Hi, I am very glad to come back here and say hi on Ghug. It has been a while but please allow me to share with you the website, Typecache.com, which I recently made with my friends. It is an online index for type foundries and font sellers, and showcases their collections of type. There are also font lists such as Helvetica/DIN alternatives. As typographic literacy grows, the site will hopefully be a useful resource for designers, art directors, and type enthusiasts. We keep posting typography-related information including new font releases on Facebook and Twitter. Please check them out as well.

Me and James have worked on the first typecache interview with our great teacher Cyrus Highsmith and we are working on the new one. Stay tuned to our website.

There are 90 total alternatives to Helvetica.

Fonts in use

This hidden gem is to become one of Tokyo’s key community players amidst a recent wave of ‘new generation’ coffee shops. It’s owner, Eiichi Kunitomo – operates the serving process from within a kiosk-inspired minimalist steel cube, located within a traditional Japanese house which forms the outlet and the basis of the shop’s distinctive identity.

The result is something which goes beyond the conventional visual language commonly associated with coffee shop chains emerging from western culture. Truly beautiful and unique.

Just came across this launch issue of Port Magazine at Borders today. Port is a global quarterly men’s magazine based in London, merging style with thoughtful, intelligent content.

Yoshi Sodeoka has been producing art projects since the early 1990s when he made the leap from his native Japan to New York over two decades ago.

His compelling digital collages – for one of an attempt to describe as a melding of glitch-ridden motion design and Psychedelic art, have been exhibited all over the globe from the Tate Britain to the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art. His website is definitely worth a look.

For those of you who are in NYC, check out this MUJI and IDEO event, Designing More With Less. Wednesday, June 08, 2011 from 6:30 PM – 8:00 PM @ The Cooper Union.

In this panel session, we will explore how consumption of all forms – from media to food – has become a political act.  Consumers are thinking more and more about the morality of their choices.  Conspicuous consumption has given way to conscience consumption.  As designers, we realize the opportunities to create actions, initiatives, movements, and vessels for positive impact.  MUJI has long been a believer in creating impact through less. Over the course of this discussion, we will ask and seek to answer, “How can we design more with less?”

Adam Curtis is a somewhat often controversial writer-cum-filmmaker, who works for the BBC. His films and documentaries address clear opinion about their subject, through surreal juxtapositions, editing and soundtracking. Check them out here.

In early 2010 a small team of designers and animators were brought together by Digital domain to do the on-screen interface graphics for Tron Legacy. This team included GMUNK, Jake Sargeant and David Lewandowski.

Check out the videos of their work and processes. The movie may have been weak, but this still must have been a dream project for all of them.

Ever wondered what a polish hippo would look like? Feast your eyes. For me this is best described as maelstrom of sensory overload, but made for fun and with love. Afraid? So you should be.

The Playtype concept store was launched in conjunction with the revamp and redesign of Playtype.com. Located in Copenhagen’s Vesterbro, the store is the physical manifestation of the online shop.

Even at a fairly early stage of his career Naji El Mir has already been involved in many cross-cultural projects, solving Arabic and Latin combinations in branding, logo design, broadcast design and corporate identity, his work can be coined as mixture of both Arabic and Western visual cultures.

Some of us here at Hug heard his name through the launch of the official book for in the UAE last month Typographic Matchmaking in the City– the offical journal documenting a 3-year design research project investigating new approaches for bilingual lettering and poetic narrative for public space in the middle east. We were delighted when he was kind enough to share some of his insights.

GH: Please start by telling us a little bit about your background.

NEM: I’m a lebanese graphic designer living and working freelance in Paris. I graduated in 2003 with a Bachelor in graphic design from the Lebanese American University and also holds a Bachelor in applied arts with an emphasis in animation from the University of Toulouse Le Mirail.

GH: Focusing on your type design works; namely your Storyline font, this was featured as part of Typographic Matchmaking in the City, including the popular selling book. Can you talk more about this?

NEM: I was contacted by Huda Smitshuijzen AbiFares to participate in this round of the Typographic Matchmaking series. The idea was to come up with a font that interacts with its environment in any vernacular context. I teamed up with Max Kisman (designer and typographer) from Holland and Hisham Youssef (egyptian architect) based in New York to develop the Storyline font.

