Fresh and sparkling new prints and products to get you super for Summer! Brand new Speakerdog World Lovin Posters, Gelaskins, Speakerdog Softies and one-off hand custom vinyl; toys by Ben the Illustrator are all now yours for the taking, enjoy!

Source: www.buybentheillustrator.bigcartel.com

Stanislav Katz industrial design concepts visualization furniture.

Source: www.stanislavkatz.com

A beautiful collection of print and typography work. Ken Meier is a graphic design student studying for a MFA at Yale University.

Source: www.kenmeier.info

I simply loved the description Shotop provided, so I’m just simply going to quote it whole :

Source: shotopop.com

Krunch Studio is a small team of designers and animators based in historic Old Portsmouth.

They have a history of providing 3d design and animation solutions for top designers such as ilovedust and Tado
Their work has spread across cinemas, TV, stage broadcast, exhibitions, magazines, the web, and great big posters.

Krunch happily works with agencies, direct to client, and as a 3d design and animation plug-in for other studios.

Source: krunchstudio.com

PHASE02 is actually the online portfolio / blog of two belgian brothers sharing the same passion, design.

Tim and Bram Vanhaeren are 20 and 17 years old and have both been into graphics for about 3-4 years. This artwork section shows you how the PHASE02 brothers have had fun and improved their skills by experimenting with various styles and techniques.

Source: phase02.org

Recently, having to work with different people who aren’t connected with design, and web-design in particular, gave me the opportunity to see how most of the people see and perceive this field. It isn’t as you’d expect.

Clients who exist for a while now and run a fast growing business decide they need an online presence or they need a facelift, because the brand manager suggested so. And this is the best case scenario. When there’s a brand manager involved, usually it’s easier for the designer and the chances for a better final product grow exponentially.

But what do you do when your client hasn’t the slightest idea of what a website is ? More so, the digital environment is a land he’ll never reach. And if that isn’t enough, there is no brand manager, there is no account manager, no brand guidelines, just a friend who told him a website is a must ?

In this case, I have found a very simple analogy that pays off : websites are very much like people. If you explain this to your clients properly it shortens the time you usually spend consulting your client, it makes the communication easier and it increases the chances both you and your client end up with a product you’re both happy of.

If you start of with the premise that a website isn’t just shiny graphics displayed on a monitor, but a system through which your company exists, you can safely say that a website is a living entity over which you have complete control.

Let’s think of some basic human characteristics :

A living entity has to be born. It is given a name : either it takes the company name much like the son takes his father’s name, either a website is a standalone online presence and it has it’s very own name.

There are two main things a human necessarily needs : food and water in order to survive and clothes in order to be a part of a society. These are minimum investments for a day to day existence, which usually the parents make. A site needs a host in order to survive and a design to be a part of a society. Ignore the costs and the quality of the design for now. Just think of the fact that the quality of the food and of the clothes is directly proportional to your site’s content expansion rate.

Like anybody else, once you develop, you choose a group of friends or acquaintances you find yourself next to almost constantly. You shape your personality according to this group of people : your language, your tone of voice, the way you dress, the way you adapt and how fast you’re growing. A website behaves almost the exact way : you choose it’s target and you start shaping it according to that specific target : language, tone of voice, design, flexible structures, medium and user adaptability. All of this determines the future exposure of your site. As this grows, so do your needs and thus, the need for a unitary visual style and a powerful identity.

Social factors are also a part of this small analogy : everybody has friends and enemies; a site has backlinks and backdoors. Backlinks always help your expansion, while backdoors exploit your vulnerabilities. Your future social status depends on this, so give it the importance it deserves. Usability here has a huge role : the more user-friendly the site, the more backlinks it will get.

Also, let’s not forget that the rules and authorities that govern our society are already transposed into the online medium as copyright laws.

After having kept my pleading, I had the pleasant surprise to find out that the client understood the process we will further undergo in our project far more than I would have used all the educated and vague computer, brand and web terms I could think of.

This is a small and naive list of arguments to prove a very efficient analogy. But the point of this article is not to give you a five step program towards convincing even the hard-headed clients of them all, but to prove that a simple analogy, that a client can relate to, is always efficient.

Use this piece of information, and take the customer through the steps he needs to make an educated choice in working with a designer. That will only benefit us all.

Are you a designer? I suppose you are. Are you a dreamer, a visionary, a person with high standards? I suppose again that you are.

I’ve read a lot about what design is or not, I don’t know yet what design is, but I know what design is not: standards, lack of creativity and comfort zone. I’ve encounter a lot a situation lately: creativity in design, but limited creativity oriented toward the first visual impression. Basically, someone is creative, but is creative within standards, and I can’t call that person a good designer. Design is not about filling a white canvas in photoshop with graphical elements for a website, design is about creativity, is about changing the way people live and interact, is about making an easier life for those who came in touch with your product, is about changing the world and make it better.

I’ve seen a lot of creative people with great potential reaching a limit in what they do, settle in what they do, become production machines with norms and delivering beautiful works and just that. It’s sad but is true, as true as is that at the moment in your life you can have a boss, a client with a different(stupid) vision, a bad mouth wife, but this is the greatest challenge for a designer: to always overcome his fears, his levels and his vision, day by day, work by work. And to set new, higher standards, and to dream more, and then more, and then more.

