For the Office of Career Planning — in progress. 

Featuring the free font, Miso.

In progress shot of recent brochure.

I’m still thinking about female designers, so let’s talk about the RISD-educated Janine Rewell. Finnish (with stunning looks) and currently Helsinki-based, Janine is a talented designer and illustrator.

She’s won a pile of awards (though, Tan the Man, pictured above, is obviously the pinnacle of her career) and has a huge variety of projects and her belt. Despite her achievements, her work continues to be fresh, relevant, amusing and, above-all, confident. 

“Janine won a bronze Design Lion at the Cannes Lions International Advertising Festival 2009 and recently nominated by Print Magazine as one of the twenty best new visual artists of 2010. She is also awarded with the Junior Award 2010, the greatest national recognition for a young designer. In addition to taking part in many group exhibitions, she had her first solo exhibition in Barcelona in 2010.

Inspired by surrealist painters, children’s books, art deco, bright colors and the geometry of nature, Janine’s designs are a enchanting mix of Scandinavian design and Slavic folk art.”

You’ll love it. 

There aren’t enough women, and not enough diversity, represented in the design community.

At least that’s Dylan Lathrop’s opinion in his article for Good. He cites examples which support a claim that the design community is in danger of becoming a “boy’s club.” I’m not gonna get all political on you (not the point) but it did get me thinking about truly amazing female designers. I devised a stout list of design babes (jump started by this list, curated by the good people at Good).

To start, there’s The Dye Lab, comprised of the award-winning, MFA-toting Tonya Douraghy and Alanna MacGowan. They are behind Print magazine’s recent aesthetic overhaul, in addition to exquisite posters, carefully curated exhibitions like Print’s “20 Under 30,” and cool projects like “Positive Post” (a branded traveling exhibition facilitating public participation and communication). The above photo is part of Tonya’s MFA thesis, TIME/PLACE:

“TIME / PLACE is a book series [and] digital archive designed to document subjective accounts of what war is like from the point of view of ordinary citizens. TIME / PLACE explores the political history of modern border conflicts through personal narratives. 

Each book in the series focuses on one conflict. The first book of the series is TIME / PLACE: 1980-1988 Iran AND focuses on the Iran-Iraq War. The conflict is presented in three layers of depth: Facts, which builds a framework through timelines, maps, and data; Voices, personal stories from the war, annotated with relevant history, dates, and translations; and Landscapes, which uses photographs to document what the conflict really looks like on the ground.”

Compelling ladies, huh? 

The Death Coaster.

“The rider is subjected to a series of intensive motion elements that induce various unique experiences: from euphoria to thrill, and from tunnel vision to loss of consciousness, and, eventually, death… Celebrating the limits of the human body but also the liberation from the horizontal life, this ‘kinetic sculpture’ is in fact the ultimate roller coaster.” - Euthanasia Coaster” Would Make Assisted Suicide Fun, At 223 mph

An interesting project …

Flexible molded LEDs and magnets? Color insulating coating? Sound damping paint? Shape memory polymer?

If you are a creative who enjoys working with your hands and creating, Inventables just might be your next favorite online shop.

(The pictured product is, of course, modeling silicone - sugru, a modeling clay that cures to a tough flexible silicone when exposed to the air.)

Refreshing looking magazine featuring delicious content — color me impressed.

(I can’t remember how I heard about this!)

number34:

Dear Friends,

In 3 days Niamh and I set out from Brooklyn for our adventure. We’ll be traveling across the country and working out of the back of our camper for the next couple of months. You can follow our science and design caravan on our new blog HERE where we’ll be posting all design stuff, science stuff, travel stuff, and general actin’ a foolery. Posting on this blog will cease for now, so please keep up with us on Open Highway Reader.

Thanks!

Dan

This project/trip/adventure sounds amazing! I will be following this with avid curiosity! Hope you guys do lots of posts, so people (like me) can live vicariously through your experiences … Very nifty!

I’ve blogged about Rocío Martinavarro before, but she’s got more than one gorgeous project, so enjoy your double dip of this award-winning Pratt graduate, who (exotically) hails from Barcelona!

The above project is for Dix Cafe in Barcelona:

“Named after the german painter Otto Dix, the Dix cafe in Barcelona is a jump to the past, to Berlin, to 1920’s…” - Dix Cafe project

This particular project is loaded with orgasmic typographic experimentation, amplified by a stark color palette of black and slightly-off-white. Drool with me …. 

What about Elena Giavaldi? 

1. She has a pleasantly rythmatic name.
2. I discovered that she’s Italian, so point No.1 is a given …
3. Her work has popped up in W magazine, The Atlantic and Fast Company magazines … 

But none of that is impressive as her library of well-developed talents, which range from illustration, layout design, useable and attractive templates, screenprinting and more.

Her pattern-a-day project alone has turned into an impressive body of work.

Elena’s portfolio has the unique ability to captivate and inspire, without appearing pretentious, over-thought, or too dependent on trends. Someone to watch!

(And PS, lots of people online love her too. Just jump on the bandwagon.)

Attention MoMA fans:

The museum’s Department of Advertising and Graphic Design has just released a portfolio website (hosted on Cargo), compiling their work, which ranges from print to installation pieces, all exquisitely executed and carefully photographed. 

A very sophisticated team of designers over there at MoMA! Prepare to drool a little bit.

Andy Mangold is a very young designer (fresh graduate from MICA) who consistently churns out a professional body of work that is process-oriented, thoughtful, and inspiring. He is an excellent communicator, both verbally and visually. 

A project I’m particularly interested in, is a venture of his called Folk Goods. 

“Folk Goods is a brand and small line of products designed to encourage and highlight meaningful relationships between goods and the people that own them. Founded on the idea that people come to love and trust objects through consistent use, the products nourish their owners by filling small physical and emotional voids. The brand is a reaction to contemporary, “disposable” product design and consumer mentality, as well as a way to combine my passion for making lasting things with the storytelling elements of graphic design.

A comprehensive publication that will serve as a brand manual, lookbook, and catalog will tell the story behind the products and overarching brand. The canvas for the products is reclaimed from the historic Globe Poster Company, the bags are sewn by Phil Spector and Fashions Unlimited who has been in Baltimore for over 20 years, and the leather is hand worked by Matt Leberman, a printer and leather craftsman from the area. The customer will be encouraged to build upon this rich narrative and customer submitted content will be used for future publications and brand strategy.

Love and Utility, tagline and inspiration blog for the brand, will be maintained to make my inspiration known, generate publicity for the products, and cultivate discussion around the themes behind Folk Goods.”

— Andy Mangold

Folk Goods, as well as his other projects, are smashing, all the way around.

Cody Hudson of Chicago-based struggle, inc. Colorful designer who works a lot with visual deconstruction for a cut paper/collage effect. His work feels optimistic and energetic without feeling cliched. That all said, I don’t know what he’s been up to recently, his portfolio consists mostly of work between 2006-9.