Paul Darragh is a 24 year old art director from New Zealand that does fantastic graphic work. I love the illustrations. There’s also a great interview at etcetering.

Link: Paul Darragh

Almost any graphic designer knows about Herb Lubalin and his legendary font face Avant Garde that he designed for the magazine with the same title back in the sixties. Avant Garde is a difficult face to use in texts, but it’s ligatures and unique cuts are juicy and makes a great headline with lots of character.

I had been searching for the alt versions of Avant Garde for a while before I finally found it via Font Shop. The alt versions contain most of the ligatures Lubalin designed and comes in four different weights. The alts, or ligatures are based on the famous Avant Garde logotype. While searching for the digitalized alt versions, I stumbled upon a small collection of scanned Letraset dry transfer lettering sheets containing some alt versions of the font. While looking through the pages I noticed two alts I have’nt seen before in the digitalized versions: Two beautiful ligatures of “SS” and “Co”.

Apparently, Lubalin did not want to release all of the alternates because he thought they where being misused. So I did my own digitalization of the two lost ligatures in illustrator for you to download as an .eps file and use them in your own designs. Unfortunately I only found the bold version of the ligatures, but it’s still the most common variant for thick headlines. There are probably a lot more ligatures that where lost on their way to digitalization, and I would love to encounter some more letters from this lovely face.

If you’d like to see more of Lubalins work, check out A Tribute to Herb Lubalin.

Links:

• Herb Lubalin (Wikipedia)
• Lost ligatures (eps)
• Letraset dry transfer lettering sheets
• Medalist: Herb Lubalin (AIGA)
• A Tribute to Herb Lubalin

I just finished the design of three posters for a local theater in Sweden. The challenge was exciting and intense; this was to be the premiere shows for the grand opening of the new theater and the posters should reflect their new visual path. Commercial awareness, eye-catching colors and a distinct style was to be blended into three different shows but following the same lead based on the famous Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoevsky (or Fjodor Dostojevskij in Swedish). The three shows where geared towards different ages, one from fifteen years old, one from eleven and one for kids from the age of seven. Kind of like a trilogy but different target audiences.

The client was very thorough and we went through at least 20 sketches before ending up here. They wanted it to look “fresh” and young without revolutionary clichés and vintage swirls. The results as you can see above where three different blends printed in two colors. The illustrations had to be quite simple so they could re-use them in different marketing setups. It couldn’t be to “arty” either, since most of the audience would be in their adolescence or even younger.

The footer and fonts where established at an earlier stage and are meant to be the standard grid for forthcomming plays as well. One of the tougher visual challanges this year, for sure!

The super-talanted Chuck Anderson / nopattern updates his wonderful portfolio full of colorful delights. Don’t miss the prints, the online store and the side project THE BRILLIANCE - really internet. And he’s only 22!

Link: Chuck Anderson / nopattern

Sanna Annukka is an illustrator and printmaker with a love for nature and folklore. Lovely patterns and icons.

Link: Sanna Annukka