The German book Formulare Gestalten (Designing forms) is chock full of the art and craft of the well-designed form. Forms are the perfect blending of design and function and Formulare Gestalten provides details about how to create more usable, user-friendly forms with over 60 case studies. A new English edition of the book is available this month (October 2009).
Star Wars simplicity by Andy Awesome.
PS: If you like this art but haven't seen Fanboys yet, get thee to your Netflix queue!
[via Drawn]
Cartoonist Doug Tennapel discusses digital vs. traditional media along with lots of other issues related to the art and craft of creating comic books.
[via Drawn]
Emgre just released two sans serif companion fonts for their popular Mrs Eaves. Please welcome Mr Eaves Sans and Mr Eaves Modern. Hooray! Both of the new fonts where created by Zuzana Licko who based the fonts on the proportions of Mrs Eaves, but took some liberties with the characteristics of the fonts. Licko didn't want to create "a typeface that looked like it simply had its serifs cut off". I think the results are quite fetching.
A friendly reminder from Joe Duffy that the key to being creative depends wholeheartedly on our ability to think creatively. Sometimes getting there requires breaking the 9-to-5 daily grind in order to get happy, creative, focused and be more productive. Sometimes, "wasting time" makes us all more productive.
Read more of Joe Duffy's blog on Fast Company.
[Link via Fast Company, shout-out to @NeilPfeiffer]
[1. Untitled, 2. swaptopus (aka, tako), 3. more 1800 logos, 4. Untitled, 5. Untitled, 6. Untitled, 7. Walk America logo, 8. Untitled, 9. summer's on (wal-mart) logo]
A whole set of great logos found on Flickr under the moniker, super_furry.
In an effort to make good typography available to everyone, The League of Moveable Type is calling upon typographers to contribute fonts to their movement. Their goal is to offer good quality faces that can be accessed for use on the web through @font-face.
Blackout, League Gothic and Junction are just a few of the free fonts offered through the League of Moveable Type.
Found on Brand New, Nickelodeon has revised their logo to reflect their new aesthetic sensibilities. Less slime, more style. Yeah!
[Above: Gary Baseman. Below: Buff Monster]
Ana and I have a soft spot for Hello Kitty in our hearts since some of the first moments of our friendship were spent bonding over our mutual love of Hello Kitty. Imagine our glee when we found that the Three Apples Exhibition in LA is throwing a fantastic show where Sanario collaborates with 80 popular artist to celebrate 35 years of Hello Kitty. Everyone from Frank Kozik to Gary Baseman to Tara McPherson to Friends with You will be contributing. Makes me want to take a trip to LA to check it all out. 
[Via Juxtapoz Magazine. Thanks to Thea for the tip.]
The Center for Design Study is restoring the famous Gastrotypographicalassemblage created by Lou Dorfsman for the CBS cafeteria and they would love your help. Watch the video above and if it moves you, please donate to The Center and help them bring this piece of design history back to life.
Our good friend Chris Capuozzo pointed us toward a wonderful blog called A Journey Round My Head that is chocked-full of inspiring eye-candy. The blog overflows with interesting illustrations and amazing old book covers. Some of our favorite recent posts are Thirty Book Covers from Poland, Alexeieff's Queen of Spades and Dan Meth's Eastern European Stash.
The Behance 99% blog has a nice interview with illustrator Christoph Niemann were he talks about his process, why deadlines are good and how much he dislikes open-ended assignments.
As a result of all the hullabaloo after the demise of Polaroid instant cameras and films last year, Polaroid has agreed to re-launch the legendary Polaroid One Step Camera and produce a limited edition of Polaroid branded Instant Films in 2010.
All praise analog technology!!
[via Polapremium. Thanks, Maura!]
Okay, I'll admit it. I am a Dr. Who fan. I remember watching the intro the show as a child and being so freaked out by it that I couldn't watch it again until I was much older. But as a sixteen year old, I became an addict staying up to 4am watching old episodes. So I was happy earlier this week when the BBC unveiled the new Dr. Who logo and it didn't suck. The logo isn't mind-blowing, but type is simple and I think the initials forming an icon of the Tardis is kinda clever.
Also they compiled a montage of the 10 logos that branded the show during the past 46 years.
I am a sucker for both cute anime-ish illustrations and superheroes so am drooling over the new line of Marvel superhero clothing by Tokidoki. Who wouldn't want Spiderman being bitten by a cactus dog or Wolverine eating a steak? Just too cute to talk about! Coming to a store near you in spring. 
Yee-Haw Industries, who are great friends of Pica + Pixel, are having an awesome art opening tonight at Chelsea Market. If you like fun, lovely letterpressed folk art posters, get your butt down to Chelsea Market from 7-9PM to have some Food, wine meet Julie Belcher and Kevin Bradley, the founders of Yee-Haw Industries.
Today, Conde Nast announced that Gourmet, Cookie, Modern Bride and Elegant Bride would all shutter their doors. For me, I am the most sad about Gourmet. I will miss the beautiful simple covers. Hope that this doesn't mean that all magazines will disappear. There is something about a glossy paper magazine with fabulous pictures and beautiful type that no website will ever replace.