NEM: The font is a monospaced “one letter one glyph” that supports Arabic and Latin languages. We thought of letters as a unit of construction that could be used in constructing buildings, in creating a type façade only by playing with negative and positive shapes, in making elevations by extruding each letter, or even that can be used in a modular screen system where each letter fit into one screen. The font is very geometrical because we wanted designers, architects, artists or anyone to be able to reproduce it in 3D and in different materials. The whole challenge was to design an Arabic font with a fixed width and height box where the letters still connect with each others. Another challenge was to make both alphabets designs look the same not only in the way each glyph was drawn but also in the overall texture that we get by setting all the letters next to each others.

GH: So if you had to sum up and articulate your type design process – specifically in the way of comparison between Arabic and English (aside from the obvious), how would describe it?

NEM: Well it all depends on the project and the context the font will be used in. My approach to Arabic typography is of a designer and not of a typographer and sometimes strives from the need of an Arabic font that will match the Latin font or even that will come completing the whole design composition itself. Some of the designers just don’t like using existing fonts, they tend to create their own fonts especially for titles and headlines, I think I tend to do the same thing, it is always more fun and makes the design unique. I am not interested in creating the Arabic version of Univers or Helvetica, there are Arabic and even Western typographers who know exactly how to do it, their approach is conducted by a different process where the typeface itself is the final product whereas in my case it is the overall context where the font or the “Arabic lettering” will blend in.

GH: Does it begin by pursuing an aesthetic niche which lends itself particularly to the style of writing, then adapted later on?

NEM: Yes sometimes it is processed this way, I think of a certain aesthetic and start applying it to the Arabic writing. I always try to respect the Arabic rules of writing and legibility, sometimes it works and sometimes I fail, my intentions are not to change the Arabic way of writing but to play around with it and explore its limits. Also not to forget that when Arabic letter design is destined for a logotype, I use a whole different process, it is the whole context of the logo that determines the letter shapes.

GH: Does it concern you when you see your own typefaces used in places and on products you don’t like or who’s brands you don’t agree with their values?

NEM: It had never occurred to me yet to encounter my fonts in a bad usage since I am still at the beginning of the road. I remember seeing what design students were able to make with the Storyline font during a workshop organized by the Khatt network in Doha, I was impressed by the way they were able to play around with letters in volume. I learned that some other designer were able to build up chair and other objects from this font.

GH: It occurred to me that many of the more popular type foundries in general tend not to house many Arabic fonts or even Arabic interpretations of popular classic fonts such as Helvetica. What are your thoughts on this?

NEM: I don’t think that popular foundries don’t want to feature interpretations of classic fonts, i think the whole process of having arabic fonts is still kind of new for these foundries. It also depends on how much the initial latin type designer is willing to have his font adapted in arabic by other arab type designers. We also shouldn’t ignore that for economical reasons foundries wouldn’t want to invest more if the demand is not there yet. But I think the trend is changing, demand is growing every day and arabic designers are taking more initiatives to nicely readapt these fonts. So far the best example is Linotype where the arabic department is managed by Nadine Chahine who did a great job creating Arabic versions of Frutiger and Helvetica. On another level many other smaller foundries around the world are getting more and more interested in featuring new Arabic type designers and to sell their fonts, and this a great advantage for arabic typography because there is a lot of empty space to fill.

GH: How would you summarise and predict the forecast of the arabic graphic design and typography scene?

NEM: It is never easy to summarize the actual arabic graphic design scene, many progress has been done and many things are still need to be done, we could write a whole essay about this subject… But in my opinion arabic graphic design is witnessing a great explosion , the world is changing and so graphic design in the Arab world. This visual renaissance is due to an increasing feeling of the modern arab identity that is inspired from its history and is taking advantage of the new technologies and the new means of communications. Also the exposure that arab artists and designer are getting with other parts of the world like Iran and the west arouse the feeling that arab graphic design identity must exist and speak for itself. I remember 10 years ago, when I was a student at university in Beirut, few were the students interested in arabic graphic design or in arabic typography, whereas today every graphic design student want to be part of this graphic revolution, when you see them you can feel all this energy and excitement. Today Arabic graphic design just exists!

GH: So your current top three typefaces right now?

NEM: I have the Storyline font that you mentioned in your previous question, so far it is the most experimental font I ever designed with Max Kisman for the Khatt Network. Another font is Branji that will be soon published by Gestalten, a geometrical gothic condensed font. I am also developing another font with Max that is called Highlight, another monospaced font that I hope it will be published on hollandfonts.com.

GH: Naji, many thanks & hugs! We look forward to seeing more of your work featured in the near future.

