Design Something Every Day: Lucky

Design Something Every Day 34/365: Lucky

A little practice with compositing using some stock images from www.photoxpress.com and a picture I took of a coin operated Buddha fortune telling machine at the Miracle Mile Shopping Center in Las Vegas. Miracle Mile is a very big and very strange Mall located at the Planet Hollywood Casino complex. The shopping center rapidly, randomly and often disconcertingly switches it’s theme from casino to traditional mall to Middle Eastern bazaar  to kitchy Vegas tribute; seemingly the mall was built in stages or the designers had very shot attention spans.

On another note, it was the only place I found that you can get a decent micro-brew on the strip, at the aptly named Sin City Brewing Company. I recommend the Sin City Amber.

Digital Ephemera

A few interesting bits of digital ephemera I’ve found on the information super highway in the last week.

Mid-century Modern & Tiki

• Paul Malon’s Flickr Stream, an amazing collection of mid-century ephemera, you simply MUST check this flickr photostream if you have any interest in the 1950′s.
• Summer’s officially over, however this is good advice on Tiki Torch Safety.
• Great posters from the 1950′s. Good inspiration for designers or fans of the 1950′s from the great design inspiration site Daily Inspiration. Posters: Part 1 Posters: Part 2

Good Design resources, tips and tricks

• Lifting a logo from a PDF via David Airey‘s other great blog Logo Design Love.
• HTML 5: What Designers need to know
• An important read, Typography Field Guide. Also from logo making master David Airey.

Design contests

• Pantone and Behance have a competition finding the best use of color in a design project.
• 125 video shortlist announced today for YouTube Play

Infographics

• A cool poster: Grand Taxonomy of Rap Names

Freebies

• Some great retro-inspired labels from Designer Cathe Holden’s great blog Just Something I Made.
• Cool 70′s inspired vector graphic from Allonzo Inc.
• Just in time for Halloween, a great collection of blood splatter brushes for Photoshop

Illustration

• One of my favorite illustration blogs Urban Sketchers. Loads of inspirations and great sketches from artists around the world.
• Ireland based artist and designer Jennifer Farley’s illustrations are simply amazing. I can’t wait to read her (hopefully) forthcoming children’s  book. Some publisher needs to jump on her book.

If you have any cool design, art, tiki or mid-century links or thoughts let me know. Leave a comment or shoot me an email.

Design Something Every Day 17/365: Shavuot Icons

This design is part of a poster I created promoting a Shavuot service held at Temple De Hirsch Sinai. Each of the icons in the poster are symbolic of some facet of the holiday. For example, the agricultural and harvest symbols represent that aspect of the “Festival of Weeks.”

Design Something Everyday 13/365

I was at the park with my kids playing in the sand box and I recalled this quote from Chip Kidd’s wonderful novel The Cheese Monkeys: A Novel in Two Semesters: “Design is purposeful planning… Graphic design is the form those plans will take.” Between the juice boxes and pushing kids on the swing I tried to represent that with sand, sticks and pebbles.

Anyone who is interested in literature or good storytelling would like The Cheese Monkey’s, but for designers, I highly recommend Kidd’s book for many reasons, first it is a gripping tale of Happy (the protagonist) discovering himself and the world he inhabits. Second, the host of characters that Kidd creates are unforgettable, especially Himillsy Dodd and Winter Sorbeck. Finally, the book is full of great nuggets about graphic design. That last point is something designers should enjoy, or at least provoke some food for thought. It isn’t often that graphic design gets so eloquently discussed, defended and criticized in any form, let alone a novel. Having the history, purpose and practice of graphic design examined in fiction is refreshing.

Links:

• The Cheese Monkeys by Chip Kidd
• The Learners by Chip Kidd (his follow up novel, continuing the adventures of Happy)
• Good is Dead, Chip Kidd’s Blog

Here are some great interviews/talks by and with Chip Kidd:

Design Something Every Day: Day 3: Purimitar

For Day three I tried to imagine if the Na’vi in the film Avatar had given up their Animism in favor of Judaism and were shaking their groggers at Purim. This was actually created for the upcoming Purim Carnival at Temple De Hirsch Sinai, but I thought it would fit here, since it is something I designed today.

If the Na'vi celebrated Purim

Tools: Adobe PhotoShop
Sources: www.moviewallpaper.net, google image search

Design Something Everyday Day 2: Retro Rupert

Day two and here is  a retro styled poster for Rupert Boneham, a contestant on the CBS reality show Survivor: Pearl Islands, Survivor All Stars & the upcoming Survivor Heroes vs Villains.

Tools: Adobe Illustrator, PhotoShop, Wacom Tablet.

Link: Rupert’s Kids, Survivor Contestant Rupert Boneham’s non-profit group to help at risk youth. A worthy cause.

Design Something Everyday Day 1: Volcano

I read the great post by Jad Limcaco on Smashing Magazine called “Design Something Every Day!” It is a very inspiring, if not daunting idea, to design something every day, but it is a call I would like to take up. I wanted to do it in January, but some projects and a hint of fear kept me from attempting this project.

Since today is my birthday I thought this would be a good time to start the project, so beginning today, February 3rd I begin my year of daily designing. Wish me luck. So far the hardest part is limiting myself to only 15-45 min on these designs. I just want to keep “plussing” the design. So here’s day one, the interior of a volcano.

Design Something Every Day: Day 1: Volcano

Tools: Adobe Illustrator, Colors: kuler.adobe.com
Source: Volcano information: GeoBytesGCSE