Posts in Print

The Swedish National Bank had a competition for designers to redesign the Swedish banknote. The Stockholm Design Lab, was among the 46 competitors and was even among the top 8. Unfortunately they did not win, but their design was promising. I really enjoyed their banknote design because of the simplicity and type.

We’ve talked about currency design before but I’m still rather curious if there is a list somewhere out there that can detail all of the finer points that a new design for currency has to be upheld to. View the full PDF for SDL’s design process.

Do you feel this is a fitting redesign of the Swedish banknote?

Classic branding and packaging design by Barcelona-based firm Marnich Associtates. The stuff for Noguera & Vintro is incredible. Interestingly enough — and despite that excellent branding — they’re apparently the “exclusive distributor of Hello Kitty in Spain”. Good thing you have this incredible, minimalist branding, because we all know Hello Kitty retailers and very concerned with modernist graphic design.

All joking aside, this seems like a very strange choice of branding considering the product / market. It also just plain looks weird on the site with all that garish Hello Kitty stuff going on in the middle. Do you think the client asked for this seemingly incongruous style of branding or was it foisted upon them by an overzealous design shop? Judging from a lot of the playful work on Marnich’s site, I’d bet on the former as I could see them treating this right. Odd.

Via Aisle One

Program Your 808 via Rob Ricketts

These came out beautiful, i’m eyeing the Adonis one, anyone have one of these up at their place?

“A series of informative posters detailing how some of the most notable drum sequences were programmed using the Roland TR-808 Drum Machine. Each sequence has been analyzed and represented as to allow users to re-programme each sequence, key for key.”

You may recall the post I did a while back on Daily Book Graphics. Well apparently I misidentified several of those images as vintage covers when in fact they were modern works by designer Julian Montague who is part of the Buffalo based design duo Frazer / Montague.

Julian Montague | Frazer / Montague Design

The 1960s had some of the most interesting design. The typography and photography really pushed design in a beautiful direction. These 1960s Life Science book covers and graphics bring on such a wave of nostalgia. The typeface used in these was perfect.

Shared via Wanken / AquaVelvet.

These are from a great vintage science and tech ads set on flickr. There are over 1400 examples in the set so it will keep you busy for a while if you’re looking for some weekend design inspiration.

Science and Tech Ads Set on Flickr

Beautifully designed functional business cards designed by Katharina Hölzl for jazz duo Ritornell. The laser-milled cards play back music when ran through a specially designed music box. Very clever take on the idea of a calling card.

Via Create Digital Music

And for good measure here is a shot of Ritornell’s studio. Looks like a pretty serious setup…

When I look back into my childhood I try and figure out why I have such a intense passion for certain layouts, design and unique printing. I’m sure some of it just stems from trying to revive nostalgia, though sometimes I think it all comes back to my obsession with collecting sport cards, I think I was at 40k+ cards at one point and every Beckett Pricing Magazine imaginable. I’m only showing the tip of this iceberg so i’ll make it a series, we’ll start with some classic O-Pee-Chee and Fleer and once we get into the deep cuts i’ll share some real favorites but pretty much that Cam Neely one is a favorite.

Beautiful work by Olly Moss. I keep seeing his work but a recent visit to his portfolio and blog made me realize how great his work really is.

Olly Moss

Howard L Berger via Raeo

I still do my best to be a hockey fan these days but i’m kind of over it for the most part but I was an insane collector of NHL(mainly Vancouver Canucks and Pavel Bure) memorabilia when I was a little kid though. I saw these posted on facebook and I had to share since some of the layouts, pretty unbeatable compared to whats out there these days.