Design Crush

Whilst researching for a paper for my 'Matter of Technology' class last term I heard a statistic that states about 2/3 of the sites you randomly browse you've already been to. If that's true how have I never been to FromKeetra before?
I've seen her stuff a lot. I discovered today that it's everywhere- she's been featured multiple times on BOOOOOOOM!, core77, notcot, and FFFFound!. At first glance I thought it was good but this morning after seeing an intriguing photo I delved deeper into her work. Now I have the biggest design crush on Keetra Dean Dixon.

Her work is quirky, thought provoking, and well just plain good. I can't find much about her seeing as she's fairly young and new on the scene but what I do know is this. She works out of New York, got her BFA from Minneapolis College of Art and Design and her MFA from Cranbrook Academy of Art. For her thesis project, Keetra made a photobooth that analyses peoples pictures and overlays them with patterns and words:

I was looking for a light hearted, experiential based tradition with a standardized ritual tied to an individuals public persona. Ideally the booth is displayed in a semi public areas - malls, boardwalks, carnivals etc. The booth holds no denotation of it's unique qualities. Users enter the booth, pose for 2 shots & exit as usual. During the developing process, the photos are "analyzed" & customized with forecasts consisting of patterns, symbols & messages - the resulting portrait presents an unexpected interference over a traditional photobooth image

In her portfolio it is evident that all of Keetra's projects are approached with a similar sense of playful reflection. It's just so great.

Style vs Skill

I'm at an impasse. I am and have been learning SO much both in and out of school about so many things. Through all this learning I've been learning about my own opinions and styles. Here's my problem: as much as I am learning what I like and dislike I can't really put it into professional use yet. For the skills I am able to market right now I'm not fully able to have complete control. In fact, there is very little control. I suppose it's enough to keep me happy, but I'm wondering: if I keep doing the same kind of projects that cause this to happen can I break out of it? Once you get comfortable with something it's easy to stay in that comfort zone. I suppose by pursuing more projects for myself this won't be so much of an issue. Another question: if I keep doing projects like this will I ever be able to find other means of work? Will I pigeonhole myself into doing what I don't want to do?

It's become a question of skill versus style. Right now I am a student, looking for whatever I can get, trying to gain experience, and build credibility. I'm a little concerned that I am I creating a box I won't be able to break out of. When will my style outweigh my skill? Will it ever happen? Web design is a huge market right now, and I know how to do it pretty well. Even if it's not my favourite thing a relevant job is a job. Don't get me wrong- it's not that I don't enjoy it, I'm just worried about the direction it could take me. Worried that it's the wrong direction. I guess I'll just have to keep on doing what I am doing and see where I get.

Abducted By Design: It's got EVERYTHING

Prepare to be Abducted by Design. I found this site a while ago, and I keep going back. It's got everything: image bookmarks, designer interviews, tutorials, articles, and more. It's great because it showcases a variety of work from a variety of designers. There are so many styles and graphics which makes it accessible to a large demographic. The downside is sometimes you have to hunt for things you like (I've seen a lot of things on it I think are tacky, heck, I'm not even a big fan of the site's design). As a result of this, I've also seen many styles I haven't, and can appreciate it more. There are great examples of typography, drawings, photography, collages, design in general. The tutorials also seem to be pretty cool. It's a great site for inspiration, entertainment, or if you want to learn about styles.


My favourite thing is the daily inspiration. I've seen some great images (both shown on this post are from this section). It's also cool because you can not only follow this community, but join it. So check it out, you may be pleasently suprised.

Another Great Designer- Andy J. Miller

He was recently featured on BOOM, and I have been looking at his stuff like it's an addiction. According to his website bio "Andy J. Miller is an illustrator, art director, designer, and musician" from Indiana now living in the UK. Miller has had clients such as: Sony, Converse, Nike, Howies, Woot T-Shirts, Chalk Apparel, NYLON, The Big Chill Festival, ActionAid, Science Council, Palmercash T-Shirts, The Yellow Bird Project, Beck's, Kitsune Noir, Bon Bon Kakku, Infectious Art. The Yellow Bird project, in case you haven't heard is a Montreal based charity organization where musicians design a T-shirt, we print and sell them on their website, and all of the profit goes to charity. Each of the artists gets to choose their own. Miller is making a colouring book for Yellow Bird Project called "The Indie Rock Coloring Book featuring coloring book pages in tribute to bands such as Bon Iver, The Shins, Broken Social Scene, MGMT and more". Colouring, design, music and charity. What's NOT to love?!Anyhow, his stuff is great (yeah, he's kind of similar to Damien Correll and Mike Perry, I guess it's just a style I really like), so check it out. Maybe get yourself a colouring book later this year.

Damien Correll: awesome designer

Based out of Brooklyn NY Damien Correll is a freelance designer who has worked for Urban Outfitters, Nike, Yale University, K2, Rome SDS, Plug Research, Nickelodeon, Zoo York and Polyvinyl Records to name a few. He has also been featured in the New York Magazine, XLR8R, Juxtapoz, IdN, STEP, NOVUM, The New York Times Magazine, Faesthetic and contributes regularly to Swindle Magazine.
You can tell from his work that he really has fun with his designs. His style kind of reminds me of Mike Perry. Just like Perry he uses simple illustrations that are highly geometric and sometimes repetitive mixing it with photography and typography. Lots of patterns and layers are used to complete the aesthetic.

So check him out, his portfolio is overflowing with good design. Like most designers you can also buy stuff from his online store if you really like it.

