I’ve just moved into a new flat. It’s all shiny and new, and all ugly things are banned.
Its got me thinking a lot recently about the attitude we take to designing functional things.
From web forms to office cleaning products, I’ve concluded that necessary is only as boring as you decide it’s going to be.
Take this work from Stockholm Design Lab have done for Japanese mail order company Askul. I can’t remember the last time I thought; ‘Wow, I really want those bin liners’.
Lush.

Pitches eh? Risky, costly exhausting and very secretive. But as we all know, successful design is all about successful collaborations, both with your client and your users / target audience. So seeing that the pitch often has a marked influence on the final outcome, why should it all be so hush-hush?
So Moving Brands have opened up their pitch process for A Brand for London. You can comment and tweet on their progress and development as they go along. It’s our city after all, so it seems right that this brand should belong to all of us.

I’ve been introduced the the graffiti artist Ripo today, via the fab blog, Fat Cap.
i just wanted to share these images - i love the strong typographic style and the really very clever use of primary colour. The way the graffiti plays on its surroundings by spilling out onto the floors or ceilings, or picking a palette from the railings its next to it, or creating contrast with the colour of the walls next door is just really inspiring and exciting to me. Its the sort of thing i would want on the walls of my city, for sure.

All images very much belonging to ripovisuals.com

We made Harvest Digital logos out of cress to day at breakfast. I’m pretty impatient - so i just want to see them grow! For more tasty type have a look at thisand this.

How lovely are these park stories published by Royal Parks? There’s one for each on London’s Royal Parks, and there perfect for a quick read in your lunch hour. The covers designs have a lovely paper cut feel to them. They would be a bargin at £2 each, if i didn’t feel compelled to buy the whole set! There’s some readings coming up in each of the parks.

I think i’m in love with this album artwork for benjamin gibbard, i stumbled across in this book. It’s awesome.

love these customizable dresses by Berber Soepboer and Michiel Schuurman via yatzer. One to colour in and one made of pop together panels.

Matt and ray are the names for two types of knitted lamps, made by llot llov. They are low energy and low heat bulbs, resulting in a lovely, soft, playful lighting product. The light really brights out the texture of the knitting, and from these shots, they seem to look good flopped just about anywhere.

As i’ve mentioned, i like the idea of postcrossing - but you have to give in order to receive!
So, i got the details of a lady who would like a postcard, and a little of idea of what she’s into:

“I love warm weather and summertime. I collect Fortunes from Fortune Cookies!! I have about 500. I love cool colors and Bold colors I love cats, dogs, and other animals. I collect all kinds of postcards, no matter how weird. Please no bugs.”

So, i abandoned the idea of just posting some bugs and set to work thinking about fortunes. This was my favorite fortune i found after a quick google - i hope she sees good things through it.

We went along to my favorite This Happened so far last night. Great venue in the bfi and some wonderful projects on show. Thought i’d share my highlights:

Glassworks (who offered me work experience back in the day, which i turned down, like a chump) showed their experimental project,
HeartWorks. Designed as a learning tool for students, Heartworks is a very accurate simulation of preforming and reading ultrasounds on the heart.
The team talked about the process they went through to model such a complex internal organ, and how the project may be changing the business that usually produces CG graphic for Film and TV. I think it’s pretty amazing that this team have been allowed to go off and do some thing totally experimental and so utterly different from the company’s main offering.

My highlight, however, was definatly michael cross and his scarily lowfi machine that allows you to walk on water. He igorned the fact that walking on water is impossible, and went and made it anyway. The result is beautiful, scary and rather brilliant.