Into the White Web Update

Just a small update about my main website design portfolio for Into the White Design. It has been given a facelift with all new layout, content and responsive design. If you've stumbled on this site and think it's looking a bit dead it's because this is my new web home, so take a look and find all my latest news and work in the design news section.

Recent Design Work

Once again I've been a little lax on the blogging front, but not without good reason. It's been all systems go for the last few months with my regular clients all busy and some new client wins. Hopefully good signs that the economy is getting a little more stable and marketing budgets are returning, but only time will tell.

To prove I've not been slacking take a peek at some of my recent design work for a lovely new client Lily Lolo Mineral Cosmetics. Great to work with a company that really invests in their on and offline marketing and work with some beautiful photography. Shown below are some recent posters, newsletters, e-mailers, year planners.

Also worth noting is the company's Facebook presence. Lots of small businesses are setting up Facebook pages but don't really do anything to warrant becoming a 'fan', or provide any use other than shameless plugging. Lily Lolo's is a shining example of how to do it right, with plenty of discussions, tips, information videos, and Q & A. The amount fans and user generated activity speaks for itself.

13th Street Identity

Out of all the portfolio showcase/ portal sites available Behance Network has to be the best. Always inspirational and quite dangerous to have poke around the site (you can loose hours if your not careful). Absolutely love this recent post of corporate stationery for German Horror Channel 13th Street by Jacques Pense at Jung von Matt agency.

Beautifully executed (no pun intended) and good on the client for obviously not being afraid to go the whole hog with the concept. Well worth checking out his portfolio on the site too, top notch.

Alexander McQueen

Totally shocked by the death of Lee McQueen, a true loss of creative genius. So much more than a fashion designer his collaborations with Puma, Samsonite, Bjork, Nick Knight to name a few have provided some of the most stunning pieces of design and iconic images of the last 20 years. A truly rebel style, here's just a few images that show what a talent he was.

NTI Healthcare Website

Apologies that it's been rather quiet around here since Christmas. After the expected slow down in December things have got very busy since the 1st of Jan. Lots of interesting new opportunities and February seems to be whizzing by so may not get much chance to post for the next couple of weeks.

Here's one of the projects that has been keeping me busy in January. Following on from the branding work I completed last year I've been working on a new website for NTI Healthcare. The site aims to provide a quick introduction to the company's services but is also designed to easily allow for expansion of content in the future. I implemented a clean, uncluttered design, suitable for their target audience, and a simple jQuery slider on the home page to offer an instant overview of the services on offer.

Hot Links

Got my inbox down to zero and am winding down for Christmas, so final post for 2009, a quick round up of some interesting finds from the last month or so.

There are loads of to-do list manager apps around but I've been using Teux Deux, a browser based app, for a couple of weeks and really like it. I love its simplicity and uncluttered design, hoping they do develop an iphone app as this would make it pretty much perfect.

Definitely my gig of the year, a welcome return for Skunk Anansie. Couldn't resist picking up a signed copy of this ltd edition collectors box designed by Shotopop, it's a really treasure chest.

Very entertaining round up of customised My Little Ponies on SpoonGraphics, I want a My Little Mr T Pony for christmas

Bizarre combination of classic asian ceramics and manga-esque design from Brendan Lee Tang, how great would one of these look on your mantlepiece.

Porcelain artist Kate MacDowell's work is another slightly surreal find but absolutely beautiful.

DesignM.ag give a very useful round up of organisational resources for designers, including a couple of my favourites, Dropbox & Daylite

Another useful post on DesignM.ag with some great free fonts, quite a few I hadn't come across before. Most on the list are via Font Squirrel, which I've mentioned previously so note to myself to keep checking in on that site.

I haven't got round to installing Google Chrome (now available for Macs), more than happy with Safari to be honest, but shall download for cross browser testing. I do love the series of supporting low-fi ads, no idea who is behind them by but they're great.

Essential Reading

As the year draws to a close I thought I'd put together a small list of some of my favourite design/ inspiration books I've purchased in the last 12 months (and a couple that are on my xmas list). Whilst the web is great for inspiration it can be difficult to know where to start, so a well stocked shelf of inspiring stuff at your fingertips is a must if you ask me.

Destroy/Rankin: I'm eagerly awaiting delivery of this one, ordered it a while ago but as I was one of the first 20 to order, mine's signed by Rankin so have to be patient. The books a collection of re-worked classic Rankin photos by various artists/ designers and comes with a behind the scenes dvd too.

Logo Lounge 4: I'm a big fan of the LogoLounge series, not as nicely presented as the Los/Dos/ Tres Logos books but still a great resource for branding inspiration and a fair bit cheaper. The option to join online and search the whole database is good too but it will cost you.

Negative Space: By Noma Bar is one on my wish list, some clever visual trickery using a very minimalist style.

Boxed & Labelled: I've always been a sucker for good packaging and this book contains some real beauties. Also worth mentioning again is the very good Lovely Package, really nice blog site for packaging inspiration from round the globe.

Papercraft: Another for my wish list, Papercraft takes a look at, well work created from paper. Mixed reviews for this one but I do love a bit of hand finished design and the DVD with it adds appeal.

Little People In The City: by Slinkachu is a little book full of big photos of little people, humorous and sometimes touching miniature street art.

Derren Brown Portraits: Who would have known Derren Brown had a talent for portraiture. His exaggerated celebrity portraits are so full of detail; especially the craggy Tom Waits, Ian McKellen and Clint Eastwood. Too seaside caricature like for some tastes but I think they're great.

Business Graphics: One of the most useful reference books I have bought in recent times from Rockport. Virtually every other page has a post-it sticking out of it at the moment, highly recommended for anyone producing corporate marketing and branding.