The Future of Magazines?

Interesting interactive magazine feature created for Viv Mag, a digital magazine, for the iPad. The look of magazines to come?

[Via Vincent Laforet blog]

Photoshop Content Aware Fill

A lot of designers I know were buzzing about this today. We all wonder if it will perform as well as it does in the video. Cross your fingers!

MoMA's new acquisition

MoMA announced today that they have acquired the @ symbol for their collection. Read the interesting and unique reasoning behind why and how they can acquire the "at" symbol and see what you think. We aren't quite sold yet.

Interview: Maira Kalman

Behance's 99% blog has a great interview with artist, writer and illustrator Maira Kalman about her work and where she gathers inspiration and how your inspiration might be closer then you think.

A Short History of Prussian Blue

Fast Company published an article about Joshua Cohen's Triple Canopy article "The 36 Shades of Prussian Blue." Prussian Blue is considered to be the first synthetic color, created in 1704, it was a huge hit with artists as previous blues were often more expensive to obtain than gold.

[Photo features four iterations of the Crayola logo and the crayon formerly know as Prussian Blue. In 1958, the Prussian Blue crayon was renamed Midnight Blue because no one knew what or where Prussia was.]

Cute Stationery Alert!

Jonathan Alder just introduced a line of fun and funky, brightly-patterned stationery. Now you can get flirty file folders, chic pens, cheery notecards, niffy notebooks and much, much more. Everything is covered in happy candied-hued geometric patterns and 60s inspired nature patterns with birds and bunnies.

Flat-It Font Foundry

While doing a little font research today, I stumbled across the deliciously vintage fonts from Flat-It, the brain child of Japanese type designer Ryoichi Tsunekawa. There is an brief interview with Tsunekawa on MyFonts. His fonts are designed in OpenType with attention to detail including serif connections, extended character sets for European languages, ligatures and alternate characters.

The worst thing? Trying to decide which fonts I'll buy first!

[Camera is available in 3 weights and includes extensive ligatures, small caps and full European character sets]

[HT Libreria by Flat-It]

Contest: The Strand Tote Bag Design Contest

The beloved NYC bookstore, The Strand, is looking for your illustrations to grace one of their tote bags. The Strand has linked up with various artists through the years to create their iconic and beautiful tote bags so don't miss the action to become part of famous alumni like Art Spiegelman, Adrian Tomine, Seth and R. Sikoryak. Be sure get your entry in by March 30th and win one of numerous awesome prizes and eternal fame.

NYC Event: George Lois Talk

SPD is having George Lois talk on Tuesday, March 30th at FIT to discuss his famous Esquire covers and his new book from Assouline. I've seen George Lois speak and I have to say, "DON'T MISS IT!!" He gives an amazing and inspiring (though curse-word filled) talk. Wanna see one of the original Mad Men? Then don't miss George Lois.

Photographer: Jeff Bridges

[All photos by Jeff Bridges from the set of Crazy Heart]

The new Tron trailer has us excited and we were happy to see the lovely and talented Oscar-winning actor Jeff Bridges in it. Speaking of Mr. Bridges, during this past week we found out that he is a huge photography geek and shoots candid photos on his movie sets which he turns into commemorative books and gives the to crew members on his films. His website has his last couple films in book form and they are lovely peek behind the scenes. We are impressed with his photography prowess and that he shoots only with a Widelux, a swing-lens panoramic camera. Jeff Bridges is truly The Dude.

Pedigree Dogs at 1000fps.

Not only beautifully filmed but terribly amusing!

Video: Tokyo Glow Stop Motion

Tokyo/Glow from Nathan Johnston on Vimeo.

The longer I watch this video, the more I wonder how it was created... blue screen maybe? Its a beautiful mystery.

[Shoutout to Madeline for the tip!]

books on t-shirts

Well, this is my last post here on pica + pixel :( It's been great being a guest blogger this week! Thanks for letting me share with you.

~ Jeanee

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Show the world that you know good design and great literature with the help of Out of Print, which sells t-shirts printed with iconic and often out of print book covers.

"We work closely with artists, authors, and publishers to license the content that ends up in our collections," note the founders, who are currently offering wearable versions of American Lit. syllabus standbys such as Catcher in the Rye, Invisible Man, and Of Mice and Men. Meanwhile, the vintage vibe goes beyond the graphics.


Each 100% cotton shirt is treated to feel soft and worn "like a well-read book."

I just love the old vintage graphics. A perfect gift for that bookworm in your life!

Illustrator: Jonas Löfgren

[Lydia Deetz]

Illustrator Jonas Löfrgren created these illustrations for Lula Magazine. His web site is not live at the moment but I couldn't let these images languish until his site went live.


