This is where we keep some of the creative goodies that get us all excited about making things. We love good ideas.
Beautiful Things: A Letter From My Great Uncle
My gran discovered this old letter, written from her brother to her sister during World War 2 (she thinks — we can’t actually make out the date). The subdued colours of the stamps, the old print and type, and the texture of the paper are beautiful, so I photographed it for the collection.
Beautiful Things: Typography Sketchbooks
Typography Sketchbooks by Steven Heller and Lita Talarico arrived today. It’s cover-to-cover loveliness, full of mid-process images from the sketchbooks of typographers and designers. The kind of thing you can take in for hours on end.
I’ve posted a few quick photos below (also just discovered that Typetoken have a much better set).
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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…
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.)
