Wonderwall is interior design firm in Japan that not only has a pretty impressive portfolio of work, but their website is something of which I have never seen.  The site bubbles and moves with every roll over on the front utilizing Flash and presents information and interactivity in a very refined yet fun way.  As I’ve said before, I love Flash components that just work, and the Wonderwall site definately does just that.

Double cheers for great design!

(Found via SwissMiss)

News in the design world is that Font Bureau, one of the largest type design companies in the country, are taking NBC to court for the unlicensed use of several of their popular fonts.  In a suit for ‘no less that $2 million,’ Font Bureau indicates that NBC used Bureau Grotesque, Interstate and Antenna on several computers throughout the company without paying for all the copies.

Shame on you, NBC!  You know just because you can copy it, doesn’t mean it’s legal.  And it’s awfully funny that a company that started its own online video streaming site in reaction to posting clips of SNL and Conan on YouTube would be so lax in their distribution on another company’s intellectual property.  You know better than to do that, especially when you hire tons of people to score the depths of YouTube for anything that had to do with one of your many TV programs, movies, or news broadcasts.

As a result, NBC has had to redesign much of their fall network promotional materials, which may have not really even be a bad idea.  Maybe all the promos for the Jay Leno Show will be misplaced, saving millions of people from having to continue to see his face.  Anywhere.  We can always hope!

Found via CityFile, where you can also read/see the legal paperwork from the case.

This is amazing:  Odosketch is a super great online sketching app that allows, well, you to sketch using a variety of brushes and colors.  The brushes act sort of like pastel crayons and allow for some really awesome things.  They also have a gallery of creations from other people, some of which are really, really awesome.  And the best part is that you can watch them draw the sketch out on the screen.

Definitely check it out! Cheers!

Take a look at who recently redesigned their site and the changes look amazing: BrandNew the blog that discusses idenity and well, branding, has put together quite the fancy redesign, moving everything to the center rather than the left, and incorporating some pretty awesome textures.

If you’ve never been to BrandNew, you haven’t lived.  They bring you up-to-date info on what’s going on in the world of logos and is apart of the Under Consideration family, which is also awesome.

Tim & Eric, Great Job! on this one guys.  Keep up the awesome work!

One of my most favorite things in the world are Flash elements that just simply do their job.  Elements that can wow you with just the ultility of their design, the ease of use, the power of the simple functions.  And most of all, I love when these things are free, downloadable, easy to maintain, and awesome.

Let me introduce you to The Photo Viewers by AIRTIGHT INTERACTIVE, because they are easily becoming some of my favorite things.

Providing FREE and easily usable photo gallery viewers, these are the tops and do exactly what they should.  In several styles to suit your photo/graphic needs, definitely make these apart of your life.  I do a lot of maintance or fast creative development for the web, and I use these frequently, like for a photo gallery for work.

Three cheers for great Flash design!!

(PS I just realized that I’ve blogged about this before…and rightly so!)

For your design enjoyment and inspiration, Smashing Magazine has 50 New Beautiful Blog Designs that really are, beautiful.  Some are simple, some full of rich textures and collage elements, and some that gracefully achieve a pretty design.  Check them out for sure!

PS: Additionally, most of these blogs serve to inspire or share on their own, for even more fun.

This is such a fun idea : Threadcakes is an online contest for bakers and decorators challenged to recreate a Threadless tee in the medium of cake.  Some are awesome and some could use some work, but overall, the gallery of cake submissions features just a ton of great work.  Sweet!

A dude from Google stood at Times Square and asked 50 people “what a browser?” Very few people knew the right answer. This puts a whole new perspective on internet users for me. I guess I’ve just always just been surrounded by people who at least new the basics of the internet, or at least the difference between an internet browser and a search engine. I never realized how little awareness people have of what programs they use.

My mind is blown. (Found via SwissMiss)

Paul Rand, who is probably my most favorite modern designer (well, apart from the Eames), left a legacy of work, theory, and methology that matches no other.  He gracefully and bravely changed the way we think about idenity and design, advertising and convention.  Basically, he’s the boss.  He’s the Charles in Charge.  (what?!)

Paul-Rand.com is a new and excellent site dedicated to the work and philosophy of Rand, with a huge gallery of work, biographies, lots of quotes, and links to stores across these old intenets where you can find first edition children’s book and old IBM packaging.  It has everything.  Everything Rand. Check it out!

(Found via GrainEdit RSS)

PS: You also should watch this amazing short video created by Imaginary Forces as a tribute of his illustrations.  It’s great.

The New Site is UP!

This started back in DECEMBER 08 (remember that?  When Obama had just be elected?) , and we’ve, and really I mean ‘I,’ finally pulled it all together.  We used a great theme called Mimbo to put together a dymanic (hopefully more soon) site that uses WordPress as a CMS and allows for many of people to update and add content without having to understand or read HTML.  And it forced me to learn sort of how PHP functions and how to smoothly and painlessly redirect our site and fix our WordPress links with very little trouble.

Cheers!