Business Card Inspiration

Kariann Burleson (who is always sending me the best links for our Ideas column) has a big time passion for business cards. She has a flickr collection with over 750 photos of amazing business cards - some conceptual, some just gorgeous. Definitely worth a look - very inspiring!

The cards above are Stefan Sagmeister's (top row), Marian Bantjes (middle right), and polaroid photographer Mike Slack (bottom row).

New Royal Mint Coins

The Royal Mint unveiled new coins - and they are pretty awesome, splitting an image of the Shield of the Royal Arms between six coins. The Royal Mint held a design competition in 2005, and 26-year old Matthew Dent designed the winning entry. How's that for a pretty awesome portfolio piece? Anyone from the UK want to send me some coins? I'll trade you for American tender...(how's that for an exchange?)

Via It's Nice That.

Nike Zoom TRE ads

Check out the Nike SB ads for the Zoom Tre, shot by John Humphries. I love the fisheye combined with the pixelated ceilings. I'd like to see the set they shot against here. I appreciate that Nike takes a little different stance on the ads by creating sets and combining graphics and photo. Their P-Rod commercial is a great example of their work.

Scripophily

SCRIPOPHILY (scrip-af-il-ly) is the collecting of canceled stock and bond certificates. Large and incredibly dense in detail, the certificates circulate and then eventually end up in a personal collection or long lost basement storage. These certificates from Bethlehem Steel Co. (left) and Stone Cabin Consolidated Mines, Inc. (right) are two examples of the certificates available for purchase through scripophily.net, one of the leading traders in collectible certificates.

Frank Chimero

Frank Chimero's The States project has already made the rounds but it's worth a mention here - The States is an on-going design project in which Frank recontextualizes the shape of the state to create a new graphic image.

Metal Gear Solid Graphic Novel 2

I am a very big fan of the original Metal Gear Solid Digital Graphic Novel (screenshots above). And I was pleased to see this trailer for the second installment in the series. If you have played through the games, you already know the story, but it's great to see them played out in such an interesting way. I love the mix of static and animated and the Ashley Wood illustrations never disappoint.

Cvy Design

Cvy Design is a designer in Portland with a nice portfolio - I love her "Down with Carbon" campaign, complete with an inflatable postcard, as well as her innovative self-promotional flyer - it's nice to see someone incorporate the pull tabs into the design, for once. You can see more of Cari's work on her Flickr site, and read about her networking exploits on "A Shameless Blog".

Via Girl in the Green Dress.

Drink Up!

Today, 12/5, is Repeal Day and Dewar's put up a very cool Stay Wet Website that plays on vintage election advertisements. Worth checking out.

Yang Liu

Yang Liu is a Chinese-born, German-raised graphic designer. She translated the nuances of her cultural identities into a fantastic project called Ost trifft West (East Meets West), which is a humorous and iconographic look at the differences between German and Chinese cultures. (Above, clockwise from top left: differences in perceptions of time, the status of the boss in the work place, superstitious beliefs, and behavior at parties). I posted an interview with Yang over at Notcot.com and hope you will go and check it and the many photos of Yang's work out!

Biaugust

Biaugust is a design office in Taipei, Taiwan. I love their 108 Time Box, which is a nine-year calendar that is meant to read as one continuous sheet. As each month is unrolled, you are left with a receipt of time. All 108 months are treated in a unique typographic format. And I just liked the graphics on the mugs.

Via pan-dan.

Duncan Wilson

We posted about Duncan Wilson's Pixel Notes before, and while checking out his website today, I came across the awesome Knives T-shirt. I love the continuation of the graphic on the back of the shirt, and the way he uses shadow to add to the image. Check out Duncan's website for more great work.

Tatiana Arocha

My friend Alice sent me this link ages ago. Tatiana Arocha is a versatile artist with work ranging from print, motion graphics to illustration. My favorites are her illustrative work. I love the textured, Japanese-inspired graphics. You can find Tatiana in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, where she is involved in the arts community, Servicio Ejecutivo.

