Beauty In Everything

Discovering who is behind the wonderful Beauty In Everything website has left me empty handed, but I applaud them and admire the single focus of the site. Using Flickr's API, the site pulls together a curated collection of images that are, well, beautiful. I was honored to have some of my images included today and it made me smile. Thanks Beauty In Everything. I am learning to see beauty in the details and the quiet moments myself.

Blowin' Up My Flickr

Check THIS out. By the Boys at Blow Up.

Book Cover Design Goodness: A Flickr Set

Book design, huh? So you like the books. Like to stare at the books? Feelin' like checkin' out book design and book covers and the like. Well, what are you waiting for? Go here. Or here. Or here. Or here. Or here. Or here. Or here. Or here.

Frog Design: Design Coversations, not Products

I'm a big Frog Design fan. I read about anything these thought leaders have to say. I don't always agree, but in this case I couldn't agree more. So how do you apply this idea to a culture entrenched in products? You know, products with three sides...Front, Back and Inside.

Frog's marketing chief Tim Leberecht says..."When you start with the idea of making a thing, you're artificially limiting what you can deliver. The reason that many of these exemplar's forward-thinking product design succeed is explicitly because they don't design products. Products are realized only as necessary artifacts to address customer needs. What Flickr, Kodak, Apple, and Target all realize is that the experience is the product we deliver, and the only thing that our customers care about."

Read the entire article here.

1964 Marx & Co.: Weird-Oh Digger Plastic Toy

Here's a toy I've had since childhood. It's 43 years old. One owner. He's a Weird-Oh brand and goes by the name Digger. Age 43, marked 1964 by Louis Marx & Company. A Hawk Model to be exact.

See his extended family HERE.

COMPFIGHT: Searching Flickr™ Quickr

Several times in the past I've posted on web tools and Flickr related tag tools that utilize the Flickr API, that allow you to interface with the Flickr community of photos quicker and more intuitively. Enter COMPFIGHT. Another such tool, but this one is especially special.

As Ryan states on his developer page, he and Brian's approach allows a direct click to high resolution images, bypasses four flickr™ interfaces. I am super impressed with COMPFIGHT. It just makes sense, and it has filters such as safe search, seek original, Creative Commons, and a roll over option for pixel dimensions. I have always found Flickr to be a chore. I am a Flickr Pro user, and love it completely, but always hoped they would redesign at some point to address their clunky interface. COMPFIGHT is a step in the right direction. Compfight isn't affiliated with flickr™, but as their page states, "it makes good use of the flickr™ API."

Thanks Ryan and Bryan.

Pictobrowser: A BarryBlog Experiement

Pardon the selfish nature of this post, but I'm experimenting a bit with my Flickr photos, some new code and trying to resize it a bit to fit all nice and whatnot. As a by product of this, you are more than welcome to grab these images and use them for whatever you want. In fact I've made this offer before here and here, and they've been downloaded over 4,500 times so far. Okay, back to the experiment...

Slide and Flickr: Another Experiment

dailypoetics' Flickr Sets: Me Likey

dailypoetic has crafted and shared some really great Flickr sets which I think you'll like, especially if you are Jess or Liz). They include...business card exhibit, things, kids art, inspirational collages, ephemera, copy, hangtags, packaging, stationery, business cards. Some real great finds here. The dailypoetic blog is also interesting. So who is dailypoetic? Well, guess no one will know. Seems to have left no fingerprints, as best I can tell. Hats off, dailypoetic, whoever you are.

Olimpia Zagnoli: Effortless Illustration

There's something effortless about Olimpia Zagnoli's work. Care free looking sketches over cut and found objects, and color like it's second nature, this young illustrator has quite a career ahead of her. If you think her website is nice, check out her Flickr pages. I love her work. It's just right.

She says..."I was born in Montecchio Emilia, near Reggio Emilia, on the 29 February 1984. I had my first crush on Picasso when I was four. At this moment I live in Milan, I'm 23 and I like Pirates, Peanuts and Stationery. When I get old, I'd like to be an Illustrator, a biologist and a rockstar."

( via Children's Illustration )

Book Design: Frances Baca Design LIVE!

Frances Baca caught my eye months ago and she and I bounced emails back and forth. Basically I admired her work when I first discovered it on her Flickr set. She was busy working at that time, with the goal of having her personal website go live. Well, she emailed me today and she's officially up and running. I hope to see more of her work in the future (please, pretty please), but for now here's a look at her work. From my perspective Frances' work could be best described with words such as just right, just enough, not too much, conceptual and communicative, and inspiring. She is definitely gifted, and I believe you'll enjoy seeing her work for yourself. Let her know what you think by leaving a comment and/or emailing her here.

761 Hotel Labels: In Their Graphic Glory

Thanks to AceJet, via davidthedesigner, via Serif, I came across a great Flickr set of hotel tags.