This is where we keep some of the creative goodies that get us all excited about making things. We love good ideas.

Beautiful Things: Painting with Molten Glass

Everything about this beautifully shot short film is wonderful. It’s the work of Filmmaker Alistair Banks Griffin combined with the art of Etsuko Ichikawa. The film was commissioned by The Anthpropologist and you’ll find some very nice still shots along with quotes from Etsuko on their website.

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Beautiful Things: Carol & John’s Comic Book Shop by Mikey Burton

Beautiful, simple and bold identity work from Mikey Burton for Carol & John’s Comic Book Shop—a small comic book shop in Ohio. You’ll find more shots here, and more of Mikey’s work at his portfolio site. Lovely stuff.

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Beautiful Things: Kill Your Timid Notion Identity by Jez Burrows

The other day, I came across this lovely work by Jez Burrows for the 2010 Kill Your Timid Notion festival, two examples from which are shown below. I especially love the iconic diagrams that he created to represent different events and ideas contained within the festival.

You’ll find more from this project on Jez’ website, which is well worth some browsing time. Also interesting are upcoming publications from Sing Statistics. Oh, and if you know Radiolab, look into this too.

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Beautiful Things: Typographic Posters by Alex Varanese

It’s quite rare find a style as distinctive, yet eclectic as that of Alex Varanese, and it makes for a very strong combination. I especially love these three topographic posters, based on Alex’s own typeface designs. You’ll find plenty more here, and the rest of his portfolio site is well worth some browsing time.

This is interesting too—lovely stuff.

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Beautiful Things: Colour of Series — Rainbow by Simon C Page

A lovely piece of work by Simon C Page. The colours here are beautiful, and the design does everything possible to show them off to their full potential.

You’ll find this available as a high quality print at In Print, and you’ll find more in Simon’s impressive gallery of available prints. If you just you can’t get enough, try his portfolio site too.

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Beautiful Things: Japanese Touch Wood Phone Ad

This is amazing, and must have taken a very long time to set up. There’s a wonderful atmosphere created by the cinematography and setting, but the real genius here is the idea, coupled with the fact that someone actually made this happen—there must have been so many opportunities to write this off as impossible and do something else instead. Quite a feat, and a stunning end result. Inspiring.

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Beautiful Things: Concept Camera: The WVIL by Artefact

Sadly, this camera is still only a concept model by the rather interesting design company, Artefact. According to this interview, though, discussions are underway and there’s every chance that this concept will become reality. I’m saving up already. Watch this stunning user interface…

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Beautiful Things: Intelligence in Lifestyle Magazine

The beautiful design and layout for Intelligence in Lifestyle Magazine, art directed by Francesco Franchi, demonstrates how it’s possible to fill a space with lots of information, yet still produce something clean-looking, easy-to-use, interesting and enticing for the reader/ viewer. Here are some of my favourite spreads:

(via Gridness. See more.)

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Beautiful Things: Classic Book Covers by Sebit Min

These book cover and poster mockups are part of a student project. These particular ones being produced by Sebit Min who, unfortunately, doesn’t appear to have an online presence (not that I could find, at least). A quick search for the name did throw up one other peice of work, which you’ll find around two thirds of the way down this page. One to watch our for.

You’ll find details of the project brief and work by other students in this post on John Gall’s Spine Out blog.

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Beautiful Things: Sasquatch Music Festival Poster by Invisible Creature

The colours and subtle texture used by Invisible Creature for this poster design are stunning. You’ll find a nice big version on the Invisible Creature website, and you can pick up your own print at Poster Cabaret.

Discovered via the wonderful Grain Edit, for whom Invisible Creature have also designed this t-shirt.

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