dynagirl

“I don’t have to get all dressed up like I’m going to Wal-Mart or something…”
Via Day of the Deadly

MIT Advertising lab has a really nice collection of magazine and newspaper ads that use the properties of paper very creatively. I love this ad for car polish.

Type in Web 2.0 logos round, soft and friendly. Also, the official color is chartreuse, but I already knew that. There’s chartreuse everywhere you look in women’s clothing this spring, too.

A ginormous collection of Dr. Pepper rip-offs, with photos of each can. Browse the lot of them, and you’ll start to wonder what would happen if next time you ordered a soda you asked for “doctor flavor.”

Neutral-good CSS ROCKSTAR — level six, without the book which would be about food, anyway.
Via 456 Berea Street

Yesterday I played around with the new CS/Flickr fad of making fake miniatures from photos. This is the best so far. Way funner than making acutal miniatures.

Czech book design from the 1920s: pretty pretty!

If Microsoft rebranded the iPod.

Guide to Printing & Having a Successful Press Check.

Colorburn is a cute Tiger widget that gives you a daily color set for inspiration.

I’d never had a problem with people snarfing images before – using images I’ve posted here on their own pages, but linking to them directly rather than uploading them to their own server. I don’t check my stats too often, and just saw a huge traffic spike from various MySpace accounts. “Wow! I’m popular! I must have fans!” thought I… ha! Hardly. People seem fond of the Eddie Izzard and boob-tube sweater (NSFW) pictures. Too bad, babies, ’cause I just finally got around to adding some juju to my .htaccess file to stop that shit.

How to create monochrome textual illustrations from photographs using Photoshop.

Rooms painted in ways that look strange, until viewed from a particular angle – and then it’s a freak-out.

Here, we have the new Bud Select gem, Expect Everything. Expect everything? My friends (and enemies), this is a line that went through focus groups and across the desks of several marketing MBA “whizzes.” So, let’s say… …I twist open a BS at a bar and I instantly turn into a Dodo Bird? Should’ve expected it.

Change hair color in Photoshop, a simple tutorial.

If only there were Honey Nut Jesus-O’s to go with your Kabbalah sugar water and your Optimum Zen cereal.

Seriously, what the fuck?

The Cycloc – cooool. Of course, you need a wall to hang it on, which doesn’t really work when you have too many bikes and no garage. But still!!
via A Whole

I noticed this some time ago already ( the current look, Disco CoolVetica, dates from May 2004 ) — which means that Helvetica, timeless as it is, and as gorgeous as it is, is somewhat played. What, then, is the new brown? Or is Helvetica’s resurgence a harbinger of a larger trend, towards elegant “classics” that may have been ahead of their time with their clean lines and optimistic, future-looking design?

For one thing, look for a lot more Century Gothic, Elephant, Engravers, Futura, with clear colors. Oh, sort of like I already did over here. I wish the client would send me copy so we can launch that already. HI, MOM!!

Between my coat (North Face hardshell + Land’s End softshell), my jacket and my trousers, I have EIGHTEEN pockets on today. Fuck purses! This is much more practical. Well, until I start digging through eighteen pockets looking for something…

Let the DOM and Javascript add those nasty extra divs. Sweet; sweet sweet sweet!

Still a working draft, but at least it’s something. Also, techniques for implementation.

The Barbara Kruger Graphic Standards Manual

You’ve probably noticed all of this, but it’s a very nice enunciation of branding and design in this category.

Usable wall colors. Jakob Nielsen, I hate you.

1. punk band
2. punk Celtic band
3. girl band
4. girl 60s British pop singer
5. neurotransmitter receiver in the spleen

Turns out that I was sort of correct with nos. 2 and 4. It’s British, all right, but it’s window cleaner. Hunh.

DesignMadison is setting up a CafePress store to make t-shirts available, and I was wondering if it had been set up yet. I searched “design madison” and this t-shirt came up. Awesome!

Salon.com “redesigns” to celebrate its tenth anniversary, and looks older and more tired than ever. Plus, a quick check of the code reveals ninety errors. It’s also slow as molasses. There’s no excuse for that much ugliness.

The Design Encyclopedia. It’s just started, and it’s fabulous, and will be moreso as it grows.

A List Apart answers the questions I was just recently puzzling out — how to have a lovely, high-resolution image for your print CSS, and a regular webby one for screen media. Neato.

Turn Your Head takes your profile and turns it into a real version of those optical-illusion vase/two-people things. How cool is that?!