This Weeks Posts 12/03/11 — 12/09/11

1. Type Love: Cassia by Hoftype

Type Love: Cassia, a beautiful Italics typeface by Munich, Germany based type designer Dieter Hofrichter of Hoftype

2. Composition Light Series by Miya Kondo

Composition Light by designer Miya Kondo is a beautiful series of lamps that plays with “our emotional experience of space, time and place.” The light in the lamps becomes an integral part of the visual structure of the lamps. Minimalism at its finest in which less is definitely more.

3. Copernicus Science Center Wayfinding by Mamastudio

The wayfinding system for the newly built Capernicus Science Center in Warsaw, designed by local design firm Mamastudio, uses the buildings unique shape & material structure as its inspiration. The minimal use of color on the signage allowed it to blend into the fabric of the building while still being readable to the user.

4. Crazy Ones Quote Poster by Help Scout

The beautiful “Here’s to the Crazy Ones” poster, designed by Help Scout co-founder Jared McDaniel, reminds us all of the amazing message from Steve Jobs in Apple’s iconic 1997 TV commercial.

This Weeks Posts 11/26/11 — 12/02/11

1. Nadex Identity by Zoltan Balogh

I’m really loving this clean, simple and utterly beautiful identity and website, designed by Budapest based Zoltan Balogh, for the Hungary based agricultural company Nadex.

2. “Lights” A short film by Sunday/Parker

“Light,” a short film directed by David Parker of Sunday/Paper, is a beautiful short film that intends to bring awareness to the ridiculous amount of electricity we waste through lighting unused spaces.

3. Tea Diver by Ablepartners

The Tea Diver, produced by Korean design studio Ablepartners, looks like a squat little diver complete with an air tank handle that holds your loose leaf tea secure while brewing the perfect cup.

4. Hudson’s ‘Against The Grain’ Music Video by
Jonanthan Chong aka Dropbear

This stop motion music video, created by Dropbear, aka Jonanthan Chong, for the Melbourne indie-folk band Hudson, is made almost entirely from colored pencils! Not only is the song, ‘Against The Grain’, great but the video is really amazing.

5. My Reading Chair by Arunas Sukarevicius

My Reading Chair, by Arunas Sukarevicius of Etc. Etc., is a beautiful chair designed with readers in mind. The two part chair, frame & slipcover, is hand crafted out of solid wood. The slipcover has pockets on the side that are perfect for holding a great book, magazine or even the remote.

This Weeks Posts 11/19/11 — 11/25/11

A short week of posts last week before I took off for the long Thanksgiving weekend. Hope everyone had an amazing holiday.

1. Paintings by Scott Redden

Brooklyn based artists Scott Redden’s paintings evoke a feeling of looking at a bygone era. The warm, soft colors mixed with the simplified shapes of the barns, trees, and clouds leads me to believe that these are painted from a world that only exists in Scott’s mind.

2. Printed Polyester Bags by Varpunen

I really love these simple laminated polyester bags by Varpunen. I can’t find much information on them but the geometric patterns and warm muted colors are beautiful. The bags are 8″x8″ square and about 10.5″ high and retail for €22 (about $30.00) a piece.

3. The Carpenter, a short film by Dimitris Ladopoulos

Dimitris Ladopoulos is a talented film maker, illustrator and designer working in Athens, Greece creating beautiful things. His latest project, a short film called The Carpenter, is the first of a series of shorts Dimitris plans on doing in which he looks at the art & science of professionals working with their hands.

This Weeks Posts 11/12/11 — 11/18/11

1. Collections, A Series of Illustrations by Simone Capano

I love this series of illustrations by Simone Capano. Collections is a series of 4 beautifully drawn collections including Amplifiers Old School, Country Life, Frames, and Teaspoons.

2. Twisted Table by Erwin Zwiers

The Twisted Tables by Dutch designer Erwin Zwiers are created by wrapping layers of wood veneer around a central shape, creating the look of tree slice & allowing the table to grow “organically.”

3. Melvin The Machine by HeyHeyHey

Melvin the Magical Mixed Media Machine (or just Melvin the Machine) is a Rube Goldberg machine created by design studio HeyHeyHey that photographs the crowd, posts the pictures to Facebook, Twitter, and its blog and creates one of a kind merchandise promoting itself.