“Brand are not dead…anything is possible”. Bruce Mau Design’s re-brand of OCAD University is a must see.

Alison Haigh was nominated winner of the Best Newcomer Award at the Grafik Design Awards 2010 by none other than Peter Saville. She has an intriguing (and somewhat slightly bewildering in parts) selection of work in her portfolio. It’s certainly worth checking out when time permits.

The Khatt Foundation, Center for Arabic Typography is a cultural foundation dedicated to advancing design research and typography in the Middle East, North Africa and their diaspora, and to building cross-cultural creative networks. As an online creative network they connect designers and visual artists, provide information about various resources, projects, news and events.

The portfolio of Eps51 epitomizes the offspring of a multi-culturally informed design sensibility with impeccable conceptual flair.

Here we see collaboration spanning from Manchester to Cairo; collectively the outfit has worked on identities and print campaigns for mostly cultural clients and they are also responsible for publishing “Arabesque – Graphic Design from the Arab World and Persia” from Die Gestalten, one of the more truly contemporary Arabic design journals around.

John Boilard is a senior in the Graphic Design Department at MassArt. With a few months left before graduation, he undertook a huge personal project: to whittle down his collection of 945 favorite letter forms to make an eclectic screen-printed alphabet. The original letters are pulled from old books and photographs, wood type, antique shops, and the occasional existing typeface (pictured above). Many had to be redrawn to be printed in their two-color finery.

The final result of his tireless efforts is a set of 25 8″x8″ prints (available for purchase from etsy). There is a lovely rhythm in the massed finals. The limited palette and rich texture link the varied forms into a single thrumming unit. Hug for the edition, and slow clap for the obsessive process.

Fashion magazine with a unique sensibility. Rich

“The way a man lives is  essential to the work he produces.  The two cannot be separated.” – Lester Beall

The site presents a very informative narrative of the great American designer’s life work. Classic.

Updates to the always solid design studio of DixonBaxi / Formula 1 Brand Sting / Sony Max Channel Branding to name a few.

For those of you in NYC hope you can check out the third annual Model Citizens NYC which is a 3 day exhibition, open to the public, featuring the work of 50+ designers of furniture, products, ceramics, glass, art objects and jewelry.

Model Citizens NYC
Opening reception: 16 May 2009, 5-7pm
16-18 May 2009
Exit Art
475 10th Avenue
New York, NY 10018 map

New Project from the talented group at Animatorio, entitled: NeoMorphus.

Transformation trough mutations stages. Evolution as a function gain is called neo-morphic. Imaginary creatures adapt into an Ecosystem and the transformation of these habitats for these creatures generates a fantastic cycle.

The mutation symbolism is part of Animatorio experiences in its trajectory, changing places, finding a new spectrum, a new phase, evolving. Neomorphus is the second movie created for the series of free mini-shorts named Praepostere, the first being “Adiantum pedatum” – made with stop-motion technique with the theme of unusual developments in a morbid visionary.

Every late night spent at every studio I have worked in has been shared with a Brazilian designer. I am not sure where such discipline and rigor comes from, but it’s very much present in their culture. A couple studios from Brazil are showing a new level of saavy design that deserves some attention.

PS2 Architecture and Design (above) was founded by Fábio Prata and Flávia Nalon in 2003. They have been creating compelling graphics and spaces ever since.

Quinta-Feira (Thursday) is another creative studio that has thoughts and style. Always refreshing to see some cutting and pasting.

Happy Monday.

viction:ary is established as an identity to emphasize the strength of collaborative efforts in the area of visual communication. Not only creating more perspectives for those who loves design and visual graphics.

It also aims at providing a channel for creative talents to share their truest spirits all over the world.

Hinterland is a New York-based multidisciplinary design studio. We create books, magazines, brochures, identities, packaging, illustrations, and more. We believe that the best work comes from a close collaboration between client and studio. We have a passion for solving design problems and for integrating all project elements—from overall concept to specific detail—to present a unified message.

IYA collaborates with like-minded clients and agencies to create innovative and well crafted ideas across the fashion, lifestyle and sport sectors.

“The perfect black is the deepest black.” _TS / featured previously on GH™

Taking inspiration from the notion of Axis Thinking (the brainchild of frequent Bowie collaborator Brian Eno) the design depicts a series of mixers with sliders positioned so as to describe each Bowie album within Non-Format’s own framework of extremes.
Print 1 covers the albums from Space Oddity to Young Americans and is printed gold ink on black paper. Print 2 covers the albums from Station To Station to Tonight and is printed silver ink on black. Each poster is 26″x40″ (660mm x 1000mm)

Non-Format

Young graphic designer, who resides in LA. Keep your eyes on this fella. Solid work Mr. Snow / hug1.

