Campsite is a New York based design blog and studio run by visual designer Max Ritt.
The UI Toolkit is definitely one of those things I have been waiting for. Both simple and comprehensive it is far more than a texture pack, but also leaves plenty of space to be creative with the elements. The toolkit is the debut product from the wonderful folks over at UI Parade, so make sure to purchase a copy to help support their awesome site(it’s only $8 dollars).
Dimitris Ladopoulos is a Greek director making a short film series about people who work and make things with their hands. One of the first shorts from the series is this one entitled The Carpenter, with beautifully simple motion graphics and a true craftsman at work lathing a dowel into it’s nearly finished form. It brings me back to my childhood and the countless hours spent watching and helping my dad in his wood shop.
(via Ok Great »)
Lookwork, because Ben Pieratt is a genius and starting one revolutionary web app (svpply) isn’t enough. Lookwork is part feed reader, and part searchable stream of inspiration. Similarly to svpply you can filter your stream to find something more specific and even follow other folks to keep tabs on what they are looking at.
Part of why Ben Pieratt’s work in web applications sets a gold standard is due to the fact that he understands a complicated or rich UI should never take away from a user’s ability to complete the their goals. I think everyone designing for the web can and should take some notes from Ben on interface design, and also the problems his apps solve.
Doxie is preordering their new scanner the Doxie Go now. A fresh mobile approach to scanning the go can scan directly to your computer, iPhone, iPad, post directly to Flickr, or even into Dropbox. The future of scanning is here!
The Stamp Sheet Wall Planner is another beautiful piece from the brains over at Present & Correct. This amazing wall calendar is a beautiful new way to count down the days in a year, and also to be inspired to make something everyday.
Self proclaimed “writer who draws” Austin Kleon has made this fun little illustration to demonstrate how he uses his iPad in place of a laptop when giving presentations.
Responsive web design is becoming increasingly integral to all things built for the web these days. It is not enough to have a website and an app. it also needs to be possible for your users to log on from any mobile internet device. Whether it be Blackberry, Android, iPhone or a type of tablet having a sitebuilt with flexibility in mind is key.
Since responsive web design is still young there are few great resources for creating a simple functional folding grid system. Joni Korpi a Finish web designer has created the 960 Grid System of responsive site design perfectly named as Golden Grid System. The key features of GGS are the fluid grid, with folding columns, elastic gutters, and a zoomable baseline grid. In addition it comes with Golden Gridlet a script, which allows you to see the grid overlay so you can easily check your math.
If there was ever a time to trade in the tumblr blogs you follow for new kind of blog porn it’s now. Type Everything is equal parts type porn and resource with posts ranging from such a wide array of periods contemporary and vintage to futuristic and experimental. This is a place where your fetish for terminals can really run wild.
(via Public School »)
Since TeuxDeux went beta I was lucky enough to have a user account and that was more or less the end of my paper todo list writing. I wax nostalgic looking at Desk-It whose design and format makes me miss the feeling of scratching out my tasks on paper. You can pick Desk-It up from Poketo for a reasonable $10.
(via swissmiss »)
Anybody who knows even the smallest bit about cameras or photography knows that Leica is at the top of the game. That is mainly due to the fact that their optics are second to none. This video detailing the process for me just confirms what I already kind of knew. Leica is serious about their product. Putting it through thorough testing at every stage, assembled, and hand finished by specialists is just another testament to the level of excellence their product exudes.
(via idsgn »)
Alessi held a competition earlier this year for the students of the industrial design school at the University of Art and Design Laussane in Switzerland. The competition was to design a line of desktop goods. My favorite submission is this tape dispenser. The ultra minimalist aesthetic paired with the obvious functionality of it is inspiring. We have all grown used to the two common types of tape dispenser available to us. The clunky sand filled ones and the feather light plastic ones. Despite all my ill will towards it’s predecessors the elegance of this little guy cuts right through those feelings and reminds me of how good design can improve everyday things.
