Category Archives: Art+Design

Artist Feature: Zaha Hadid Architects

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I love architecture—I’m sure that will be my profession in my next life. So writing as my next-life self, I decided to start a series of posts featuring architecture that is particularly art-y or design-y.

Disclaimer: While I wouldn’t particularly love to live in anything that looks like this, what I do love is Hadid’s sprit and how graphic her style is, even though it’s architecture. It’s like her buildings could be the forms that I might create a pattern or interesting poster with. Neat stuff! Read more →

Volenweider Chocolate

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My favorite dessert (or rather favorite thing ever) is really good dark chocolate. And I love it even more if it comes in beautiful packaging, like this Swiss chocolate I found in a tiny coffee shop called Squeeze, out in Marfa, TX . The owner said he gets the bars shipped to her direct from Switzerland by her brother, who runs the Volenweider Chocolate (which was actually started by her father).

The all-typographic branding is super distinctive while the black & white color palette (or non-color palette) literally makes the letters jump out at you. My favorite part though, is the smart use of pop-y colors to differentiate different flavors.

I just googled them and it turns out they’re one of the premier chocolatiers in Zurich. And Squeeze Marfa is the sole distributor in the US…so if you want a taste of heaven,  you got a long drive ahead of you.

Beautiful Car Emblems

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I must confess…

I am a dedicated supporter of the green movement, and do my best to maintain sustainable practices in my business and life, but man!, do I love me a beautiful car. What can I say? It’s all my dad. Thanks, Andy.

While in my home town, State College, PA, last weekend, we stumbled upon this vintage car show. In between drooling, I managed to snap pics of these beauty’s emblems. They just don’t make ’em like they used to. Makes me want to get an old hood ornament for my Prius.

Ethereal Paper Gems by Kirsten Hassenfeld

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OOOH! I LOVE THIS! This is especially interesting to me because of how Hassenfeld uses simple sheets of paper (even though it doesn’t look like paper) to not only create 3D forms, but integrate light in a way that transforms the space into one of delight and awe. Like being in CandyLand! Now that’s user experience.

How do you say no to Saul Bass?

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At the Stanley Kubrick exhibit at LACMA (see previous post), one of the most interesting things I came across were these drafts of poster artwork for The Shining, created by legendary graphic designer, Saul Bass. As you can see by the handwritten notes made by Kubrick on the illustrations, he was not impressed with these first drafts. It’s so interesting (and relieving) to realize that even as you get to the top level of any design-related profession, at the end of the day, we’re all working for a client, with own unique their tastes and visions. I would have been happy with any of these, although the final one did turn out pretty cool…

Stanley Kubrick Exhibit at LACMA

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Wow. That’s all I have to say about this incredible exhibit on display at the LA County Museum of Art. There was at least one room dedicated to each of Kubrick’s films, each filled with artifacts, original script notes, costumes, sketches…everything and anything you can imagine. Apparently Kubrick kept EVERYTHING, so I’m sure they could have filled 5 times as many rooms. Kudos to the curator. Here are just a few shapshots…