onlab, a Berlin-based graphic design studio that produces a combination of client and self-initiated projects. I quite like the Quarry Workers publication; it has an interesting format and is a great solution for 1-color printing.

onlab

Labels: graphic design, onlab, site design

London-based photographer Greg White has a really beautiful portfolio with an engaging mix of subject matter, including: minimal architecture, portraiture and several complex studio shots. His site design by Tom Munckton is fantastic as well; I love the overall simplicity and bold use of red on the home page. Impressive stuff.

Greg White

Labels: Greg White, photography, site design, Tom Munckton

160over90 is a branding agency based in Philadelphia. Nice site and portfolio.

160over90

Labels: 160over90, graphic design, site design

Check out the nice portfolio of French-born, Vancouver-based designer and art director Xavier Encinas. He has a well-rounded body of work, but I'm particularly interested in his fashion-oriented design. Xavier created and edits the type and design blog Swiss Legacy.

Xavier Encinas

Labels: graphic design, site design, Xavier Encinas

I was really impressed with the design, photography and content on Justin Knopp's Typoretum blog. He seems to have a wonderful appreciation for the history of type and printing...

Since then my involvement with letterpress printing has deepened and I have acquired a substantial collection of lead and wooden types, printing machines and other paraphernalia - much of which I have rescued and restored to working order. My continuing interest in letterpress printing has led me to provide practical demonstrations and workshops and I am deeply involved with preserving the history of the Anchor Press, with the long-term ambition of establishing a printing museum in Tiptree.

Typoretum blog

Labels: blog, graphic design, Justin Knopp, site design, Typoretum

I have been meaning to post this for quite sometime – better late than never I guess.

Thirst, the Chicago based studio, relaunched their site earlier this spring, with additional work and a new interface. Thirst is one of the nation's preeminent design studios with the following philosophy...

Thirst is a firm devoted to art with function and serves a collection of clients whose refined and enlightened design sensibilities yield rewards in the experience of creation.

Our passion for design and embrace of new technologies make for a dynamic union of imagery and inspiration.

Thirst's strategic and creative versatility continues to lead the discourse and pursue the elusive ideals of intelligence, fashion and real human presence within today's world of communication.

If you're unfamiliar with Thirst, you will definitely want to take a few minutes and check out their work.

Thirst

Labels: graphic design, Rick Valicenti, site design, Thirst

I like Flash as an application, but I typically don't care for most web sites that are created in it. With the combination of resized browser windows, and slow navigations or overall loading times, there is usually something frustrating about visiting a flash site.

However, none of that applies to Denmark-based Hello Monday. The "designery" specializes in identity, illustration, flash and campaign development, and the firm also has one of the nicest studio sites out there. Check it out.

Hello Monday

Labels: graphic design, Hello Monday, illustration, interactive design, site design

The redesign is official. Let me be the first to welcome you to the home of the new studiotwentysix2 blog. It may take a while to get used to the visual changes, but hopefully they are for the better. This entry represents the new post formatting. The main text column has increased in width, and the images will now be a consistent 550 x 300 pixels.

I have no intention of going back and updating previous posts with the updated format, they will remain 'as is.' You may also notice some funky characters in previous posts as well; it appears that all special characters did not make a smooth transition with the upload. I may go back and fix those, as time and energy allows.

If you have feedback on the new-look blog or site, feel free to let me know what you think. I will be back to my regular posting duties on Monday.

Tom

Labels: blog, site design, studiotwentysix2, Tom Davie, update

Clever and useful, just the way I like it. ☺

CopyPasteCharacter.com allows for simple access to icons, dingbats and typographic characters that are underutilized due to unknown or overly complex key-commands. Simply click the characters to copy them, and then paste them (⌘ v) into a document, email or blog entry. ☃

CopyPasteCharacter.com

Labels: CopyPasteCharacter.com, graphic design, resource, site design

Amsterdam-based Experimental Jetset has created a fantastic body of contemporary Modernist and Swiss International-influenced design work — and not only is it good, but there’s quite a bit of it. As impressive as the work is, their writing and project explanation’s actually rival, if not exceed the quality of the design work.

The site is a great resource and definitely worth a bookmark.

Experimental Jetset

Labels: Experimental Jetset, graphic design, site design

Artist Yasmina Alaoui and photographer Marco Guerra are the creators behind One Thousand and One Dreams.

The work seems to exist somewhere between abstract fantasy and surrealist documentation. The duo cover nude models in contemporary Henna patterns, photograph them in black and white, and layer Alaoui’s ink drawings into the final photographs.

