Filed under: Graphic Design
While dreaming myself back to New York I found comfort in the work of Brooklyn based designers Topos Graphics. I find this studio fascinating because their work is in so many different directions, but there’s reallt a lot of great work. Just have a look at these cool samples.
See more: http://www.toposgraphics.com
The Cool Hunter was one of the first blogs I followed quite religously, there’s so much amazing design content there, spanning various diciplines. And now the creator of The Cool Hunter, Bill Tikos, is moving on to start his own agency, Access Agency. There’s no webste for it yet but you can see the first steps on The Cool Hunter. I just LOVE the ideas for McDonalds, or rather McFancy. It might even make me visit the place (although I’m on my 10th year of a McDonalds free life) just to see what the restaurants would look like. The packaging looks like a really cool start.
Read more in this post from The Cool Hunter.
Filed under: Illustration/Art
Luke Dixon is a UK based illustrator with a wicked hand. I really love his illustrations because there’s such a fantastic contrast in the way he uses the pen. He even makes worn out black pens work as a rough textile textures in his drawings. Lovely!
See more: http://www.lukedixonart.co.uk
Filed under: Graphic Design
I recently came across young Chicago based designer Rob Schellenberg. I fell in love with his various publications which all show a great sence of tight typography and innovative use of format restrictions. I am especially fond of his work for the Lyric Opera House, good job!
See more: http://www.robschellenberg.com
I recently came across Nacho Gil’s zoo animals in gradient triangles. I really love the gorilla and the zebra which totally looks like it’s made out of diamands. I haven’t seen anything else from Mr. Nacho since this is all there is on his website but I’m curious to see more.
Visit Nacho Gil: http://www.nacho-gil.com/
OK wrapping up my Finnish week with the iconic Finnish drink Koskenkorva. You can’t visit Finland without tasting this stuff, preferably in combo with sauna. Had a few of both. Of course being a complete nerd I couldn’t help but notice the really beautiful typography on the bottle. Isn’t that font just wonderful?
While in Helsinki my family showed me Finnish shoe designer Minna Parikka. I guess they know I’m a shoe addict, like most women perhaps. Minna Parikka does the most fantastic shoes, they’re quite pricey though. But what really caught my eye was the fantastic shoe masks that she uses in her printed material. I had a chat with the lovely girl in the store and she told me that they are made out of unsold shoes from former collections. What a great idea! I’m sure you’ll agree that they are quite kinky, but I think it’s a very original way to show shoes.
Another post from Finland today. If you live in Finland you can’t buy booze in your local shop, like in Sweden you have to go to a centrally owned store and get your wine, vodka etc. It sounds a bit shamefull but it’s actually quite alright as the variety of things you can get there is much bigger than it would be in local shop. And it’s even better since Alko (the Finnish version) was recently redesigned to look much nicer. The redesign was done by Aleksi Hautamäki and Anders Nord. Just look at the wonderful features in the spatial design below.
Filed under: Spatial Design
One more Finnish shop to see today. I came across lovely Sis deli in Helsinki and thought it was so lovely and simply done. The pattern is the main part of the identity and it’s really nicely executed in all media.
Visit Sis deli (in Finnish): http://www.sisdeli.fi/
Filed under: Packaging
Have just returned from a lovely weekend in Helsinki. I remember growing up there was one thing I would always buy at Helsinki Airport when I went back to Denmark after visiting my family in Finland. That was a HUGE bag of Fazer Lakritsi (liquerice). I think even as a kid I was drawn to the strong colourscale and simple shapes. I don’t think I really thought much about the motife in itself which was ofcourse very politically incorrect and getting older I realised that it had to be a matter of time before the design was changed. And now it has been redesigned, or rather it was just a few year back.
I think the new design is still lovely and totally in keeping with the retro style but I wish they’d played a bit more with the shape. They don’t varry that much in size and what worked so well before was the huge face on the front of the bag and I think the new design misses that kind of contrast in size. See for yourselves…
Old design:
New Design:
Inspiration Lab 
