Inspiration/ Personal Work
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A Brief Interlude: Wonderlust
I apologize for the lack of postings the past few days, been beautifully busy designing and developing, love it. Here’s a sneak peak on one of the logo/brand projects I’m working on.. These concepts are for a really inspiring design and lifestyle blog curated by Santa Barbara resident, Eliza Coleman. Stoked to be designing her logo and website, can’t wait for it to be up. Stay tuned.
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A Brief Interlude: Gift
This lil’ design I made today is not only a gift for someone but the fact that they are a gift in my life is pretty remarkable.+ Adobe Illustrator
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A Brief Interlude: Surfing Today
I’m super inspired because I’m heading to Malibu for a sunset session to catch some loggin’ waves. This is what I image is going on underneath between sets. Splendid.- Adobe Illustrator
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A Brief Interlude: Not sure
Didn’t fully sleep last night, spent much of the time telling stories to myself, stretching, sketching. Came out this morning as this.- Adobe Illustrator
- Picture taken with Konica C35 film camera
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A Brief Interlude: Wire ideas
Here’s a logo design I’ve been working on the past two days for a local company. My intention was to be playful while at the same time create an icon that would resonate. The idea came from some wire sculptures I got into making a few months ago and I’ve always wanted to transform it into graphic design.
- Adobe Illustrator
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Don’t call it a comeback
I just finished developing 6 rolls of 35mm film that have been lying around for the past two years or so. It’s such a crazy experience to look at them now after so much time has passed, had no idea what I was going to find in these. Here are three for now, I’ll post more in a gallery soon. I think the photography bug is back.35mm film taken with Nikon F and Konika C35
L: Spices in Jerusalem
R: Dyl’n somewhere
Bottom: Storefront in Sarajevo, Bosnia
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AWS Logo Designs
Here’s a sneak peak of some logos I’ve been designing the past few days for All Wheel Sports, an alternative sport production company here in Santa Barbara. I was contacted by their owner to not only re-brand them but also re-design their website, both which are greatly in need of a little Basic touch.- Adobe Illustrator
- Adobe Fireworks
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A Brief Interlude: Jump
Yes, just jump around. It’s great. Happiness. I saw this really creamy green while researching for an upcoming project and instantly had this image in my mind. Hope you like it too.
- Adobe Illustrator
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A Brief Interlude: Pioneers
Inspired by all those that lived, forged, breathed before us. Thank you. Hvala.- Adobe Fireworks
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A Brief Interlude: The ‘Bu
One of my favorite little designs I’ve made so far. I was inspired by yesterday’s great surf session with smiley people at the secret spot no one knows about simply known as “the ‘Bu.” I’ve been doing a lot of icon design work lately so definitely wanted to show a few off here and combined them with some crispy League Gothic, Gotham Bold and Museo 700 type. Hope you dig it. I’ll be making prints of this, let me know if you want one.
- Adobe Illustrator
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Birds
I just found this rad poster designed by Binary & The Brain in association with BirdLife International to raise awareness of the 52 UK birds on the endangered red list. Each of the 52 birds used to create the letterforms are numbered for identification. Litho printed two colours onto 170gsm 100% recycled offset.
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Minimal bike basket
Such a beautiful piece of design by Faris Elmasu. Called the Bent Basket, its minimalistic aesthetic and functionality is one-of-a-kind, definitely ordering one.
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One Village Coffee
Another great package design by the guys at Able for One Village Coffee. The bag was printed in white plus two colors with a matte finish and gloss trapping over the logo. Apparently, due to budget restraints, they allowed for only one type of bag – solution was to customize icons to identify each type of coffee.
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A Brief Interlude: The Swiss
This little design I just created is inspired by, you guessed it, the Swiss and all the minimal, beautiful, clean, delicious design they do. As well as chocolate.
- Adobe Illustrator
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Idealismo Design
Ok, just noticed that I got a little carried away with the black-on-white design for you guys. Here’s a little something that I just stumbled on that has some color, very minimal color that is.