Rockstar work. Check more out here.

Talented pop_surreal artist Victor Soma, who currently lives and works in Krakow, Poland.

Fun blog with a collection of letterheads throughout the years.

March 30-July 03 2011

The Design Museum celebrates the prolific career of the Dutch graphic designer Wim Crouwel in this, his first UK retrospective. Regarded as one of the leading designers of the twentieth century, Crouwel embraced a new modernity to produce typographic designs that captured the essence of the emerging computer and space age of the early 1960s.

Toormix is a Barcelona-based design studio. “Playing with brands since 2000.” Worth a look.

Lukas Muellner’s website has some pretty rock star print work. The site loads a little slow…but bare with it.

Edition 29 Architecture Issue 005: The 5th Issue of Edition29 Architecture is the biggest one so far with over 170 pages of amazing visual drama elicited through great photography of structural sculptures that serve as residences from Japan to Portugal.

A beautiful application_ proper incorporation of typography &  architecture within a considered template.

Jealous Gallery and Print Studio are dealers and publishers of limited edition prints. With a changing program of exhibitions, featuring prints by established artists from varied schools, movements and styles, we cover everything from 20th Century American Pop to Contemporary and Urban art.

Alongside our print program, we will also be curating bi-monthly installations, exhibitions of original painting and drawing and photography shows. Jealous also awards an annual Graduate print prize, accompanied by a large scale exhibition of the winners work.

March 31st-April 24th 2011 / Jealous Needs You_ A new portfolio of screenprints created in the Jealous Studio by graphic artists & illustrators. 27 Park Road N8 8TE Crouch End London.

Poketo is a designer of limited edition art products, accessories, apparel, and decor. Founded by Ted Vadakan and Angie Myung, Poketo promotes the work of top international artists by showcasing original artwork through their fun and accessible wares. Poketo takes art off of gallery walls and makes them a part of your everyday life.

Check out the unique products. IE. Washable crayons, melted down and then poured into a silicon mold to form rings you can wear and / or draw with.

Watson & Company set up temporary installations under the High Line at HL23 for Building Fashion. Building Fashion pairs fashion designers with architects in an installation series exploring the intersection of architecture & fashion through integrated store and exhibition design.

In the wake of Japan’s devastating tsunami, artists and studios have stepped it up to help the relief efforts going on over seas. Support them and their cause.

Corter Leather | For Japan Bracelet | $20 to benefit the Red Cross

Wall Space Gallery | Bunny Face by Stella Kalaw | $50 to benefit Direct Relief International and Habitat for Humanity (see complete Life Support Japan collection)

W+K Studio | Help Japan Poster Series | Minimum $25 donation to benefit the Red Cross

Michael Rubenstein | Selected Prints to Help Japan | $100-$150 to benefit Japan Relief Efforts

Grant Cornett | Prints via TheLivest1.com (scroll down) | $50 to benefit the Red Cross

Live at Preservation Hall: Louisiana Fairytale, A Film by Danny Clinch.

For fifty years the Preservation Hall Jazz Band has played to keep the traditions of New Orleans jazz alive, both at home and on tour around the world. Along the way, they have brought in collaborators of all musical stripes to play, honor, and reinterpret America’s first true art form.

Louisiana Fairytale documents their collaboration with American rock band My Morning Jacket, showing a legendary group of New Orleans musicians passing on traditions and inspiring a new generation.

dannyclinch

While in New Zealand, I had the pleasure of meeting the wonderful Catherine Griffiths, who from my short time there, I can equate to perhaps something akin to an artery, heart, or hub. She was and is a connector, an invigorator and a catalyst. She has just dropped a note to say that she has a new web presence up and by the look of it, is a wonderful update. Using dala floda from commercial type, the site looks smashing. Have a look inside to see her intriguing array of work as well. From writing, to curation, to coordination, to installations, to book design, it seems that all is possible in life.

Hope you all are well. I am sorry for the long disappearance. As the hug has been transforming, it seems I too have been transforming as well. More to come soon again.

Check out some amazing aerial photography by Alex Maclean.

Since 1923 the American Institute of Graphic Arts (AIGA) has celebrated excellence in book design with an annual design competition called 50 Books / 50 Covers. Each Spring, the one hundred best book designs of the previous year are chosen from nearly a thousand entries.

