umbrellas.

since it is so incredible gross outside today, i thought that i would use it as inspiration. these are some pictures that i found on flickr that i enjoyed (and obviously fit with the subject).

umbrellas are kind of unusually beautiful and something that normally wouldn't be thought of that way. i always enjoy trying to look at things differently, and i feel that some of these photos really do that and it is interesting to look at.

1. it's raining here without you 2. red 3. hiroshima 4. hbw 5. under the umbrella 6. beach 7. street 8. rain drops 9. pink 10. umbrella in the rain? 11. lightnings 12. friday market 13. ella and her umbrella 14. blue umbrella 15. my beautiful umbrella 16. red umbrellas

*this coming week will be a super busy one for me, so the posts might be quite limited, but i will try to get some up for you*

legos.

it has been a longgggggg week, so i thought i would end it with something entertaining. i have seen this many times before, but we watched it in class again today and i thought it would be fun to show. the music video is completely made out of legos which is pretty sick. i can't image how long this would have taken - though watching it again and now knowing what i know about animating, i am sure the majority of it was done on a computer - but the idea of it is great.

i remember when my bro and i used to play with legos...that was always so much fun! i especially liked the little police station that we built...hahaha oh man...that was a long time ago.

anyway - back to the subject. i like how simple the colors are and how they aren't showing too much detail (which would be difficult anyway), though if you know the white stripes (thats who this music video is for) this looks exactly like them.

"fell in love with girl" by the white stripes - unfortunately i forget who the director is and sorry the video isn't the best quality...but its still fun...enjoy!

fabrics.

i found these pictures when i was looking through flickr for some yellow inspiration (a previous post) and i thought they were amazing. i really like the simplicity of the white background and bold colors of the fabric. i wish there were more with the girl dancing around because it makes the fabric and color so lively.

the red one kind of messes with my mind a little, because it doesn't look like she is standing on anything and the fabric continues down below her feet. one of the comments on this photo was that it looks like paint from a brush dispersing in water and i completely agree. especially at the bottom where you can start to see through the fabric. i personally don't like the last image here as much - mainly because it isn't as simple and there isn't a clear bold color to focus on. but overall these are a nice little collection of photos. enjoy!

here is a link to their flickr website. unfortunately, there aren't any more photos like this, though i wish there were because these are beautiful.

papergraphics.

yulia brodskaya makes these amazing pieces and they are some of the most creative things that i have seen recently. they are all made entirely out of paper, mostly out of those strips that you can buy at the craft stores (i think this is called quilling). i would love to learn how to do this. i sometimes like working on things that are real tedious like this, i just feel i would have a hard time getting each letter as perfect as she does! but it is definitely something to look into.

i think the reason i enjoy them so much is because it is something that you rarely see. i have seen images like this making flowers and such, but not really any that make up words. my favorite is celebrate mainly because of the intricate work inside each letter, but also because of the beautiful colors (i wish i could find a better, closer picture - but this is the best that i got)! i also really enjoy the bon appetite, because the colors are so simple that it makes the image so beautiful! but all of these are really amazing.

you would have to have serious patience to make these! here is a link to more of her work. there are lots of other good ones on her website as well - i really like the one for london.

yellow.

just some color inspiration for the day!

in terms of flowers, this is what yellow means: it simply makes people smile. it is the color of friendship, joy, and lightheartedness. new beginnings like the start of spring are associated with the beauty of yellow flowers. warm and bright, this color also is a perfect way to add brilliance to any bouquet.

1. cupcakes 2. lights 3. plates and bowls 4. honeycomb 5. fabrics 6. socks 7. bricks 8. ducky 9. lemon 10. sketch 11. umbrella 12. dress 13. pencils 14. couch 15. hay 16. flower

book covers.

a little while ago i said that i would look more into some book cover designs - mainly because i had never really thought about that in the design world. i did some looking and i found some really good book covers (well at least ones that i thought were good).

there are so many out there - its crazy! i found a bunch done by old school designers, like paul rand - and i must say that a lot of the older book covers are getting credited as the best book designs ever. but i also found a bunch of modern book designs as well - there are just so many! i think it would be fun to design book covers, but i think it would be harder than it looks. with book cover design you have to have something to catch a person's attention or they might not even look at it, especially if they know nothing about the book. but at the same time you have to make sure that it properly relates or represents the book that you are trying to sell.

i found a website that listed some of the top book cover designs of 2007, and i am pretty sure that the majority of these are from that - but these are just some that i found fun/interesting. oh and i am sure i will be adding more book covers to my blog as i find them...they can be really neat!

