Wednesday, March 31, 2010

MPLS Design: Werner Design Werks























Here's an amazing shop that does great design based in simplicity. What's not to love about their work. It is clean, simple and timeless. What really blows me away is their black and white logo work. The personality of each brand is there, tenderly in all of their line work, in the tasteful playfulness of their geometrics and space.


Werner Design Werks

Tuesday, March 9, 2010

Draplin Design

America Is F*cked.......(Graphically at least) from Jess Gibson on Vimeo.


Check out Draplin's site for amazing work and inspiring found design:

Typography - Don't settle for what is on your computer

Always take a look around for the right font that will help you get your message across with the right accent. This is especially true for non display fonts. There is some really timeless and tasteful variations on the old standbys, that can really put a nice finish to your work. Here are some of the places that I visit to discover just the right typeface for my projects.

Hoeffler & Frere-Jones
Sophisticated and classic.






Veer Type

A great curated selection of a broad range of styles


















House Industries
Display font masters

Tuesday, January 19, 2010

MPLS Design in Advertising - Mono / David Schwen


The better ad agencies out there hire and grow their designers. One way is by allowing them to move into the art director / creative director path. However, I feel the best ad agencies have a path that also allows designers to purely design, giving them chances to move up to senior designer to design director. A parallel and equally respected path. One of the best agencies for this in Minneapolis is Mono

David Schwen is the Design Director there and he's one heck of a designer who plays a lot with his design:

David Schwen - website

David Schwen - twitter
David Schwen - Threadless
David Schwen - Behance
David Schwen: linkedin

Tuesday, December 8, 2009

Artist Inspiration: Fecal Face



While organized around primarily San Fransisco artists and gallery scene, Fecal Face lives in the street art culture of the world. Photography, graffiti, painting, what ahave you, all brought to us through studio and gallery visits and great casual artist interviews.


http://www.fecalface.com

Inspiration: Design / Web Design: Webdesigner Depot



I've filed this under general design as well as interactive design, because for This blog does a great job of bringing a lot of different design principals and inspirations to web design. Like today, there are links to great magazine cover design (a great for designing a landing or home page environment for a website of mobile application) all the way down to tips on doing CSS programming. The only thing that I can say about this site is that, unfortunately, I feel like it's design is trying way to hard. There is alot going on in the skinning of the page (header and footer) that seem to add more clutter to the page than excitement. The advertising section on the right column adds to the chaos as well. What do you think?


http://www.webdesignerdepot.com/

Tuesday, December 1, 2009

MPLS Design Community: Event: No Coast Craft-o-rama


What is the No Coast Craft-o-Rama?

The No Coast Craft-o-rama (NCCOR) is a craft event that began in December 2005 as a way to feature a variety of designers, artists, crafters and other talented creators of unique handmade goods.
Where and when is the 2009 event?

NCCOR 2009 will take place Friday, December 4, from 3 PM to 8PM and Saturday, December 5 from 9 AM to 5 PM at the Midtown Global Market on Lake Street in Minneapolis. Please visit the Midtown Global Market web site for information on parking, directions and bus service.

Wednesday, November 18, 2009

Inspiration: Poster Design: Gig Posters



Gigposters.com is the community epicenter for poster designers worldwide. Lots of great conversation and commentary in the comments.

Gigposters

MPLS Poster Design: Squad 19 / Cerdo



Squad 19
Cerdo's Blog

MPLS Poster Design: Miss Amy Jo



Miss Amy Jo - Posters
Who Made Who - Blog

MPLS Poster Design: Aesthetic Apparatus



Aesthetic Apparatus - Posters
Aesthetic Apparatus - Design

MPLS Poster Design: Burlesque of North America



Burlesque of North America
Burlesque of North America - Store

MPLS Design Community: Event: Toys in the Attic


One of the great things about the MPLS design community is that most of the designers get out of their traditional work to create alot of interesting events for the public and for the greater creative community. There's a great show coming up featuring designers creating around the concept of toys. Toys in the Attic is coming up in a couple of weekends. As a young designer, you should find ways to participate in event such as this to make new connections with other designers. Many other people interested in design, from Advertising people to consumers of good design attend these events to discover new talent and inspiration. These opportunities also present a challenge in thinking about your own design in a completely different way. Plus, it's just plain fun.

Toys in the Attic is a celebration of toys, to benefit those without them. The annual Toys in the Attic event is both a toy drive and art show – featuring limited-edition, toy-inspired poster prints and custom-created toys. 100% of the door donations and toys collected go to The Marine Toys for Tots Foundation – along with 25% of art print and custom toy sales.

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Hours will be 6pm-9pm on Friday, December 4th* / Silent Auction ends @ 8:30pm, sharp. *Remaining prints available 11am-4pm on Saturday.

The event will feature limited edition / signed poster prints from local artists ($30) and custom toys from national artists (silent auction). All of the toys and door donations, plus 25% of print & custom toy sales, go to Toys for Tots.

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The Toy Drive

Guests are asked to help out children in need by bringing a new (unwrapped) toy* to the show. In return, you’ll get one** of the event official poster prints designed this year by Minneapolis artist Lonny Unitus.

*No military based toys such as guns, please / **While supplies last.

If you forget your toy, there is a suggested donation of $1-$5 at the door. All toys and door donations go directly to Toys for Tots. In addition, 25% of poster print and custom toys sales are also used to purchase new toys for the Toys for Tots program, which distributes the toys to children in need.


More information can be found at the Toys in the Attic site.