I’m not sure whether Idealismo is just one guy or a team but all their work is solid. Beautiful grid, balanced minimalism at it’s best. I also really dig that the only thing on their About page is a Josef Müller Brockmann quote:
“The grid system is an aid, not a guarantee. It permits a number of possible uses and each designer can look for a solution appropriate to his personal style. But one must learn how to use the grid; it is an art that requires practice.“
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The Magic Bus
My good friend, Trevor Gordon and his gal Maddie Grace designed this little “slice of life” and are hand-printing them on t-shirts, get one. I am.
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Andrew Fletcher
My buddy Drew sent this CD cover design he recently did. Obviously, being a fan of minimalism, grid design and a closet-serif fanatic, this definitely was going up on the blog. This design features the Felix Titling type. Also, goes well with my last Brief Interlude about black-on-white design.
Enjoy.
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A Brief Interlude: Black
It’s amazing how often I revert back to black to design something. Black on white. Helvetica. Simple. It just feels so good.
- Adobe Fireworks
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A Brief Interlude: Drew
Here’s a little interlude design in honor of good friend, Andrew Fletcher and his surfboard and lifestyle craft. I caught this little picture from our secret spot this weekend. He’s currently shaping me a log, I can’t wait to see what he comes out with – all I know, it’s going to be a beauty.
- iPhone photo
- Adobe Fireworks
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A Brief Interlude: For Your Day
A little reminder to make everyday a visual butter day. Keep calm and carry on.
- Adobe Illustrator
- Adobe Fireworks
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A Brief Interlude: Hippy
Today’s brief little interlude is inspired by Helvetica and the desire to sleep on the beach tonight. The man/flower design was actually one logo idea I presented for a recent project of mine to re-brand Environmental Defence of Canada. Recycling is not hippy thing though, just smart. Do it.
- Adobe Fireworks
- Adobe Illustrator
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Apartment Therapy
A little Apartment Therapy always inspires me, whether to work more or waste a few hours around my apartment moving things around. Spending too much time on that site though makes me want to throw everything out of my apartment and start over. I’m almost there.
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A Brief Interlude: Wondering
I designed this after sitting down for a cappuccino at my favorite coffee place. Noticed a bird across the street sitting on a branch for a good hour, seemed to be doing the same thing I was. People watching, thinking about where I’m at, all that good stuff. Yup.
- Adobe Illustrator
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A Brief Interlude: Ella
This is inspired by my niece, Ella and her little adventure this summer in my hometown in Croatia. She’s my darling, my love, and I’m grateful she gets to spend the whole summer there with my sister and mom.
- Adobe Fireworks
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Kerouac Book Cover Design
Found this great cover design made by Jez Burrows for Jack Kerouac’s On the Road while looking for some inspiration on a new project. I really dig the texture background used along with super illustration work and combined with that beautiful blue of the type to create something a bit more modern-feeling.
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A Brief Interlude: Life
This interlude was inspired by warm people, solid surf and abundant sunshine the past day. I didn’t really have any other words to describe this life scene so I’m hoping the lack of words say enough. Shot taken at the always-delicious secret spot.
- Adobe Illustrator
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A Brief Interlude: It’s Summer
This little design was inspired by yesterday’s fun, err silly, surf session at the secret spot. The company out there was hard to beat, the water was warm, smiles were everywhere and believe it or not, jellyfish were falling from the sky.
- Adobe Illustrator
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A Brief Interlude: Elephant
Yes. On a daily basis. Here’s something new I just designed.
I stumbled on a picture of this elephant taking a walk with a man while researching for a new web project. Something needed to be done. Hope you dig.
- Adobe Illustrator
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A Brief Interlude
So, this is the start of something I’m going to be calling ‘A Brief Interlude.’ Even though I’m at my desk sketching, designing, developing, what-not all day, I am going to be taking brief interludes in my day and focus more on personal projects/ideas/day-dreams that I otherwise won’t be able to use in my work projects. I hope you dig.