one perfect day; designed by evan gaffney:

a general theory of love; designed by john gall:

small crimes in an age of abundance; designed by david drummond:

one red paperclip; designed by kyle kolker:

special orders; designed by jason booher

here is the website where i found the list - there are some other good ones on here too (and also some that i don't like), but take a look! there is also a large variety of book covers at the aiga design archives, located here.

marzipan creatures.

marzipan has never ever sounded or looked appealing to me. especially when they make those little fruits and vegetables that are glossy and they look like wax - thats not really what i look for when i want a treat. but these little creatures are adorable! (though it still doesn't really make me want to eat it - so i guess i will never really like marzipan...but anyway)

i found these little creatures on this fake bakery's website - i still don't know how i got there - and i thought they were really cute! i read on the website that these three people decided to create a "fake" bakery for an art show and also to bring their illustrations to life. i really like the colors that they use and how they used them for each character. and i just love the expression on each characters face because they are all so different.

i think my favorites are the first and second pictures - i love the lady and her little skirt and the man is cute too with his little tie!

here is a link to the "bakery's" website. besides these treats looking absolutely adorable, their designs for the bakery are really nice as well! I love their style!

3d invites.

i saw these and i thought they were pretty fun. these are a couple 3d wedding invitations for destination weddings. i think the idea is really great, much better than getting a plain sheet of paper with fancy writing, especially for a special destination wedding. i love the adirondack chair. and of course i like the flip-flops, but with them i feel like it could be taken further, plus i don't think the type layout is anything special. but the idea is cute! and i love the little response and reception cards shaped like a fish and shell! its just always nice to see something different!

this is the website where i found these.

leprechauns.

so i was trying to find something irish to post for st. patty's day...but when when i looked around for something special, i really wasn't inspired by much. so i just thought that for fun i would post some different leprechauns that i found on the internet. a couple are famous ones, others are just random drawings that i found! so enjoy!

and the best leprechaun out there....lucky! the lucky charms leprechaun!

HAPPY SAINT PATTY'S DAY!

on the road.

i found this the other day when i found the alphabet images from my previous entry. i have never really thought about book cover design, mainly because there are a lot of bad book covers out there and so i usually don't pay attention to them. but i thought that this one was great. it is designed by jez burrows. i like the combination of the type and image and the images used make perfect sense with the subject of the book. its a pretty simple idea, but executed very well.

i will have to look for more good book covers - this one has sparked my interest.

here is the link to the webpage where i found this. the website shows the work of 4 different designers and there is some pretty neat stuff on there. there is also more work by this designer and i like some of it and i don't like some of it - but if you want to see for yourself this is the link to the overall website.

alphabet.

i thought this was pretty neat. as i have said before, i love playing around with type so this would be fun to do sometime.

students at a school were each given a specific letter and had to find/use something to create that letter. and then they combined them together to create images for a book. i really like the 'm' - it is very clever.

these images were posted by the person who created the letter 'e' and he said that the reason he chose to create just the outline was so that the letter would take on the color it was placed on. i think this idea is best displayed in the 'enjoy' one because while the background is white...you can see the confetti through it as well and that just adds to the idea of the picture.

here is a link to the website...i wish i could see more versions with more of the letters!

mr. w.

okay so this is kinda random, and not totally related to design - but i was shown this in one of my design classes so i am posting it anyway!

in my time based design class (its my animation class) my teacher does a good job of showing us all types of examples of videos/animations that are out there. i like seeing this kind of stuff because it helps to keep me up to date with what is going on in the design world. this week she was showing us videos that had to do with social causes because that will be our next assignment.

and actually there is something i want to say on that note. i wish teachers would come up with other assignment ideas besides social causes. i don't mind working on them, but for every single design class i have had to work on an assignment for a social cause and i am getting sick of it - especially when i spent one whole semester creating a campaign for a social cause. i just want to do other things.

but anyway this is just something that i really enjoyed - a really great commercial!

it seems as though this is video week for me...since the majority of my last few posts have been videos...but i think that is because i have been paying more attention to it because of my class. this is a link to another animation that my teacher showed in class and it is really cute! i think the panda is adorable!

animations.

so there has been a request for me to post one of my other animations that i did, so i thought i would post a couple of my older animations.

the first one that i am posting is the first animation that i ever did from about about 3 years ago. we were asked to make 2 compositions based on a few objects that we were allowed to use. one composition was to carry the theme of 'brisk' and the other 'lethargic'. [i am trying to post these but it isn't working...so i will work on it...so sorry for now.]