In addition to the work, I quite like the site, which utilizes a simple but effective layout and navigation system.

One Thousand And One Dreams

Labels: artist, Marco Guerra, One Thousand and One Dreams, photography, site design, Yasmina Alaoui

The work of Ben O’Brien, a commercial illustrator based in Cornwall, UK, has endless energy and an engagingly playful quality to it. Most of his pieces have a strong sense of repetition and patterning, and if you visit his nicely designed site, you will quickly realize that his use of color is top-notch.

Ben The Illustrator

Labels: Ben O’Brien, Ben The Illustrator, illustration, site design

I love me some letterpress and quality design, so I was naturally quite impressed by the work of Minneapolis-based Studio On Fire. The site is clean and easy to navigate, and the photo documentation of their work is really nice as well.

The Studio On Fire site is certainly worth a bookmark, and if you’re so inclined, custom cards, calendars and posters can be purchased through their online store.

Studio On Fire

Labels: graphic design, letterpress, site design, Studio On Fire

This is a handy resource for all those interested in web design. Italian web designer and developer Vladimir Carrer has created a simple but useful printable browser template for sketching web design layouts. The sketchbook templates can be printed as blank browser pages, or with printed 10px and 100px grids.

Web designer sketchbook

Labels: interactive design, resource, site design, Vladimir Carrer

Super Nature combines a nice portfolio, site design and company description / philosophy. I like when a studio can sufficiently express intent without relying on mass quantities of cliché and buzzwords — although “tailor-made solutions” is pushing it.

“SUPER NATURE is a Shanghai based multi-discipline design company. It specializes in interactive design, visual communication & media technology. It takes on challenges through experimentations in new media and physical computing. Super Nature provides tailor-made solutions from conceptualization to design, using new technologies integrated in production.

Seeking innovative solutions is Super Nature’s ultimate goal. It constantly commits to research & development. The partnership with its research associate - Hyperthesis Visual Lab in New Zealand was established to build a strong collaboration in finding new ideas with innovative and cohesive digital solutions.

In Super Nature, the definition of good design is ‘creating moments of engagement’”.

Super Nature

Labels: graphic design, interactive design, site design, Super Nature

The 30 Drawings in 30 Days project is now complete. It was more difficult than I anticipated having to conceptualize, create a layout and render each piece in a 24-hour span. It was a good experience, but I enjoy taking a bit more time to develop my thoughts. Thanks to everyone who regularly visited the blog.

Tom Davie: 30 Drawings in 30 Days

Somehow, I overlooked the fact that the This Drawing Could Be Yours contest should have ended last Friday, and not tomorrow. That being said, Jeff has officially secured himself a drawing, as he had the most blog comments on Friday, March 06.

Due to my mistake, if anyone surpasses Jeff’s total of six comments by tomorrow at noon, they will be given a drawing as well. If more than one person surpasses Jeff’s total, the drawing will go to the person with the highest total.

I am in the process of uploading some new work to the studiotwentysix2 site. I have removed the abstract painting category from the main navigation and replaced it with drawings from the 30 Drawings in 30 Days project. The abstract work will remain on the site, and can be viewed here.

I will also try to upload additional work to the cryptography and independent categories over the next few days as well.

studiotwentysix2

Labels: 30 Drawings in 30 Days, site design, studiotwentysix2, Tom Davie, update

There’s a whole mess-of-good happening at Australian-based Swear Words.

Site design...good.
Portfolio...good.
Site photography...good.
Secret bottom navigation area...good.

Things that I’m good at: making a peanut butter & jelly sandwich, doing seven push-ups in a row and calling my Mom on her birthday — what can I say, I’m a well rounded individual.

Swear Words

Labels: graphic design, site design, Swear Words

If you’re in need of single-color icon inspiration, then Tiny Icon Factory is the site for you.

Created by Luis Blackaller and Brent Fitzgerald, Tiny Icon Factory encourages its visitors to design their own creations — by clicking and dragging over the icon generator in the upper left hand corner. If you’re not in the icon-making mood, you can always browse through the 290,000 designs that have already been created.

I had a little fun and added two designs to their enormous archive.

Tiny Icon Factory

Labels: Brent Fitzgerald, graphic design, illustration, Luis Blackaller, site design, Tiny Icon Factory

I really dig the work on TYPOZON — the studio of Colombian artist, designer and illustrator, Cristian Vargas. While the mix of art and design appeal to my personal interests, my favorite part of TYPOZON might be the site design.