[Enid Coleslaw]


[Wednesday Addams]


[Margot Tennenbaum]

[Via Sarah Wynne]

letterpress lovin'

Why is it that whenever I see something letterpressed I just go ga-ga? It's something about seeing the clean and fresh lines of a letterform pressed into lushious paper.

You can't help but to be in love with the work of eco-friendly letterpress shop Bella Figura.


These beautiful wedding invitations are from They donate 1% of sales to environmental causes. We print our custom wedding invitations only on 100% cotton (tree-free) paper that's made exclusively for them in a historic European paper mill.



They also use vintage cast-iron presses, the best paper, time, patience, perfection, and a whole lot of love.



Absolutely beautiful...

Eye Candy: Anorak Magazine

This week I received my first issue of Anorak magazine and I am smitten. Anorak is a British kids magazine that is the loopy, psychedelic, modern-day Highlights of today. It is chocked full of whimsical, colorful illustrations; cute stories and silly activities. The only draw-back is that it comes quarterly so I'll have to wait a couple months before I get my next Anorak fix.

Olympic fever continues

For those of you missing the triumph and agonies of the Winter Olympic games, I have two Olympic tidbits for you.

First, Steven Heller created a video for the NYTimes featuring an animated analysis of Olympic icons, from the truly iconic to the questionable.

Also, Duffy & Partners has put together a collection of inspiration and information culled from the Vancouver winter games, from Inuit-inspired fashions to e-waste-based medals.

Three Potato Four

In the 4th issue of Uppercase magazine there is a story about Three Potato Four by Victoria Smith from sfgirlbybay.




Three Potato Four is ran by married couple Janet Morales and Stu Eliand and it's one of the most popular and thriving online vintage shop. I must say that I drool over Three Potato Four's collections.


The couple had two small children and love working at home so they can spend more time with them.

Cardboard boxes for the shop become forts for the kids, ... signage letters become after school alphabet lessons."

They get their goods as they travel around to antique markets within a 200-mile radius of home, and work with antique dealers they've met over the years.

I love the way the shop is designed and well-organized. Each page they have as a storefront tells a story.

Three Potato Four has some of the best photography which makes their good extra appetizing.


I SO want a custom hand-lettered sign to say "Jeanee's CUPCAKES" to have at craft shows to display near my cupcake bath fizzies!

Letter Love: Andy Smith

Andy Smith creates typographic illustrations that are playful and a little naive. His work reminds me of Modern Dog and YeeHaw Industries, in a good way.

Glaser receives National Medal of Arts award

Pica + Pixel are huge fans of Milton Glaser's and it turns out we aren't alone. Last Thursday, Milton Glaser received the 2009 National Medal of Arts from Barak Obama along with eleven other recipients. Glaser was the first graphic designer ever to win the award which nation's highest award for artistic excellence overseen by the National Endowment of the Arts. Go Milton!

[Via The Daily Heller]

AIGA Design Archives

I wanted to let you know that the new AIGA Design Archives web site encompasses more than 20000 selections from AIGA’s annual juried design competitions dating from 1924 through the present.

In addition, it features special collections of major American design firms and practitioners whose design accomplishments might otherwise not be preserved online or made available to the public.

The collection is expected to grow by approximately 300 selections a year!


Categories includes things like:
• book covers
• sports graphics
• ads of the year
• typography
• packaging
• political art
• and more!

The amount of information available is almost endless!

logo love

Hello! I'm Jeanee, your guest blogger for the week. I'm so happy to be here at pica + pixel to share some graphic design with you.

By day I'm a graphic designer for Hallmark and by night I'm a crafter and Zumba fitness instructor. I'm influenced by all the beauty around me, so I have lots to share!

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Recently I found some new Flickr eye candy from super_furry. He does wonderful logo work. I love his typefaces mixed with hand lettering.

Two of my favorites of his logo variations are for Roasted Bliss Coffee and Anjou Bakery. They totally remind me being in grad school having to make 50 variations of one logo sue the next day. Staying up all night doing sketches on tissue paper and trying every combination possible in Illustrator.

ROASTED BLISS COFFEE

The smiling bean is my winner! I just love how simple objects makes something else.

The simplicity of the illustration of the crease of a coffee bean makes a little smile. And of course the bean should be smilng; it's going to make some yummy coffee!

And did you know where how that crease gets there? The seed grows and wraps around on itself while inside the fruit creating a crease on the flat side of each bean.

ANJOU BAKERY

I like the first logo because there is a loaf of bread inside the "a." And I really like the stressed and vintage look of a loaf of bread label of the 4th one.

For more logo love check out a site called Logo of the Day.


They reward the best professional logos and trademarks designed throughout the world. You can follow them on Twitter and Facebook.

Letter Love: Katie Daisy Lombardo

Recent MCAD graduate, Katie Daisy Lombardo, creates beautiful painted lettering illustrations. Love the painterly quality to her work!