This Weeks Posts 11/05/11 — 11/11/11

1. Watercolors by Serena Mitnik-Miller

Love these watercolors by San Francisco based artist Serena Mitnik-Miller. Her warm & vibrant color use mixed with fluid feeling patterns & repetition create visually stunning pieces.

2. Type Love: Centrale by Typedepot

Centrale Sans, by Alexander Nedelev & Veronika Slavova of Sofia, Bulgaria based foundry Typedepot is a beautiful sans serif typeface designed to read easily at small sizes.

3. Porch House Prefab by Lake|Flato

The Porch House modular prefab houses by San Antonio, Texas based architecture firm Lake|Flato, can be arranged and built to take advantage of views, breeze, solar orientation, and outdoor spaces. The modular system emphasizes creating outdoor “rooms” as extensions of the livable interior space.

4. Vito Trestle Table Legs by HeyTeam

The Vito trestle table legs, designed by HeyTeam, a design collective of Claudia Ciarpella, Paolo Emili & Riccardo Paccaloni, is a brilliant set of table legs that attach to any solid surface. The legs screw into a metal band that wraps your table surface and clamps all the pieces together.

5. Novum Deformable Cover by Paperlux

The cover for Novum’s 11/11 issue, designed by Caroline Rauen & Max Kuehne of PaperLux, shows that with a little ingenuity, a solid printer & die maker and few extra bucks, you can create something really stunning.

6. “In The Attic” works by Lee Borthwick

The “In The Attic” series works by artist Lee Borthwick are created out of found materials from the 5th floor attic in Arts Council England’s new offices. Materials like MDF, dead wood, drift wood, willow, styrene & mirror off-cuts are cut apart and put back together again to create architectural reliefs.

This Weeks Posts 10/29/11 — 11/04/11

1. Cement Lights by Rainer Mutsch

A new limited edition pendant light, the Cement Light by designer Rainer Mutsch, is perfect for both indoors and out. The light, made from 3 pieces of Eternit fiber-cement, is stitched together & hung with brightly contrasting rope.

2. Type Love: Locator by Process Type Foundry

Locator, originally started as a series of sketches by Eric Olson of Process Type Foundry for the University of Minnesota Design Institute’s ‘Typeface: Twin Cities’ competition, is a beautiful sans-serif typeface that works seamlessly for both text and display work.

3. Woodcuts by Bryan Nash Gill

New Hartford, Connecticut based artist Bryan Nash Gill’s Woodcuts series of prints are stunning. These large pieces are printed actual size directly from found pieces of wood and slices of stumps.

4. The Cloudy Collection – Hanging With The Dead print series

Cloudy Collection is the brain child of artist David Huyck. Every 3 months David curates a collection of 7 prints from fellow artists, designers, and illustrators and the Volume III Special Edition, Hanging With The Dead is as beautiful and artistic a collection as any of its predecessors.

5. Joy Cupcakes Interiors by Mim Design

Melbourne, Victoria, Australia based design firm Mim Design has just completed the interior for Joy Cupcakes. The brilliantly colored interior features simple design; a vibrant wall covered in a custom tile patchwork, custom light fixtures, stools, tables, and merchandising wall.

This Weeks Posts 10/22/11 — 10/28/11

1. How to deliver a Proof in style, Gavin Martin
Colournet packaging by Magpie Studio

These proof-print carriers, by Magpie Studios, for London based printer Martin Gavin Colournet feature large printed items, french bread, dog in a purse, stack on magazines, that make the carrier look like they are carrying something else.

2. A Visual Guide to the Ampersand by Jacob Gude

A Visual Guide to the Ampersand by designer/blogger Jacob Gube, of SixRevisions.com, lays out the the rich history of the Ampersand symbol.

3. The Collection CONTRE by Caroline Gomez

The Collection CONTRE by Bordeaux based designer Caroline Gomez is full of personality. The collection is made up of a myriad of beautifully crafted Beech wood items, two lights, two tables, a few shelving options, as well as some cutting and serving boards.

4. Drawer Shelf by Keiji Ashizawa

Love this really fun idea from designer Keiji Ashizawa. The Drawer Shelf is both a dresser and a shelf in one unit. Each independent drawer unit can be slid to create shelves of various heights and lengths to fit the needs of what you want to display.

5. The People’s Supermarket, Branding by Unreal

London based design agency Unreal created this amazing brand and all of its associated collateral for their local supermarket, The People’s Supermarket, a member owned and managed coop started in 2010 by noted chef Arthur Potts-Dawson.

