Category Archives for For Fun
The Fabulous Small Talk Vineyards Wine Bottle Packaging
When I walk into a wine store, I am completely overwhelmed! There are so many different options—bottles from different years, vineyards and countries. So how do you choose a wine? Unless you come bearing recommendations from friends, packaging design seems like your best bet for selecting a fun bottle to take home and try!
So on your next trip to the wine shop, you might consider picking up a bottle of Small Talk Vineyards—a series of distinctive wines that expose the dramatic gap between what you say, and what you think. The fabulous hand-lettered front label is the “speech bubble”—expressing what we usually say during the progression od a dinner, and the back label is the “thought bubble” expressing what we really think. If nothing else, this bottle is a great conversation piece at any gathering!
Right now the bottles are only available in Canada (so to all my Canadian readers, hope you enjoy). Hopefully, they will make their way to the US soon, and I can get my hands on one!
Check out the various bottle designs below. Which one is your favorite? Sound off!
via (The Dieline)
Happy (Belated) Birthday Saul Bass!
Yesterday, Google Doodle celebrated what would have been legendary designer, Saul Bass‘ 93rd birthday—and they did it in style! In the words of Martin Scorsese, “His titles are not simply imaginative identification tags, when his work comes on-screen, the movie itself truly begins.” Bass, who was born and raised in the Bronx, moved to Hollywood in his twenties to pursue creating film ads. For his first big gig, designing the opening sequence for Otto Preminger’s The Man with the Golden Arm, Bass shocked filmgoers with his edgy paper-animated interpretation of the film’s themes of drug addiction. Soon Hollywood’s greatest filmmakers were clamoring for Bass’ innovative touch (via Huffington Post). Bass is responsible for some of the most famous title sequences in film history (as well as his phenomenal poster and logo work), including: Vertigo, Psycho, West Side Story, North by Northwest and many more.
Check out the awesome homage to Bass by Google Doodler, Matthew Cruickshank below and see his design process here.
I want everything we do to be beautiful. I don’t give a damn whether the client understands that that’s worth anything, or that the client thinks it’s worth anything, or whether it is worth anything. It’s worth it to me.
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Yum…Breakfast Food Art!
Although this is not typography related, it was just too good not to share! This past weekend, I came across Ida Skivenes on Instagram, and fell in love with all of her delectable food creations and designs. In June of 2012, Ida became inspired to play with some healthy ingredients in the creation of for her favorite meal—breakfast. Her first creation was a bear and fox toast that she copied from the Internet, and the rest is now history! Check out some of my favorite creations below, and follow Ida on Instagram to keep up with this awesome project. This fall she plans on releasing a book with all her wonderful food creations—yummy!
Pantone Pairings Project
David Schwen, a Minneapolis based designer, came up with an idea to pair different foods that mash well together and laying them over custom Pantone color (food) chips, calling it Pantone Pairings (he hopes to have prints up for sale this week). Check out some of the pairing below, and follow David on Instagram, where he documents this project, and other creative findings.
p.s. I am sorry for the lack of posts this week, but I came down with a bit of the flu, and I am just now getting back to feeling human!
Vintage Flight Tag Prints
What happens when an inspired designer stumbles over a series of vintage luggage tags? Out emerges a fantastic collection of wall prints—created by London-based designer, Neil Stevens. His inspiration came from, “the now iconic, easily recognizable three-letter abbreviations of the city destinations…”which he thought would look great blown up and hung on a wall. Check out all of the designs below, and coming this spring he hopes to have the most popular ones available in his online shop.
Pixar Minimalist Posters (Set 4)
I think it’s evident by now that I might have a slight obsession with all of the various Pixar minimalist posters that seem to be popping up online. This, the most recent series, is created by Edmond of Poster Explosion. Check out all of the prints below, and you can pick up your favorites for just $8 (for an 8″ x 10″ print).
* In case you missed my other favorite Pixar minimalist series, here they are! Set 1, Set 2, Set 3.
My Geeky Valentine
Designer Joanna Behar, had a great idea to make Valentine’s Day extra special this year! She set out to create a series of greeting cards for, as she puts it “all the geeks like myself who are in love with other geeks”. Although it’s a bit late to order these for this year—there’s always next year! Check out some of the cards below, and visit the My Geeky Valentine store to view the rest and purchase your favorites!
85 Years Of Oscars Poster
Every year, a designer is tasked with the amazing honor of creating the annual poster for the Oscars. This year, a special edition poster for the 85th Annual Oscar Awards was created by Olly Moss—featuring 85 Oscar® statuettes, each one distinctly inspired by past Best Picture winners, from 1927 through 2012. Moss has created illustrations for The New York Times and The Guardian, and is commissioned by Empire Magazine to design a new movie poster illustration every month. Check out the “85 Years of Oscars” poster below (and some of my favorites), and visit the official Oscars site to see an incredible closeup of each statuette.
GIRLS – The Logo
This past weekend I got a chance to catch up on the second season of HBO’s Girls. As I finished watching the latest episode, I remembered that a few months back I read a really interesting article on imprint about the creation of the custom typeface for the GIRLS logo, and wanted to share!
The custom typeface for GIRLS is the work of the Los Angeles based production company Grand Jeté. Lena Dunham, the writer, director, and star of the series wanted the GIRLS logo to strike a balance between something bold and something beautiful. She especially expressed her love for art deco typography, and the deco inspired letterforms that form the final title proved to be the perfect fit for the series. If you’ve seen the show, you will notice that each episode opens with a static shot of the show’s title filling the screen. No animation, no video—just text on a solid background. However, the colors change from week to week, creating a palette that builds in sophistication with the series.
This animation shows some of the treatments that were experimented with along the way, before the final logo was selected. Hard to believe how many there were!
4 people thought this was awesome!…2013 Calendar Love
I am not sure if I didn’t realize how quickly the new year was approaching, or maybe I am just a serious procrastinator, but I have yet to purchase a 2013 calendar. So as promised, this past weekend I went on a hunt for some fantastic calendars that will help brighten up your workspace area, and I found some pretty awesome ones! Check out my top 10 picks below, and comment away if you’ve found some other fun ones.
1.1Canoe2: 2013 Letterpress Calendar
2. emilymcdowelldraws: Holy Crap It’s 2013
3. yumalum: Have One Helvetica Of A 2013
4. PoofyPrints: Rustic 2013 Calendar
5. yumalum: 2013 Retro Vintage Calendar
6. Fifty Five Hi’s: 2013 Robot Calendar
7. dirtybandits: 2013 Calendar of Silly Holidays
8. pistachiopress: 2013 Letterpress Calendar
9. OldSchoolStationeers: 2013 Letterpress Wall Calendar
10. Loopz: 2013 Cute Animals Calendar
