Tuesday, Dec. 1

Jessica Hirsche Lettering

dirty letter cards

Inspirations from today

how to kill an idea

pantone chips for the chip lover

some beautiful textures via Igor Melgaco

Deep-Dish Apple Pie

Deep-Dish Apple Pie

yum

List of things I saw today

I've realized, now that I am working 8-6 (or as you can see, 8-7!) that I don't really have enough time to ponder or create a full blog unless I do it when I go home (I don't even touch the computer once I am home though). So, instead, I thought it might be nice to at least have a fast rundown of all the fun things I ran across while I was researching, considering, thinking, or eating lunch.

When researching about creating a holiday card for a client I came across this fun site for wooden printed goods some of which were very cute

also found a neat illustrator trick for making wood textures

then I ran across there very fun and quirky illustrations for Wayne Pate while reading a cute little blog called Modern Craft. Modern Craft has a whole bunch of beautifully hand done illustrations and designs and a whole bunch of give aways....anywho, Wayne Pate's posters embody the cool retro aesthetic always gets our attention and are a bit reminiscent of Lyle Lyle Crocodile, Alexander Girard, and a little David Hockney.

I also ran across this beautiful piece of art on Grain Edit which is for Mike Cina's jazz mix. Mike Cina works with YouWorkForThem.

then I found another fun blog Black*Eiffel...which I recommend checking out for anyone who likes a little design and lifestyle.

Ok...I missed a bunch. But I need to get home...it's getting late.

Maurice L. Freedman

I ran across Maurice L Freedman's work today while doing research at work at ButDoesItFloat and was amazed by his work and the nature of his work.

Maurice L Freedman was the district camoufleur in Florida during World War I. During the First and the Second World Wars, many ships were camouflaged with Dazzle Patterns. This was true for both the Merchant Navy as well as for the Military Navy. Vessels from both the UK and the US were camouflaged. Dazzle is a disruptive type of camouflage used in World War I to camouflage ships against German U-boats. The disruptive design resembled Cubist paintings and confused German U-boats on the speed and direction of a ship.

The top-secret nature of camouflage during World War I has made Dazzle one of history's hidden gems - and what beautiful gems indeed.

Maurice Freedman later went on to graduate from RISD - there was a recent symposium about his work.

Typodermic

I was looking around myfonts.com and came across a bunch of fonts by Typodermic.

Check em out

Georges Barbier

I remember the first time I stumbled upon this image, I was so in love with her that I created an inspiration folder just to keep her on my desktop...that was about 4 years ago, before I had entered design or art.

I have always been a collector, and she was the beginning of a quest to figure out her origin. Today I discovered it. This is the cover illustration for the second edition of a french novel, Les Liaisons Dangereuses, written by Pierre Ambroise Francois Choderlos de Laclos. The original epistolary novel was written back in 1782, just before the French Revolution. Although he was an army general throughout Louis XIV's campaigns, this novel has been likened to those of the Marquis de Sade due to the main characters' use of sex as a vehicle for humiliation.

Almost 125 years after Choderlos de Laclos's bones were thrown into the sea by the Italians who had reclaimed the concurred land from the French Revolution, Les Liaisons Dangereuses was republished with illustrations by Georges Barbier, giving Choderlos de Laclos the posthumous fame he had always desired.

Georges Barbier's illustrated everything from play and poster illustrations, to haute couture design. I found a little autobiography here and here. His depiction of the woman was very iconic to the 1920's, with thin androgynous bodies and beautiful details. His work just screams art deco to me, and I love it.

You can see how work like this inspired artists such as Tomer Hanuka whom I also love.

Back to research

It has been a long time since I've posted anything...but I have very recently graduated from The Portfolio Center, and I think it is time to start keeping track of all the inspirational websites, artists and activities that I will be doing while I job search.

First off, came a huge blog reading fiasco. I subscribe all of my blogs to Google Reader, but once in a while I would like to look at new designers or people who do as I do, and read other blogs for inspiration, and then blog about it!!

So I discovered design work life. Design work life is the blog of Seamless Creative which is kept to catalog design inspiration. Seamless Creative is a nice little two person boutique design firm in Queens that does really beautiful but simple work for print and web. Their work has a lot of pattern and simple illustrations, with beautiful choice of color and type.

See below one of their projects.

I think I will keep up on them, especially since they make such simple work look very delicate and polished.

Bing.com

Bing.com is Microsoft's response to Google and it is running on a pretty strong platform - "Not just a search engine, but a decision engine." Basically, Bing.com is trying to fix internet searching to provide results that are appropriate to the original search (because Google will retrieve the most random results at times.)

Google has also been chastised for not being the most user friendly or aesthetically pleasing website, having been developed before web design and hierarchy were as important as they are now, but unwilling to change their aesthetic and get all their users in an uproar.

So with all these possible improvements that Bing.com could implement, does it live up to our expectations? I thought I would check it out.

I was not satisfied with the results that I found, especially in the image search. The options for looking for varying sizes is a lot more limited than Google (a huge issue for me as I am searching for images that can blow up to print quality). I also don't like the categories that were created for "easier searches." I realize that while those may be the most popular categories, there are more than a few important categories missing - are we really only news, travel and shopping?

Although I have a problem with the functionality of the site, I have to say, it is very pretty. I love the option of having larger thumbnails in the image search. And the inclusion of sections and hierarchy on the search homepages - but does the site work if it is just pretty and not really functioning in a new and better way than Google? Overall, I have to say that I think I will continue to use Google - who needs design, when all I am looking for are results?

Remembering Michael

People used to go out and buy newspapers on days of special events. For example, I tried to buy a NYTimes when Obama was elected as our President, but they were sold out everywhere. (Now you can buy one on ebay!!!)

When MJ recently passed away - I figured the same thing would happen. So I decided to do the next best thing - screenshots of the NYTimes homepage. But does this equate or was I just lazy? The interesting thing about online media is that is updates itself so quickly and frequently, that it is the best source for current updated information anyhow. Also, within the first 24 hours, there were more photographs on the NYTimes homepage than I think they had published in their newspaper - so which version is more valuable? On ebay, MJ's paper is more expensive that Obama's. But I got a screenshot of the first NYTimes story.