Secret Still

I’ve been needing to look for more design inspiration lately, so that pays off for you in the form of more links to designers. Things were getting a little art heavy around here anyway. I know you were thinking it, sitting over there, silently judging in your big chair by the fire, slowly petting your Dieter Rams designed Braun radio. Cool your seething, designers, with the refreshing flavors of Ptarmak. Smooth, stylish, and low-calorie identity work/package design/print design to quench your thirst. Goes down smooth.

Ptarmak

When I was looking around for inspiration for a menu design I’m working on , I came across the work of Trish Papadakos, whose work is even better than her name is fun to say. And she seriously hits all the bases with web and print design, photography, branding, and much more. Damn, woman, save some for the rest of us.

Trish Papadakos

What with being a painter, designer, illustrator, pinstriper, and a few other little pies that she manages to have her fingers in, it’s amazing to me that Josie Morway has time to sleep. And who knows, maybe she doesn’t sleep, maybe she keeps both eyes wide open and focused in a state somewhere between meditation and cat-like alertness. Who can really say? But what I do know is that anyone who can dedicate enough time and effort to painting beautiful type combined with beautiful birds is a-ok with me. If I wasn’t afraid that she would break my hand with the force of her focus, I would high five that sleep-deprived magic woman.

Josie Morway

Let’s ease back into this before I head off for another long weekend. We’ll start off with Mateusz Kołek, an illustrator with the kind of understanding of color and line weight that only comes from days of staring at a blank space, stoned out of your mind, Molly Hatchett playing in the background, and a pencil in your hand like a cobra ready to strike. I’m not saying that’s the only way to go about it, but it’s the best way. I learned it from Da Vinci in a bar in Alabama one night in ‘65. I think Kołek knew it instinctively, like bears know to hibernate in the Winter. Jesus, what the hell am I talking about?

Mateusz Kołek

I think we can all agree that a good juxtaposition makes the best results: peanut butter is salty, jelly is sweet; Cocaine is an upper, heroin is a downer; I am pretty awesome, most of the rest of the world is not. It’s the juxtaposition of soft illustration style with bright-ass colors that makes Veronica Hebard’s illustrations so great. I actually think my retina came detached a little bit from the brightness, but you see what I mean. If you didn’t learn the lesson from Paula Abdul that opposites attract, then Hebard can drive it home. And you won’t even have to dance on a roof with a cartoon cat…unless that’s just something you’re into.

Veronica Hebard

Turkey time is over and we have now entered Crimmas time, a time of year when people give me things, and, as much as I’ve tried to persuade them otherwise, they expect me to give them things in return. Sure I could make something to give them, and it would make them really happy, because look at all the time I spent on it, but that would require me spending a lot of time trying to make people happy, which is not really something I’m into. Assuming that you, like me, would rather just buy something nice and have some cash left over to get yourself something you really want, I’ve compiled a short list of cheap art for you to gift to your loved ones and Secret Santa recipients this year that will leave them smiling and not feeling like they got ripped off even though they got you an iPod. See the list after the jump.

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Let’s keep the good design theme going with the work of Megan Cummins. All of her work is well thought out with the end user experience in mind, and I especially love her packaging design. You people and your good designs are making me itch to blow the dust of my wacom.

Megan Cummins

Some good, clean design for your Friday flavor. This should keep you classy well into your 5th drink after work.

Michael Freimuth

I know that dude is blowing up on the internet recently, but I would be remiss if I didn’t mention that Christopher Delorenzo can do no wrong design-wise. I’m pretty sure that he and Frank Chimero need to form like Voltron and melt our brains out with their laser-sword of amazing illustration. In the meantime, Chris has me opening my sketchbook after a long hiatus, so now I owe him a serious favor. Need anybody killed, Chris?

Christopher Delorenzo

Some of that good, medical grade vector illustration to take you to new places. This shit will get you high on flavor alone.  Click, click, pass.

Robert Samuel Hanson