It’s true that the layout is helped tremendously by the support of good work, but the slightly offset grid, minimal text columns and color palette all combine for a very nice presentation — a site definitely worth checking out.

Cristian Vargas

Labels: artist, Cristian Vargas, fine art, graphic design, site design, TYPOZON

If you haven’t visited Imaginary Forces in awhile, their site has been updated with some excellent new work, including the recently released Christina Aguilera commercial for Target.

Most of their work is fantastic, but I really liked the short film they put together for Paul Rand’s posthumous induction into The One Club’s Hall of Fame. It’s an interesting combination of a Rand interview with original animation.

Paul Rand

Labels: Christina Aguilera, Imaginary Forces, interactive design, Paul Rand, site design, Target

I totally dig the site for French-born photographer Audrey Corregan. It’s ultra-minimal which is always difficult to pull-off; however, the buttons are fun and are a great navigation idea that doesn’t visually detract from the work.

Audrey Corregan

Labels: artist, Audrey Corregan, photography, site design

I was organizing a few of my bookmarks today, and came across some resource links that I have found helpful, and thought were worth sharing.

#1) Wikipedia web colors: provides a simple, easy to understand breakdown of a variety of web colors and their corresponding code names. I especially like the X11 color chart because of the color swatch organization, and hex and decimal code equivalents.

Wikipedia web colors

#2) CSSType: a great CSS test site for quickly viewing web safe typography. I am pretty much CSS incompetent, so this site is aces for me. CSSType allows you to type in some sample text, adjust the font, size, letter and word spacing, and it will generate the finished CSS code for you.

CSSType

#3) EmailMeForm: the site isn’t the prettiest to look at, but the product is first-rate. This is the only html web form that I was able to find that did not force you to pay a $20 monthly service fee, or required you to plaster the provider’s logo all over your site. Great resource for anyone with a web site or blog, as the service allows you to provide email and newsletter sign-ups for your site visitors. They offer five free forms per individual — good stuff.

EmailMeForm.com

#4) Google Analytics: really cool service provided by Google that allows you to track visits to your site or blog. It records detailed visitor information, and lets you know which posts are the most popular. For instance, I know that when I do a post about pin-up illustrations, it will gather more interest than say, a post about random web resources. It also informed me that this blog is most popular in Ohio, California and Kentucky, and outside of the United States, it tends to be France, United Kingdom and Canada. In addition to being a fun resource, it helps keep me motivated.

Google Analytics

#5) How Much Is Your Blog Worth: the totally depressing business applet, which informed me that my blog has a street value of just under $565. Bollocks, I say.

How Much Is Your Blog Worth

Feel free to share any other worthwhile sites in the comments section, as I’m always on the lookout for more.

Labels: interactive design, resource, site design

Really interesting work by Amsterdam based Peter Schuyff. His site is well organized and beautiful in its simplicity, and the work is quite prolific — as he’s producing in various media, including: painting, drawing, sculpture and found object. My favorites are the drawings on old drawings and carved baseball bats. Good stuff.

Peter Schuyff

Labels: artist, fine art, Peter Schuyff, site design

I love the homepage navigation used by Kashiwa Sato — a Japanese designer, and founder of the “SAMURAI” creative studio. The site offers a supersize helping of work, which, in my opinion, has more than enough substance to edit down to the strongest pieces, and still have plenty to showcase. Regardless though, I think I could look at the navigation for hours — well, at least a minute or two.

(Oh, and the image is not the navigation, I didn’t want to ruin the goodness)

Kashiwa Sato

Labels: graphic design, Kashiwa Sato, SAMURAI, site design

Nice work and site by the Riverside, Illinois-based design studio Faust.

The studio has a good mix of corporate and conceptual print design, with an impressive client list to boot. They also seem to enjoy beer, table tennis and appear to have a really good sense of humor, which is a winning combination in my book.

Faust

Labels: Faust, graphic design, site design

ilovetypography.com has chosen to showcase fifteen sites that excel in the use of web typography.

It’s a difficult task to cover all the typographic possibilities with only fifteen sites, but the selections appear to have a pretty good range of variety. Certainly worth a bookmark if you dabble in web-based design.

Web Typography

Labels: blog, graphic design, resource, site design

The site for No one belongs here more than you. Stories by Miranda July, is so bare bones minimal that I just can’t not like it. It’s actually more like an anti-site than a traditional personal site.

