grain edit posted a post about another poster (person) who posted about the travel posters (wall art) of daphne padden, a british illustrator and designer. in the 50's and 60's, padden created posters for Royal Blue Coach Services (a UK bus company) which make up the majority of the collection shown. the rest of padden's posters are just as whimsical.
and you can see the collection here.
we pick paper. we pick the best (or at least advise the best) number of pages, where to print, inks, varnishes, and sometimes say - "hey, you know, you should just do this online."
and considering that we have that much control over even just one little brochure - some say, designers have more influence in environmental impact than your average politician.
if you're one of those that doesn't believe it (still fuming over the whole bush vs kerry, bush vs gore, bush vs common sense debaucle?)
design can change will not only give you a better outlook or some environmental optimism - it will give you plenty of clues as how to use your design powers for the good of the earth.
you can sign the pledge, find resources and refer your clients to this site if they want green design that you just can't give to them. it might not be instant change, but it's a very well kerned step in the green direction.
here's a nice site dedicated to, wait for it...
wait for it...
...logos.
it's a blog called logo design love. the name pretty much speaks for itself.
i wonder if they have a sister site, like "logo design hate". because though design love can be pretty inspirational, i'm sure "design hate" could make you feel a lot better about yourself as a designer on those days you feel your creative is a little "not so fresh".
everyone wants to do a logo - but even though, to the world, it seems like the simplest piece of a company's visual system - it's probably the most complicated of undertakings. there's no illustrator button or key command that you can push to "create a mark that will identify the company's entire persona, stand out and last forever and look equally as good on a letterhead as it would on a website."
there are many sucky logos and many great designers that have done them. you see them all around. that's why we worship the designers that have mastered them. david airey writes a nice post on some of the best notable logo designers. not like we didn't know who they were anyway - but getting a refresher on what's really awesome can't do anything but inspire us to do better.
in no way is this new - but in most ways, it's super cool.
typetester is a site where you can play with font, leading, tracking, color, word spacing and decoration (and more), click on "get code" and get the css code for your website.
it's like a typographer's web dream.
is it gets people thinking, talking and acting. it also engages people to speak up. or in this case, design/illustrate their opinions. see more posters from artists against the war at the society of illustrators site. it's a pop-up type window to view - so my link is not a direct link. you'll have to go under "quick links" in the lower left side to view all the posters.
but hey - it's worth clicking twice to get to it.
speak up posted an article about a great find found on the obama campaign's website. i'm not going to post my views on who should be the next president, but i'm really liking the multiple-audience-identification here and the smart design. i think it'd be interesting seeing who people would vote for based on the candidate's logo. might be something to investigate.
i arrived at branchhome.com earlier today, looking for a gift image to illustrate from for a little holiday project i'm working on.
everything's recycled, renewed, reclaimed, but each and everything on the site, designwise, is remarkable. the furniture gets really pricey. but what you get for the money is a wicked awesome table that's made out of recycled paper (see left) and you also get to save the world a little bit. you can't say that after you shop at crate and barrel.
to the left is the overall winner for the european logo design annual, or for short, "eulda."
from almost 1000 excellent entries from 33 different countries, 201 logos were chosen to be published in the eulda '07 annual. some, wait, most, okay, all of these are really tight.
QBN - those people that bring us Newstoday and Krop organized a design lecture series held in LA at the getty center.
here's a snippet of joshua davis' talk:
more videos and pics are online. here's a portal to the awesomeness most of us missed.
i found the marqspusta art and design studio site online doing a search for new design inspirations, and it was listed on HOW magazine's design firm list. i also found freaklanotte, a great illustrator's web portfolio, which made it onto HOW's top ten website list.
the illustrations on both the aforementioned sites are pretty great - full of flavor and personality. the sites on the top ten list are cool, except the ones that wouldn't load, and if anyone could tell me how to play and of the samorost games, i'd really appreciate it. i got the one guy to throw his pipe down and made the people in the outerspace rice fields jump, but that's about it.
low and behold, john sent me a link this morning to a site he said i'd love: designers-who-blog - a site that features blogs about design by designers, about life by designers, about blogs by designers, and, of course, designers who blog. it's probably one of my most favorite sites to come across, as it has led me to many many more sites that have been added to my bookmarks bar - like joshuaink (pictured left, which i bookmarked bc it is a greatly illustrative yet simply designed blog that i read very quickly but was amazed bc of how pretty it is - so yes, i basically just "looked at the pictures").
i'm not only jealous of the sites they feature bc some of them are extremely gorgeous and are evidence that these designers know way more about designing blogs than i do, but bc my other form of green-ness is they're featured on the designers-who-blog site.
my jealousy is miniscule to the tremendous amount of jubilation i have to finding a great resource and community of like-minded bloggers. it's like discovering mecca.
