Readmill is pretty
Their website is lovely, the app looks beautiful and the typography is delicious.
Site at readmill.com, write up at fontsinuse.com/readmill
Even their sign up and login form is lovely.
Linna Xu
Linna Xu has some beautiful work in her folio.
I particularly love this three part booklet series that she created in response to a personal journey.
This project manifested itself in a three part series of booklets that detail the personal struggles that I faced after my parents’ divorce and how I came to overcome my personal barriers to realize the value of personal relationships. The entire book documents the three stages of my development: melancholy, uncertainty, and genuine happiness. The irregular page dimensions reflect the process of looking back and picking up elements of my life and stitching them together. Fragmented layouts within a loose grid reflect my disjointed and non-linear thought process. Similarly, although the overall order of the booklets is chronological, the order of events within them are not. This is to reflect the confusion that I experienced in my childhood. The last booklet is the most structured and ordered to show how I have come to better understand myself.
Jessica Hische for Kate Murphy
Good lord these cards are lovely.
Lettering and design is by Jessica Hische for Kate Murphy, lettepressed (wonderfully) by a friend of Kate’s.
Via designworklife.
Illustration: Jim Tierney [USA]
Jim Tierney’s work is not going to be ‘news’, but I did still want to post it because I think it’s so amazing — he possesses some formidable talent.
He designed a series of Jules Verne books as his senior thesis while studying Illustration and they are simply spectacular; be sure to watch the video below too, as not only are they beautiful, they are also delightful interactive objects.
His website is http://www.jimtierneyart.com/ and blog http://jimtierney.blogspot.com/
All work, images and video © Jim Tierney
Jim Tierney’s Jules Verne Series
The Australia Project
The Australia Project is an exercise in redefining the Australian stereotype and a new opportunity to discuss and explore our cultural identity as a nation.
The Australia Project is asking Australian creatives and the general public, to engage in a national debate regarding the current status of contemporary Australian culture.
We are seeking to explore and redefine clichéd national stereotypes in the hope of revealing unique and personal perspectives on Australia today.
The website is full of fantastic resources on Australian design, culture and identity, including links to Sydney photography project 52 Suburbs, work by Studio Pip & Co’s Andrew Ashton, Kevin Finn as well as other important essays and articles.
Julian Restaurant, Kansas [USA]
I am loving this very complete and polished identity for Kansas restaurant Julian by Brent Anderson + Nathaniel Cooper + Jordan Michael Gray from Bernstein-Rein. View the whole branding photo set on Flickr (via designworklife)
A brand identity and voice for a new neighborhood restaurant in Kansas City that features refined twists on familiar comfort food from James Beard award-winning chef Celina Tio. The name derives from Tio’s main cooking influences – Julia Child and her grandfather Julian. Design elements took cues from Child’s well-known, well-stocked kitchen.
The Print Directory [Australia]
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.
Illustration: Adam Simpson [UK]
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/
Cristiana Couceiro [Lisbon]
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.
Spam Art
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.
© Inkahoots (no title) from Tasmanian type mag Typotastic (Issue 4)
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.
[That reminds me…] Pattern & Embellishments
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.”
