iGoogle Artist Themes

Google has introduced Artist Themes for personalized Google homepages. Artists and designers in the lineup include Jeff Koons, Michael Graves, Philippe Stark (who doesn't seem to be listening to his own recent proclamation that "design is a dreadful form of expression"), glass master Dale Chihuly, aerial photographer Yann Arthus-Bertrand, and more.

Japanese Crepe Paper Illustrations

Over at BibliOdyssey, PK showcases a charming collection of Japanese crepe paper fairy tales. The books were produced between about 1880 and 1940 in various languages and feature wonderfully atmospheric illustrations.

Zeldman: The Vanishing Personal Site

Jeffrey Zeldman muses on the vanishing personal site. "We are witnessing the disappearance of the all-in-one, carefully designed personal site containing professional information, links, and brief bursts of frequently updated content to which others respond via comments." He showcases the site of interactive art director Jody Ferry (shown above), which sends you immediately to several external web services—the LinkedIn resume, the Flickr portfolio, etc. Zeldman doesn't approve or disapprove, but calls for conscious decision-making when it comes to scattering ourselves around the internet. He notes that "outsourcing the publication of our own content has long-term implications that point to more traffic for the web services we rely on, and less traffic and fewer readers for ourselves." This is an interesting point, especially for designers and artists looking to present a focused online presence—to quote from the insightful comment session: "technology has changed the way we market ourselves and our skills." Worth a read!

Keep Calm: Mai 68 Posters

Limited edition printer proofs of Mai 68 posters are available at Keep Calm. This May marks the 40th anniversary of the 1968 Paris rebellions, which (in ridiculously brief summary) mark the turbulent shift from conservative to liberal values in French society. During the protests, students and faculty took over the École des Beaux-Arts and silkscreened hundreds of political posters. An exhibition of these posters is currently on in London, and a book cataloging 40 posters from the collection has been produced. Keep Calm is offering printer proofs of the book—each is a large format, hand-screened printed reproduction of an original Mai 68 poster. There are fewer of 10 proofs of each design, so get them while you can! Meanwhile, if your history is hazy, Wikipedia has more info on the events of May 1968 and how the rebellions both impacted and were influenced by other things happening around the globe.

Font Bots

Fun for Friday: Jonathon Yule's awesome Font Bots, created from sans serif typefaces. Yule is a Toronto-based freelancer who is interested in "typography, grids and the intertwinement of design and play." Shown: the bots for Helvetica (Helbotica!) and Futura. [via HOW]

Quit Your Job

Food for Thought Fun for Friday: 37signals features a Fine Living TV special called Quit Your Job! "These companies aren’t going to beat Google, they aren’t building a better iPod or bread slicer. These entrepreneurs are doing simple things they love and making a pretty decent living from it. They didn’t leave their careers to make millions, they just made a lateral change to a job that is more fulfilling and makes them happier." Advocating small steps towards a more fulfilling professional life, the post also boasts a very interesting comment session. This one goes out to all my designer friends who are frustrated in their current situations and dreaming of a higher level creative satisfaction.

Q&A with Khoi Vinh, NYTimes.com Design Director

Though Subtraction.com often gives readers a peek into Khoi Vinh's life as design director of the NYTimes website, this week there was an official Q&A with Vinh. The discussion is part of the ongoing NYTimes Talk to the Newsroom series—the Q&A with graphics director Steve Duenes was recently featured here.

Photos from the NY Typography Walking Tour

In case you missed the recent typography walking tour of the Lower East Side led by Tobias Frere-Jones (which, like me, you probably did, seeing as how it sold out almost instantly), Jason Santa Maria has photos from the day available to view on Flickr.

Transparent Image Tape Transfer

(Say that five times fast!) The Wishing On Clovers blog has an interesting tutorial up: Transparent Image Tape Transfer Tutorial for ATC, Collage, and Altered Art. Potentially a very handy trick for art school projects or production comps. [via How About Orange]

Preventative Maintenance Monthly

Don't miss BibliOdyssey's showcase of vintage army publication Preventative Maintenance Monthly, featuring covers drawn by legendary comic illustrator Will Eisner.

