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Swine Flu Out. Letterpress In.

admin — Tue, 12 May 2009 07:11:41 +0000

So the whole ordeal with the swine flu is finally decreasing, but that doesn’t mean it has officially been defeated. Luckily for me, I didn’t catch the swine flue, instead, I got myself a regular flu, but on top of that I had a throat infection, which really made me out of commission for awhile.

Now back to reality, and actually turning on my computer to get in touch with the rest of the world. After catching up to all (if not most) of my RSS feeds, I have a couple of website I want to touch on. The first one being, FPO: For Print Only (site here), which is a Division of Underconsideration. This sub-site is whole heartedly dedicated to the development and production of printed materials, which ranges from items such as: books, business cards, posters, packaging and even annual reports. I am definitely bookmarking this site! This one is a keeper people!

You’ve gotta have a love for letterpress. There’s a design firm called, Studio On Fire, located in Minneapolis, Minnesota, where they focus on hybrid design and letterpress. Check out some of their awesome awesome work! (site)

H is for Hydrogen… no wait, it’s Helvetica!

admin — Mon, 16 Mar 2009 05:13:27 +0000

We’ve all learned from the Periodic Table of Elements. H is for Hydrogen, C is for Carbon, O is for Oxygen. Thanks to SquidSpot, we now have a Period Table of Typefaces. It’s pretty wicked how it’s all laid out. I see one of my all time favourite typefaces in this table. DIN. Absolutely love it. Nice to see a lot of the new Microsoft fonts are included. Officina is up there.

This table is a good reference to get a quick glance at fonts and it’s usage. It’s definitely faster than font book. The table covers most of the major fonts used today in commercial print and it also includes information about the family, the designer, the type of font it is, and even the year the typeface was designed.

I’m a bit tempted to print this out in a large format for the empty wall sitting behind me.

Manifesto Campaign?

admin — Sun, 22 Feb 2009 06:41:32 +0000

I’ve always loved looking at manifestos being recreated by designers. Whether they’re taking the infamous Bruce Mau’s incomplete manifesto into their design, or expanding his ideas and taking it further. Recently, I came across this new campaign that Calvin Klein is set to launch sometime next month. It is called the “We Are One” campaign. It almost resembles Obama’s “Yes We Can” campaign.

What’s so interesting about this campaign is that, Calvin Klein will be selling bottles of CK One + CK Be with a removable mp3 speaker. The unique concept behind the speaker ties into the notion that music is a universal language. Just like LOVE. Love is the same in the entire universal.

Here’s a shot of the campaign. I’m really liking the “handwriting” font they used.

You can take a further look about teh campaign here: Selectism

Also, I thought this Calvin Klein idea is very similar to Lululemon’s designs, like this:

Design Pie, Design Charts?

admin — Fri, 06 Feb 2009 08:53:41 +0000

DesignCharts, is a website that scans the traffic generated from their network every week and publishes a top 40 of the best design sites. This is a really great idea. Glad someone else is doing the job for me, so I don’t have to painfully go search for them.

I came across this today while going through my RSS feeds. Did I mention that I’ve been highly addicted to an application for the MAC called Snackr? You should totally check it out if you subscribe to a lot of RSS feeds. Here’s a quick link. Snackr

fontsquirrel

admin — Sat, 24 Jan 2009 23:40:28 +0000

Font Squirrel
is offering designers out there who can never have too many resources for free fonts. They’ve got over 300 font families all free, and all with commercial-use licenses. Awesome previews for each font. You know us MAC users can’t always use Helvetica. hah!

The Clean Hip House

admin — Fri, 23 Jan 2009 01:09:33 +0000

Whoever would’ve thought that the government knew anything about Web 2.0? Well, that sure has changed. Ever since Obama took the Presidency, not only are people having a different and better lookout on life and the economy, even Obama has changed the WhiteHouse.gov’s site appearance. Click here

Oh my goodness. So many goodies on this site. A blog!?! Flash?!? E-mail subscriptions??!! This is unheard of! I wonder if there’s a membership fee too!. I’d like a free Obama shirt please! heheh

This looks like a Wordpress site with a really good skin design. Man I’m impressed.

Post Inauguration Day

admin — Wed, 21 Jan 2009 08:32:49 +0000

What an historic event. Although I may not be an American, I can feel what most if not all Americans feel: Proud. There’s something about Obama that makes you feel good about yourself. His words…so powerful and inspiring, it makes you want to go that extra mile. I’ll have to admit, I’ve teared up a couple a times during his speeches. Today is another one of those times. I was googling Barack Obama today, and I came across this link, and found this image as well.

It would’ve been better if this version was handwritten with “yes we can”. I think that would’ve been more powerful. The Obama administration has definitely accomplished their mission to get the people to vote in this Presidential election. Their strong campaign was able to target all races, genders, and colour while having a strong focus about what Obama can bring to the table for America.

God Bless America. Lets look forward to change.

Check this out:

You’ve been Served.

admin — Wed, 07 Jan 2009 08:03:34 +0000

Its always such a great feeling to find work that deserves to get a shout out. I came across this while surfing around FormFiftyFive (FFF). Ramon Marin is graphic designer located in the UK with amazing work displayed in his portfolio site.

This is just something that I thought I should mention. There’s been a site that I’ve been highly addicted to for awhile now since it was launched. It’s called “TypographyServed”. (TypographyServed.com) This site not only looks at the amazing typography work from around the world, they “serve” different sectors such as Fashion, Photography, Industrial Design (this is my second favourite), and even Motion Graphics! If you have time, it is definitely work the time to check it out. You’re bound to find something creative… if not inspiring

2009, Change is here

admin — Thu, 01 Jan 2009 09:17:17 +0000

As 2008 passes by and 2009 emerges to become our present reality, I want to take this opportunity to thank my family and friends, and all of you that have supported and encouraged my efforts in the past year. I consider myself very lucky and blessed.

The idea of updating this blog as frequent as I could have these past couple of months, hasn’t seem to keep up with me at all. So as part of one of my new years resolution, I want to try to update this blog at least twice a week with something worth writing about.

Stay tuned

admin — Mon, 24 Nov 2008 07:19:57 +0000

Damn. So much for updating as frequent as I can.

Been working on a lot of projects lately. Gonna posts some pieces up, as soon as I get them printed. I’ve been surfing on the internet whenever I can possible, and there’s been a lot of inspirational pieces that I found. It’s so moving to see what design can do to you. I’ve been trying to focus on designing a poster for awhile. The biggest size I’ve designed for is 11×17. I’ve pushed mself to design for 18×24. Playing with type is a bit challenging, as what you see on a screen is comletely different from a printed version. Mind you, printing it costs double, sometimes even triple the costs especially if you have bleeds and full colour.

Take a look at this. It’s a grad poster. I’m working on a similar concept: promoting our grad show: Area 17.

The piece beside the poster is a very complicated piece. All the type connects as you unfold it. Everything was thoroughly planned and thought out. I absolutely love the whole grid background idea. I think I’ll use that for my next project.