JAMES MCDONOUGH

There aren’t many installations as awesome as this one. A 6 story tall rubber duck was placed in the Victoria Harbour in Hong Kong. Unfortunately some fowl play has caused it to deflate, but still this is awesome. See some more photos of it here. Image from thisiscolossal.com

Nice animated short video with Massimo talking about book design and the use of the grid.

I found this to be an inspiring listen. Guru is a self-made musical engineer who got himself to the top working with great artists and going on world tours. I listened and compared creating “musical landscapes” to having a passion for design and loving what you do. They aren’t so different.

Here’s a thoughtful read about George Orwell’s Four Motives for Creation. Stuff like this helps me to be more creative and keep pursuing what I love doing most: design. 

Looking for some new design and type sites for reference? Here are a few new ones I’ve found that you might not know about.

In college I commuted to campus by bike, even during the winter. Classmates used to tell me I’m crazy, but I’ve got nothing on these people who commute to NYC by bike. Awesome!

An informative article about the San Francisco based lettering artist and cofounder of Friends of Type. “There is a blue-collar work ethic to lettering—it’s repetitive and takes a long time to complete, but when you’re finished…there’s something concrete to show.”

What does it take to innovate and explore in the field of design? This is a great article to get your mind on the track to thinking wrong, tinkering and intuition. 

The first ever program teaching design for social innovation has opened. DSI for short “was born of the conviction that design is a powerful integrating process for moving all our disparate efforts to solve the world’s challenges toward fulfillment.”

There’s been quite an uproar about this recent rebranding since its creation in 1967. Here’s an interview with Massimo Vignelli about why he thinks it was a bad move.

I’ve begun to notice how clean websites have become with advancements in HTML and CSS. They are easier on the eyes, more intuitive, and have the user experience in high regard. I’ve discovered that “flat design” is the term coined for these types of websites.

I recently discovered Creative Mornings, created by Tina Roth Eisenberg, which are presentations by awesome people around the globe. This one features John Maeda, making a stand for creatives in this worlds awkward time. His metaphor that artists are like kite makers, building vessels to help them see the wind is quite excellent.