This Weeks Posts 10/15/11 — 10/21/11

1. Kompakt-Kassette from Editions of 100 by Daniel Freytag

The latest print in the Editions of 100 project, the brain-child of Glasgow based design firm BERG, is Kompakt-Kassette by Daniel Freytag. The beautifully simple graphic representation of the bygone music medium, the cassette, is hand-pulled in silver ink on Plike 240gsm Matt Black fine art paper and is also hand-numbered.

2. The unsettling 1/2 Portraits Series by Jesús González Rodríguez

The unsettling 1/2 series of portraits by Venezuelan artist & photographer Jesús González Rodríguez mashes up multiple photographs of the same person to create and image that is both profile and head on at the same time.

3. Day & Night Print by Jason Dean of The Best Part

Jason Dean’s newest creation is brilliantly funny and clever. Day and Night is a new limited edition hand-pulled 9-color print by designer Jason Dean of The Best Part that has two additional layers of phosphorescent inks.

4. Type Love: Encorpada Black by Eduilson Wessler Coan of dooType

This elegant new font, Encorpada Black by Eduilson Wessler Coan of dooType is inspired by the shapes of classic didone typefaces but modernized and filled with exuberance. The typeface’s main features are heavy inktraps and curved terminals that suit well to projects where personality is needed in a display font.

5. My Writing Desk by Inesa Malafej of Etc. Etc.

The beautiful My Writing Desk, designed by Lithuanian-born Inesa Malafej of Etc. Etc is the perfect surface for anyone who loves organizing. Three sides of the desk have a high edges that allow for papers to be stood up for easy view, books to propped up for quick reference, or any object to held just within reach.

6. Green Mailbox by Marcial Ahsayane

Brilliant! The Green Mailbox by Brussels based designer Marcial Ahsayane features a small shelf that holds a plant and a V-shaped roof that collects water and directs it into the plant’s pot to keep it watered. No word on whether this is available for purchase, but one can hope.

This Weeks Posts 10/08/11 — 10/14/11

1. 100Copies – Limited Edition T-Shirts & Posters by Thomas Yang

100Copies is a new initiative by Singapore based designer Thomas Yang. The series of T-Shirts and posters are a mash-up of Yang’s two loves, bikes and art. Each edition will only be produced in a limited quantity of 100 items, hand numbered and signed by the artist.

2. Friends With Benefits, A collaborative print project by Erin Wallace

Friends With Benefits is a collaborative printmaking project run by illustrator & printer Erin Wallace. In their first edition, Piles, seven different artists contributed artwork that was then beautifully letterpress printed in two colors by Erin onto 5″x 7″ cards in a limited edition of 100 sets.

3. 1X1 LED Desk Lamp by Victor Vetterlein

The 1X1 LED Desk Lamp by New York based designer Victor Vetterlein is as simple as it gets. The single wood stick (made from factory cut-offs) is internally weighted at one end and comes with a separate bendable rod that is is used as the lights stand.

This Weeks Posts 10/01/11 — 10/07/11

1. Paintings by Geoffrey Johnson

These beautiful paintings by North Carolina based artist Geoffrey Johnson feel perfect for this time of year. His monochromatic palette and blurry brush work fit perfectly with the changing season, the cold weather, rain and somewhat melancholy feeling of fall.

2. Bravo Tray Table by Gianluca Di Ioia for Lamidea

The Bravo Tray Table, designed by Gianluca Di Ioia for the Italian brand Lamidea, is a brilliantly simple folded aluminum tray table made from a single sheet of metal with four bends.

3. Type Love: Mishka by Emil Karl Bertell of Fenotype

Mishka is a super playful upright script designed by Emil Karl Bertell of Fenotype. The typeface comes in two styles, Regular & Italics, both with clear letter forms and a huge helping of extras.

4. BloomX Collection by MTH Woodworks

The design duo of Michael Thomas Host & Tanja Hinder of MTH Woodworks, a Vancouver, BC based furniture company, has just released the BloomX Collection of tables. These amazing tables, a coffee sized table and two smaller side tables, have salvaged birch branches artfully cast into resin tops.

5. Ravenscroft Desk by Leohard Pfeifer

The Ravenscroft Desk by London based furniture designer Leonhard Pfeifer is a beautiful piece that was just launched at the recent Maison & Objet fair in Paris. The solid Oak desk features a crossed leg design, nodding to the traditional farmhouse style, but with a modern update to its form.