Beautiful/Decay Artist Series Apparel Line

Sasha from Beautiful/Decay emailed us about their artist series apparel line, where they collaborate with established and emerging artists to create t-shirts. A few of the shirts I liked (left to right): "Girls Girls Girls" by Milano Chow (not actually from this line of shirts, but I liked it and there aren't any girls' tees in the artist series, yet), "Heavy Drummer" by Saiman Chow, and Jan Kallwejt's "Lung Music".

Grace & Go

Bold and gorgeous graphics from London-based Grace & Go. I love the animal print towels (they have some great baby onesies with a similar graphic).

Melissa Moss

Melissa Moss sent us a link to her illustrative work a while back. Her work is very imaginative - I love the creepy trees silhouettes and all the little creatures.

The Simpsons go to Paris

Found over at Notcot.com...This is hilarious! In honor of the soon to be released Simpsons movie, Harper's Bazaar has a fashion spread titled "The Simpsons go to Paris with Linda Evangelista" in the August 2007 issue. The illustrations feature the Simpsons dressed in haute couture or as the various designers themselves.

Atypyk

Patches to relieve the symptoms of romantic breakups.

I just thought this was funny. Of all the various emails we get, Atypyk's are branded the best, in my opinion. The style is always consistent, the text is limited to descriptive one liners, and the content is usually clever and tongue-in-cheek. I don't always love the product itself, but the emails are always enjoyable.

London 2012 Logo

The London Games organizing committee released the new London 2012 logo/brand to much awaited ... weeping and gnashing of teeth. An immediate source of great controversy, the logo/brand is drawing fire from almost everyone. Opponents started an online petition on Monday to revise the logo, which as of this afternoon was 48,000 signatures long.

Citing an inspiration from graffiti artists and youth culture, the bag-of-bones running Wolff Olins is probably about 20 years overdue. Looking at the 2012 logo, Mark Gonzales's iconic board for Vision, by Andy Takakjian, comes to mind. The catch is that Vision released the Gonz board 20 years ago.

What do you think?

Space Jockeys - Wallpaper Project

Wallpaper, a project setup by the Space Jockeys is an open call for graphics entries to build an open community of artists and influences, no matter how small or how big.

“The concept was inspired by an after-party doodling session, with six of us simultaneously drawing on the same pad,” explained one half of The Space Jockeys Alex Cicciu. “We then decided to take it online in the form of Wallpaper.”

Sounds like a highly developed giant online game of exquisite corpse . Join up and get contributing.

Mus Kunst

Beautiful bags from Karin Kuiper of Mus Kunst. I love the graphics and the bold color, especially the right-most bag.

Via Bloesem.

Mary Burr Studio

Check out this beautiful hand-carved and hand-pulled linocut print by Mary Burr. I love the graphic flowers, and at $15, it's a pretty good deal!

Camp Apparel

Very cool bags from Camp Apparel. The bags are made of silk-screened ultrasuede fabric. I love the colors and the fun designs. Thanks to Tori at Camp Apparel for emailing us with her new designs.

Kirin & Co

I have to say, I am really smitten with these textiles by Lara of Kirin & Co. I love the patterns, especially the one she calls "Riverstones". It makes me think of fish bubbles or something. I don't know. I like fish and bubbles! These two designs are available on her Etsy store. Anyway, beautiful new work, and she has other lovely textile patterns that haven't been produced yet, which you can check out here.

Sanford Design Ebony and Pilot Croquis Pencils

Everyone who does a lot of sketching has certain preferences for which drawing utensil they use. Every utensil makes a certain kind of mark, and every type of sketch requires a different type of line. From broad gestural lines to precise detail lines, the utensil you choose to use dictates in some manner the ideas explored and revealed in the individual sketch.

The Sanford Design Ebony Pencil (top) is a great untipped soft lead wood barrel pencil that is great for sketching. The Pilot Croquis Leadholder (below) is an interesting version of an advancing lead holder without a chuck. Instead it uses a rotating barrel to push the lead out.

