What's Your Moleskine?

Culture, imagination, memory, travel, personal identity

Moleskine® is a brand that identifies a family of notebooks, diaries, and city guides: flexible and brilliantly simple tools for use both in everyday and extraordinary circumstances, ultimately becoming an integral part of one's personality.

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When you start meeting more and more people who are involved with the arts, the one thing that you will notice is that Moleskine's are everywhere. These two that I've included in this post are my personal favourites.

The first one would be the large sketchbook: the reason why I include this in my backpack is because of its' stock and also because its blank. The stock is heavier than laser jet paper, and is in fact closer to an index weight (90lb. index maybe). These two factors in conjunction with a sturdy design and interiors pockets make this book a must for doing quick sketches and quick notes.

The second would be the large Red graph paper book: This bad boy is included in my bag because I love graph paper. For laying out webpages, print media, and design type; graph paper is the idea choice. And again, the sturdiness and inside pocket never hurt anyone.

These lovelies are available in your local stationary shops, art stores, and at Chapters.

-Chad.

Typographyserved.com

The Served sites bring you a steady supply of top quality creative work, with each site streaming fresh projects in specific categories(e.g. fashion, industrial design, photography...). To deliver this work to you, we comb through projects from the portfolios of the most talented creative people and teams around the world. We then serve up the best of what we find -at each of the Served sites, and in our weekly and monthly Served emails.

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Typography served is a typography showcase blog that looks at the development of typefaces, personal design projects, handwritten design, and a whole lot more. The most interesting part about the posts on this blog is the "out of the box" nature of submitted work. When looking for inspiration, or some general direction in regards to current typographic and past typographic trends; this site is shizza.

The other interesting part about this site that really separates it from others is that it includes a community voting system. What this system means is that the most popular articles might be voted straight to the top of the blogs showcase, so; if there is a design you real love, you can make sure that that individual gets the credit they deserve.

-Matt Sawh (Guest Author)

Film The Blanks

An ongoing experiment to abstract and/or reduce film posters. Some famous, some not so famous but all cool in their own way

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Recently while perusing the internet I came across an interesting site called Film the Blanks. Like a lot of interesting websites, this one was created as an experiment. Basically, the creator of this site will take a movie poster (past or present) and break it down in to its most simple elements.

The best part about this site is that its readers sort of treat it like a game. How? When new pieces are released it's up to you to figure out what the poster is. Some of the images are pretty difficult to decipher, but the author(s) also include cryptic headlines that can aid in finding the answer.

Have a look through their archives, they are quite extensive. And also, if you want one of this prints; they also produce t-shirts with select images on them. Something to check out for sure.

-Chad.

myPantone

Who says you can’t take it with you? Not Pantone. Now with the myPANTONE for iPhone and iPod Touch app you have access to a variety of PANTONE® color libraries and the ability to build color palettes and share them with colleagues and clients. myPANTONE offers graphic, web, fashion and apparel designers a way to take PANTONE colors with you wherever you go. Can’t remember what a color looks like, now you can have Portable Color Memory™.

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This is another app to put on your iPhone or iPod Touch (not an iTouch...). This is basically the be all and end all to pantone colour books that your average freelance designer would need. Not only can you create your own swatches and go through the different pantone colour books, but you can also pull colours from photos you have taken on your phone (amazing).

Need I say more?

-Chad.

The Feltron Report: 2009

"Each day in 2009, I asked every person with whom I had a meaningful encounter to submit a record of this meeting through an online survey. These reports form the heart of the 2009 Annual Report. From parents to old friends, to people I met for the first time, to my dentist… any time I felt that someone had discerned enough of my personality and activities, they were given a card with a URL and unique number to record their experience." - Nicholas Feltron

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One of my favourite parts about starting a new year is a little something called, "The Feltron Report". This report is one man's yearly data about everything you could possibly imagine keeping tabs on (beverages consumes, places travelled, movies watched, etc.).

The best part though, is that the author, Nicholas Feltron, is an information designer. "What is an information designer?" Well I am glad you asked. Basically, an information designer takes data and visually translates into a print or digital form. Just like those little pie charts you see in the newspaper, or the interesting graphics in WIRED magazine; all of visualized data is created by a Nicholas Feltron somewhere.

This years report has again left me a little bit excited. Using Nimbas sans and Galaxy Copernicus as the san serif and serif, the report is extremely clean and features some lovely colour choices. If there is one other thing I might say to keep an eye out for when looking at this report is to look at the bezier curves on this thing. SMOOTH.

-Chad.

The Font Game

Test your knowledge of familiar fonts like Wingdings and Rosewood or show your skills by taking the exceedingly difficult route.

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This game is legit. If you like fonts; you have got to get it.

The Wooster Collective

woo·ster (noun)
A street in the Soho section of New York City

col·lec·tive (noun)
Of, relating to, characteristic of, or made by a number of people acting as a group: a collective decision.

The Wooster Collective was founded in 2001. This site is dedicated to showcasing and celebrating ephemeral art placed on streets in cities around the world.

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When I was in University I became extremely interested in wheat-pasting and stenciling street art. 'Street art (or graffiti if you'd like) is any art developed in public spaces — that is, "in the streets" — though the term usually refers to unsanctioned art, as opposed to government sponsored initiatives.' The Wooster Collective basically accumulates all the photos and videos you can imagine regarding this subject and displays them in a blog-style format. In addition to displaying the art itself, the Collective will often post some very interesting how-to's and also some links out to other community sites that would help someone get into this sort of lifestyle/art.

Make sure to pay a visit if you've never really checked out street arts before.

-Chad.

Match & Kerosene

Match and Kerosene is a design fulfillment company that provides clients with professional work at an affordable price. Primarily working in the music and fashion industry, we specialize in offering clients with results that will not waver against competition.

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I have been checking out a lot of work by these fellows at Match & Kerosene and am thoroughly impressed. If you are into vintage '80s graphic t-shirts, this crew has a good grasp on the concepts.

Also check out Derek Deal his work is also incredible (does work for some big names).

-Chad.

Ffffound.com

"FFFFOUND! is a web service that not only allows the users to post and share their favorite images found on the web, but also dynamically recommends each user's tastes and interests for an inspirational image-bookmarking experience!!"

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I am the type of person who lives off of bookmarks when I perusing the web.Bookmarks are basically my road map for every time I head online to see what is going on; enter Ffffound.com. This website is an image bookmarking community of well-know, invite-only artists or designers who post anything (image-wise) that they find interesting or inspirational. When ever I am starting a new design or want to see what the current trends are, Ffffound.com is the first site I visit. One thing that should be said is that quite a few images would be considered NSFW; most nudity you find here is tasteful as it is site for posting art and design. Make sure to check it out and hit ctrl-d or cmd-d to add it to your bookmarks as well.

-Chad.

Emptees.com

"Emptees is a place where the world’s best designers and tee enthusiasts can come together on common ground to show off, talk about, and love tees."

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Emptees.com is one of my favourite websites out there. For someone who enjoys t-shirt design as much as I do, or is looking for some inspiration for their "tee", Emptees is da-spot. I happened upon Emptees a last summer while searching for some ideas for a project I was working on. Not only did the site find me some inspiration, but I ended up joining the site for some design help as well. One of the "rudest" parts about this site is that it is community based; so, you can comment, review, and submit and designs you've come up with. Awards are also available for "tee of the day", "tee of the month", and "tee of the year". If you haven't checked it out, make sure to take a gander at what's going on Emptees. And by the way, some of the shirts content might be considered NSFW, so browse with caution.

-Chad.