I just discovered this photographer. I love how she uses friends and family members in her photos. The colors are soft and beautiful. Her photos have a quiet tranquility to them. Enjoy!

In the past few months I’ve really started to develop a keen interest in fashion. This is partly due to searching for my wedding gown, bridesmaid dresses, and tuxes, and partly due to our house’s slight obsession with Project Runway. I think there are a lot of similarities between fashion design and graphic design. Both have to consider the fundamentals of art, such as line, shape, texture, color, etc. And both areas have to take into account the format in which they are displayed. While we graphic artists consider the weight, size, and texture of the papers we choose, Fashion designers do the same for their fabrics.

There are certain clothes that are made for specific body types, and when they find the right body, man do they just work! And there are other clothes that flatter almost any figure. I love how designers play with the contrasts between filmy, flowing fabrics, paired with structured, rigid ones. In my photography and design I always seem to gravitate towards high contrasts, in particular ones which draw out the best in the other. When this is done in fashion it really just lights me up. I’m thinking of soft, ruffled blouses paired with rigidly structured pants and jackets. Or a flowing, flouncy skirt or dress with a structured blouse or jacket. And then there are the textures, colors, and lines to play with…

Oscar de la Renta caught my eye today with his “resort 2010” line. It pulls of contrasts, textures, patterns, and contrasting splashes of color exceedingly well. Of course the color palette happens to be comprised of some of my favorites as well.

I would buy so many of these outfits if only I could… which has given me the idea of starting to tinker with some ideas of my own…

New Damien Hirst artwork. Pretty drastically different for him. Looks pretty interesting from what I can tell. The article is quite interesting and gives a nice perspective into the mindset from which he works

Beautiful typography out of sugar by Marian Bantjes for Stefan Sagmeister. Her work is really well done and well worth a look. Here’s more about the above work.

Last summer, Stefan Sagmeister asked me to contribute once again to his series “Things I have learned in my life so far.” He had seen the piece I made from sugar (“Indestructible”) for the Fox River Paper booklet, and asked me to use sugar once again to create his phrase “If I want to explore a new direction professionally, it is helpful to try it out for myself first.” Which was appropriate for me, as that is what I had done with “Indestructible.”

Batteries.

Boring and not very functional. The batteries are expensive and they’re so easy to loose after you open a pack. This is pretty much the standard.

Feminine Products.

Boring and awkward. No woman wants to tote around a fluffy bag that looks remarkably similar to diaper packaging. Sure it’s not our favorite time of the month, but let’s not make it worse.

Juice Boxes.

A really fun product, but the design hasn’t changed since I packed them in my lunch. juice box/pouches could definitely use a fresh face.

Home Phone.

You’d think products so threatened by cell phones would be really pushing to appeal to the public design wise. There are some pretty nice phones out there, but I noticed that the boxes they come in are pretty universal and dull. While looking at phones on display I found it really difficult to find the box for one I liked.

Bandaid.

My favorite bandaid packages were the character tins that I used to get when I was little. Those little jokers have always been tricky to fish out of the box though. There must be a better way.

Fitzsu Society’s 100 matches block is ingenious. My first thought was, “where can I get this and is is cheap enough to use for wedding favors?” How clever to cut the matches out of a single block of wood and adhere the striking pad to the bottom of the block. everything you need, all in one block. I want this.

Such smart packaging for these animal crackers! Not only are they oh so cute with the pop-up animals on the inside, but the outside of the box gives educational info about the animal on the package. So, your kid gets a yummy snack and a tasty bit of knowledge as well. Nicely done.

Here are some really thoughtful vitamin packages. I love how the type interacts with the letterforms and how you can know what you’re getting in a glance. Hands down the best vitamin packaging I’ve seen. I definitely wonder what they look like on the inside… I would think they’d have to be in bottles to keep the vitamins dry.

Smart and simple popcorn packaging. I love how you can eat it without getting grease all over your hands but you don’t have to dirty up another bowl.

This is the only salsa package design that doesn’t show the salsa inside. The function of these packages would be great because you can open it and just dip the chips in and close it when you’re done. All in all, I still think I like the clear packaging better. Salsa is really beautiful and can sell itself if it’s in a nice package.