GFSMITH // I LOVE PAPER!

[vimeo 37655203]  

[vimeo 44111107]

 

One of the more thoughtful and elegant strategies I have ever seen implemented by a company. Read their story and browse their website. All of their content is inspiring and provides you with a sense quality, craftsmanship, and above all, that they lovingly care and are invested in their customers.

Harder said than done. Especially, if your just a paper company.

Junction Box

[vimeo 34030212]  

“Connecting, conducting and illuminating, like the act of creativity.” — Daniel Weil

The holidays are a season of light, but one needn’t go to extremes for a little festive illumination. In 1985 Daniel Weil received a commission from a communications company to design and produce a limited edition gift to engage their customers in a surprising and creative way.

Weil’s response was “Junction Box,” a box full of metal objects taken from the world of domestic hardware that can be combined in many different ways to make a circuit. Weil’s observation was that metal objects in a conductive chain are like words that can be rearranged to change the meaning and convey different messages. In “Junction Box” the wand-like battery holder activates the assembled circuit that carries the voltage that turns on the LED—connecting, conducting and illuminating, just like the act of creativity.

via pentagram

 

 

A quote from the "About" Section of Miles Chic's website.

When I think about what inspires me to design, I don’t think about blogs, annuals, websites, aesthetics, or typefaces, I think about Elvis.

In the span of the King’s career, he released 78 albums. That, is a lot. Every few months, teens would rush to buy the latest Elvis album, eager to see what new horizon of hormone-driven angst Mr. Presley could push next.

What does this have to do with design you ask? I believe that design shouldn’t be precious. Without forsaking quality for quantity, I believe that there is more room for design and imagery in our lives. Rather than be overly researched, full of forced conceptual ideas, or just plain stale, design should inspire and elevate ideas, brands, products, and objects to something beyond the status quo. This means being bold, taking risks, and not being afraid to follow one’s instincts - much like the King himself.

 

http://mileschic.com/about/

 

 

Poetry Wisdom

A young man in a small town in Patagonia or in Kansas reads an ancient Chinese poet in a book he borrowed from the library and falls in love with a poem, which he reads to himself over and over again as the summer night is falling. With each reading he brings the voice of the dead poet to life. For one unforgettable moment, he steps out of his own cramped self and enters the lives of unknown men and women, seeing the world through their eyes, feeling what they once felt and thinking what they once thought. If poetry is not the most utopian project ever devised by human beings, I don’t know what is.

 

http://www.nybooks.com/blogs/nyrblog/2012/jun/07/poetry-and-utopia/

Skeuomorphs V.II

I was so excited to see this article on Fast Co. Design: "Apple. The name has become synonymous with good design. But it’s also had a few missteps in recent years. Skeuomorphism is taking the place of clean interfaces."

- http://www.fastcodesign.com/1670012/4-design-details-we-loved-at-apples-big-launch-and-1-we-really-hated

 

Here's another talking about the whole thing:

As both Thompson’s and Biddle’s articles describe, the philosophy that drives the majority of contemporary UIs is called skeuomorphism. Derived from the Greek words Skeuos, meaning vessel or tool, and morph, meaning shape, a skeuomorph is, according to the Oxford Dictionary, a “derivative object that retains ornamental design cues to a structure that was necessary in the original.” The term can apply to either a physical or digital creation. In other words, it means to replicate the form and material qualities of something that are no longer inherently necessary, all with the objective of making new designs “look comfortably old and familiar,” Nicholas Gessler writes in “Skeuomorphs and Cultural Algorithms.” When applied to UI, the logic here is that it will make the interface more intuitive and usable, as the user will understand how it functions based on their knowledge of the analog object it is replicating.

- http://www.fastcodesign.com/1669879/can-we-please-move-past-apples-silly-faux-real-uis

 

But what I am really fascinated with is how we choose or become with Skeuomorphs. The investigation continues.