50/50 Petition

Country-Tune-North-black / Hand Pulled 1 Colour Silkscreen / On Somerset Satin White – 300gsm / Limited Edition Of 30 / Signed & Numbered / 76cm x 57cm / Quantity Left: 5

purchasing / details

Franziska Strauss presents her first solo exhibition, Reckoner / I killed my dinner with karate at the gallery from March 5th to April 9th, at the Egbert Baqué Contemporary Art in Berlin.

” The works are emphatically non-artificial, taken directly from life, with sweat and all. Franziska Strauss is the chronicler of a young generation’s attitude to life, a generation well aware of its unbridled verve here and now, but one that also struggles with high expectations and the attendant fears and pressures, as well as a fear of an uncertain future. In the symbol of dance, the artist finds the suitable expression. To grasp what that feels like, one must see her photographs.”

By Günter Baumann

Was watching the livestream of the TED Long Beach conference and heard Carlo Ratti speak. Wish I could see his digital water pavillion in person and experience the pavilion’s large display, with text, letters, and interactive patterns. Who doesn’t love typography made out of streams of water. Check out the video.

Character is a design agency based in San Francisco. Partnering with numerous eminent companies, Character helps create, extend and rejuvenate brands.

Established in 1999 by Benjamin Pham, Patricia / Tish Evangelista, and Rishi Shourie, Character employs a dedicated team of art directors, designers, project managers, brand strategists and writers.

Check out the studio here / solid work.

Spirits is an action-puzzle game for the iPad, iPhone and iPod touch where you manipulate wind and ground in the game world to guide the Spirits towards the goal.

spacesofplay

Spaces of Play is a game studio based in Berlin. We are a group of independent game designers, visual artists and musicians that come together with the goal of creating great games. Our focus is on original ideas, gameplay and polish. We put our heart and soul into what we do, every pixel and sound bit has been hand-picked for your optimal experience. In short, we provide handcrafted independent games for the iPhone, iPod touch and iPad.

Faces / Funk / Fame / Fashion. Entitled, Caffeine Nicotine_new magazine shot by John Wright out of London.

Caffeine Nicotine Mag

Photographer / filmaker, Per Zennstrom_

Experimental stillife in a MKK advertising campaign, shot in a light & colorful manner Digitally manipulated stillifes of aluminum foil with strong colors.

-per zennstrom

Just came across some fascinating installations by Kirsten Hassenfeld.

Todd Mclellan has been creating compelling images ever since his days in kindergarten fingerpainting class. Although the concept of exploded or deconstructed objects projected in freeze-frame isn’t necessarily original per se, I’ve never quite seen the concept so delicately executed as seen in his most recent works. Look see.

Chris Cunningham directs an ad for Gucci which is significantly huggable. Check it out.

Agency: REM

Creative director: Riccardo Ruini
Production company: RSA Films Ltd
Producer: Carla Poole
Post Production: Golden Sq Post

The New Oreleans-based designer, Nessim Higson, defines the phrase “on the grind”. His passionate energy for design is constant and never shy. In addition to his prolific commercial work, Mr. Higson has a deep love for his community. We were able to catch up with Ness and dig his brain for a hot second.

GH: Briefly introduce yourself.

NH: Heya! I live in the city that care forgot, also known as New Orleans. I run a small design boutique entitled iamalwayshungry / IAAH. I’m consistently shocked that my job isn’t really a job at all. Work turns out to be play (more times than not).

GH: Describe your role as a graphic designer. This can be something ideological, or merely a description of your day

NH: These are some key mantras I try to live by…

Love what you do. Treat work as play. Achieve balance between your work and their work. The best person to push you is you. Humble your modesty. Do good. Create change. Everything is temporary. Play always, always play.

And lastly…

Find your voice, take a deep breath and scream!

GH: 5 creators whom you greatly admire and have influenced your creative outlook.

NH: John Heartfield for his contribution to design and voice. Robert Rauschenberg for opening my eyes to importance of layering and reinforcing its power. Tibor Kalman for recognizing the power of design and the social responsibility associated with it. Kenya Hara for simplicity. Barbara Kruger for scale and the ability to cross disciplines.

GH: If you had not become a designer what would you have liked to become?

NH: I would have most probably become a carpenter. I did construction and renovation with my father while in school and fell in love with the intrinsic beauty of working with one’s hands. The satisfaction of taking a step back and realizing that you’ve just built something is a feeling unmatched.

