Archive for category design

cardboard boards

I heard about these last year when my friend Sascha came back from Maker Faire full of tales of beautiful surfboards made of cardboard. Now that Maker Fair is coming around again, I’m again interested in whether Mike Sheldrake has started to produce these for the average Joe (he’s made one for Alex Knost but to my knowledge has started selling them yet, referring to do more R&D first). What are they? They’re surfboards made completely of cardboard that are put together in a shape and pattern used in by aerospace applications to make the weak material strong by dispersing the support throughout the board. This cardboard is then draped with the normal fiberglass and resin to make it watertight. They’re made out of material that is often made of recycled material, and lets just face it: They look just plain rad. Mike’s site is here, although last time I checked no one was home. Hmmm maybe he’ll be at this year’s Maker Faire. Video of assembly after the break.

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lost

Now that it’s entering the home stretch, few can say that the TV series Lost is anything but a major piece of the popular consciousness pie from the last decade. Like it, love it, or despise it, Lost has captured the imagination of many, including graphic designer Alex Griendling who has taken the iconography of the show’s first season one step further by playing with the cultish aspects of the series, making the main characters into their own Tarot cards. I’m not much of a mystic (sorry Laura!) and don’t subscribe to the charlatianism of Tarot readings, but at least with these cards I wouldn’t mind watching them being meaningfully flipped over (love that the smoke is present in every card). Check out the whole set here. Thanks Charlie.

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glennz

With the crazy success of Threadless.com there were bound to be some offshoots. Now, one of the graphic designers behind some of the better T-shirts at the site has gone all independent, creating his own site at glennz.com. His style is great at communicating the hilarious and ironic. Thanks Jon.

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rework

I was just listening to a story on the NUMMI car plant closing in Fremont on a recent This American Life, and it was frustrating to listen to how GM bungled their business to bankruptcy in ’08. How could they not see what was coming? How could they be so inefficient? With this frustration hanging in the air, I was recently introduced to the book Rework. Apparently authors Jason Fried and David Hansson from 37signals, go through their strategies and dispel many of the “truisms” of business and entrepreneurism. Maybe it’s time to rethink some things. If you want to get an example of their writing check out 37signals, or the book here.

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fonts

In the world of design we get pretty excited about fonts, the rest of the world… not so much. Until now that is! Check out these classic fonts with their classic counterparts. They’re pretty rad. Found by Jon on Fineline Design.

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kaloian

Kaloian Toshev is a 22yr old artist from Bulgaria who has a great sense of space and color. Most of his paintings are of women (a popular subject), but no two pieces appear the same. It appears that he has a pretty bright future, and hopefully we’ll see more of his stuff over here. Check out his site here for more of his work. Found via design fckr.

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this ain’t no disco

With the economy such as it is, we’re constantly being told that you’re lucky to have a job. Yes, this is very true. But with this being said, we can also still dream of working in different environments. Perhaps somewhere that has a pool table and arcade like in the dot com boom maybe? Well, when I dream I do it at the website this ain’t no disco, where some of the most amazing work environments from around the world are posted to be voted on and inspire us all. So what do you say boss? Can we get that Xbox in here or what?

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retro star wars

Continuing on what appears to be a trend, I present to you a re-imagining of the world of Star Wars by artist Justin Van Genderen. Following suite with the retro-ization (ya, pretty sure that’s not a word yet) of famous films, his posters represent some of the planets and places of the Star Wars galaxy, evoking a simpler time before the prequels were a glimmer in the CG eye of Jar Jar Binx. Check out his site here. Found via Boing Boing.

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quentin redone

As the previous post representing alternate views of the Superbowl attests, many of us are fans of Quentin Tarantino’s work. From the academy award nominee Inglorious Bastards to the classic Pulp Fiction, Tarantino has been one of the most unique directors to come along in generations. Well, to celebrate this uniqueness, artist Ibraheem Youssef has created a series of prints that re-imagines the movie posters for some of Quentin’s classics. Check them out here. Found via Uncrate.

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joshua

Joshua Davis’s work caught my eye as I was walking through a Japanese book shop in SF the other day. It’s pretty rare that a magazine cover can stop me in my tracks and suck me in, so I was intrigued by his work. It turns out that his work is composed of about 50% programming self assembling art programs and 50% feeding those programs actual original art. It’s pretty fascinating stuff, so go check out his site or an interview where talks about the creative process here.

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