New Website!

Just a quick note to announce that I have a new portfolio website! I'm now housing my art and design projects on the main site, and this will just be my blog. Feel free to look around the new site—there are some new projects up there! And you'll notice that the blog has a new design as well.

Elizabeth Porcher Jones Stationery

This stationery designed by Stitch Design Co. for calligrapher Elizabeth Porcher Jones is so lovely! The type is beautiful, and I really like the colors.

I wouldn't have thought of pairing light turquoise and navy blue, but it's an interesting and classy combination.

I like the way this stationery looks refined but also modern.

What do you think?

HT: Design Work Life

#GoVote

Some great design here from the #GoVote campaign. I'll be voting today!

HT: Design Work Life

Adrian Johnson: Camera Illustrations

I love these camera illustrations by Adrian Johnson.

No. 1

Vintage cameras are cool to begin with, but I think the interesting color choices and angles make these pieces all the more intriguing.

No. 2

What do you think?

Andre Meca: London Guide

This London Guide by Andre Meca is fantastic. I love design like that this that uses typography simply and skillfully.

The style is vintage-looking, which adds another interesting element.

Overall, this project provides a guide to London that is unusual, fun, and creative. I'd sure love a copy.

The alphabet theme is also interesting. I love the way all the booklets look when they're in a row—the letters and colors are great!

HT: AisleOne

Playtype Posters

I found these type posters by Playtype on Design Work Life, and I love the color combinations, composition, and overlapping letters.

I like the way the letters are oversized; it makes the eye focus more on the aesthetic quality of the type than on what the letters mean, if anything—which is an interesting concept.

And of course the colors in this one are great. Gray and yellow are my favorites!

What do you think of these typography posters?

Typographische Monatsblätter Archive

1960 Issue 11

The Typographische Monatsblätter Archive website is a collection of magazine covers from a German design magazine.

1966 Issue 5

There is some stellar design to be seen here; lots of wonderful Helvetica and great composition and layout.

1968 Issue 2

Between its Cover Index and Older Issues pages, this archive holds magazine covers from 1932-1990.

1970 Issue 6/7

The amazing thing is that most if not all of these covers were created without modern computers. The skill and patience of designers of yesteryear amazes me!

1982 Issue 5

And I love how many of these designs still look good today. To me, that's one of the keys to great design. It's not going to go out of style in several decades.

1985 Issue 5

If you'd like, take a look at the whole archive. There are a few covers in the 1970's that I wouldn't endorse, but besides that, most of them are very innocent and type-based.

1987 Issue 5

HT: Grain Edit

1989 Issue 5

Penguin Drop Cap Series

Jessica Hische and Paul Buckley collaborated on this project for Penguin: a collection of classic books with Jessica's drop caps on the covers. I love this idea. Jessica's amazing lettering and classic titles are just the perfect combination!

More images available at Design Work Life. What do you think of this collection?

Guilherme Dultra Villar Identity

I saw this identity on FPO and thought it was simply wonderful. The color combination, use of white space, clean & simple style, and especially the concept behind it all just make me think "wow."

Guilherme Dultra Villar created his identity by spelling out his first name phonetically. This is a memorable, unusual concept that works just right with his name. Somehow I don't think "care-ree" would work quite as well as a branding strategy.

But for Guilherme, it works phenomenally. And in addition to the concept, the design aspect of this collection of materials is simply wonderful. The high contrast between the gray and yellow is marvelous (and you have probably gathered that I love gray and yellow). I also love how "bare bones" this design looks. It's simple but not boring; sometimes, less is more, and that is certainly the case here.

This design just works. It does the job in a memorable, beautiful way. What do you think?

Sketchbook: Typography Doodles

These are just some little typographic doodles I did with some of the lines from a favorite hymn. I liked playing with different styles of type and the positioning of the words.

The blackletter style for "ponder anew" and some of the other words was something I hadn't done much of before. It was fun to try something new.

There is plenty of room for improvement in the quality of the lines and the consistency of the different styles of type, but it was a fun experiment since I love typography!

What do you all think? I'd love to hear your comments—positive ones and constructive criticism.

700 / This Is Life

This is my 700th post. And this post also marks a new season for this blog and for me. A week ago, I started college as an art major. I love that I get to learn about art (and eventually graphic design!) in school!

So it just seemed appropriate that in my 700th post, I should post my first college art project. The goal of this project was to create four progressions of lines from simple to complex.

As you can see, each column starts with a different type of line, and the designs get more detailed in each row. My favorite column is the third one; I like how the design rotates from square to square.

Also, I noticed that the shapes kind of look like the word "RISE." That was totally unintentional, but I thought it was cool!

I'd love your thoughts on this project! What do you think of it?

Design Tip: Never Use Black

I saw this link, with the title above, on Swiss Miss, and I was intrigued. Never use black in design? What's that supposed to mean? Is that even possible?

But when I read Ian Storm Taylor's article on this topic, I began to get it. The black he's saying not to use is pure, stark black. He explains that blacks with color hues mixed in are more natural in design and actually more realistic. Who knew?

This idea of avoiding pure black had never occurred. Actually, I've always tried to use pure black and grays that are straight black and white because I thought they were cleaner and brighter. I'll definitely have to consider adding some color to my blacks and grays.

The Beach

I got to spend this past week at the beach, and I loved it. It's one of my favorite places to be.

House Industries Catalog

Several months ago, I came across House Industries and their free catalogs. It looked cool, so I signed up. Time passed, and I kind of forgot about it. But then one day, I got this in the mail.

It's a type catalog. And it's so cool. This was free? I'd almost pay for it.

I love the fun, vintage colors and all the wonderful typefaces featured in this catalog.

I'd highly recommend signing up for House Industries' free catalog. And guess what? They give you free fonts, too.