Swedish illustrator Mattias Adolfsson captures his amazing drawings in Moleskine notebooks. You can see a great selection of creative images on his blog.

via Neatorama

Posted by Megan

Couple of news tidbits crossing our desks this week:

• PlanetQuark.com, a new, independent website for QuarkXPress users debuted recently; it's helmed by editorial director Jay Nelson, a respected speaker, writer and Quark expert. It features user tips, articles, bug reports and a job board.

• Sappi launched a blog for graphic designers, 24-7designheaven.com, which includes daily articles, monthly spotlights of notable design firms and a gallery where users can post work.

• School of Visual Arts announced an all-start lineup of instructors for its new, unique, graduate-level MFA degree in design criticism. They include design critic and author Akiko Busch, historian Russell Flinchum, NYT Magazine creative director Janet Froelich, Emily Gordon (an editor at sister magazine Print) and Metropolis contributing editor Philip Nobel.

This TV spot airing in Europe for Sony's Bravia brand features stop-motion animation showing Play-Doh bunnies taking over NYC. Freakin' amazing.

Via VeryShortList.

Just in time for Halloween, Veer has put together a gallery of spooky typefaces and ornaments like this image collection from Lanston Type. I particularly like the scripty cat, ornamental spider web and bat silhouette.

Posted by Megan

Never heard of Muriel Cooper? Seriously? The New York Times's weekend Style magazine profiled the woman who influenced a generation of designers working in digital media. Pentagram designer Lisa Strausfeld commented: “She was not at all skilled technically, and she wasn’t even that tech savvy, and she leveraged her ignorance in a truly brilliant way.”

Two trips to the Mississippi Gulf Coast area with reconstruction crews from International Relief Teams, most recently this past July, prompted Tuscon designer Martha Retallic to compile a slide show documenting her experience.

Lots of news and product tidbits coming in this week:

• Mohawk has posted a call for entries for its quarterly Strathmore Letterhead Contest, which is accepting entries (stationery systems printed on Strathmore papers) through the end of 2007; the first 25 entrants get a special gift, and the Grand Prize winner scores $1,000.

• Fotolia is running a sweepstakes on HOWdesign.com; enter (it's free!) to win $300 worth of stock photography from the agency.

• Spec certain Neenah papers, and reduce your (and your client's) carbon footprint: The mill announced that six flagship lines in its Classic and Starwhite brands are manufactured carbon-neutral.

I just got an email from San Francisco-based designer Dora Drimalas of Hybrid about an exhibition of her paintings and illustrations called "Creature Comforts".


If you can't make it to SF for the show (which runs through October 30), you can nab one of her super cute prints from the Hybrid-Home site.

Posted by Megan

Design*Sponge (my all time favorite blog) just launched a new column called "DIY Wednesdays." Every week, Lauren Smith and Derek Fagerstrom of the Curiosity Shoppe will share a new project. The first project is a wooden wine box lined with gorgeous paper to use for storage. It would be great on a desk or office wall (if you're lucky enough to have a real wall).

Posted by Megan

A French Alphabet Book of 1814 (published by Rizzoli) is a charming collection of watercolor illustrations of French country life, along with lovely examples of hand lettering. It would make a wonderful gift for type lovers and Francophiles alike.







Images courtesy of Charles Plante Fine Arts

Posted by Megan

You can never know too much about spec'ing the perfect paper so PaperSpecs is offering a free webinar series. Starting October 16, the first segment will be all about uncoated paper. Attendance is free, all you have to do is register.

Posted by Megan

Proof that science can be beautiful: Moon Mapping from the U.S. Geological Survey Astrogeology Research Project.


via 30gms

Posted by Megan

Mediabistro has a fantastic interview with noted magazine design and Pentagram partner Luke Hayman.

"Good design doesn't cost much money. It just needs someone in charge who understands what good design is, and very often the people who are in charge don't care, or aren't aware, or are not educated enough to see that. If you look carefully, you can find some trade magazines that are as beautiful as any consumer title, and it's because they have someone who cares and is allowed to do that."

Posted by Megan

Zebra and Kiub are two notable new releases from our favorite alpha-numeric font founderies P22 and T26.

Zebra was originally designed by Karlgeorg Hoefer in 1965 and is available digitally for the first time. The font is clearly vintage in style, but it will be interesting to see how designers might put it to use in contemporary application.



Kiub was created by Italian designer Gianni Sinni. Available in squared and rounded variations, the quirky font screams indie-band poster.

Posted by Megan