Archive for January, 2011

Many of you may be familiar with the very talented Folkert Gorter. Not only has he brought us Cargo Collective, but he’s also half of the mysterious and wonderful butdoesitfloat. I was recently browsing his portfolio and found this excellent photography. Make sure to click the images to see the larger sizes, some really nice grain hiding in there.

This wonderful stop motion piece was created by Stockholm based Snask Studio. Every frame would make a great photo and the type is beautiful. More info in their words:

Above is a sneak-peak of our concept “Make Malmö happier”. It´s a stop motion, that took 3 weeks to piece together. The film is part of a greater campaign going out to 250 000 house holds in Skåne and the southern region of Sweden. Full concept presentation will arrive in your letter-box shortly.

Via Vectro Ave

Just a quick note that several standard edition prints (thermal press, hand signed, stamped, 11×17″ @ $20 ea, $17 ea. when you buy 3 or more) have been reprinted. Quantities are very limited at 80 per design and many will not be printed again in this format. Check them all out at The ISO50 Shop.

A great head nodding release by Mux Mool came out today with artwork done by Hydro 74, feel free to download, support and donate, enjoy.

From Mux Mool:

I think the first time you ever fly it can be very inspiring. To be high above, seeing clouds and what not. But when you start flying all the time, it becomes far less so. Actually, traveling in general can be rather soul sucking if you don’t properly prepare yourself. So this is an exercise in trying to remain inspired and present at a time when there is only frustration and anxiety and crying babies and snoring people and bad smells and stale air and delays and loneliness all around you. I found that focusing myself on this project help get me through many uncomfortable layovers and redeye flights.

This is a cool series by South Carolinian designer Marco Suarez. Great colors and composition, and the circle canvas gives them that little something extra. It might ruin it, but I’d love to see a little bit of type sprinkled in the outskirts. Nothing crazy, maybe just some cool looking numbers.

Some excellent examples from Graphis Packaging 3. I can say without any doubt in my mind, that packaging design has declined significantly over the past 20 years. Take a look at the more recent Graphis Packaging 9. Nothing in there even remotely piques my interest. I would love to hear a reasonable explanation of this phenomenon. Is it that marketing departments have slowly wrested control from true designers? Or is it just that I personally appreciate the style of a specific era to the current one? Or maybe I’m just so used to the style of things today that I am intrigued by the rarefied forms of the past. I’d like to think I’m being objective about the whole thing and that the above examples really are superior, but perhaps I’m not.

Anyone in the know care to shed some light on this? Have studies been done? I need answers!! I’ll tell you one thing, you could fill those boxes with whatever you wanted; if I saw them on the shelf I would buy them. Check out some more examples here.

Images via Crabstick

Roger O’Donnell is an English keyboardist best known for his work with The Cure, Psychedelic Furs, The Thompson Twins and Berlin. I’ve had the pleasure to see Roger play live in recent years, he’s definitely one of the main reasons why we fall in love with certain songs he wrote. Here are a few selections Roger was kind enough to share with us:

Efterklang – Mirador with the Danish National Chamber Orchestra. A go to band for me when nothing else is worth listening to.

Herbie Hancock – Vein Melter, Herbie “the keeper of the keys” pure Fender Rhodes magic from my mentor.

Tortoise – High Class Slim Came Floatin’ In, musical over achievers yes but they are prepared to push it to the edge, inspirational.

Tonto’s Expanding Headband – Cybernaut, all Moog.. What more do you need?

The image is called “The Perfect Garden” by Philistine DSGN

Its a shame that Seattle doesn’t have transportation passes as beautiful as these Muni Fast Passes from San Francisco. The muted colors and typography of these have really caught my eye.

Found via Flickr

LiveView is a nifty app for your iPhone or iPad that allows you to instantly screencast from your computer to your mobile device. It works over your network connection in conjunction with a desktop app. it was created by Nicolas Zambetti, a San Francisco based interaction designer.

I’ve found LiveView extremely useful over these past couple weeks during iPhone app development. To be able to quickly see how your graphics look in the intended environment is priceless, especially when compared to the alternative option, which usually involves dev simulators, wires, syncing, and TIME. This app essentially allows me to view Photoshop on my phone, live, while I make adjustments. Amazing.

Frank Chimero recently wrote a great piece on his hardware/software set-up. If I were to write my own, LiveView would be the most recent addition to the “essential” category.

Rafael Anton Irisarri puts together a playlist for us of Broadcast’s Trish Keenan, very devastating news for all music lovers.

“Last week I was extremely saddened by Trish Keenan’s tragic, untimely death. She was a brilliant, talented artist and her music became a huge inspiration to me. I love the sound of her voice, it was absolutely fantastic. The first time I heard Broadcast, I thought everytime her parts would come in, it was the work of an angel.

When Jakub asked me do a guest spot on ISO50 this week, I couldn’t think of anything else but Broadcast. So, with that in mind, I went over my collection and selected my favorite songs from their catalog. It was supposed to be only 4 tracks, but what can I say, I really liked their music so I ended up using 14 tracks instead. I never got to meet Trish, but I feel very lucky to have discovered her music and at least gotten to know that aspect of her life.”

R.I.P. Trish