For me, music and creativity go hand and hand. I find so much inspiration through music and really can't design without it. So I was super excited to stubble across The Mixtape Club. Each month ten creatives contribute a 10 song mix tape complete with album art. The second volume online now.
[Via Bitique]
aily Drop Cap is an on-going project created by Jessica Hische. She posts a new decorative drop cap every business day that has limited restrictions for personal use on blogs and websites. Check out the site and the usage limits.
Our good friends over at House Industries just released 27 lovely hand-pulled serigraphs of yummy type and illustrations. With prices at or under $35, they won't make your wallet or budget cry.
Art & Copy is now showing in Kansas City, Atlanta, Irvine, Milwaukee and Brunswick, ME.
Back in November, we mentioned that Google and Life joined forces to create huge archive of Life photographs. Now, they have teamed up again to take 1,860 issues from the LIFE archive (1936-1972) and made them digital. With just a click of a mouse, you can flip through an entire issue about World War II or the Apollo landing seeing the amazing photos, lovely layouts and totally retro-tastic ads.
This is the last week for all of you in NYC to catch the great retrospective of Milton Glaser's design work at the Visual Arts Gallery. The show highlights 100 pieces from the past 50 years of that Glaser produced especially for School of the Visual Arts. The show ends this Saturday, Sept. 26th so run down on your lunch hour or cruise by on Saturday for one last look.
Been loving the snapshot, off-the-cuff illustrations by Hope Gangloff rendered in a wonderful controlled ball point scratchy pen style.
Stephen Coles Chromeography project. Find more chrome emblem love in the pool and don't forget to read the forum threads for chrome-inspired fonts options.
[Not to be confused with Carlos Segura's CarType who features the beloved I Park Like an Idiot] section.
Typedia is a new community-driven type site to classify, organize and elaborate on the art of typography. Basically, its goal is to be the Wikipedia of fonts. With such typographic heavy-hitters as Mark Simonson, John Langdon and Stephen Coles, there is little doubt that this site will develop into a tool designers can rely upon for information and inspiration. As Typedia is being created independently from any specific foundry, it has the potential to feature a wider range of faces than other sites currently used.
Rebecca Thuss is former style director for Martha Stewart Weddings and Blueprint before launching an independent career with her husband Patrick Farrell as ThussFarrell, a multidisciplinary photography and design studio. The result? Gorgeously styled tabletop, portrait, fashion and beauty images. And web design, logomarks, and paper crafts. Wow!
The other day my husband sent me the perfect way to test my cheese and typography skills at the same time. Cheese or Font game turns out to be more challenging then you think it might be.
[Image from Nelson-Atkins.org]
There is currently an opening for a full-time Graphic Designer at the Nelson-Atkins Museum in Kansas City, MO. Main tasks include creating and maintaining Museum and exhibition-related publications, as well as managing the brand, freelance talent and working directly with vendors. Applicants need a BFA, 5+ years of experience in the field and be adept with digital tools (Mac OS X, Adobe Suite, Microsoft Word). Bonus points for Flash and web design experience. "Photography skills a plus."
Download PDF for more information.
Previously on Pica + Pixel, we posted about Steven Hill's movie title archive - a down-and-dirty archive of film titles from the 1900s to the present.
Thanks to the keen eye of a co-worker, we now know of another resource for spiffy film title graphics: Christian Annyas' film still collection. This site is super easy to navigate and easier to scroll though a bunch of images at once. Starting with films from the 1920s, it also feaures film stills of the titles and when you roll over the still, it ill also show "The End" when available.
Design and branding powerhouse Duffy Partners celebrates their 25th anniversary by putting together a comprehensive slide show of over 150 of the logos they created. Be sure to flip through all the logos and check out how the styling changes from the 80s until today.