(via NOTCOT »)
I posted about The Lost Type Co-op a few months ago here, and since then Tyler Galpin and Riley Cran have very evidently not been slacking off. When I posted about LTC before they had just launched their site and typeface on offer(Muncie). Now their selection is power packed with ten different typefaces designed by a sparkly list of collaborators and the founders themselves.
(via swissmiss »)
As we all well know one of the most influential and inspiration young designers today is Frank Chimero, and talent at every turn is found in the unique and inspiring ways he gives back to the design community. Many people of credit or attribution in our sphere are merely making things to look at while Chimero is making things to think and talk about. A small yet infinitely useful example is this photo pictured above. After receiving requests for reading recommendations from his students and the world at large Chimero decided to snap a quick photo of the books that have helped to inform and inspire him. The insight we gather from this is most definitely not limited to the titles of the books or the content of their text. It emanates out into the way the books are organized together.
Today seems like the perfect day to post about possibly the most perfect collaborative couple, and one of their side projects. Don’t Fear the Internet is a side project put together by Jessica Hische and Russ Maschmeyer in the hopes of demystifying the internet for us feeble designers and creatives. Also little side note, as of yesterday Jessica and Russ have officially announced their engagement, check out their super cute announcement site/page here. Congrats you two lovely love birds.
Despite the ups and downs in the weather right now summer is coming, and this Gardner Folding Chair With Tools
(via materialicious »)
I feel like I have been under a rock without internet for a while. Hearing about Method & Craft for the first time today makes me feel like I have truly been missing out. Now I have some catching up to do though. The interviews and approach to sharing techniques and how great designers work is not necessarily revolutionary, but I think it is a powerful resource for the younger generation of designers along with the veterans hoping to ramp up there technical skills.
(via swissmiss »)
Explorations in Typography by Carolina de Bartolo along with Erik Spiekermann is a wonderful new book on typesetting and how type and typesetting coexist. With the amount of time I have been spending on interface design these days the only question I have after looking at this awesome layout and typesetting resource is when does the web version come out?
(via Surfstation »)
The Noun Project is an awesome new project with the mission of “Sharing, celebrating and enhancing the world’s visual language”. By creating a library of symbols and icons they have created a universally accessible visual language that anyone can use at anytime free of charge. Whether you are a designer or otherwise you can download and use the images. Beyond having created a visionary idea, the UX and site design are very fun to use despite their simplicity.
Typography Deconstructed fills such a necessary void in design education and equips us with general knowledge of something we designers use everyday and on average know very little about. Today there are very few well designed sources of good factual reference when you are truly in need of it. This site and accompanying poster provide the design community with a wealth of knowledge on the subject of typography. So on behalf of myself and designers every where I say thank you TypeDecon!
(via Beast Pieces »)
Disclaimer: This post makes some broad strokes about a few different things, but it’s main intention was to recount a recent data snafu and to send some appreciation to a couple of fellow bloggers for being awesome.
As you read this I am recovering from what initially looked like catastrophic data-loss. My Lacie d2 Quadra 500GB hard-drive(sole file storage for most if not all of my work past and present. Yes I am a lazy dinosaur) refused to mount and was making that brushy clicking sound; said to be characteristic of collapsed brushes. It turned out to be the other common and infinitely more palatable scenario. A corrupted power source. Painless $30 fix from the nice helpful people over at Tekserve.
The comedy in all of this lies in the fact that earlier that day I had signed up for Backblaze and made the mental note to start putting together A Backup System. This initiative had stemmed from reading two insightful posts from some fellow design, web creatives Frank Chimero and Antonio Carusone of Aisleone. I really respect these two guys for their work and for the education and inspiration I get from their blogs on a regular bases. These posts about something that could be written off as trivial or something any body should be able to figure out on their own is a great resource. Inevitably we all need good information on a particular subject at some point. So why not get that info. from someone you have learned to trust?
It is really great that people in our field have the compulsion and platforms available to them, like never before, to share their experiences, ideas and tools for doing what it is we do.
