine.
Matchbook Magazine, you’ve won me over.
Don’t you just love Kate Spade? Lately I find that Ms. Spade and Jonathan Adler are my biggest sources of design inspiration. Both are so good at working with bright colours in a way that looks chic and stylish, and not childish or sloppy.
Check out Kate Spade’s Living Colorfully/The Year of Color project. She’s choosing 12 signature shades, and unveiling a new colour each month (with accompanying limited edition prints, short films, and products, of course). First up – red. Just what we all need for the January blahs!
Lately I’ve been really enjoying the blog from Eight Hour Day. Eight Hour Day is the name of the design studio run by husband and wife team Nathan Strandberg and Katie Kirk. They do really cool design and illustration, and their projects include websites, posters, branding, and even a children’s book. Oh yeah, and of course their own website is as gorgeous as everything else they do.
And as if that wasn’t already cool enough, they decided to take a year to travel across the States, setting up camp and working along the way. More on that here.
But anyway, back to the blog. They do a regular thing called “The Best Thing I Saw Today” and both Strandberg and Kirk post an image of something they saw and liked. It’s inspiring.
The Selby has posted a roundup of his favourite images from 2010. That’s Karl Lagerfeld’s book room up there at the top. Swoon.
I love Marc Johns. He’s an illustrator based in Victoria, BC and I just can’t seem to get enough of his work. I have his illustrations on my business cards (which always elicit a response from prospective clients), I love flipping through his book, and I follow his work on his website/blog.
So I was pretty thrilled to see his contribution to the Twitter/Etsy Artist Series. Entitled “The Pursuit of Radness”, Johns’ piece is available as a free download to save as wallpaper for your computer screen, iPhone, iPod, or iPad. Apparently Johns thinks that’s what 2011 should be all about – the pursuit of the rad. I like it.
[via DesignWorkLife]
Isn’t this typeface gorgeous? It reminds me of hand-lettering, which I wish I was better at. Maybe that will be my New Year’s resolution… try/practice hand-lettering. In the meantime, I’d love to use Breathe by Lian Types in a project.
Veer has done a nice slideshow of their staff’s favourite fonts of 2010. Don’t you love Business Penmanship (pictured above)? Other favourites include Strangelove (which I blogged about here), and Lady Rene (glad to see I still like it… I blogged about it back in July).
