Wednesday, December 10, 2008

MyRail

The most used free application on my iPhone is probably (and sadly) "MyRail light", the commuters friend. A quick tap and it finds your nearest train station, another tap and it retrives live train times for that station. Train cancelled? Have another quick coffee before heading to the station a little later.

Friday, November 28, 2008

Cotic Hemlock in White


Cotic Hemlock White Rear 3/4, originally uploaded by Niall Flinn.

Looks good, doesn't it !?

Monday, November 17, 2008

Money for Nothing

(or designing a coin with free software)

the making of a queen

The designer tells how it's done, and all on free software...

the coin

There are some genius ideas rolled into this coin. The process is all in this case.

Thursday, October 30, 2008

Saville on Richard Hamilton's Toaster

Peter Saville on Richard Hamilton

In a magazine I've long since misplaced Peter Saville revealed Richard Hamilton's 'Toaster' as influencing him, and Tate now have a video in a similar vein.


Toaster

What Hamilton did with this work for me was to reflect how Dieter Ramms, Otl Aicher, Hans Gugelot and others at BRAUN made the world we live in today (well at least influenced many of the better designed bits of it anyway). Of course there are all sorts of questions about the divisions between, and the co-adoptions of, fine-art, design and engineering at play here, but I'll leave it to others to talk that over.

Friday, July 04, 2008

Modernist Book Design Archive

Browse the index here, or check out these classics:

jan tschichold 1930


carl b. graf 1956
19561956

josef müller-brockmann 1960
19561960

konrad kessler 1960


karl gerstner 1972


otl aicher 1982
1982


Some of those I've highlighted above will seem strangely familiar to anyone who knows Peter Saville's cover for New Order's LOW LIFE album.

Thursday, July 03, 2008

The Ride

VP
Not got it? Get it, quick. It has words, pictures and things, all bike related yet quite disparate in content and context. Everything for someone. That someone is probably you, it's definitely me.

Anyone for Flapjack?

Wednesday, July 02, 2008

Monday, June 23, 2008

Palatine


Palatine, originally uploaded by Kelvin Owers.

CD box-set produced near "the end" of the label's life.

Final factory logo features, set in "Factis" which is basically the Rotis font as created by Otl Aicher's team. The effect of the white box must have been intended to be a pretty faithful recreation of the dust jacket and card slip case of typographie. I think that's a pretty safe guess, and I'm sure Peter Saville will have had, or had access to, this edition of the book.

Sunday, May 25, 2008

My bikes : pt 2 : Old Cotic Prototype



NPF_2614, originally uploaded by Niall Flinn.



Steeper Than It Looks, originally uploaded by Niall Flinn.



easter_2006.0040.jpg, originally uploaded by Niall Flinn.



easter_2006.0036.jpg, originally uploaded by Niall Flinn.

Friday, May 23, 2008

Megavalanche on a Hardtail



Nutters! I hope someone gets some photos.

Thursday, May 01, 2008

The killer time-wasting apps for the iPhone might be musical toys

The multi-touch interface is perfect for creating music. There's just a handful of conventional apps so far, but when people move onto creating new interfaces rather than simulating diddy existing instruments then things could get interesting. Check these out for now:


http://www.iphonesoft.de/gangsaapp/


http://www.iband.at/
http://moocowmusic.com/

More using the moocowmusic apps:

Thursday, April 24, 2008

"Made in Bench"


"Made in Bench", by Kelvin Owers. Apologies to both Bench&Bunch

There are lots of fantastic takes on the Bunch logo to be found on the Made In Bunch website. I wanted to do something myself, thought about making something a bit twee, like baking the letters as biscuits, but then realised I didn't really have the time. Something struck me though, something that appealed to my lazy nature and dislike of derivative ID building. Check out the Flickr page for an explanation...

Saturday, April 05, 2008

testcard font using fontstruct


testcard version 1

Fontstruct is a great new web application from Fontshop for creating modular fonts. The result of my first play with this simple (but limited) tool is "testcard".








It's an utterly flawed font, take it and fix it as you see fit. Underscore is used to to terminate and separate words. There's only a handful of characters I'm happy with so far. Go grab it and have a play.

Wednesday, March 19, 2008

Doodle from "mr_carl"

A great idea... get defacing those catalogs now....

Tuesday, March 11, 2008

PS does PSA


Found on Motionographer.com


Peter Saville was apparently involved in this retro styled road safety short.

Wednesday, March 05, 2008

Kistufell II


Kistufell II, originally uploaded by -axel.

I've been impressed with this guy's work for ages. Especially worth checking his photos out if you like horses.

Monday, March 03, 2008

My bikes : pt 1 : Cotic Soul Mk1



arizonaCotic_01, originally uploaded by Niall Flinn.

Monday, February 25, 2008

Accent Business Card


Accent Business Card, originally uploaded by Accent Creative.

"Cardstock with Spot Gloss UV Varnish on transparent Logo."

Friday, February 01, 2008

Flat and Boring

The Evening Standard reports how the 'compact' nature of the Olympics is causing problems, especially as regards trying to find suitable venues for the 'rural' events, like mountain biking and 3 day eventing, close to the capital. Now England is not a huge country, and allowing a few choice events to escape from London and nearby counties wouldn't really dilute the games, would it? Of particular concern is how an 'unchallenging' site and course has been proposed and rejected for the Mountain Biking. Over the last decade the UK's reputation for mountain biking has improved greatly with overseas visitors, admittedly with England falling behind Wales and Scotland, and showing the whole world a flat and boring track at the Olympics could set this back and would do nothing for future tourism prospects. Tourism you say? Yep, I've bumped into a few people who have visited the UK to mountain bike, esp from Europe. Okay, we don't have the alps, but we do have trails that are open all year around and offer a huge variety of experiences. We don't want the message going out that cycling off-road in the UK is about riding around flat easy trails.

Monday, January 21, 2008

Paul Rand



Has Paul Rand's stock fallen these days? Is that because those that picked up his style have become so prominent (I'm thinking the great Saul Bass for one)? Or because his insistence that design should be seen as art conflicts with the practical realities of designers working today? Perhaps it's just the fact that he could practise his art while satisfying hard nosed large corporations, while most struggle to produce work they can be proud of when chasing the whims of their clients. Whatever, both his work and writings are essential. Check out any of his own books, rather than books about the man and his works written by others, and you're sure to smile at most that you see or read. If you haven't got the time for that, check out the short film above that uses quotes from the man himself with animation based on his work, most notably the charming children's books that he created with his wife.

Update: some related links:
- view those children's books online
- the final logo?