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Michael Bierut on the Creativity of Problem Solving

Michael Bierut shares projects from his notebooks that exemplify his passion for problem solving.

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Digging Daily Drop Cap

have to say that I’m digging the fine work over at Daily Drop Cap. Normally, I just don’t make much use of them because it can be so time consuming to find that perfect letter to showcase, but all of Jessica Hische’s letters are beautiful. There just isn’t a poor choice in the bunch. Best of all she’s licensed them all under a CC-By-NC-ND license and made a handy link to easily copy+paste into your next blog post. Honestly, I don’t think it could be any easier!
[via]

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General Dynamics Ads and Annual Reports (Vintage)

Eric Nitsche is posting (Flickr) the graphically stunning design work done for General Dynamics’ ads and annual reports.

Power for Peace advertisement

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RISD Alumni Art Sale

This Saturday, 03 May 2008, is the Rhode Island School of Design’s Spring Alumni Art Sale (whew, say that 10 times). Since I live in Alaska I won’t be going, but am delighted to be able to look through some of the work that will be for sale by visiting their Flickr set. The great thing is that each item on Flickr links out the the artists’ web sites.

There are a couple pieces that definitely catch my eye:

Joel Greeb’s Illuminated Ballistic lamp. [more info on his site]
Mike Libby’s clockwork beetle [visit the InsectLab gallery]

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A Personal Annual Report

Nicholas Felton has designed the Feltron, an annual report to summarize his personal experiences in 2007. Brilliant and beautiful. [via pica+pixel]

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One Designer’s Reflection on Unused Work

Last year, for his presentation at the HOW Conference Armin Vit took a look at sample of 100 of his old logo designs, either ignored or discarded after other designs had been selected by clients, and attempted to extrapolate meaning. What really attracts me to this article is the visual presentation of the statistics culled from his analysis. 30% of the designs are abstract, 42% use typography, 58% use a graphic icon or illustration. Fascinating. It never dawned on me to examine my creative work in this way.

Beyond gratuitous visualizations, he also takes some time to reflect on how the designs are now somehow lost on lonely storage media. This aspect of the design process is something I have pondered numerous times. In the past I used to fill sketchbooks up with ideas and drawings, but that was years ago. Now much of work, well let’s be honest, all of my work is digital and rarely sees the light of day again after a project is over. Thumbing through old sketchbooks is immensely more gratifying than scrolling through cold files on a CD. All the time spent creating each piece of work, now lost.

Armin’s presentation was such a creative reason to pull it out again and give it all another chance at meaning.

Image courtesy of chethan shankar on Flickr

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Graphic Design History: Backfill

In graphic design, as with all other creative professions, it is just as important to know what came before you as it is to have a vision for where you are going. Surfing around this afternoon, I came across The Design Encyclopedia - an effort to make design history available using a wiki platform. What caught my eye was the wiki theme and the care that was taken to make it appear unwiki-like.

The Design Encyclopedia, part of the underconsideration network

Come to think of it, there are a few other historical graphic links I have stashed away for reference and inspiration:

DesignMuseum.org
Mid-century Illustrated group on Flickr
Swiss Graphic Design History
Graphic Design in Russia
Chinese Propaganda Posters
International Posters (Vintage)

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Inappropriate Touching?

Is it possible to enjoy the feel of a web site too much? You know, in a way that is flattering it at first, but then you can’t stop because of one overly-gratifying, sexy feature it has? Is there a line there to be crossed? I think maybe there is, because I can’t stop rolling over the navigation on this site to the point that I kinda feel dirty. Check it out:

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Lipsum Cuffs

I’d really like to have one of these - but I would LOVE to have two so I could run around like Wonder Woman deflecting poorly set type with my giant bracelets. You know, like a sort of anal-retentive super hero.

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Philippe Starck on Design

I’m a big fan of the TED Talks, brief snippets of visionary inspiration, and what better time to catch up on them than while I’m typesetting course guides for work. Perfect. Mind-numbing leading and alignment tasks are now tolerable.

What more appropriate talk to listen to than Philippe Starck’s talk on design. Unaided by ppt slides Starck paints a humble and vivid picture of human beings in an [affectionately] outrageous French accent, and from a long view shares his motivation to design.

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