We posted recently about the launch of swiss-miss‘s fabulous new temporary tattoos Tattly. Well, they are on sale on Fab for the next 3 days. I am a little reluctant to tell more people about Fab, but it is a really great site. It is an invitation only sale site for design-y things and design inspiration. Need an invite to Fab? Well, here you go.
I love these new Oliver Sacks book covers (due out in August) from Vintage, designed by Cardon Webb. Interestingly, Cardon posted them on Dribbble a few months ago, saying they’d been killed. I’m glad someone realized how great they are and gave them the green light. via Spine Out
Oddly, the Experts are a surprisingly tattoo-free group. Thankfully, Tina Roth Eisenberg (AKA swissmiss) has come to the rescue for those times when you just want a little design-y body art. Inspired by the lack of cool temporary tattoos for her daughter, swissmiss contacted a number of designers to see if they liked her idea for Tattly and to see if they would be interested in submitting designs. Some pretty awesome designers have contributed so far, though unsurprisingly, my two favorites are Frank Chimero’s Knucks and Jessica Hische’s Type Nerd (though I kind of love them all). For the first 2 weeks, you can get the whole set for $35.
This week’s schmetsy is a little bit more narrow in focus than usual: tote bags. No, no, black-and-white tote bags. Wait, design-geeky black-and-white tote bags! This one runs the gamut, from letterforms to parts of letterforms to Thai letterforms, parallel lines to Bauhaus shapes. Enjoy!
Have you been following the To Resolve Project over at Motherland? I think it is a pretty genius idea. Here is a little bit about the project from Chris:
TO RESOLVE PROJECT is something that came about when I started talking new years resolutions with my girlfriend. You create a list, stuff it away in a drawer and it never sees the light of day till the year has passed. I decide to ask as many talented designers I know (or don’t know) to create a resolution for the new year as an iPhone wallpaper. It’s the one thing I do look at every day. This way you not only get a daily reminder, but you get a very stylish daily reminder at that. From now up until the new year I will be posting them as they come in, so check back often. Can’t find one to fit your needs, then just download the template HERE and add to the project. No restrictions, so lets have some fun with it.
I’m not sure if he is still accepting submissions, but even if you just made one for yourself, it could be pretty great. Here’s a small sampling of some of my favorites. Check them all out on Motherland.
Happy Monday! Brandi Strickland, a multi-media artist, and also one of the two people behind “the paper whistle” site has some really lovely collage pieces that I’m really enjoying. Hope you do too!
Check out Brandi’s flickr site here. Personal site here. Company site here.
We went to see Stefan Sagmeister talk at the Levi’s Workshop last week — sort of amazing, really, that one of the most famous designers in the world spoke to an audience of maybe 200, for free. For those who are unfamiliar with our profession’s enfant terrible, he’s a smart and humorous designer with a refreshingly honest standpoint.
What you may not know is that after seven years of running his studio, he took a full year off for inspiration and exploration, and intends to do this every seven years. He justifies this decision admirably well, and as he is prone to saying, Having guts always works out for me.
He showed slides of a few of the projects from his second one, from which he recently returned, from Bali. His first, where he stayed in New York, he considers mostly a failure. And yet, a page from a diary from that first year headed Things I Have Learned in My Life So Far has provided him the content for dozens of high-profile projects for a variety of clients over the last several years (plus a very-cleverly designed book and community-participatory website).
Some of the entries are thought-provoking like koans, like Jenny Holzer truisms. Others are shockingly banal, at least when you’re expecting Holzer-level thinking. But the typographic settings of them (often made with collaborators such as Marian Bantjes) are always interesting.
Oh in case you’re wondering: this Absolut ad isn’t Sagmeister but a complete (if well-executed) ripoff of his style.
So sorry for the tardy posting…things are a bit hectic at work. I’m really enjoying this collection of Dutch books, posted by lliazd. Enjoy, and hope everyone is having a good Monday!
Project 33 is an amazing collection of vintage album covers whose design relies solely on graphic shapes. Some of them are really awesome.
The seemingly infinite number of vintage record jackets that convey their message with simple shapes like circles and dots never cease to amaze and amuse me. Project Thirty-Three is my personal collection and shrine to these expressive shapes along with their slightly less jovial but equally effective cousins; squares, rectangles and triangles, and the designers that make them come to life on album covers. Other categories include arrows, lines, abstract shapes, instruments and typography-only. Check back soon as I’ll be adding covers regularly!  –David
If you’re looking for more fabulous album art, check out David’s other site Stereo Stack for an amazing, and growing, collection of vintage LP stereo banners.