The Future Distilled

Posted on July 21, 2009July 22, 2009 Posted in Design, Industrial Design, MerchTagged branding, Design, lifestyle, minimalism, products3 Comments

nooka fragrance

When it comes to lifestyle brands, there are two companies that stand out from the rest. One is Apple, the other is a small but awesome company called Nooka. I’ve written about them before and their excellent line of timepieces. The company was born in 1997 by artist and designer, Matthew Waldman.

Recently Matthew and his team launched a few new products that expand the brand and will change the way you think about other objects. The new products are a Nooka fragrance, Asset Organizer and Strip.

I had the pleasure of sampling the fragrance when I took a tour of the Nooka office and it smells great. The Asset Organizer is a system of containers much like a wallet and the Strip is a belt featuring an innovative snap and release closure system designed and developed by Nooka. What stands out the most from these products is their simplistic design and function and the innovative thinking behind each them. Nooka is slowing becoming my favorite brand and I look forward to future products.

Good Design, Good Business – Geigy Exhibition

Posted on July 20, 2009July 20, 2009 Posted in Design, Grid Systems, International Typographic StyleTagged graphic design, grid system, International Typographic Style, minimalism, modernism, Swiss, swiss style12 Comments

Geigy

Honestly, I can’t get enough of the awesome work done by the Swiss chemical company Geigy. Their in-house design studio was a pioneer of the International Typographic Style during the 1950s and 1960s.

Earlier this year the Design Museum Zurich held an exhibition that featured much of this amazing work. The exhibit coincided with one of my favorite design books of all-time, Corporate Diversity : Swiss Graphic Design by Geigy. If you don’t have this book, you need to get a copy. It’s a must have. There’s a Flickr group with photos of the exhibit, as well as a nice online gallery on the Dwell site. A short film was also made about the exhibit.

Brooklyn Fare

Posted on July 17, 2009 Posted in Design, International Typographic StyleTagged branding, graphic design, identity, International Typographic Style, minimalism, stationery5 Comments

Brooklyn Fare

Mucca Design has created a stunning package design for Brooklyn based gourmet store, Brooklyn Fare. The branding features a proprietary typeface by Mucca called Fare Serif that is used everywhere and a 4 color system. Another aspect of the minimalist branding that I love is the edgy, humorous tone of the copy.

You can see more of this project on the Mucca newsletters as well as the Eat Me Daily blog.

The Principles of Swiss Graphic Design

Posted on July 15, 2009July 16, 2009 Posted in Books, Design, Grid Systems, International Typographic Style, TypographyTagged graphic design, grid system, International Typographic Style, josef müller-brockmann, minimalism, modernism, Typography14 Comments

Blanka Brockmann

This is awesome. I need to get my hands on it.

Designer Dylan Mulvaney has designed this splendid bilingual, expandable book for Blanka. It honors the man, the legend, Josef Müller-Brockmann as well as conveys the principles of Swiss Graphic Design as exemplified by the leader of the revolutionary Swiss Style. Sounds perfect to me. Too bad I don’t see it anywhere on the Blanka site.

UPDATE
I contacted Blanka and they’ve never heard of Dylan Mulvaney nor are they part of this project. Really weird that this guy would claim such a thing.

Via Swiss Legacy

Hello T-Shirt Now Available

Posted on July 13, 2009July 13, 2009 Posted in Design, International Typographic Style, Merch, TypographyTagged graphic design, International Typographic Style, merchandise, screenprint, skateboard, t-shirt21 Comments

A Hello t-shirt was inevitable. The concept works on a shirt and I must say it turned out great. Working with Buddy Carr on this project has been a dream come true and it is great when the client just gets it. Buddy gets it.

The shirt is now available for $22 plus shipping and is also available as a package which includes the Hello Skateboard.

You can see more photos of the shirt and the sweet packaging it comes in on the site.

Here are the details:

Screen Printed on 100% Combed Ringspun Cotton
Super-soft, Lightweight, Slimfit
Machine Washable and Preshrunk to Minimize Shrinkage
Sizes: Small, Medium, Large and X-Large
Color: White

Buy it Now

Swiss Graphic Design: Precision and Presence

Posted on July 10, 2009July 10, 2009 Posted in Design, Events, International Typographic StyleTagged exhibit, graphic design, International Typographic Style, museum, posters, swiss style2 Comments

Swiss Graphic Design Exhibit Image above by Ryan Nelson.

Man, I wish I lived in Minneapolis right now. The Minneapolis Institute of Arts has an exhibit titled Swiss Graphic Design: Precision and Presence that features a series of 20 Swiss posters dating from 1950 to 1985. It has been on display since January and I’m bummed that I’m just hearing about it now because it ends this Sunday! It’s good to see that such a great era in design is still being respected and passed along. We need more exhibits like this. I really have to try to curate one here in NYC.

I apologize for the bad photo, it’s the best I could find, but I did manage to find two Flickr sets of the exhibit. One by Joe Kral and the other by Ryan Nelson. Enjoy.