Marimekko's fall collection

Flavia tunic / Becky dress / Meri dress

Karin dress / Kamilla dress

Purnukka Red

Ginkgo Gold

Marimekko (a Finnish textile and clothing design company) has done it again! I would love to wear anything from the fall collection, sadly they're a bit out of my price range right now. The prints with warm autumn colours combined with black, white and grey and large shapes are simply lovely. 

the magic roundabout

More from Cardiff! We drove past a roundabout with these sculptures in the middle and I was hanging out from the car window trying to take a photo. There was an international competition to design sculpture for this important road junction at an entrance to a large residental area and the winner was Pierre Vivant. He designed these five huge geometric shapes constructed with aluminium frames and covered by traffic signs. When we drove past again at night the sculptures looked completely different, the car headlights make the fraffic signs light up and it looked quite beautiful. It's popularly known as 'the magic roundabout'. 

Pierre Vivant also designed this sculpture in London called the Traffic Light Tree. 

A Book of Wonder

This is one of those books you really don't need but it's so nice to have on the shelf! I like the typeface on the glittery cover but it's very hard to read except from a certain angle! A Book of Wonder is a kind of illustrated encyclopedia of collected wonders of the world. People from the UK and around the world wrote things that they think are somehow amazing or wonderful. The book was designed by graphic design studio Kerr Noble and I think they did a fantastic job. I especially like the decorative drop capitals at the start of each section and the almost childlike doodles by James and James. I love how random the things are that people have come up with for the book! 

For example:

  Bunny. When I am on the train on my way to work I know it's going to be a good day if I see a bunny in the field. Holly, recruitment consultant, London. 

Sea Horses. The only species that I know of where the male becomes pregnant. Debbie Roberts, helpdesk administrator, Leicester.

Wine. Glug, glug, glug. Oliver Reynolds, amateur viticulturalist, London.

Air de Paris

This enormous helium balloon 'Air de Paris' by Aerophile was designed to show the people of Paris the levels of pollution in the city air. When the balloon is glowing red the air is highly polluted, orange for polluted, yellow for moderate and green for clean air ! You can see it from 20 km away! It's an interesting concept but I wonder how it works during daytime? 

Tenhola

wallpainting for Pispala modern art center, Tampere

'Freoni World'

I don't know what this was for but I love it how many different faces you can find in this drawing, I can't stop looking at it now..

Tenhola is a website of two artists, Teemu Raudaskoski and Antti Jussila.. there's not a lot of information on the artists on their Tenhola website but there is a lot of interesting, kind of strange art, illustrations, photos and some music clips and other recordings. They have done a lot of wallpaintings for different spaces; galleries, pubs and a nursery. The wallpaintings are amazing, I love their abstract style.

BonBon Kakku

BonBon Kakku (kakku = Finnish for cake, how cute is that name..) is an internet store where you can design your own fabrics. All the fabrics people have designed are published on the website and everyone can vote for them. If your design gets enough votes it will also be sold on the website! I've posted my favourite ones here. It's interesting to look through the designs because they are not by professional designers!

Kokoro & Moi

Graphic identity for the play The Last Beauty of the Day at the Helsinki City Theatre

Graphic identity for nightclub Bläk

illustration for NORD magazine, a semiannual German cultural magazine on Nordic culture

After seeing some really good adverts designed by Kokoro & Moi (a design consultancy in Helsinki) I wanted to check out what else they have done and there is a lot of interesting work on their website!+ the website is cool too. I especially like the logo designs. 

huge, enormous Decathlon

This is a print ad campaign for sports store Decathlon by Young & Rubicam advertising it as 'The biggest sports store ever.' It's a simple idea and I think they've come up with quite a clever way of saying it's a huge store where you can find any sport equipment you need. I especially like the ones with just the big letters, simple and effective. 

graphic-exchange.com

Installation by Jeff Soto

illustration by gingermonkeydesign

graphic-exchange.com is a website created by graphic designer Fabien Barral. He collects the work of his favourite designers, photographers, artists etc. and some of his personal work. I spent ages going through this website and found some very interesting and inspiring projects from graphic design, print, web design, photography, interior design and packaging. I would love to have one of these engraved macbooks I found in the design/objects section by engraveyourtech.com, especially this one inspired by the Finnish culture and Suomi (Finnish for Finland) engraved in the middle.

Cardboard table

Liborius Reykjavik designed this portable cardboard table aiming to assist for example designers and students. I think it's a very witty idea. It's so simple but it seems quite handy and functional! The table is biodegradable and it can easily be folded up to pack into a portable carrier. I'm not so sure how a 400 dollar table is "student friendly" though...?!

Growing business card

When you give someone your business card and really want them to remember you here's a very clever way by graphic designer and illustrator Jamie Wieck. He designed a business card that transforms from a regular business card to a miniature house plant. 'Another Bloomin' Designer' written on the front under the happy face and instructions on the back! Who would want to throw something so cute away?

Designed Memory

Designed Memory is a digital design studio based in New York specialising in interactive design for fashion and luxury brands. Designed Memory's work has such beautiful hand drawn texture, fluid motion and humour you just want to keep searching around! I love the way they've used collages for example for the website for fashion designer Chris Benz.. 

Some of my favourite websites designed by Designed Memory: Amalia, Rory Beca, Chris Benz and The Paper Moon Project

Invisible Streetlights

What if instead of standard streetlights parks and other public places were brightened by solar-powered 'leaf' streetlights? That's the idea behind Jongoh Lee's elegant invisible streetlight. The lamps are designed to wind around existing branches and store the sun's energy throughout the day. “The most innovative element of Invisible Streetlight is that it does not require a support because the flexible body in the shape of tree branch is directly installed to the trees lining a street.”

The invisible streetlight was recently awarded with an IDEA (International Design Excellence Awards) award.

funky forest

This amazing digital forest called Funky Forest was created by visual and motion graphics designer Emily Gobeille and interactive artist and designer Theodore Watson. They created it for the Cinekid Festival in Amsterdam. The installation is a simulated experience where visitors influence the environment around them. For example, by diverting streams of water flowing on the floor different parts of the forest grow. If a tree doesn't get enough water it dies but standing against a wall and pressing your body into the forest creates new trees based on your shape. This installation is simply amazing, beautifully illustrated and colourful. 

I would love to have actually been there. 

You can watch a video of it here!

big head coasters

J-me is a company that specialises in the design of contemporary gifts and accessories for the home. It was founded by two brothers, Mark and Jamie. These big head coasters are a good example of their fun and witty style! When not in use you can stand them back up to wait for your next cup of tea, serves them right for having such a huge head!

Rocking wheel chair

I'm not sure how comfortable this wheel chair would be to sit on-  but the design looks great and so stylish! It was designed by Mathias Koehler. There is a light in the upper part of the chair and maybe the coolest thing is that the power source is charged by the rocking motion itself located in the back of the chair. I think this chair needs armrests to be more comfortable but then it might not look as good..