Words Are Pictures

You may or may not have noticed my passion for typefaces (fonts, hand done, whatever) so I was happy to discover Craig Ward today. I've seen his stuff before on other design sites but never connected it.




















His work is centered around typography made by prints, cut outs, photography, found objects, anything really. It's very playful. I've found it very delightful. Here is a more complete portfolio.

10 awesome band posters

I've been wanting for a while to write about 10 design companies (or artists) that silkscreen band posters. These are just 10 of many amazing companies, there are so many more, you just have to look. Most companies have dozens of posters (if not hundreds) and put them up for sale on the internet. The best part is they are totally affordable, most posters range from about $20 to $50. With prices like that, whats to stop you? In alphabetical (by accident) order here are 10 awesome band posters by awesome people.

ONE

Animal Collective- Cody Fennell



TWOBeirut- Gina Kelly



THREE

Bon Iver- Show and Smell Print



FOUR

Feist- Never Sleeping Design

FIVE

Final Fantasy- Doublenaut


SIX

Fleet Foxes- Delicious Design League

SEVEN

Mates of State- F2 Design

EIGHT

Rilo Kiley- Lure Design



NINE

Rogue Wave- Spike Press

TENYo La Tengo- Hammerpress

So there you have 10 awesome band poster designers (fun fact, I have the Final Fantasy poster by doublenaut) there are plenty more where those came from. One site I found a few of these from is Gigposters.com. If you didn't like anything you saw on this list, you'll definitely find something easily on there more suited to your liking.

Can't stop looking at...

MAKE SOMETHING COOL EVERYDAY. MSCE is an online community of people that seems to be growing pretty steadily. The goal for participants is, well, to make something cool everyday. The only criteria is it should be created in ONE day. I imagine it would be both inspiring and draining to try and making something everyday. I mean, I would be happy making something cool every WEEK.


The project features designers, artists, illustrators, as well as random people it has collected.
There are also numerous Flickr groups, and streams dedicated to it. There appears to be a core group of people that do post everyday, but there are also quite a few more sporadic users. Some choose to go with themes, Moss (the user who I believe started this project) has a series of vintage looking packaging for films and videogames. Shown above is an image belonging to Trustzabo who seems to have a thing for reptile collages. There are also occasions when one user will suggest a theme and others will design something around that theme (for example top played song).So check it out, it's kind of addicting. Maybe one day when I'm less busy I'll try to MSCE too.

Mike Perry

So... sometimes designers are so great I find myself frequenting their websites only to find nothing new because, well HECK, projects take a long time (that's why I like blogs, CONSTANT updates). One such designer is Mike Perry from Brooklyn NY. He is part of an art/design collective called YouWorkForThem . YouWorkForThem is "an award-winning group of artists that produce some of the most groundbreaking design work available today" featuring some of my other favourite designers.
Anyhow, I was recently very pleased to discover Mike Perry had redesigned his entire website and added new content. The website itself is now cleaner than before, but it is harder to see his work, you need to get PDF's to see properly. Regardless, his stuff is wicked so you should check it out.
I was shocked to find that there is no Wikipedia article on him (well, not one I could find) because he has done work with New York Times Magazine, Dwell Magazine, Microsoft Zune, Urban Outfitters, eMusic, and Zoo York. He has also published two books called Over and Over (a book of hand made designs and patterns and features Travis Stearns another designer I have posted about), Hand-Job (a book of hand drawn typefaces), and has started a magazine called Untitled. You can see he's a pretty busy guy, so the Wikipedia absence is still confusing me.

Maybe TOO inspiring...

So... here I am looking at an article entitled '50 Inspiring Vintage Advertisements' on Well Medicated, a design blog when I realise something... THIS LOOKS ODDLY FAMILIAR. Maybe it's the assortment of colours, maybe it's the montage of images, maybe its the helvetica... but this is very reminiscent of every Western Girl's favourite store: American Apparel.
So... perhaps these vintage ads are TOO inspiring. Maybe everything has been done. If one of the alleged 'most original' stores (...) of our time is going back in time, maybe we are too. Maybe we need to rethink where design is headed (back to the design revolution of the 1960's?). Maybe we just need something so fresh that we can't go back in time. I mean those ads were great for the time period! Think of how inventive it would be in a time where graphic design is an emerging occupation. The originality and cleanliness of this style would SHOCK (think mad men and the VW ad for those that watch) and REVOLUTIONIZE the whole industry.
So... why can't we have that kind of innovation today? Is it not possible?

www-ilderness

So... I found this guy quite a while ago. I really like most of his stuff so I decided to post it here. He is Travis Stearns and he's done work for: Threadless, D&G, and Nylon magazine among a lot more companies etc.
HE experiments with different kinds of design which I think is really cool. I like his mixes of photos, drawings, fonts, and styles.

These are just a few of his images so check other ones out on the behance network.
He has some good typography, collaging, and seems to appreciate skateboarding. It's interesting how much you can tell about a person by their art. See if you can figure more out...

Where is Your Bike?

The title of this here blog is a tribute to my German neighbour. Anytime I leave the house of foot and he sees me I get "Where is your biiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiike? Why don't you biiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiike?". So here's to him.




I think it would be neat to be in a bike gang. Just riding up and down the streets so badass on the most d.i.y. vehicle since the foot. There is a chance I'll go on a bike trip with some friends this summer. It would be fun, adventurous, relatively inexpensive. We'll see.
I found that image on ffffound!(a really cool image blog) but originally it was from Fecal Face which really covers everything awesome ever. It's quite extensive and time consuming. You can really loose track of time looking at all the features. Check it out. I'll be posting relevant content I find neat from there a lot I think.