Each page consists of a single full-frame image and forward and back arrows, that’s it. The images are scaled to fit the window, so depending on your browser window size, the image is going to distort and stretch to your current configuration. The images are usually blurry, the camera flash will on occasion blowout image areas and the photo cropping seems somewhat random. While all that might seem negative, it actually adds to the site’s charm. The overall narrative is clever, funny and interesting, and it does a nice job of keeping the viewer motivated to see what the next image will reveal. It’s certainly not your typical good site, but I’m convinced it’s good nonetheless.

No one belongs here more than you.

Labels: Miranda July, site design

Feed Me Cool Shit has a plethora of art and design related links, user updates and interviews with some of the top up-and-comers. The layout is somewhat overwhelming due to the sheer amount of stuff they have decided to put on the homepage, but if you have some time to browse, there is some good work to be found amid the clutter.

FMCS

Labels: blog, fine art, graphic design, resource, site design

Christopher Silas Neal has an effectively simple portfolio site packed with interesting illustrations, editorial work and drawings.

His style is pretty compelling, and appears to be a created using a mixture of hand drawn elements, linoleum / woodblock cuts, and possibly some watercolor thrown in for good measure — of course I’m completely guessing as to his technique, but however he creates his illustrations, it’s certainly working for him.

Silas’ work is engaging and definitely worth a bookmark, especially if you are a fan of hand-drawn type, which appears to be one of the signature aspects of his printed work.

Christopher Silas Neal

Labels: artist, Christopher Silas Neal, graphic design, illustration, site design

The Russian design studio _FIRMA is sporting a memorably snazzy web site. When you initially visit _FIRMA, the intro sequence will leave you scratching your head, with a sort of “what the HELL!?!, did my computer just get hacked?” kind of feeling, but continue to click, and you will find a refined site that offers extremely high-quality photography for a design studio.

Two aspects of the site that really stuck out, were the rotating facial segments used as part of the main navigation, and also, the year’s worth of work in a 33 second video clip (found in the About Us section). I found it amusing that they described themselves as “young, rich and almost happy”. Oh, to be young (kind-of, but not really), rich (maybe in ten years) and almost happy (check).

_FIRMA

Labels: _FIRMA, graphic design, interactive design, site design

I’m knee deep in experimentation, but am going to try to post once a day this week (though the commentary might be brief), making-up for the recent past.

I really dig what SectionSeven has going on. It’s rare to find a studio where the work and site complement each other so well. The navigation is fun, adds to the experience; yet doesn’t distract from the portfolio. The site feels confident, well thought out and complete — just how a studio should present itself. Most definitely worth your time and attention.

SectionSeven

Labels: graphic design, illustration, SectionSeven, site design

As I was perusing the incoming links for the studiotwentysix2 web site, I noticed quite a few visitors coming from the American Design Awards site – so I went for a look. As it turns out, my site is listed as one of 56 winners (for the month of July, even though visitors have just recently showed up) from 1422 submissions.

I have to be honest, I've never heard of the American Design Awards, and can't remember submitting my site for consideration. However, I've never been one to shun free publicity or random accolades, so I accept this listing with gratitude. If someone out there actually did submit the studiotwentysix2 site, my web presence thanks you.

American Design Awards

Labels: graphic design, resource, site design, studiotwentysix2, Tom Davie

The Cooper-Hewitt National Design Museum has created a site (designed by William Berry, Ellen Lupton, & Woody Batts) for Design Life Now, the 2006 national design triennial. The triennial brings together work from the disciplines of animation, new media, fashion, architecture, product and graphic design from 2003 - 2006. I wasn't completely blown away by a lot of the work (just my opinion), but it's certainly worth a bookmark.

National Design Triennial 2006

Labels: Cooper-Hewitt National Design Museum, graphic design, museums, site design

Peter Jaworowski has created a nice showcase site. I really enjoy the minimalist single page approach, which offers just enough activity in the flash rollovers, that you forget the rest of the site is static. Jaworowski has a good mix of client and personal work, both of which rely heavily on illustration and photo-collage.

Peter Jaworowski

Labels: artist, graphic design, illustration, Peter Jaworowski, site design

Organic is not a word typically associated with web-design, but I really can't come up with a better way to describe Jonathan Yuen's site. There is a beauty in its minimal color scheme, the animations are seamless and it uses the restrictions of the browser window about as well as any site I've come across. This site is most definitely worth a look, if only for the outstanding navigational system.

Jonathan Yuen

Labels: graphic design, interactive design, Jonathan Yuen, site design

I was perusing the Communication Arts website recently, and came across this article for 50 essential bookmarks, as chosen by leading professionals in the field of design. Some of the sites listed I was aware of, some not, but a good resource nonetheless.

50 essential bookmarks

Labels: graphic design, resource, site design