GH: What are you hugging these days?

NH: I run a site with a few close friends entitled yesyesyall.org ( YYY ) We’ve been working on it for quite some time. Music is a major passion of mine (unfortunately I don’t play) and YYY has, and is, a great intersection of our shared talents.

3 new prints from Greg Eason available at Occupy.

Greg Eason’s practice deals with a formal and conceptual dissection of space. His meticulously detailed & characteristically sparse drawings and paintings isolate and monumentalise narrative fragments and translate this into a microscopic frame. He has exhibited in London, Norwich, New York, Brussels, Glasgow, Amsterdam, Leuven, Singapore and Brussels.

source_occupy.co.uk

Here is a collection of very unique and beautiful typographic solutions by D. A. Sanborn.

Music Video Director Alexander Brown / brownboy has delivered a beautiful video for James Blake and a few others. Brown is a solid director to keep your eyes on.

GLACIERS is a four-piece, instrumental rock band from San Francisco and Oakland, California. Though the band has only been together for two years, they have developed a strong following with their loud, climactic live performances and their first album. Three of the four members of GLACIERS previously played in very loud, hardcore bands when they were younger, but with this Bay Area quartet, they have achieved a much more varied approach to music.

In the Fall of 2009, the band released their debut “And The Sea Won The Battle.” on their own label, Sound of Glaciers. The album includes 6 songs and clocks in at just over 40 minutes. Recorded in Oakland, California with Jeremy Goody, the album was self-produced and focuses on the best elements of their live show: loud guitars, reverb, space echo, tape loops, pounding drums, and throbbing bass. A lot of reviews of the record have compared the band to the likes of Mogwai and Explosions in the Sky, but more of the bands roots can be found in local Bay Area artists Neurosis. Much of the material was written on late, cold nights while the fog was settling, and this aesthetic strangely finds its way into their sound.

GLACIERS continues to move forward with repeated live performances and song writing. Work has already begun on their next album with recording planned to begin later this year.

Check them out at Bottom of The Hill in SF on March 11, 2011.

listen to glaciers

Wacky poster project by Uli Westphal that documents a collection of mindboggeling mutant fruit.

Graphic designer and art director Jakob Holmsberg works out of Copenhagen. His body of work strikes a clean balance between artistic (personal projects) and commercial (client-orientated). He has a diverse and commendably brave portfolio. Take some time to take it in.

I recently came cross Andy Gilmore’s work via Breed, and I must say I find it truly captivating. A curious case of disciplinary cross-over between music and design (as Andy is a musician as well as a practising designer) yielding eye-popping results in the form of these geometric illustrations. They are simple but yet deceivingly complex, and surely palatable with most forms of visual language and communication – hinting at mainstream appeal which is far flung from the source of the art. Don’t just take my word for it, check out his website.

Check out this fascinating series of photographs documenting former Death Row prisoners’ requests for their last meal before execution by James Reynold.

Despite arguably descending into a quagmire of illogical, pseudo-religious schmaltz last year (I’m still waiting for six years of my life back, but that’s another story), the ABC show LOST receives these super-simple and incredibly effective homage posters. Created by Madrid-based designer Pablo Sánchez, they are available for purchase on his online store. Check them out.

It’s overcast and gray in Paris today, but I am determined to start 2011 cheerfully. So, I present to you the colorful work of Roya Hamburger.

Check out her website full of other colorful illustrations!

The brand new NIKE HTML5 site is live. Just scroll.

Mr. Leupin was a prolific Swiss graphic artist and designer. Over the course of his sixty year career Leupin created thousands of iconic and spirited posters. What I appreciate is the charm and wit that he brings to Swiss precision. He kept it light-hearted. His Salem posters might just make one break their  resolution! Happy New Years everyone!

I was pleasantly surprised at this little discovery, to add to my ever expanding library of digital tear-sheets. Comp Fight, in a nutshell, is an image search tool guaranteed to change your life. It prowls flickr and displays your search results in an orderly fashion eliminating a few layers of clicking :) Worth a look to kick start the creative juice flow for 2011. Happy roaming!

Enjoy 2011 everyone.

Just came across the work from Chicago based design firm, Plural and thought I would share with you guys.

With all the bad press the snow has been getting recently, I thought it would be nice to post something that reminds us how beautiful it can be. Photographer Vidar Olufsen has captured some truly stunning winter moments. Check them out.