Ice Research - Andy Goldsworthy

I've loved Andy Goldsworthy's work for many years. The detail and precision is amazing, below are just three examples of hundreds of natural sculptures he creates. It really shows when someone takes pride in their work. Influenced by the ice sculptures, I've been experimenting with creating ice work in Photoshop. Check out my recent experiments on my work blog here.

Google - Let It Snow

Once again, Google are getting involved in festivities. This time, by typing "let it snow" into the search box, the window starts to snow and mist up, until the page can barely be seen apart from a box with the word "defrost".

Jack Daniels Packaging

Every so often I get items through the post from Jack Daniels. Most recently was a set of coasters. I like the typography they use on the packaging. The simple black, white and orange are very effective (the orange being a similar colour to the whiskey itself). By sending out small items at no cost to the recipient, they are strengthening the brand by giving a feeling that Jack Daniels cares about its customers and likes to reward them for their loyalty.

Grafik Magazine Discontinued. The Future of Magazines?

I've recently heard about the magazine Grafik being discontinued. Just over a ago I had a subscription to the mag and did enjoy reading through the articles and reviews. It brings into mind the question of how important magazines are these days, especially when the internet is so readily available with it's mountain of up to date information. I like to have my magazines as reference material, but they take up so much room and sometimes finding an article or designer can take ages as I have to search through each journal. Using bookmarks on internet browsers are much easier, and you can search for words or phrases in text. Computers can break though, and what if all those bookmarks are lost? It would be as though someone has stolen your library, and I'm not sure if there's many of those crimes in the UK.

There's just something nice about having an item to own and keep. The internet is great, and I'm not giving up on magazines and books.

Stumbleupon Redesign

I absolutely love stumbleupon.  I've spent many hours getting lost in the internet browsing through websites, blogs, portfolios, videos and games. So when I saw the redesign of my procrastination tool by Huge, I was happy to see it looking more sophisticated. The logo feels more considered and designed, that's not saying the previous logo wasn't good, but it felt slightly dated. With stumbleupon becoming more popular by the day, it needs to be at the forefront to fend off any competition that may arise.Saying all that though, I feel that the logo and text are slightly mismatched. The icon is great, and so is the type, but when put together they typeface doesn't seem as smooth as the logo.

                                      Old Logo
                                     

                                     New Logo