FOOD FOR THOUGHT

A nice big Noma Bar illustration in today’s New York Times.

FULL COLOR

With minimalist posters all the rage, Design Sponge may just as easily have gone the clean white-and-bright route with their month-long Color of the Day series. But good on them for opting instead for something a bit more nuanced. Using a simple and effective template–banner, geometric repeat pattern, and blurb–against a backdrop of faux aged paper, they’ve turned out a surprisingly informative, elegant and pitch-perfect suite of images that manage to impress, whether viewed individually or as a cohesive statement.

Light Meal

The UK fashion and housewares designer/retailer Toast, has made its name with a carefully curated selection of high-quality, low-flash products–like this homemade, preservative-free marmalade and its equally unassuming label.

REVELATION

A lovely illustration for the Washington Post Magazine’s 2012 year-end issue, which recounted the lives of 6 recently deceased local citizens, by the Berlin-based studio, Ariane Spanier Design.

 

DARK MATTER

 

It’s not every day that a 62 year-old female director makes the cover of Time magazine, and rarer still for a memorable piece of copy to find its way there. But this week’s Time goes arty and literary (though I really, really wish they had let that excellent headline stand alone).

READERSHIP

 

A self-initiated publication by the Netherlands-based design practice Atelier Carvalho Bernau, Dear Reader is “a collection of obsessions, oblique references and footnotes of design processes.”

ENCORE

Designer Mike Joyce’s ongoing project, Swissted, applies classic sans-serif (not Helvetica) Swiss typography to vintage rock music concert flyers. Here, he re-imagines a piece of 1985 R.E.M. ephemera–and I’m willing to bet it’s a fair bit more beautiful than the original.

WRAP ARTISTS

As if I need another reason to buy chocolates–but the crazy beautiful package designs by the Brooklyn-based Mast Brothers never fails to beckon.

SHADOW BOX

Admittedly, self-initiated “minimalist” film posters have a vaguely design-school-project feel about them. But I give high marks to the creator of this Batman poster, mainly for injecting a bit of textural interest with that crushed paper backdrop.

PEAR SHAPED

Eschewing standard Christmas motifs and colors, Glad Creative opted for a lovely negative space illustration(that little dot of an eye is priceless) and a limey green with these letterpress-printed Partridge cards. If only there was a way to find them on this side of the Atlantic.