personally, i like the brisk composition so much better. but the next step of the project was to create an animation out of one of these and there are at least 300 some objects in the brisk layout, so i figured for my first attempt at animating, it would be better to not have so many objects. so here is my first animation!

its funny looking back at that because those 30 seconds probably took me forever to create and not a whole lot is going on, and while it still takes me awhile to create 30 seconds of animation, i would probably be able to create that better and faster than i did before...but thats because i have more experience now!

the next animation is one that i did, about a year later, for a final project for one of my classes. this was something that i came up with on my own (we were allowed to pick the kind of thing we wanted to do). i always wanted to animate something to a piece of music - i think that comes from my love of choreography and it is a very similar idea. my inspiration came from john williams theme for catch me if you can (mainly because i loved the song, but you can see the actual title animations in a previous blog post - this isn't really the same kind of thing though). i had so much fun creating this! as with most of my past designs, there are definitely things i would go back and change because it feels pretty amateur, but i still really like it! [this is actually in the following post because it is a bigger file - i am having a of of problems with blogger today sorry!]

and now for just a little bit of bragging. they actually have this on my school's design website, which you can find here. i actually have a couple other things on there which you can find here (scroll through and it is the last one) and here (it is the second one about animal rights)!

animations part II.

enjoy! this really isn't the best version of it though because it goes pretty slowly, so you might have better luck viewing it through my school's website which i have linked above in the next post.

spaghetti.

this has been such a long week. it is so hard to come back after spring break to a super busy week at school. so sorry there haven't been more posts.

on that note, this is gonna be short - good but short. a friend from one of my graphic design classes showed me this and it is one of the neatest videos/animations that i have seen. i wish i knew how to go about doing something like this, but honestly the execution is nothing without the great idea. so enjoy!

here is a link to pes' website.

and more posts this weekend!

bella italia.

while i was home on my spring break, i went to the philadelphia flower show with two of my really good friends. despite living so close to the city, i have never actually been to it before - its also dumb because for the last 2 years or so i have worked in the floral department of a grocery store. i have always been envious of people who can make really beautiful flower arrangements and who also know what flowers look best together - something that i guess i am slowly getting better at. it definitely helps having my creative genes! but unfortunately i am also somewhat of a perfectionist when it comes to this kind of stuff...so it takes me awhile to complete one.

but anyway...the theme this year for the flower show was italy (!!), making it extra special to go and see it. they had different scenes set up in the style of many of the main cities/regions of italy; florence, rome, venice, milan, tuscany, and the italian riviera. the ideas to set the mood for these areas were so varying - for venice they had an actual gondola, in rome they had real opera singers sign every so often, in milan they had clothes and accessories made out of flowers (one is shown below), and in florence they had real artwork out on easels. the effect of all of these things were really great and reminded me of my trip there.

they also had other scenes/areas set up to display other flowers. there was one section that i recognized every single flower and tree and i wasn't surprised to see that the flowers were provided by a nursery located in bucks county (where i am from)! it was definitely a fun afternoon and i am really glad that i can say that i have been there! we also went to reading terminal market for lunch - which is one of my favorite places in philly. my aunt will be happy to know that i bought a cannoli from termini's (who make the absolute best in the world!)

this was one of my favorite grouping of flowers (above), that was supposed to be representative of venice. i just love the color combinations and the different types of flowers - especially the orange flowers with green centers!

these are just a few of the many pictures that i took (and i would have taken a lot more it if weren't for the fact that i ran out of batteries and they were selling a pack of 4 at the show for $17). but here is a link to more of my photos if you are interested.

new york ballet.

when i travel home to philly from boston i take a bus to new york city and then a train to trenton. while i was on the bus in nyc (and sitting in traffic!) we slowly passed lincoln center. part of it is under construction right now, so it seemed as though they had more posters and ads than normal, but i really noticed the black and white posters for the new york city ballet.

i couldn't find too many variations online, but there were quite a few different ones at lincoln center and they were all beautiful. i love black and white photography - it really allows you to look at the forms and not focus as much on colors/patterns. that idea sort of mimics ballet, where you aren't necessarily supposed to be focusing on the dancer as much as their movements and expressions. the posters are very simple, but that is another thing that i love in design. the designer does a really good job of using the counter form - something that can be difficult to do without making it feel too empty.

these posters and the nyc ballet logo are new this season. i honestly can't say that i have noticed what they have done in the past (so i really don't have much to compare it to) but i think that this approach is beautiful and clearly it made me notice it while i was extremely tired and sitting on an uncomfortable bus - so it must be working!

here is a link to the actual designer's website. it is really nice because they talk about the choices they made (which i found interesting to read) and also show more of their nyc ballet's new identity and collateral.