Bjorn Rune Lie
I just had to share how beautiful I find Bjorn Runelie’s work. The piece in question is a album cover. I love to see beautiful illustration used on any sort of packaging. The album cover stands out in the dearth of quality packaging design.
Victor and Susie
This is a spread from Victor and Susie, He came in the Vegetable Box, by Brighten the Corners. The dialogue is witty and perfect and the illustrations are even better than perfect.
“Personality is defined in two ways: what is inherited and what is consciously assimilated.”
Throughout the last century deconstruction and practicality made their mark on every discipline of design. Simplification was key– rhyme and reason took precedent, overthrowing extraneous information. Seurat was replaced with Mondrian, as form and function took the lead. The inception of the web revitalized the clutter. The use of gradients in logos became commonplace, confusing non-designers with trendiness over good-taste. The former all too often wins. So just for a second, let’s reflect on the beauty of effective communication that’s done effortlessly and ever-so-simply. Here’s to one of the most famous Swiss Designers to ever have lived, Josef Müller-Brockman.
Mark Ryden
The supremely talented painter has captivated the masses since his debut show in the early 90′s. His eerie characters are set in a muted landscape- delicate and masterfully painted- in a style only Ryden himself can pull off (although many try). If you are a lover of the classics, Ryden adds a modern day twist without falling short on any of the technique.
Taro Gomi
We are huge fans of Taro Gomi. Lucky for us, there is no shortage of his work. Gomi has illustrated over 400 books in Japan. His artwork has a tinge of Keith Haring’s style- who just so happens to be another beloved artist of ours. So if you’re in the mood to doodle and need a little inspiration, Taro Gomi might just be your man.
Because the people who are crazy enough to think they can change the world are the ones who do.
Thank you, Steve, it was insanely great.
Ralph Eugene Meatyard Romance: (N.) from Abrose Bierce #3, 1962, © Estate of Ralph Eugene Meatyard
This summer, The Art Institute of Chicago, hosted the Ralph Eugene Meatyard: Dolls and Masks exhibition. I was charmed by the nightmarish quality of Meatyard’s work. Adorned with masks and mystery, it pulls from literature and zen to make an unsettling visual. Ironically, Meatyard is from Normal, Illinois and worked as an optician. He first bought a camera to document the beginning of his first son’s life. Somehow, what you see above happened.
A Beautiful Mixture
Whenever I see a Charley Harper illustration, I immediately think of a sleepy classroom filled with black-topped tables, beakers, and microscopes. If you’re wondering what I am getting at, I’m talking about 5th grade science class. One look at his work and you’ll probably understand. If you are a biology lover like I am, Harper’s work might be worth a look. To me, Charlie Harper is synonymous with biology—and I happen to love both. His work is imaginative, colorful, and at times didactic. Harper himself called it “minimal realism”. Although some of his work has nothing to do with science, they are by far my favorite pieces.
Monocle
Monocle isn’t, strictly speaking, a magazine about design. What it is, though, is a magazine thoroughly imbued with design.
Tyler Brûlé, Monocle’s founder, is also the creative force behind Wallpaper–a magazine which is certainly about design–and Winkreative, the London design shop responsible for re-branding Swiss International Airlines.
The magazine is beautifully designed, easy to navigate and always interesting. It also serves as something of a catalog for desirable objects, both Monocle-branded and from other sources. Things you need and things you want.
Once you pick up a copy, you’ll eagerly await the next.
Thanks a Lot. No, Really.
Math probably isn’t the first thing that comes to mind when thinking of art and design. However, geometry has ennobled design by creation of the grid. For non-designers: A grid sets proportional lines both horizontally and vertically where type and media can sit. Use of a grid allows designers to combine creativity with structure. The eye inherently leans towards this stability.
No one has mastered the grid quite like Karl Gerstner. In 1962, Gerstner developed a 58-unit grid that allowed designers infinite variation while adhering to a single system. Based on the golden-ratio, it is, in our opinion, a perfect thing. We thank you, Karl Gerstner, for your grid and for doing the math for us.
Just My Type
Simon Garfield’s Just My Type: a book about fonts has arrived in America, to much fanfare and controversy.
For type lovers, as we are, it’s the sort of book that you devour at one sitting. There are points (more than one) about which one might quibble, but its overall impression is one of a book that is well-written, thoroughly-researched (Maybe a little too thoroughly, in the case of Eric Gill–spoiler alert: Gill was not the type of person with whom you would leave your children or, for that matter, pets) and a fun read.
One of our design heroes, the great Massimo Vignelli, just celebrated his 80th birthday.
If you’ve made it here, you probably know who Vignelli is and you have a general idea about what he has contributed to virtually every design discipline, so we won’t take the time to rehash his accomplishments, only to say 100 di quest giorni.
