Smashing Magazine: 2 Years

Smashing Magazine is 2 years old and they've created a give away poster to celebrate. They are only giving away 11 of them, so don't get too excited. Anyway, I think the art is pretty sweet. (Above.)

A New Link for Creatives in Colorado

The good folks at Indie Arsenal have a new beta site that you should check out. Get in and share your work and expertise. You may just get a job out of it!

Don't forget to check out our very own Creative Directory for your needs.

Map of Imagery in Music Genres

Trying to write that hit #1 song but not sure what the content should be. Should I talk about her eyes, lips, ass?

First, apparently, you should decide what category you are writing for and then cross reference Fleshmap's category break down on what artist are writing about the most. Most often across the categories are the Eyes, windows to the soul and all. Then again according to rap an ass may be the window to the soul, which gives the phrase a whole new meaning. And then there's blues, represented by a hand, which might be why it's the blues.

What do we sing about, when we sing about the body? The chart below, based on a sample of thousands songs, tells the story. The size of a circle corresponds to how often that part is mentioned in each genre. Click on a genre name to see a close-up that shows exactly what words were used.

Check them out, Fleshmap.

Some Type of Wonderful

Ok, I have always been fond of Type. Ever since I pulled my pencils and sketch books into Graphic Design school and was told that for the first year or so we would not event turn on a computer. The classes that followed were some of the best times I can remember, at least in school. Copy machines, rubber cement, hand drawing letters to properly kern them. Each class focused on type. The basics of design.

Which is why I may be a little too excited about Life Lounge's Some Type of Wonderful.

We’ve invited 12 of our favourite artists and designers from around the globe to join us in a typographic project we’ve called Some Type Of Wonderful where each artist has been asked to respond typographically to a design brief related to a designated month of the year. Each of the unique designs will be offered through lifelounge.com as signed, limited edition A1 Giclee prints. They will also be available all together as a limited edition, beautifully designed 2009 wall calendar to enjoy for the following year.

Some Type Of Wonderful will also be holding an exhibition of the works at Melbourne's McCulloch Gallery with a launch party in late October. Stay tuned for more info.

Design in the basic form. They have a pretty wide range of artists involved. I'll just have to start planning my trip to Melbourne now. Or maybe just do something like that here.

Creative Discovery: To Be Sure Without Knowing

Okay, I'm about to get a little woo-woo. Josh Doorman is an artist who works with maps, and consequently with memory – he's currently working on a project involving memory and Alzheimers and dementia patients. But here's the woo woo part: In his artists' statement, he writes, "As I get older, it gets more difficult to write about my own work. However, the less I am able to articulate what I do, the more I trust in my process."

I find that to be a beautiful truth about life that we can rarely implement in design as it is very rare to find a client who trusts in the artist within the designer. It doesn't seem billable if we can't rationalize it. And that's a huge part of our training , right? There's an adage, design is about solving problems, art is about creating a problem to solve, or something like that. Our value to business as visual communicators and designers is to solve the problem our clients/employers face, to "find the pain" and figure out how we can help, as a friend put it to me recently. 

Still, there is mystery in the western, post-enlightenment sense, a puzzle to solve; and then there is that Greek version, much more Eastern than we're comfortable with, the mystery which when we dive into, requires that we leave our reason behind and then provides for us a place to settle in, to be surprised, to discover. To be sure without knowing.

Well, that's probably enough woo woo for now. It's just that sometimes it's nice to take a break from what's billable and enjoy the process of creative discovery. That's partly what I like about Josh Doorman's map art. Check it out. 

Who Says OOH has to Read?

Nice awareness generator for the upcoming Spore Video Game. Can't imagine anyone walking by not wanting to look.

Tadpoles

Would get my attention. Nice touch bringing it to life, so to speak.

Octo-Love

Fun animation exploring the length our eight-legged friends will go for love.

Find-an-Intern Fair

RMCAD Internship Fair
Tuesday, October 7, 2008
11-12:30pm

The fair will be held on the RMCAD campus- 1600 Pierce Street Lakewood, CO 80214

This is an opportunity for your organization to find artistic talent for freelance work and/or internships.

Participating in the fair is free and lunch will be provided. Please RSVP by October 1st to VA Hayman, Director of Career + Alumni Services at
vahayman@rmcad.edu or 303-225-8569

We hope you can participate.

Men's Care Package Design

Check out the work from Denver's Jim Hargreaves. Clean, Simple, Sophisticated, Retro. I really like. Looking for a designer, hit Jim up.

Vista

Microsoft's answer to Mac vrs PC commercials fails to make me want to switch. But that wasn't going to happen anyway. My only question is:Didn't Gates retire? -and- Even if he was convincing, why would I believe his retirement would make the product better?

I guess its an awareness generator, but then again, is Microsoft's problem awareness?

I'm just confused.

Threadless

One more reason to like threadless. When you order a print, you get this poster with it. Love the headband.

Al Dente

Cute little short story about an orphan and an ogre with a great voice.

Knives

Don't want to ruin this with you know, words.

There's a Porsche in My Kitchen

The midlife crisis goes metro-sexual. The new sports car is not enough for today's forty-year-old man, he wants the same engineering and design in the kitchen. Or maybe this is a new trend to keep that guy-in-crisis from wandering outside the home and keep him busy in the kitchen. At any rate, Porsche teams up with German cabinet makers Poggenpohl to create an extremely modern kitchen. Kind of looks like fancy IKEA to me. I'd still prefer the car. However, if Volkswagen were involved in the design...

Along Came a Spider

Oh, you tease us with cool spiders on famous English buildings and tell us to wait, "It'll be spectacular" you say. I for one will wait, and expect spectacular. Because you apparently know how to build wonderful automated creatures, surely you won't underwhelm me with less than specatcular. BBC

Alice Twemlow on Aspen, 1970

Really interesting little read on the International Design Conference at Aspen in 1970. Idealists for responsible design practices clash with industry heavies and affect some good change. Be sure to read Ric Grefé's comments, too.

(via Design Observer)

Kashi Vitality Package Stands Out

Maybe I'm a sucker for anything printed on what looks like a brown paper bag. I've always loved the tactile quality and the interplay between the ink and the everyday-ness of the brown paper. When I went to pick up some cereal on my way to work this morning, this box stood out from the rest easily. It stood out from Kashi's other stuff, as well. It doesn't seem to break from the brand, but rather, seems like a special edition. It doesn't hit a different price point which a special edition might tend to do, though. I like that they included a photo element on the bottom where some companies might not have in this application. 

I wonder what the plan is for the other Kashi products. They do have a community/forum aspect to their brand on their website that focusses on healthy living and such and it would seem like the natural thing to do to extend this packaging aesthetic there, if a brand shift is underway. 

LED Bulbs

Forget fluorescent bulbs, that is so 2007, check out Frog Design's next design, LED. They lose the mercury and plastic for a more sustainable design, plus the light is a less harsh. Besides, don't you just love the screen print design they added?
VIA Gizmodo

Yes, that's photography

Check out the work of photographer (yes photography, although it looks too juicy not to be illustration) Chenman. A Beijing born woman who is equally at home with photography as she is with 3d computer rendering and photomanipulation. These are the shots that seem to be too good to me, but hit her portfolio and check out the rest.