Saturday, November 14, 2009

Experience: Package Design - Sonny Barger Lager



Redesigning a beer label in school was one of the pivotal experience of my design education. A year before I received the project, I was at the Minnesota Beer Festival. There were these guys who didn't pay for a booth, instead they were hoisting cases of their beer over the fence and passing cans of their beer around. (These were prototypes: they actually came in cans that were stamped to have an actual leather feel to them. Once it went into full production, this proved too costly so they used standard cans.) Total renegades. And why not their beer was Sonny Barger Beer. (Sonny Barger is the long time leader of the Hell's Angels.)

When the instructor gave the assignment, I knew exactly what brand I wanted to redesign. I thought about the man, Sonny, and the brand, and most importantly, the end users: bikers who were non-conformists, liked to show off, and for whom the culture of renegade biking changed and defined their life. One doesn't fake it around these fellows. No way.

What carried the most clout with these dudes, was pushing the ticket.

I also thought about things like functionality. Odds are, whether it is a good idea or not, that this beer would end up in the saddlebags of their motorcycles on some several-hundred mile trek across the countryside. So, glass was out of the question, bottles would click and break along the trip. That led me to think about the types of things that would be in their saddlebags.

I dug in a bit and discovered that the original Harleys were chain driven and that meant carrying a supply of motor oil and that motor oil containers were designed to be rugged and portable.

I actually laughed a bit thinking of this big biker pounding a liter of beer out of a motor oil container, totally showboating in front of his bros. I imagined actually seeing the beer glug down through the visible measurement window that is on the side of the container. I knew I was on to something. It fit the lifestyle perfectly.

Then I got realistic. It would probably be way too costly to produce en masse. So, I thought about it being a special limited edition beer. How about a beer exclusively to be sold at the annual Sturgis Rally. Perfect on two accounts. First, it's the ultimate party for bikers. And secondly, if you've ever been to a Harley shop or a biker's garage or even closet, you can't help but notice the amount of souvenirs these guys amass.

I set out to design. Font choices were based on outlaw spirit, and a pilfered copy of Mobil Oil's proprietary sans-serif font.

I mocked up a few of 'bottles'. One for me, one for the guys brewing the beer and one I actually sent along to Sonny. A month or so after, I got a call from Sonny's longtime friend and lawyer. While logistics (liquor laws) got in the way, he said he hadn't seen Sonny laugh so hard in a long time as when he got the package. Success!

I'm still really proud of the spirit of this design not just for the end product, but because the process really opened up the limitless potential for design to make even a good thing, like beer, bikes, and buddies even better.

PS: Still looking for the small-time brewery who can make this happen. Any ideas, would be greatly appreciated.

Package Design Inspiration: The Dieline



Moving into your advanced design classes, you will most likely be learning some package design. The Dieline is a great spot to discover what is being done on the leading edge of package design. The term dieline comes from the path that is cut when an item is manufactured or printed. Think of creating an odd shaped wine label versus a plain rectangle shaped label. The shape of that label will be cut by a die. It's a great analogy for what you will find here: innovative package design that goes beyond the normal.

You will see here how package designers think of the packaging in its entirety, not just a label, but the materials and shape of the product. This approach creates a complete and unique story around a product.

The Dieline

Thursday, November 12, 2009

MPLS Type Designer: Chank



Chank has been making fonts for years. Look through his portfolio. Study it closely. Then, browse the aisles of a grocery store, page through a city's free paper, or walk down the street and see how often his fonts pop up.

Font's are just a part of what Chank does. You will see his logos at Uncle Frankies. He painted the exterior of Creative Lighting off I-94 between MPLS & St. Paul. And he's a good umpteen tens of thousands into his lifelong goal of making 1,000,000 pieces of art.

Chank
Chank's Blog
Chank's YouTube Channel
Chank on Twitter

Tuesday, November 10, 2009

Visual Inspiration: Share Some Candy



Another great inspiration site. This one is featured around individual artists. It is really easy to filter using the categories listed across the top.

Share Some Candy

Monday, November 9, 2009

Random: People Doing Stuff

Visual Inspiration: Dropular



Another great place to be inspired. I prefer the grid view to the list view. (icons are in the upper right, before "Recent"

Dropular

Design Industry News and Discussion: QBN



QBN is a good resource for everything from inspiration, to job searches, to protfolio hosting.

QBN

Friday, November 6, 2009

Visual Inspiration: Buamai



Here's another great place for inspiration. I like ffffound a bit better because it also gives links out to where the images are pulled from, but there's still alot of gold to discover here:

Buamai

MPLS Designer: Brock Davis



Brock is a creative director at Carmichael Lynch, an advertising agency in Minneapolis. He started out as a designer, moved up to art director (which means he worked closely with copywriters and had more input into the strategy of projects), and now as a creative director he oversees and helps guide the art directors and writers that work on his projects along with designing. His professional work is amazing. But, the essence of who he is as a designer can best be seen in the things that he creates on his own. He's challenged himself to makes something cool every day. And he does.

Brock Davis's (laserbread) Make Something Cool Every Day Flickr Set
Brock's T-shirt designs on Threadless
Brock's Portfolio

Information Design: GOOD Magazine



There is no better mix of science and graphic design than in the word of information design. GOOD Magazine does an exceptionally beautiful job of this. . . and for a great cause: making the world a better place. Some other terms associated with Information design are infographics and data visualization.

GOOD transparency archive on flickr

GOOD Magazine

Thursday, November 5, 2009

MPLS Designer: Aleksandra Stancevic-Till / Entropy Design Lab



Alecks is a great case study of a designer who designs around her passions, one of the greatest of these is designing to make a difference. She started out doing in-house design for several years at Best Buy, while she developed her personal style and client roster in her spare time. She's been out on her own for a couple of years now. Aside from the work shown here, I know she's also worked on some print publication work.

She's a good friend of mine. I can introduce you. Could be some good conversations around how design can make a social difference. Also, about women in the design space.

Entropy Design Lab