Salomon Snowboards Artwork Contest 2007

It's about that time again - time for the Salomon Snowboards Artwork Contest 2007. They select a few artists from the contest to release their submitted graphics as a production board the following year. The contest is free to enter and artwork is accepted until April 10th. Go make some stuff!

Pepin Press

The Pepin Press makes a number of great resource books for graphic designers. We just picked up a copy of Structural Package Designs (left) for a project we are working on. And the Special Packaging Designs (right) book is a great companion book to the package design set. They both come with cds with .eps files of each container design.

Augusto Ghibelli

I used to love playing chess when I was a kid, but I don't get the chance to do it much anymore. After years, I finally played a game with a friend recently and drove her crazy because I kept agonizing over my moves (it's a high-stress game, man!). Anyway, I love Augusto Ghibelli's "Book of Chess", which has updated the traditional pieces with graffiti signifiers. At the end of the game, the pieces and the board fold up into a 'book', which you can store on your bookshelf. Available at Yoya Shop.

War Fix - Steve Olexa and David Axe

War Fix is the true story of reporter David Axe and illustrated by Steve Olexa. The illustration is really great and Olexa pushes composition with panels and textures bleeding across the pages. I have only had a chance to flip through it a few times and it looks great, definitely worth checking out.

Jonathan Yuen

Jonathan Yuen's portfolio website is full of beautiful imagery...I love the black and white illustrations, and the way everything is connected through a meandering ground line. The navigation is a little complicated, but worth the expended brain power, I think!

New York Times - Faces of the Dead

The New York Times created an interesting and touching (and depressing) data collage, titled "Faces of the Dead". A series of squares form the collaged image of a deceased United States service member. Each square within the image represents an individual that has died in Iraq since the war began. Click on any of the squares and the image transforms to depict the picture of the particular person you are looking for. Searchable demographic information is also provided. So sad.

Via Andy Jacobson.

Miki Iwasaki: Mi-Workshop

I love the Japanese-inspired graphics on these snowboards. Miki Iwasaki of Mi-Workshop designed them for RIDE Snowboards.

Betty Bora Kim

Check out the beautiful work of my dear friend and artist Betty Bora Kim...Her work is a mix of collage and illustration that is often architecturally influenced. Betty is also a master link finder and she just started a blog, which I'm sure I will be referring to for posts regularly! Check it out!

Illuminated Scripts

The Mira calligraphiae monumenta, illuminated by Joris Hoefnagel, is an amazing example of a master guide to calligraphy. The text is beautifully inscribed and illuminated with flora and fauna like the sloth, shown above. The small scale reproduction is available from The Bookstore at the Getty.

Dan McCarthy

I really like Dan McCarthy's work. Besides his very graphic illustrative style, I like how he uses various skeletons (human, dinosaur, or otherwise) to convey the infinite cycle of death. This print is titled "shared memory: the moon", which I find very romantic somehow. Thanks to NOTCOT for the introduction!

Feric Illustrations

Feric, aka Eric Feng, is a great illustrator who illuminates the secret life of mechanized flora and fauna. The drawings combine the beauty and fluidity of the natural world with the irrational mechanisms that create movement and life. I love the drawings and I hope you do too.

Nil

James Turner's graphic novel, NIL : A Land Beyond Belief is so graphically dense it really must be seen to be believed. The entire book is done in the black & white vector style and it just works. The story itself is probably more dense than the drawing (I'm still working through it). It's worth checking out at your comic book store.

Penguin Great Ideas Series

The Penguin Great Ideas series of books is a great example of designing a series of collectible books for anyone's library. Plus they're paperback and relatively inexpensive, about $10USD each. I picked up a copy of The Art of War and the translation expresses the poetic nature of warfare and its ambiguities very well. The books are on shelves now, pick one up and give it a read.

Archigram

Archigram, a British architectural collective, are the subject of a new book. Published by the MIT press, the book reviews the history and major projects of the group with