Experiential Print Material

Saxofunny is a sound production company from Brazil. They hired advertising agency DM9DDB to create these posters for them. The subject is "Every image has a sound."



Brilliant!

GN

The Laws of Simplicity

I think I can speak for most people when I say that part of me is relieved that the Christmas/Holiday season has come to and end. Shopping malls, gifts, money, traffic, parking, and family socials are just a few things that have turned our holiday season into anything but peaceful. The holiday season gives us ample time to reflect on how our lives, from our finances to our closets and sock drawers, have become increasingly more complex. Then something clicks in our brain and we tell ourselves that enough is enough. We begin to clean, edit, reduce. Better yet, we simplify.

For many of us, this realization occurs every year. Some tackle this issue with great success while others stumble a few months down the line. If you represent the latter, I recommend a book that may provide the strength to pull through. It’s called “The Laws of Simplicity” by John Maeda.


Maeda is a Japanese-American graphic designer, computer scientist and former MIT professor. He is currently the president of the Rhode Island School of Design. He’s managed to take the difficult subject of “simplicity” and make it digestible. He introduces a methodology based on 10 Laws for balancing simplicity with complexity in design, business and life. (He even suggests the most efficient strategy for reading the book.)


Maeda’s theory does not stop at his book. He’s created a website and blog where he’s constantly searching for new and thoughtful ways of supporting his pursuit of simplicity. Happy reading

“Simplicity is about subtracting the obvious, and adding the meaningful”
John Maeda

~tyukawa

Agence NC, Nathalie Crinière

Tak has unleashed a blogging demon.

This is an exhibition and event design firm I had the good fortune to quickly meet this summer in Paris. Agence NC has a great collection of works, all very attentive to the content, context, and in many cases, the nature of light and colour in a 3-dimensional space.

They design interiors for galleries, boutiques, exhibitions, etc. My favourites are the ones they create for popular culture (Grace Kelly & Alfred Hitchcock) and French figureheads (Jean Cocteau).









Fun stuff.

Moiré

Moiré. This design company based on Zürich is led by Marc Kappeler & Markus Reichenbach. Beautiful publications that "[trust] in craft rather than marketing." How European!

Julien Vallée

I like looking at what other young whippersnappers like myself are doing with design these days, that wonderful time in our lives where we teeter from student to professional. It is a time where we are still floundering in the remnants of risk and bright-eyed from our humanist educators and philosophies, yet to be tarnished by life! Fortunately, there is much to look at, and it's always fun to catch it before it becomes trendy and overused.

Here is a young garçon from Montreal named Julien Vallée, doing some amazing things with analog means, specifically paper. Catch him!



Not to get into the whole "the medium is dying!" debate, for I think that is quite painful—just as painful as the art vs. design debate, but I think it's an adorable approach, very heartwarming aesthetic that certainly is catching attentions everywhere. Even Stefan Sagmeister is jumping into the bandwagon:


And you know if Sagmeister is into it, everyone will be into it sooner or later: Three-D Graphic Spaces. Best of luck, Vallée!