Secret Still

What are you doing for the next 27 years? Probably having a family, working, replacing a couple of water heaters in your house. Designer Nicole Meyer will be creating brands for the 10,000 lakes of Minnesota, one a day, every day. It’s a daunting task to be sure, but she seems in pretty good spirits about it, and so far all of her designs are fantastic. This is a good thing for those of you out there in the design world, because someone that talented and prolific has focused on something other than stealing all of your clients by just being better. Breathe easy, guys.

Branding 10,000 Lakes

This dude is so clever and so sharp, that if you did cut yourself on his sharpness, he would be clever enough to figure out a way to turn it into some kind of plastic surgery so you’d come out looking better than ever. Once again proving: don’t fuck with the Swedish when it comes to design.

Hampus Jageland

Clean, considered, and prolific. I don’t know why I haven’t heard of him before, but Andreas Neophytou is a damn fine graphic designer. Well played, sir.

Andreas Neophytou

Gonna throw some design at you today, because Fridays and rain mix to bum me out. Nothing picks me back up like some quality design work, especially when I’ve got my own projects to work on. No, I’m kidding; I don’t actually have emotions, but I was trying to be relatable. Isn’t this how people talk? Blah blah my dog, blah blah total bummer, blah pants.  You don’t pay me to talk though, you pay me to find things to look at, so look at Veronica Stark’s work. It falls into the ever-growing pile of work that I’m labeling “considered.” That’s my new verbiage, coming soon to your area code, and it means that the designer actually took the time to think about what they were designing for. You’d be surprised how often that doesn’t happen, or maybe how often the considering has no subtlety. Veronica’s work is considered, beautiful, and as subtle as a ninja’s ghost. Blah blah Obama-care.

Veronica Stark

Brooklyn designer and all around creative scientist, Kelli Anderson caught my attention today with her well-considered and, more importantly, beautiful design. Jill-of-all-trades to be sure, Anderson dabbles in just about every creative endeavor under the sun, and that’s probably what I appreciate the most about her work. She’s willing to do whatever it takes to get the best result from a project; she even owns her own letterpress, if that helps you to understand what kind of a perfectionist she must be. And it works. Everything she does turns out fantastic. Keep that fearlessness in mind the next time you’re trying to find a solution; don’t be afraid to try something completely unknown to you.

Kelli Anderson

Hand-drawn type-o-phile (that’s a lot of dashes) Danielle Davis is getting my design dander up with her cleverness and simplicity. She covers the whole gamut of designer-y things, and does a fine job of them all. Maybe I should go for an MFA. No, I feel like that would get in the way of my beer making, or more importantly, my beer drinking. Prioritization is the key to a happy life.

Danielle Davis

Very, very nice design work from NY/Barcelona design hero Mark Brooks. Why is he a hero? Because not many designers have the guts to start their own product line and keep up the design work at the same time. If ever there was a reason for meth addiction, it would be Mark Brooks’ work endeavors. I don’t understand how some people get it all done, I just like sleeping too much. And baths. I am basically a brown bear. This explains so much.

Mark Brooks

Really fantastic and simple design work from Dom Murphy. His web design has me itching to try out a couple of ideas. Maybe when I get through with the 30 other projects in line before it. I wouldn’t hold my breath if I were you, website. No, shh shh, it’s ok….you’re pretty, too. Who’s my special website?

Dom Murphy

More than a few years ago, when I was still in college, I was home from school for the weekend and me and my friends, as usual, were taking extremely high doses of LSD and seeing how long we could survive. For some reason a consensus was reached that we should go to a house party where there were people we knew. I drove at night in the rain and only avoided crashing because the lines on the road reflected the light back so severely that I thought the road was on fire and I was trying not to melt the tires. We walked in to a breakdance battle where I believe someone mimed throwing a Street Fighter style fireball at their opponent. It cemented my understanding of the innate ridiculousness of being anything at all. One good thing to come out of that party was that we re-met Staci Janik. We knew her from high school, but she was there and she UNDERSTOOD us; not easily done by a many people at that point. We adopted her into our group (whether she wanted it or not) right then and there. She became The Girl. We already had The Little Girl, and Staci is too tall for that name anyway. We all loved her (did you know that, Staci?) in our individual ways, and she brought us new ideas in return. You would think that after all that, I would be biased, but luckily for me I’m too much of an asshole to ever be biased by love.

SO. It gives me nothing but joy to tell you about the design work of Staci Janik, a person who can never stop being a part of my family. Her work is simple, uncluttered, and beautiful. I can nerd out on her type choices, I can sit back and enjoy her layout, and more than that I can see her style in every stitch. It’s all classy yet playful and beguiling, like an Audrey Hepburn smile or that one little cloud sailing all by itself in miles of empty, bright blue sky. I don’t need to say much more than that. The Girl understands.

Staci Janik

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