Because I believe, that design is truly about changing the world, winning a place in history and make people remind you as a visionary, rather than someone with great layouts and good color combinations.

Even if you are a graphic, product, ambiental designer you play a much bigger role in everyone’s life, and you have a duty to yourself to reach what you have proposed without a question at the moment in your life: be the best in the what you do, and let everybody know that.

Author : Ciprian Gavriliu

Maxi Shilov is a graphic artist and illustrator from St. Petersburg, Russian.

Source: www.soulnoise.com

SHOWstudio is an online fashion broadcasting company committed to pioneering, live fashion media. Led by photographer Nick Knight, SHOWstudio has consistently broken new ground with its experimental interactive projects, films and live performances. Its unique collaborations with the world’s most sought-after and influential photographers, artists, writers, designers and cultural figures are broadcast live, in real time on the award-winning SHOWstudio website.

Committed to unveiling the entire process of creativity to a highly fashion literate audience, SHOWstudio involves its global community of dedicated viewers, encouraging them to respond and contribute to its projects. The progress of each of SHOWstudio’s 250+ collaborations –from pre-production meetings and stylists’ selections to the live shoots- is documented as it occurs, communicated immediately via the BLOG and discussed and evaluated with viewers on the FORUM.

No other fashion media offers this direct connection between the closed, ‘insider’ world of high-end fashion and its international audience. Constantly changing, SHOWstudio delivers live fashion, as it happens, 24 hours per day.

Source: www.showstudio.com

Renato Migues Simoes was born in 1982 in the city of Lisbon, Portugal. He graduated from college in communication and graphics tehniques of design. His first lecture on communication design was given with 25 years old.

Co-founder of RVADESIGN studio, where he works as an illustrator and new media designer.

Source: www.foan82.com

Nike announces the launch of a brand new annual programme to support and reward street-inspired artists in Europe. Devised by AKQA, 1/1 (one of one) invites artists to submit work to an online gallery that will be judged by Nick Knight’s SHOWstudio and challenges the continent’s top talent to create the ultimate limited edition to the brief, ‘ART OF FOOTBALL’.

The programme is open to anyone, from filmmakers and photographers to graf artists and illustrators - students or upcoming pros. Entrants will compete for a life-changing accolade: to exhibit in a unique ART OF FOOTBALL show alongside 11 of the world’s most respected creative talents. The show takes place in Basel, Switzerland, and coincides with the world’s leading contemporary art fair, Art Basel and the start of the European Football Championships 2008.

Finally, one winner will be chosen to have their work immortalised on a limited edition series of Nike Dunks, the legendary shoes, set to tour the sneaker-temples of Europe. The best work from the whole programme will also feature in a hardcover 1/1 design book distributed through premium design outlets.

Commenting on the campaign, AKQA Executive Creative Director, Daniel Bonner, said: “It’s not enough for brands simply to talk the talk; they have to walk the walk, offering new kinds of experiences that genuinely enrich, entertain and engage people. 1/1 bears all the hallmarks of a successful campaign for the digital age: it uses technology in new and inventive ways, it provides the audience with an opportunity to be part of something genuinely unique and therefore creating a huge incentive to participate, it inspires consumers to define the outcome and – most importantly – it relies on a simple insight: European non-mainstream art is currently under-represented and under-rewarded. We’re looking forward to seeing that situation change.”

Programme launch: April 15th, 2008

Submissions close: May 18th, 2008

Basel exhibition: June 8th, 2008

Source: www.nike1-1.com

ADC Young Guns exists to identify today’s vanguard of young professionals across all creative disciplines. Those of you who’ve set your minds to making a name for yourself, raising new standards from within cubicles, conference rooms, cramped apartments, and studios across the world—this is your chance to put those battle cries in action.

Entrants must be 30 years of age or younger and must have been working professionally for at least 2 years (both full-time and freelance work qualify). Entrants are encouraged to submit both professional and personal, unpublished work.

Deadline: June 2, 2008.

Source: www.adcyoungguns.org

Nuno Dias was born in Germany 1974, at 27 he graduated from film school at the Arts Institute at Bournemouth, England. He has been directing commercials ever since.

Source: www.nunodias.net

Kasper Ledet is a 20 years old graphic designer and illustrator living in Copenhagen, Denmark. He works with both digital and analogue tools to create paintings, drawings, logos, printed matter and motion graphics. His work is inspired by modernism, psychedelic art, anatomy, plants, abstract systems, pictograms and his own imagination.

Source: www.idiot-copenhagen.com

Spin was founded by Tony Brook and Patricia Finegan in 1992 with the belief that graphic design is about content, functionality, expression and the physical nature of the medium. This has driven Spin to create work with originality, relevance, clarity and an element of risk.

Tony explained Spin’s way of working, “We are excited by challenging thinking, imagery and typography. A fundamental part of our approach is collaboration, with our clients and with photographers, illustrators, programmers, typographers and animators. All we are ultimately interested in is the quality of the end result.”