The background image I used is perhaps my top 3 favorite images of all time. It depicts my father (back right with glasses) and his buds hanging at the beach in my hometown Makarska, Croatia. From what I’ve gathered, this image was taken in 1970 – 1972. I absolutely love this photo’s composition from their positioning, background, look, style, everything. My goal, still to this day, is to re-produce this image with my best buds, same positions and hopefully keep the legacy going.
- Adobe Illustrator
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ChariTea, LemonAid, Blossa Packaging
Really stunning work by design studio, BVD. Pushing aside the negative aspects of consumerism, I love good packaging design. Here I have some of their work for LemonAid Beverages, ChariTea and Blossa wine. The simplicity and bottle design choice is what made their work stick out for me. Another thoughtful component is their use of silkscreen instead of labels for the bottles. Well done, guys.
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The Making of Fantastic Mr. Fox
This blew me away today. I absolutely love this film and everything the director, Wes Anderson, has done in the past. Designed by Pentagram, The Making of Fantastic Mr. Fox ($23, Amazon) looks like (ordered it today but haven’t seen it in person yet) a piece of design beauty and a wonderful look in to the creative process of a great creative, Wes Anderson.
If you haven’t seen the film yet, it’s based on Roald Dahl’s classic children’s novel, originally illustrated by Donald Chaffin. It uses stop-motion animation and features the voices of George Clooney as Mr. Fox, Meryl Streep as Mrs. Fox and Bill Murray as Badger.
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Anouk Rehorek
I’ve always enjoyed magazine layout design. With new website designing technologies like CSS3, we’re getting closer and closer to having websites look more like this. I find this aesthetic pure butter. There’s something about seeing a well-designed layout that gets me super inspired.
I’ve been studying Anouk Rehorek lately and find his work solid and well-balanced. Serif fonts, black and white photography, butter.
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Picasso and Bardot
Stumbled on this great image in the Guardian of Pablo Picasso in his studio with Brigitte Bardot during the 1956 International Cannes Film Festival. Photograph: Jerome Brierre/Getty Images
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Colosseo Letterpress Print
A stunning poster I came across the web today created by the talented Cameron Moll. The most incredible thing to take away from this is that it took him a whole year to create; pure dedication in my book.
It’s an image of the Coliseum in Rome, using handcrafted characters from the Goudy Trajan and Bembo Pro typefaces.
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Bauen+Wohnen
Bauen+Wohnen / Building+Home / Construction+Habitation was a Swiss architectural magazine that existed from. Richard Paul Lohse was responsible for the design from 1947?–?1956. I love the use of beautiful Helvetica typography layered over the content while the use of color is genius. It all seems to just work. I would love to design a book/magazine cover in this minimal style.
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Dieter Rams
The most influential designers of the 20th century; Dieter Rams. I really don’t know how to describe him or his design, just watch the video, it’ll give you a better understanding of why he’s one of my heros.
If you’re into this kind of stuff, I just ordered the “Less and More: The Design Ethos of Dieter Rams” book. It’s packed with a lot of goodies.
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Objectified Poster
“Objectified is a feature-length documentary about our complex relationship with manufactured objects and, by extension, the people who design them. It’s a look at the creativity at work behind everything from toothbrushes to tech gadgets. It’s about the designers who re-examine, re-evaluate and re-invent our manufactured environment on a daily basis. It’s about personal expression, identity, consumerism, and sustainability.”
Well, I posted this to mention how beautiful this poster is, really simple, reminds me of some of my recent work I’ve been doing with icons and infographics, I just love the simple two-tone minimal style.
You can read about the director Gary Hustwit’s post about the film. Objectified is the second part of a three-film “design trilogy” by Gary Hustwit, details on the third film will be released soon.
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Geoff McFetridge Cover Design
Just came across this New York TImes Magazine cover designed, or better yet, arranged by Geoff McFetridge – one of my favorite illustrators/designers out there right now.
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Modern Stationary
Recently, I’ve been noticing the designs of some basic stationary from more prominent companies. The Vanity Fair’s stationary stood out above the rest. I really dig the minimalist-inspired layout, the “un-traditional” left float of the general information, and the particular touch of color from the VF logo that adds just the right amount of contrast and interest. Thumbs up.