Before:
and After:
With extensive notes about the importance of coherent web design, Andrew Wilkinson at MetaLab redesigned the front page of Zappos website to be more user-friendly and consistent. While the changes look minor, the thought behind them creates a cleaner look, utilizing icons familiar to anyone and a unity in link styles and colors. Read the whole article which goes into detail about web usability and design consistency.
SEYMOUR: THE OBSESSIVE IMAGES OF SEYMOUR CHWAST part I from AIGA/NY on Vimeo.
[Image on left is jpeg, image on right is a color corrected and tweak RAW image by Bill Wadman]
Bill Wadman is the mastermind behind On Taking Pictures, a real-world view of the life of a working photographer. I was particularly taken with his Why I Shoot Raw article last month. The visual speaks volumes to the advantage of shooting in RAW mode to help eek-out a usable photo even when you least expect it.
If you're considering a career in photography, On Taking Pictures is a must-read.
In an 8-page tome, the New York Times detailed the excesses of one of America's most famous photographer's, Annie Leibovitz. With homes, studios, and $800 plane rides for a custom journals, it seems clear that the lifestyle of the rich and famous she photographed had infiltrated her own life, much to her detriment. Her debts are totally over $24 million!
Can she get out of this financial hole? According to the article, without help from Conde Nast or Getty Images, she may go bankrupt.
[Artwork by Maura Cluthe]
It's Friday, you're bored, you're stuck in another meeting before a 3-day weekend so the likelihood that you doodled in the margins of your notes, spreadsheet handout or on your hand is probably pretty high. Celebrate the art of the doodle by visiting Doodlers Anonymous. Maybe submit a photo of your doodle-riddled hand while you're there.
[Fabulous Feist poster by Vahalla Studios, currently hung in my living room. Get your own at Poster Cabaret.]
Find this poster from Vahalla Studios and many other by Aesthetic Apparatus, Blanca Gomez, Eleanor Grosch, Invisible Creature, Little Friends of Printmaking, Matte Stephens, Methane Studios and dozens more at Poster Cabaret. One-stop shop and drool.
I am enthralled with Natascha S. Rosenberg's simple, naive illustrations. I am particularly fascinated in the way she combines her images with photography or finds characters in everyday objects. Though she attended school for law, the lure of drawing, her childhood passion, could not be quelled and she chose to persue art as a career and I am so glad she did. Rosenberg currently works in Spain but is in the process of moving to Berlin.
Ministry of Type is a one-man catalog of type, lettering and calligraphy catalogued by Aegir Hallmundur. The site is elegantly displayed and easily searchable. It is I Love Typography from the other side of the pond.
While we're on the subject, Johno, the esteemed creator and keeper of iLT also keeps a running blog of inspiring images, juststuffifind.com. Oh, and the collaborative and searchable site We Love Typography. Worth a look – both of them. I promise.
Gallery hanahou has a great interview with Berlin-based illustrator Tina Berning in anticipation for her upcoming show "The Passengers". If interested, you can RSVP to for the opening of the show on Thursday, September 10th, 2009, 6-9pm or come see Berning speak on Saturday, September 12th, at 2pm. "The Passengers" runs from September 11th to October 9th, 2009. 
Our love affair with paper knows no bounds! When our love of paper is combined with the iconic image of Max from Where the Wild Things Are, it is truly love at first sight. Marshall Alexander has been creating paper craft constructions for sometime and each is a free download. Max was created for the Terrible Yellow Eyes blog, which we have mentioned in the past. Fabulous!
IKEA recently changed it's print catalogue font from Futura to Verdana and the design community is pissed. The global backlash was so violent that the mainstream media started covering it. Everyone from the New York Times to Time magazine to Slate are talking about it. Personally, Pica + Pixel couldn't be more happy about the buzz. Verdana is a great font for the web, but it wasn't made for print.
The Small Stakes poster shop is full of simple, graphic visuals that speak volumes. Sadly, most of the poster are sold out but I still enjoy looking at the thoughtful economy of line and color that absorbs my eye. Mmmmm!
