Although catering primarily to Industrial Designers, Core77.com publishes articles, discussion forums, an extensive event calendar, hosts portfolios, job listings, a database of design firms, schools, vendors and services. A gathering point for designers and enthusiasts alike, the Core hosts design competitions, lecture series, parties, and exhibits. They’ve also assembled a collection of fantastic designer illustrations they call Core-Toons. Posted primarily by witty creatives lunchbreath and fueledbycoffee, I find myself returning here Sunday mornings, feeding some primal need to drink espresso and look at cartoons. Check out their respective sites or click the samples below to view Core77′s current collection.
After what I’m sure was a longer than expected development cycle, the good people at ilovetypography.com have finally brought the once browser based Rather Difficult Font Game to the iPhone and iPod Touch. The brainchild of Kari Pätilä and later brought to the masses at John Boardley’s brilliant site, The Font Game app is now bigger and more beautiful than ever. From the overall aesthetic, to the UI, to the huge typeface catalog (over 650) it’s obvious that this project was a labor of love. As a big fan of Justin Stahl’s previous app the Typography Manual, it’s easy to see why this game looks and feels as polished as it does. If you have even a casual interest in type or time wasting, the 99¢ price tag should make this download a no-brainer. With 3 difficulty levels, Twitter integration, post-game answers, high score saves and online leader-boards, this is a typophile’s dream come true.
Wow. This is really great. It’s not often that a project this proper pops up on the grid in the nation’s capital, and it’s not too late to get involved. If you’re not familiar with the Urban Forest Project, it’s a series of outdoor banner exhibitions taking root in cities around the world. In each location, artists, designers, students, and the general public will employ the idea or form of the tree to make a powerful statement on banners that will be displayed throughout the community. The tree is a metaphor for sustainability and, in that spirit, the banners at the close of each exhibition will be recycled into totebags and auctioned off to raise money for a local non-profit organization. Looks like you can submit as many entries as you’d like at $20 per (or free for all AIGA DC members) with 100 being selected, printed and proudly displayed throughout the District. Check out the website here, see the project specs here, or register here. December 18th is the cutoff for submissions, so get to work and please stop back to post a link to your entries. We’d love to see what you’ve got. Good luck everyone!
Where would we be without clients? We need them, and sometimes they even think they need us. It’s never good to bite the hand that feeds, but there’s something cathartic about the shared stories at ClientsFromHell.com. Sit back and simply enjoy the anonymously contributed horror stories or submit your very own. At the very least, take solace in the fact that we are all doing something that we’re passionate about, and even when the going gets tough, we are not alone.
I do my best to post only beautiful things here, saving all of my witty client-centric bitching for happy hours and what I can only assume is riveting pillow talk. But I just had to share this designer to client correspondence posted recently on David Thorn’s 27b/6. This brilliant back and forth is so perfect that I can’t help but question it’s authenticity. That said, it’s a can’t miss string of emails that I’m sure many of us can connect with on one level or another. I’ve included an appetizer below, but be sure to check out the complete post and a lot more like it on David’s site.
Take a long look at this eye candy from BYU design students and faculty, for the 5th Typophile Film Festival. Creative Director Brent Barson and friends take you through a visual typographic feast exploring the five senses, and how they contribute to and enhance our creativity. All of the processes here are super organic and analog with zero use of CG. Great work and edible ampersands from some very talented folks. Enjoy.
Whether used as a tiny portfolio, a compact, durable photo album, or a promotional piece, memolios are a great new way to present your images. Beautifully printed on crumple and water resistant stock, these little fellas are easy to create using their intuitive memoliator web app. Upload your images. Arrange and personalize them to your liking. Preview, share and ultimately order your prints. Featuring fast upload from your local machine or through your Flickr and Picasa albums, getting the perfect product couldn’t be easier. You’ll even get a digital copy of your work with a unique album url. Learn more at memolio.com or get a little inspiration from the thousands of the user posted memolios to their community page.
I just spotted these brilliant On/Off Switch magnets over at Molla Space. A set of 4 is $16 and for some reason, I feel like that is a very reasonable price for something that I do not need. If you’re into $5 coffee drinks or going to Whole Foods when you’re hungry, you’ll feel right at home shopping for shuriken magnets, hand grenade coin banks, and vases shaped like bombs. I however, intend to save my money for things I really need, like more fonts… [click to continue…]
Well designed + Beautiful + Free. French designer Julien Madérou has been kind enough to fashion this fancy iPhone and iPod Touch dock from a single piece of paper. Simply head over to his site, print the template onto a slice of your finest cardstock and dig that X-Acto knife out from the back of the drawer where you keep your dried up Prismacolor markers, dusty Zip disks and tired knead erasers. I’ve included a couple more photos of the dock after the jump. Merci Beaucoup M. Madérou. [click to continue…]
If you’ve never properly let the Beatles into your heart, or you find the casual use of video games to be beneath you, than you’re best served by skipping this post altogether. As a firm believer in the potential of video games or at least some evolved form of interactive escapism, I’ve continued to wonder why game developers seem content serving up what’s essentially the same genre based (racing game, sports game, 1st person shooter, 3rd person shooter, whatever World of Warcraft is…) rubbish, re-skinned and retooled but fundamentally unevolved year after year. Maybe it’s because the video game industry posted profits exceeding $50 billion in 2008, and that much money seems to indicate positive reinforcement. Rarely, but with increased frequency, there have begun to be signs that proper artistry can extend beyond video game “graphics” and help create elegant and intuitive menu and UI designs, in-game cinematics, motion graphics, and even impressive package design and marketing. I recently got my first look at some of the content created for the Beatles RockBand, and what I saw was genuinely beautiful. From the spot-on models and mannerisms of the Fab Four themselves to the motion graphics and CG heavy opening cinema, it’s clear that a ton of attention was payed to make this game’s looks and feel as polished as possible. Check out the videos after the jump, dig deeper at the Beatles RockBand website or just drop $250 for the Limited Edition version of the game to see the impressive work for yourself. [click to continue…]
CMwhyK is a blog dedicated to celebrating the beauty of design and the talented people behind it. It is my hope that this site becomes a frequent stop for those who want to share what beautiful means to them and why design matters.
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