Great design

"Great design does not come from great processes, it comes from great designers"

Fred Brooks.

Read the Wired article here.

Re-blogged from SwissMiss.

Birthday cards

Here are two birthday cards I have designed recently for my sisters' birthdays.

You may notice they both use Helvetica bold.

The first is my favourite of the two, based on a poster designed to promote Helvetica back in the 60's, it stacks the lettering and blocks in the V shaped counters of the Y in red creating an instant interest point. I am planning to screen print this card and have it for sale on Etsy soon.

The second is a lowercase dot to dot B which is a fun and unusual idea for a card, it can be completed or left alone. (This was the inspiration for my A B C pillows).

Notebook cover

Following my previous Notebook cover series, I have designed this cover which I am hoping to screen print and have for sale as full notebooks on Etsy in the coming months. The notebook may or may not be ring bound but the image above shows how the print will look.

It is also possible that I will print a few colour variations using ready mixed ink, so the possibilities of colour are totally random.

ilovebook.nl

Just stumbled upon this beautifully minimal website ilovebook.nl who sell the simplest, yet the most charming notebooks and diaries. Each uses little or no type on the covers which are available in different materials from kraft paper to leather.

Diaries feature stunning little calendars set in Helvetica in the deepest black colour. I want them all!

The books are all handmade creations from Dutch graphic designer Marjolein Delhaas.

Dot to dot to dot

A new set of pillows available to buy on my envelop shop. Each pillow makes up either the letter a, b, or c in lowercase Helvetica Bold. Join the dots to complete the image, or leave as is for an abstract designy feel.

Seeing Positives

I admit I haven't had much work to show you lately due to being in the middle of two client projects, due to be finished soon and they will be up for you to see.

For now though I do have a small piece of work to show, a poster I have designed as part of the Positive Posters Project based in Melbourne, Australia.

The competition is held annually between July and October. They give designers two months to create and submit a positive design that responds to the theme of that year. An exhibition is held of the top 30 posters, and the winner chosen by a group of international judges. They then print 4000 copies of the winning poster and paste it all over the streets of Melbourne, Australia. And send a few off around the world too!

This years brief:

"I haven’t failed; I’ve had 10,000 ideas that didn’t work 
– Benjamin Franklin

We think Mr. Franklin had a nice way of looking at things. So the 2010 competition theme is ‘A Glass Half Full’.
 For those who don’t know, this saying refers to optimism. Some people see situations with optimism (Franklin – glass half full), and some see situations with pessimism (glass half empty)."

Here is my poster, see it larger here and here

I'm Comic Sans, Asshole

Below is an article written by Mike Lacher that I found in the current issue of Creative Review, re-printed from the original source over at McSweeney's blog.

As much as I am one of the 'pretentious buzz kills' referred to in the piece, I still find this article brilliantly amusing. But it must be noted that I will never retreat to the dark side that is Comic Sans.

Enjoy:

Listen up. I know the shit you've been saying behind my back. You think I'm stupid. You think I'm immature. You think I'm a malformed, pathetic excuse for a font. Well think again, nerdhole, because I'm Comic Sans, and I'm the best thing to happen to typography since Johannes fucking Gutenberg.

You don't like that your coworker used me on that note about stealing her yogurt from the break room fridge? You don't like that I'm all over your sister-in-law's blog? You don't like that I'm on the sign for that new Thai place? You think I'm pedestrian and tacky? Guess the fuck what, Picasso. We don't all have seventy-three weights of stick-up-my-ass Helvetica sitting on our seventeen-inch MacBook Pros. Sorry the entire world can't all be done in stark Eurotrash Swiss type. Sorry some people like to have fun. Sorry I'm standing in the way of your minimalist Bauhaus-esque fascist snoozefest. Maybe sometime you should take off your black turtleneck, stop compulsively adjusting your Tumblr theme, and lighten the fuck up for once.

People love me. Why? Because I'm fun. I'm the life of the party. I bring levity to any situation. Need to soften the blow of a harsh message about restroom etiquette? SLAM. There I am. Need to spice up the directions to your graduation party? WHAM. There again. Need to convey your fun-loving, approachable nature on your business' website? SMACK. Like daffodils in motherfucking spring.

When people need to kick back, have fun, and party, I will be there, unlike your pathetic fonts. While Gotham is at the science fair, I'm banging the prom queen behind the woodshop. While Avenir is practicing the clarinet, I'm shredding "Reign In Blood" on my double-necked Stratocaster. While Univers is refilling his allergy prescriptions, I'm racing my tricked-out, nitrous-laden Honda Civic against Tokyo gangsters who'll kill me if I don't cross the finish line first. I am a sans serif Superman and my only kryptonite is pretentious buzzkills like you.

It doesn't even matter what you think. You know why, jagoff? Cause I'm famous. I am on every major operating system since Microsoft fucking Bob. I'm in your signs. I'm in your browsers. I'm in your instant messengers. I'm not just a font. I am a force of motherfucking nature and I will not rest until every uptight armchair typographer cock-hat like you is surrounded by my lovable, comic-book inspired, sans-serif badassery.

Enough of this bullshit. I'm gonna go get hammered with Papyrus.