Stephen Fry and the Gutenberg Press

At last! The Machine That Made Us, Stephen Fry's BBC Four documentary about the Gutenberg Press, is now available to view—all six parts are on YouTube: part 1, part 2, part 3, part 4, part 5 and part 6. Fry investigates the history of the Gutenberg Press, following the drama-laden trail of Johannes Gutenberg, apprenticing in a metal foundry, and even rallying a team of craftsmen to build a working replica of the original press. Even if Fry wasn't one of my favorites, I'd consider this a must-see series!

i love typography (iLT)

The i love typography blog, born last August, is the endeavor of Japan-based typophile John Boardley. "iLT is designed to inspire its readers, to make people more aware of the typography that is around them." Plan on spending lots of time on this site! Also: Boardley has one of the coolest Twitter backgrounds I've seen. [via 37signals]

The Rather Difficult Font Game

More Fun for Friday: try your hand at The Rather Difficult Font Game.

Speak Up Book Recommendations

Fun for Friday: Browse the latest list of design book recommendations over at Speak Up. Their recipe for recommended reading has some great ingredients: posters, Vignellis, typography, Bierut, history, criticism, logos, a dash of Heller... worth a look!

Viget Labs

I'm enjoying what the web developers at Viget Labs have done with their site(s). Instead of one giant blog, they've split their sites into four divisions: Advance, Inspire, Extend and Engage. Each blog has a separate design theme—the Inspire blog was made for designers. [via Patrick Haney's Web Design Inspiration set on Flickr]

Starbucks Goes Retro

Brand New muses on the return of the original Starbucks logo and what happens when a globally recognized brand decides to make a visual shift. For quick reference, Brand Autopsy has an older post showing the evolution of the Starbucks logo from the original siren to the ubiquitous green circle.

Progresswear: Helvetica Neue Shirt

Progresswear has a new Helvetica Neue shirt showing the typeface in weights descending from Ultra Black 95 to Ultra Light 25. It's the first in their new line of shirts focusing on design and typography and is available now at a special pre-release price of $18.99. [via JS]

Coroflot: Six Things to Never Do

Carl Alviani has written an article called Building Your Portfolio Website: Six Things to Never Do for Coroflot's Creative Seeds column. Everyone should have a portfolio site, says Alviani: "The problem is, they're so easy to get wrong."

Kevin Cornell: Entering Illustration

Over at Bearskinrug, illustrator and designer Kevin Cornell has a very useful article up entering the field of illustration. Remove a few specifics, and it's sound advice applicable to any professional creative—definitely worth a look! [via Jason Santa Maria]

Jordan Crane does Michael Chabon

Illustrator Jordan Crane has created a triple set of belly bands for Maps and Legends, Michael Chabon's new work of non-fiction. The bands overlap around die-cut holes that reveal the book's title. People who have handled the book are gushing over this unusual treatment and saying that no photo really does it justice, so check it out next time you're in a bookstore! More of Crane's work can be see here.

Craig Ward: Words Are Pictures (Again)

Words Are Pictures, the website of typographic designer and illustrator Craig Ward, was recommended to me yesterday. I was halfway through the site before I realized that I'd not only visited Ward's site before, but that it's been a previous feature here on GDBar. So I'm featuring Ward again—there's so much to see and appreciate about his work, the site deserves another look! [Thanks, Arun!]

Help Remedies

Even More Fun for Friday: the people behind Help Remedies have this to say about packaging: "Many companies enjoy packaging their goods inside nasty materials covered in gaudy graphics.That’s because many companies are controlled by crazy people." With their reinvented presentation of bandages and pills, Help Remedies has taken pain relief to a new, well-designed and eco-friendly level. (Don't miss the Bored? section of their site!) [via Cool Hunting]

Byroglyphics

More Fun for Friday: Feast your eyes on Byroglyphics, the work of UK Artist/Illustrator Russ Mills. In addition to serving up wonderful portraits of friends, famous people, footwear and more, Mills sells prints of his work and advises aspiring designers to practice "Patience Perseverence Discipline Commitment." [via Coudal Partners]

Zurich Chamber Orchestra Ad

Fun for Friday: Take a look at this animated ad for the Zurich Chamber Orchestra—it's amazing that such a sense of motion can be conveyed by just a few lines. [via DO]

Printers' Ornaments

Over at BibliOdyssey, PK has gathered an extensive collection of printers' ornaments, decorative motifs that have been around since the dawn of moveable type. Used by printers to fill in page space or announce a break in text, the term "printers' ornaments" has become a catch-all title for printed design embellishments such dingbats, scrolls, devices and cupids. PK also has a bit of a think on the evolution of the embellished page, looking back to monastic illumination and then to woodcutting. As always, interesting stuff!