Square Up
If you are a small business like we are and you don’t use Square, you really should. Square was developed by Jack Dorsey, the mastermind behind Twitter, and is the ideal way for small businesses to accept credit card payments.
Square works in a very clever fashion. The card reader (The white thingy in the photo) fits into the headphone jack of your iPhone (Android, too, but we don’t really know anyone who’d use one) and you swipe a credit card through the slot. It acts just like the credit card device at your local merchant.
The interface is simple and elegant and on the iPad, it’s even better–it allows you to have your inventory in the app. Once swiped, the device transmits the card data via the radio or over wi-fi. Your customer gets and email or SMS receipt and you get the money into your bank account quickly.
We think Square is a great example of creative problem solving and a huge boon for small businesses.
Pretty, Smart
We love the iPad 2 and we especially love Apple’s incredibly clever Smart Cover. It is not only beautiful (We use the light grey) but it is practical as well.
The Smart Cover attaches to iPad by means of magnets. They self position and are incredibly strong given their diminutive size. The cleverness comes by means of the positioning of the magnets. There are magnets on the iPad’s frame which attract those on the Smart Cover, so that no matter your level of coordination, the Cover is positioned correctly every time.
In addition, when closed, the Smart Cover puts the iPad to sleep. Open the cover and the iPad awakens–no more battery drain.
We think that the Smart Cover is one of the most beautiful and useful things that Apple has ever done. And that is saying a lot.
Present and Correct
Our friends at London’s Present and Correct are shopkeepers, in the best sense of the word. Digital shopkeepers, but shopkeepers nonetheless.
Blessed with great eyes for design, they search throughout the world for unique and beautiful design. What they select could be anything from a wooden ruler, made in the 1950s, to a vintage Olivetti typewriter. The common thread is great design.
Our offices are filled with things we’ve found on their site. Most of which we had absolutely no idea that we needed until we got there but were convinced we couldn’t live without, once we saw it.
When you make it to their online store, plan on spending some time there. We’re sure that you’ll be as captivated as we are.
The Most Beautiful Type In The Univers(e)
In the great type divide of 1957, between users of Helvetica and Univers, we come down squarely on the side of Adrian Frutiger’s masterpiece.
To us, Univers is as beautiful as a typeface can be. It is the Grace Kelly of type–cool, elegant and a bit ‘aloof.’ It’s clear when setting it that Frutiger thought about every instance in which it might be used. It is rational in its beauty, its usefulness being a large part of that beauty.
Designers talk about ‘neutrality’ as the reason they choose a face like Helvetica or Univers. But we disagree. We use Univers because of its absolute beauty. As designers, most of the time, the written word is our most important consideration and Univers conveys those words with an elegance that other typefaces just can’t.
And Frutiger’s beautiful 1999 digital redraw, now called ‘Linotype Univers’ provides even more weights than the 1957 original. More beauty, as it were.
The Greatest Store That Ever Lived
I grew up in Southern California, in a house filled with Chippendale and over-stuffed, roll-arm sofas, at a time when people who embraced modernism were viewed as a little “odd.”
In college, at USC, I met a professor who changed my life: Sam Hurst. Sam was the dean of the Architecture school at USC and he taught a cultural history class. Where I had been exposed to what my mother would have called “Early American,” Sam taught us about Mies and Charles and Ray Eames and Le Corbusier. I had entered the class as a history major, intending to go to law school and a career in politics. I left determined to do something in design.
As summer approached and the class was ending, I told Sam that I was going to be in Boston for part of the summer. To which he replied, “Well, then, you have to go to Design Research.” I did, and what I saw informed the rest of my life and confirmed that I was right to think of changing careers.
Entering the store was like entering a Disneyland for design. Everywhere your eyes turned was something new and bright and exciting. There was Marimekko and Heller and Fritz Hansen and Arabia and Iittala. Everything that a “modern” life required.
Jane Thompson and Alexandra Lange have produced the definitive retrospective of that magical store, Design Research: The Store That Brought Modern Living To American Homes. If you’re like me and you want to relive the day you first walked through those doors, or if you were never lucky enough to visit the store, grab it, you won’t be disappointed.
Thanks, Sam.
As Little Design As Possible
If you’ve read our posts, or looked at our work, you may have reckoned that we are modernists to our core. So it should come as no surprise that we worship at the shrine of Braun and the extraordinary man who led its design efforts for more than 30 years, Dieter Rams.
Sophie Lovell and Phaidon have produced a wonderful new book, As Little Design As Possible, exploring Rams’ oeuvre in beautiful words and pictures. The book explores Herr Rams’ brilliant career in glorious detail, laying out his ‘ten principles’ of good design: good design is innovative, useful, and aesthetic. Good design should be make a product easily understood. Good design is unobtrusive, honest, durable, thorough, and concerned with the environment. Most of all, good design is as little design as possible.
