on the lookout for the perfect "D"

I have been on the lookout for the perfect letter to complete my knick knacks. I don't know if I want an uppercase D or a lowercase one. I really like the look of the first one from anthropologie, but the d doesn't have as pretty a pattern as some of the other letters. The zinc one is really minimal and clean, but is that what I want? The metal ampersand is so beautiful.

look here

buy here

color field

This semester, my mind has been blown. There was a piece created by a certain classmate of mine that really got me emotional. I guess you could say that his inspiration was the pioneer himself, Barnett Newman. Barnett Newman inspired many artists after his time. One of those people being the artist Salvador.

Please see for yourself:

Newman's zip painting

Encantado

Just the use of space and athmosphere. Whether the blue line is the foreground or background, it transcends Rothko's use of space. It speaks of simplicity yet a complexity that is not seen at first. It actually makes most people's hearts jump. Please share your love here: where the magic happens.

threadless

In digital illustration, we're designing and submitting t-shirt designs to threadless and I am really impressed with some of them. This project has been really hard because I wanted to do something smart and really well composed (with a healthy dose of obsessive detailing).

Here are my favorites:

All shirts from threadless

aiga

AIGA (obviously) puts out some great posters. It was interesting learning about the start of AIGA in chapter 20 and to see where they are now.

paul rand

Can we all agree on how beautifully animated and relevant this video is?

handcraftiness

I love etsy. I think the idea is great - creating things and selling them to people who are looking for something more personal or hand done or vintage. I've bought a few things off of etsy and sometimes knowing that things really are handmade or one of a kind makes me more likely to spend more on it.

Here are some things that I'm daydreaming of:

think small

We're all familiar with VW's think small poster, which really make negative small a significantly integral part of the design. The other day I came across David Thorne's story about how he designs. This guy is hilarious, he does everything I wish I could do. He makes people feel stupid for asking something stupid (and usually asking for free design work). Below is part of a series of useless posters he made for a coworker.

Read it all here

The use of negative space and scale of the images make me think of each other.

watercolor texture

I love the use of watercolor texture in print, in textiles, in almost everything. This poster for Tyler Perry's movie is completely gorgeous:

I saw this and it blew my mind. I knew I wanted to incorporate watercolor texture for my texture assignment in digital illustration, I would show my final piece, if I had it :(

package design

I usually browse through thedieline or lovely package quite often and usually the ones that capture my attention are either the designs that are so minimal, that it's genius or are so detailed that it's beyond beautiful. These are some that are sitting in my "Packaging Inspiration" folder on my desktop:

so beautiful

I love the logo and the way the fruit and yogurt is packaged. Especially since usually its "fruit on the bottom!" And I also love the way the vibrancy of the colors really shows through.

I love the different textures on the milk packaging. And the use of only white and black and all the greys in between. I think the concept is very cool and modern.

album cover art

For a band or a singer, they know how important album cover art is. The message that is communicated is one that sums up the entire album. There are quite a few covers that are really beautiful. Or ones that just totally rock. Examples below:

Florence + the Machine

Lykke Li

Santogold (now Santigold)

I can't wait to see Florence and Lykke Li this summer!