Friday, August 31, 2007

Happy Labor Day Weekend from GDBar

Between starting a new job that involves frequent business travel and varying degrees of technical difficulties, posts have not been quite as regular as of late. My goal is to change this and return to a regular daily posting schedule... after Labor Day Weekend. I'm heading north for the long weekend. Safe travels and/or happy relaxation/recreation to all. GDBar will return on Tuesday, September 4th.

Tuesday, August 28, 2007

Kollermedia Patterns

Whether you work in web design or just need a graphic break from your everyday work, check out Jürgen Koller's collection of rich and varied patterns. Koller's been collecting patterns for about 4 years, from people like the talented Squidfingers. A flip through the different categories (lined, dotted, squares, classic, dirty, funky, real) is sure to yield either a great background starter for your web designs or just a well-deserved bit of visual inspiration. [Thanks Ashley!]

Monday, August 27, 2007

Font Magazine 006

The latest issue of Fontshop's Font Magazine is out, featuring articles that look at what's going on in typography around the globe—issue 006 visits South Africa, Sarajevo, São Paulo, Iran, and Havana. Available in full format as a free subscription, or via the scaled-down online companion.

Friday, August 24, 2007

Fiodor Sumkin: Opera78

Fun for Friday: explore the illustration and type design of Amsterdam-based illustrator Fiodor Sumkin's Opera78. Combining old-school line drawings with a modern sensibility, his work reminds me of many of my fondest memories of 70s art and also of some of my favorite recent artistic trends. [via AdGoodness]

Thursday, August 23, 2007

Katrina Comics

Following in the footsteps of comics like Maus, Persepolis, and those that emerged after September 11th, New Orleans After the Deluge uses illustration to examine "the human comedy and tragedy" of disastrous events—in this case, Hurricane Katrina. The work has been created by Brooklyn artist and American Splendor collaborator Josh Neufeld, who made several research trips to the Gulf Coast to develop a narrative that features real people , dialogue based on their quotes, and faithful depictions of actual homes. Published online in ongoing episodes.
[Via Cool Hunting]

Wednesday, August 22, 2007

Sauerkids

Strange and wonderful things are going on in the brains of Mark Moget and Taco Sipma, the Dutch designer-illustrators who have created Sauerkids. They describe their character-based art as "a combination of innocent childhood imagery and the mental confusion of everyday life", and have worked it into prints, t-shirts, music—even typefaces (coming soon). There is so much going on with them, they're a little hard to describe, so I recommend seeing the Sauersite for yourself. [via Drawn!]

Tuesday, August 21, 2007

Design and Air Canada

While traveling for business last week, I was delighted by the surprising level of design-related content of EnRoute, Air Canada's inflight magazine. From the Geoff McFetridge art on the cover to the 70th Anniversary poster contest to the various art-related articles (a nice cut above the usual in-flight mag museum spotlights), it was an unexpected and welcome design diversion.

Monday, August 20, 2007

PSDTuts.com

PSDTuts.com offers "Spoonfed Photoshop Tutorials" for creating several types of text treatments and background effects, like this one for glassy lettering. [via swissmiss]

Web First Steps for Print Designers

Over at Subtraction, Khoi Vinh has a nice post up about the basic steps print designers need to take in order to start working with design for the web. He recommends several good books, and also correctly pinpoints the first step as "embracing the medium as something different from print. Indeed, there’s no point in learning these skills unless as a print designer you’ve made a prior shift in your understanding of how design works in digital media." Definitely worth a read.

Monday, August 13, 2007

GDBar on a short break...

I'm out of town this week on business, and finding internet access is going to be a challenge. Bah! I don't like to disappear, but the circumstances warrant a short break. I'll be back in blogging action on Monday, August 20th. Have a great week!

Friday, August 10, 2007

Disney Alphabets

Thursday, August 09, 2007

Clearance at Flight001

Flight001 is have a big clearance—no Lomo cameras for sale this time, alas, but lots of other highly designed travel items are marked down 30 to 75%. Shop the web or visit the stores in the West Village or on Smith Street in Brooklyn. Sale ends August 18th.

FontShop August Calendar

The latest in FontShop's free monthly calendar is available. Each month features a different typeface—August features a special spotlight of David Berlow and his SOTA Award at TypeCon2007 for lifelong achievement in type design. Shown: his versatile family Bureau Grot.

Wednesday, August 08, 2007

Teacher's Pets at Giant Robot

Mark your calendars—Susie Ghahremani is having her first NY solo art show at Giant Robot. She's called the show Teacher's Pets because the animals in the paintings, drawings, wood pieces, miniatures and soft sculptures have been taught how to do her favorite things. For those of you unfamiliar with Ghahremani's work, she's a RISD grad now based in California who creates illustrated products for boygirlparty.com—I'm a big fan of her shop (I get compliments on my illustrated hand mirror every time I take it out in public). Show opens August 18th (there will be an opening night reception) and runs through September 12th.

Tuesday, August 07, 2007

Taschen: Logo Design

New from Taschen: Logo Design, an "exhaustive guide" that assembles logos from over 30 countries and presents a case study of each. Categories include media, retailers, events, regions, service and agencies, and info about the designer and company is provided. My favorite part of the marketing materials for the new book is this quote from scientist Linus Paulin: "In order to come up with one good idea, you must have lots of ideas."

RIP Bergman, Antonioni

Two great film directors passed away recently. "Their deaths bring down the final curtain on the high-modernist era of filmmaking, when a handful of directors were artistic gods accorded the respect and latitude of great painters or authors," says the NYTimes. Over at Subtraction, Khoi not only provides links to various articles celebrating the lives and careers of Ingmar Bergman and Michelangelo Antonioni, but also gives his own tribute.

Monday, August 06, 2007

Original Design Gangsta

Taking GD-themed rap to a visual level, designer and illustrator Kyle T. Webster is the Original Design Gangsta. I may never again be able to say "whitespace" in gangsta-less tones. [Thanks, Kyle—made my day!]

Friday, August 03, 2007

Noah Z. Jones

More fun for Friday: the Idle Monsters of illustrator Noah Z. Jones guarantee a grin or two. Jones is also the creator of the equally quirky and fun Almost Naked Animals. [via Drawn!]

Craig Ward: Words Are Pictures

Fun for Friday: Words Are Pictures, the website of typographic designer and illustrator Craig Ward, showcases everything from his ligature experiments to typographic maps of cities. Current project: creating a typeface based on smoke. [via Veer]

Thursday, August 02, 2007

Helvetica's Tangle with Airport Security

On tour to promote his film, Helvetica documentarian Gary Hustwit "lost" his luggage, only to discover that the pieces of lead type packed in his suitcase had triggered Homeland Security!

Wednesday, August 01, 2007

Gender

The design word for August over at Speak up is gender.

Ad Free São Paulo

Everyone likes to yowl about advertising, but can you really imagine the city without it? São Paulo can—earlier this year they enacted a new "clean city" legislation that bans outdoor advertising. On Flickr, photographer Tony de Marco documents the ad-free landscape.
[via FontShop]