Posts by Shelby White

Intelligence in Lifestyle magazine is the new holy grail of infographic greatness. It is a high-end Italian magazine aimed at men. The magazine is equipped with a beautiful design by the art director Francesco Franchi and the creative director Luca Pitoni.

For some of us, getting ahold of the magazine could be difficult. However, several several of the layouts from the interiors spreads and covers are archived on Flickr. Check out the larger sizes, they may compliment your desktop nicely. If in case you’re wondering, the magazine utilizes Publico, a serif face that fits perfectly into the design is much less ubiquitous than say Helvetica or Archer.

On another note prior to being introduced to this magazine via Colorcubic, I was starting to become overwhelmed by the amount of infographics being pumped into the designosphere. Infographics about infographics were being designed for crying out loud. It just seems like it has become trendy very quickly. It’s not to say its a bad thing, but it sure makes me appreciate great design like in this magazine or Nicholas Felton’s works more than ever before.

I’m curious to hear what your thoughts are on this topic.
Do you feel there is an influx of infographics and is it a good or bad thing?

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Miller/Hull designed this house for a young couple that had a high interest in modern architecture. The completed house fits perfectly with the Pacific Northwest theme and is situated in the woods of Mercer Island near Seattle.

Personally it’s one of my favorites in the Pacific Northwest. The ratio of wood to metal beams/siding seems nicely balanced, especially on the deck.

httpvh://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9CVKU3ErrGM

The Fallingwater house was designed by Frank Lloyd Wright and built during 1934-1937 in Mill Run, Pennsylvania. The house was originally a weekend home for Edgar Kaufmann and his family. Over time the house has become a historic landmark and also known as one of the most well known residences in the United States by the American Institute of Architects.

Wright’s goal for this house was to make man and nature harmonious, much like Japanese architecture. Instead of building the house alongside the waterfall like the Kaufmann family originally had planned, Wright designed the house to sit directly on top of the falls. The house then became part of the falls; the sounds of the water echoing throughout the entire house.

Images via Arch Daily.

Mads Berg is by far one of the most refreshing illustrators I’ve seen in quite sometime. His works range from a crisp, modern Art Deco style to more 3-dimensional environment illustrations. Each of his pieces have such an engaging style that immediately welcomes you.

What I take from these illustrations is the execution of the core concepts. The amount of riffraff in these is nil—it’s down to the bare essentials which leaves us with a very simple illustration and clear message. What more can you ask for?

It’s a shame that I haven’t seen this style reflected more in today’s design trends. However, it could be that I’m just not tapping into the streams that they’re in.

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While this has been around the Behance block, I can’t help but admire this piece by Francisco Andriani. The use of typography in these pieces is gorgeous. The noisy photographs and large type along with a relaxed but secure color palette also really sets the mood of airports.

Seeing these info graphics makes me want to see this style implemented nicely in the terminal. Large monitors showing arrival and departure times with this style would be stunning. Especially if used on large installations like these. With a little collaboration I could see Tyler Thompson’s boarding passes and Francisco’s info graphics alongside one another in the near future in airports.

But part of me asks: how relevant would this style of design be to the traveler?

The best thing about this residence is that it was built over thirty-five years ago by Bates Masi Architects and was recently restored back to its original simplistic form. This would explain why the exterior wood paneling is so perfectly aged in relation to the interior paneling of the house.

The wooden panels alongside other elements of the house, were re-used in the restoration. Nearly all of the panels both inside and outside of the house are twelve-inch wide cypress boards. These knot-filled boards to me seem like the perfect fit when viewing the house in its surrounding environment.

Yep, that’s right. You’d better believe it, Canon is actually introducing a Jackie Chan edition of the EOS 550D. When I first came across this I didn’t know what to think. I’ve been a Canon user from day one and I’ve seen a lot of the seemingly pointless releases Canon has done in the past. I’m sure some of you can agree with me when saying that, but this release is seems to be something slightly more unique. However, in my mind I would much rather see Canon add some more lenses to their current L series lineup than to see another entry level camera. But of course I’m a bit biased as I shoot with a 1dmkII.

With my initial thoughts aside of how this edition may just be another pointless release, I could start to see some of the value in this product. It wasn’t until I started poking around for more images that I realized the user manual, neck-strap and wrap-case were also actually somewhat enjoyable. The case, in it’s own way, seems to be a nod to the old leather film camera cases and the gold/greenish colors that Canon adapted into this set, gave me an impression that they are trying to reflect back on the era of film.

Fortunately, those small features aren’t enough to win me over so the big question still remains: At $1465 for the set, would you buy this or a 7D?

Images via Canon Rumors.

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Any architecture that is built with nature in mind, is made with concrete and has wooden interior elements, immediately gets an instant like from me. There’s just something about the combination of wood, concrete and trees that I love.

In this case the trees were included by law. Local construction codes of Mar Azul, Beunos Aires, Argentina actually restrict the removal of trees. Instead of relocating the house the architects, Martín Fernández de Lema and Nicolás F. Moreno Deutsch, decided to build the house around them. Leaving the end result a beautifully designed, wide open house that is seemingly the perfect spring or summertime residence.

Images via Arch Daily.

In case you haven’t heard, a new $100 bill was recently unveiled and will be rolling out in early 2011. The good news is that the new bill will be flashy. It has been updated to include some new “3D” anti-counterfeiting features. The bad news is that the design suffered in doing so.

Maybe I’m expecting too much, but the new features that this bill has brought to the table aren’t doing it for me. The few techie “3D” color-shift features are cool but clearly look to be crammed alongside and over other elements in the design. If you look at an old $100 bill, you can see that the design has more of a structured layout from element to element. As hard as it is to say, the new design actually has a couple positive things going for it, but they still don’t outweigh the negatives.

The new design adds vibrant color which something that the old bill lacked. It seems to me that if such a vibrant color is added, it should only be in one location: either in the actual numbers or as the background of the entire bill. I do believe that the spot of color on the back of the bill (second image) is a nice accent when used with the larger ‘100’ type but I can’t say the same for the color accent on the front.

With that said, it’s pretty clear that I’m skeptical about this design, but what do you think. Were these design changes for better or for worse?

Calendars to me have always been items that I tell myself to use, but rarely do. However, I think that would change if I had this beautifully designed 200 year calendar by Sonner, Vallée u. Partner–a Munich, Germany based design studio.

This calendar was letterpress printed on a thick, 220lb cotton stock and is approximately 16.5 x 11.6 inches in size (click images to see larger).

Images via Beast Pieces.