Designers Journal | A chronicle of jottings, doodles & boutique design treats

Best of Welsh Design Shortlisted

30/09/2011

by DJ

News

Launched at the Welsh Assembly building in Cardiff Bay by Design Week Editor Lynda Relph-Knight, the shortlist for 2011’s Cardiff Design Festival Best of Welsh Design Awards has been announced and there are some outstanding contenders in all categories. In fact, testament to the health of the creative industries in Wales, there are some outstanding contenders in the initial entry list that somehow didn’t manage to make the judges’ cut.

Judges for the awards this year include eminent designers David Worthington (of Lloyd Northover and previously MD of Conran Design Group) and Richard Seymour (Seymourpowell) as well as Glenn Tutsell (Creative Director of The Brand Union) and renowned web paragon Mark Boulton.

The winners will be announced as the highlight of October’s festival of design inspired events which include talks and exhibitions.

Below are a selection of entries from (in order from top) View Creative Agency, Sequence, limegreentangerine, Smorgasbord and Kutchibok. There is also a strong selection of student entries that are well worth checking out.

Tw. @cardiffdesfest

Åh {London}

30/09/2011

by STY

Awesome agencies / Illustrators

London based but most certainly Scandinavian through and through, the pair of Johanna Lundberg and Elin Svensson have established an agency where thoughtful ideas meet functional, purely simple design executions. Åh aim to both reach out to your head and your heart and from their own beautiful website to the work featured on it, we think they’ve achieved that. They’re also some pretty handy illustrators too!

Tw. @StudioAh

Naughtyfish {Sydney}

30/09/2011

by STY

Awesome agencies

Their website is a menagerie of eye treats. Naughtyfish‘s philosophy is to create work that moves people. An award winning independent graphic design studio based in Sydney, their work focuses on identity creation and evolution.

Naughtyfish are able to inject a real playful nature into their work, producing innovative, beautiful and effective work. A delight.

Tw. @0tfish

Luke Ritchie {Cape Town}

28/09/2011

by DJ

Outstanding individuals

The thing about Luke Ritchie, you see, is he was once almost attacked by a hippo. Now that may or may not sound significant to you, however Luke probably* had an epiphany (*I say probably – it’s speculation, I don’t actually know). Unlike most who might take this occurance as a message from Hare Krishna to venture to Goa and ‘find themselves’ in yoga before going on to invent a new brand of natural yoghurt or something, Luke rose up and set about creating a rather fanciful portfolio of treats.

He’s not all without inner harmony however, he’s a self-confessed green tea drinker. Well it was bound to have some lasting psychological effects I suppose.

Like what you see? He’s colaborated with @simonalander and produced their handywork on t-shirts under the label LuckyFella Clothing Co.

Tw. @LukeRitchie

Do you have a great portfolio to share? Get in touch and share your love!

Parent {Poole}

26/09/2011

by DJ

Awesome agencies

Purveyors of cool, chic and understated design, Parent Design‘s portfolio is a stunning blend of refined typography and stripped back photography, never afraid to use striking and bold colours where possible.

What we like about Parent’s work is there is no design for designs sake to be found; nothing is over-designed, every decision considered. Lovely stuff.

Tw. @Parent_Design

Jordan Metcalf {Cape Town}

22/09/2011

by DJ

Outstanding individuals

Illustrator, typographer, designer, scarlet pimpernel, call him what you will but South African Jordan Metcalf‘s work is emminently cool. Previously featured in Codex: the Journal of Typography, TypeToken and Computer Arts, his is the sort of cool that creates a thoroughly enjoyable folio; not only his insanely amazing illustrated typography but also his character styling through to use of colour.

Tw. @jordanmetcalf

Do you have a great portfolio to share? Get in touch and share your love!

Mason McFee {Austin, Tx}

20/09/2011

by DJ

Illustrators

Perhaps best described as a graphic artist, Mason McFee‘s work is all sorts of things to all sorts of people; I think you either love it straight away or become seduced by it’s charm over time and understanding. I personally love the bizarre but endearing darkness to his work; his style and the media he works with is mixed, but always equally absorbing.

Best put in Mason’s own words; “While I struggle between being a graphic designer and an artist, I feel the two actually feed each other in one way or the other. Sometimes when art gets too free, I go back to design. When design gets too controlling, I sketch around a notebook for a while. If they both are doing it, I’ll cut up some wood and glue it together and spray paint it, hang it on a wall and photograph it. I’m a child of the 80’s and can’t sit still for too long, so this type of working just comes naturally.”

Visit his website to appreciate the full breadth of his folio.

Tw. @mase_man

Do you have a great portfolio to share? Get in touch and share your love!

Insert Blurb here

19/09/2011

by DJ

Bookshelf

We’ve just discovered this little peach which we thought we’d share. I don’t know how much you already know about Blurb but, in a nutshell, they make quality can easily create yourself and produce on very small runs for pretty reasonable prices. Use Instagram, Facebook, Photobucket, Flickr, Tumblr… pretty much any other photo-based website to grab the images to create a book, or us pro’s get jiggy straight from Lightbox or InDesign. Ornament your coffee table with one, give them to clients, give one to your mum, or maybe sell the bad boys. Up to you. You can even make them from your iPad/iPhone.

Bit of Blurb background, was founded ’05 in San Fransisco (now with a London base too) and I’m told they shipped just under 1.4million in 2010 books to more than 70 countries ranking them the fastest growing media company on the Inc. 500 in the same year.

So were did it all start? Founder Eileen Gittins never stopped photographing since her days studying photography, and that’s how Blurb got started. She wanted to create a beautifully designed and produced photo essay book – something that looked like a book you’d buy at the bookstore – but she only needed 40 copies. This turned out to be remarkably painful, expensive, and time-consuming – and she thought that was just wrong. Let’s face it, we’ve all been there, often having to compromise with poor quality, streaky digital print. So she founded Blurb. Happy days.

Credits for the books below belong to Christopher Capozziello (with book jacket printed on a gloss stock) and Jay Chapman (printed on lovely Mohawk uncoated), both of which we have and can assert to the superb quality of the finished article, well worth a punt.

Tw. @blurbbooks