27 May 2011 - Corinne Gibson
I once saw an article in a design magazine, where the designer had made elegant dresses out of digital type - each letter form individually placed to create the whole garment. It was one of the most beautiful design piecess I've ever seen.
That was almost 15 years ago and unfortunately I can't find the article again. There is still plenty of type design work that inspires me though - here's a few of my favs at the moment.
ABChairs
Roeland Otten designed this series of 26 seats based on typographic letter forms. Personal favourites are the "e" and the "s" - though i'd happily have the whole set at home... so we can make words like you do with fridge magnets. Manufactured on request, in limited edition... my favourite type of edition! Check out more at www.roelandotten.com
Hand Embroidered Type
The hand embroidered type of Maricor Maricar are stunning as both final pieces and the complexity of work that goes into building them. Confessing their "unusual obsession with paper and patterns", we're fortunate to see a lot of their output at
maricormaricar.com
Interior Design
I don't know much about the origin of this work, what it was done for, or the artist. The more you look into the details of this structure, the more amazed you'll become by the pieces that make it, and the work as a whole. Every angle works it's own magic. It's a beautiful piece, and very inspiring. The artists profile is on behance, along with some other interesting works.
Profile: FLY_ ART_S
Paris Linocut
6 months of research (including a trip to Paris), design and over 800 hours of carving to finish. Mark Webber took a single 150x180cm piece of linoleum and converted it into this "Where in the World" typographic representation of the city map. Can't wait for these to be printed! Check out his work over at
www.markandrewwebber.com, and while you're there, make sure you check out the 30 second ‘linomation’ as well.
Paper-made type
Something I thought very little of (paper curling) is suddenly transformed into something very innovative and extremely cool with a bit of imagination - have a squiz at Yulia Brodskaya's papergraphic work.
www.artyulia.com, and if you thought that was cool... check out her amazing illustration piece!
Fab-ul-ous!
LOVE the psychadellic type - best seen in all it's glory here by Icelandic born (and now Berlin based) Siggi Eggertsson. Apparently a rejected magazine cover... which is a bit sad, because I think it's amazing. Along with all the other beautiful work on the site... just wow.
Hype! Hype! Hype!
Lastly, I'm a huge fan of a slick logo - and I think DJ Hype has nailed it here. I'm not sure who did it, so can't link you off to any pretty visuals, but can send you to some auditory goodness.
Hype features on Kiss100 on Thursdays around lunch time (NZ time) - tune in.
03 May 2011 - Kelly Milligan
It's an exciting time for front-end web development. More mobile devices capable of full web support, an active move away from IE6, and fantastic new, standards driven tools!
Overview: The less framework is built using CSS3 media queries. It allows you to apply different CSS styles to a page, depending on chosen criteria.
The best way for me to explain is to give you an example: Say you have a web page, and you want it to scale to fit across computers, tablets, and smartphones. Using media queries this becomes very easy! You can apply certain CSS (say, make text smaller, make images smaller, flow a 5 column grid into 3 columns) if the criteria is met (if the width of the browser window is less than specified tiers of pixels).
The Result: a single page, which displays the same content (and HTML markup) in the most optimal way for your device.
The Caveats: CSS3 only works on the newer browsers, such as Safari 4 & 5, Chrome, Firefox 4, Internet Explorer 9. Apple products such as the iPhone and iPad, and Android phones/tablets ARE supported here. It’s not all bad though, your site’s design will simply fall back to your base, computer screen sized design if CSS3 is not supported.
What it means: A website that works across multiple platforms, where content updates apply across all devices with one change. Mobile web browsing is trending upward, ensuring the best readability of your site’s content across all devices doesn’t need to be difficult!
You can find out more here: http://lessframework.com/
And some examples here:
http://edenspiekermann.com/
http://www.madebysplendid.com/
http://naomiatkinson.com/
Try resizing your browser on these examples! You can see first hand how the Less Framework allows these websites to alter their content to your browser window size.
20 Apr 2011 - Simon Dickey
This delicious new website is brought to you by Frontend Design
We are extremely pleased to have our exciting new design online. Please come on in, take a look around, and drop us a line on the contact page.
20 Apr 2011 - Dan Clausen
The next time you're stuck for an idea or just in need of a bit of inspiration, switch off your computer, grab your camera and head for the great outdoors!
You don't need the latest 500 mega-pixel, super zoom camera, just the one you've got on hand will do. You also don't need the perfect subject matter, quality of light or incredible natural phenomena to photograph - just the right attitude will do.
Once you're out on the street don't even worry too much about what it is you're supposed to be photographing, as long as you've got your eyes open, you will naturally be drawn to scenes and objects that are of interest to you. When you've banged off a few shots, you will most probably find that your mind starts to relax a little and eye starts to focus more and you notice details you previously may have missed.
Then by the time you get back to your computer you just might find a whole bunch of ideas have popped into your head and you feel much more refreshed and inspired. If not, at least you've got some fresh air and (hopefully) have some nice shots to post up on Flickr!
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