A quick look at Spin’s website should tell you all you need to know about the regard with which their work is held. Clients have included Channels 4, five and More 4, Richard Rogers, the ICA, and Deutsche Bank Art among many others, and the company has picked up many awards along the way.

Source: www.spin.co.uk

He create usable artwork for print, web, and apparel.

Source: www.jefffinley.org

Graphic design, illustration and art direction from Paris, France.

Source: www.ilkilkilk.com

Born in France in 1976 and living in Paris, Stephane Tartelin start mixing traditional drawings with computer graphics at 15 years old. After 5 years of professional visual communication school, he fulfill childhood dream and start working for different video games development studio in Paris.

In January 2000 he starts working as a freelance graphic designer, illustrator and motion designer. He now works for various range of international advertising, broadcast and publishing clients and still explore all facets of graphic design, animation, 3D, photography and of course illustration that remains his favorite playground.

Co-founder of Le Soupe design studio in Paris.

Source: www.tartelin.com

Thorbjørn Ankerstjerne is 27 years old and from Copenhagen, Denmark.

Lives and works in London where he just graduated from Central Saint Martins, with a BA in Graphic Design.

Source: www.ankerstjerne.co.uk

Founded by Natasha Shah and Chris Hilton, Design Friendship is well just that, a friendship born through a love of design. Nat & Chris met while working together in 2003 and have been friends ever since.

With nearly 15 years experience on projects that stretch from corporate identities to album covers, as well as Pan European campaigns for some of the worlds biggest youth brands, Nat & Chris have been there, done that and bought the graphic t-shirt.

A few years on, and Nat & Chris wanted to do things a little differently, so in 2007 the dream that was Design Friendship finally became a reality.

Source: www.designfriendship.com

Scot Lefavor hails from the southern shores of Boston. Massachusetts. Lefavor studied graphic design and printmaking at the Hartford Art School under influential design professors Mark Snyder and Nancy Wynn and printmaking professors Fred Wessel and John Willis.

Scot began his career in the arts as a freelance graphic and website designer. Upon the close of Gallery Sovereign Scot began to aggressively tackle his current and ever-morphing style of painting and printmaking. Lefavors’ works are multimedia in nature utilizing acrylic paint, spray paint, screenprinting, gel transferring.

Source: www.scotlefavor.com

A graphic designer from Poland.

Source: www.peha.com.pl

Filter017 Graphic Design.

Source: http://www.flickr.com/photos/filter017/sets/688992/

The selected photography of Simon Thorpe.

Simon commercial clients include: Land Rover, Vauxhall, Emirates Airlines, Abby, Sony, Timberland, Cingular, J.P Morgan, Bonne Mamam, Jersey tourist Board.

Source: www.simonthorpeimages.com

Elisabeth was born in Norway in the 1972. Her early years where spent sailing around the wordld with her parents and two brothers on their self built yacht, Red Admiral. During this time she lived in many different countries including Barbados, New Zealand and Pitcairn Island.

Elisabeth’s work covers fashion, beauty, music and portraiture.

Source: www.elisabethhoff.com

Sumeco is the online identity of Dutch designer Theo Aartsma. Theo completed his Bachelor of Multimedia in 2006, and has been working full time as an interactive designer for one of Hollands leading web-agencies since.

In late 2006 he switched his focus from New Media to graphic design, creating work that combines digital and traditional techniques to explore themes of nature, technology and urban culture. Conceptualizing and developing new and innovative techniques is a concept goal for Theo, as he seeks new ways to combine design and illustration into one unique and seamless form.

Source: www.sumeco.net

Mulheres Barbadas is a collaborative illustration with two Brazilian artists; Henrique Lima and Julio Zukerman, with comissioned and personnal illustrations in a HUGE size with really lots of stuff.

Henrique Lima is a designer who uses his illustrations to escape the daily routines of corporate work. Heavily influenced by underground comics and graffiti.

Henrique continues to work towards a unique style of his own with heavy line weights and using few colors-if any at all. Pencil and paper are always at his desk with an infinite amount of doodles, but because he grew up in a digital era, his ideas always start from scratch on a computer screen.

Recurring elements are common in his work-bald and big-nosed men, people dressed in animal suits, the devil, robots, giant squids and many, many coffee mugs. The drawings are random-sometimes weird, sometimes comical.

Creativity is the biggest concern, as the final piece can only fall into two categories: boring or interesting. He has made several t-shirt designs, mainly for different Internet competitions, earning him a lot of friends, exposure and experience. The competitions have influenced his style because of the limited color options for screen printing, and by limiting his work to funnier and simpler designs.

They offer up high-res downloads of each piece so you can make your own prints. Check out more of Mulheres Barbadas

Source: www.mulheresbarbadas.com

Artwork of Ismael Alvarez.

Source: www.ismaelalvarez.com

YEAHYOURERIGHT is the portfolio of Nicolas Arnold. Based in Hamburg, Germany, he specializes in digital illustration, editorial design, flash animation and onscreen composition.

His site showcases selected stunts he performed during the past year and displays his current business. There are works that have been produced during his studies while you will also find client comissions, some are only for self-promotion purpose.

Source: www.yeahyoureright.com