Mario Mandala Coloring Book

A coloring book for adults: Cool Hunting showcases Mario Mandala, in which Japanese artist Mario Tauchi has illustrated over a hundred untraditional "jellyfish-like" variations on the traditional Hindu mandala pattern.

Helvetica Serif

FontFont have announced that they are to release Helvetica Serif, following the discovery of drawing of that typeface by Max Miedinger. The sketches which were discovered by Miedinger’s granddaughter have been redrawn to create the digital version shown above.

Pssst. Belated April Fool's.

ReadyMade Goes Digital

A digital version of the latest issue of ReadyMade magazine is available for free online. Reading magazines online takes some getting used to, but the advantages (saving paper, the ability to take screenshots, direct links to resources) abound. Worth a look—especially at this price!

Steven Wilson

I'm enjoying the illustration of Steven Wilson. "Steve takes the spirit of 80s New York, combines rock imagery from the 70s, and squeezes it through a brain full of circuses and tribal body art." It's easy to see future iPod posters, which continue to evolve away from their pure silhouette origins, taking a cue from Wilson's work (not hard to imagine a pair of headphones on the guy above, is it?). [via
Cool Hunter]

Design Melt Down: Portfolios 8

Design Melt Down delivers its eighth showcase of designer portfolios. As always, it's very interesting to see what others are doing online—still so many dark sites!

Design Dictionary

Over at Speak Up, Armin reviews the recently published Design Dictionary, a thick volume of text (zero imagery) covering design terminology. "A truly impressive and unenviable effort, with a result that is nothing short of astounding... it is perhaps the best complement—if not vice versa—to the visual reference books graphic designers turn to continually."

Pantone Eyewear

Design Nerd Fun for Friday: Pantone has developed eyewear.

InternshipRatings.com

InternshipRatings.com looks like it could be an extremely useful resource for students. The "Worst 5 Ratings" is a great feature—wouldn't it be nice to know what you're in for at Eugenia Kim, for example? Best of all, the site is gathering nationwide information. Worth a look!

The Darjeeling Limited

I very much enjoyed Wes Anderson's The Darjeeling Limited from a design standpoint. The color palette—two specific blues, a bright gold, a pale green, desert neutrals and the occasional touch of red—was specific down to the last detail. My theory is that the palette must have been at least partially inspired by the colors of the peacock feathers that play a role in the Whitman brothers' journey.

Whether on the Darjeeling Limited train itself (where use of the palette is perhaps most overt), in an exterior location (rural India, New York), or on the train but hearkening to another location (Jack Whitman wears a robe and has stationery from the Parisian Hotel Chevalier that fit the train's colors precisely), the palette is extremely consistent—in one town scene, for example, where the frame is filled with the neutrals of clothing and buildings, the blues, gold and reds are snuck into background elements or painted subtly onto a few architectural bricks. The train itself is something of a design wonder—everything on board was custom created, down to the hand-painted Rajasthani elephants on the corridor walls. And, at the end of the film, when the brothers board another train, it is clear that a new version of the palette is at play.

I must also admit to an obsession with the design of the Whitmans' monogrammed luggage set, which was created for the film by Marc Jacobs for Louis Vuitton and covered with jungle illustrations by Eric Anderson (the filmmaker's brother). Each bag was numbered—I believe there were ten bags—and apparently the design was strictly dictated by Wes Anderson. The luggage fascinated me. What was the significance of the #7 bag being the only piece with a red monogram? Why were the numbers on #9 and #10 given a different treatment and put within shapes?

I loved absorbing the colors and details of the film (and I'm not the only one—Men's Flair has waxed rhapsodic about the symbolism in the colors of the brothers' grey flannel suits), and highly recommend it as candy for the design eye. The Darjeeling Limited is currently available on DVD.

Pixel Couch

Check out the pixel couch! The fabric was devised by RCA grad Cristian Zuzunaga, who has teamed with Danish manufacturer Kvadrat and Italian mod furniture house Moroso to create the concept couch.

FontShop April Calendar

FontShop has created an April calendar (their regular monthly calendar feature has, alas, been discontinued). The special April edition showcases a combination of the typefaces P22 Operina Pro and P22 Koch Signs, and conceptually revolves around meteor showers that will occur in the Northern and Southern hemispheres this month.

Harmony

The design word for April over at Speak up is harmony.