Holiday Greetings, from Circle!

Holiday Greetings!, originally uploaded by Adrian J.K. Shum, CGD.

From all of us at Circle - Merry everything to you and yours!! Cheers!!!

In lieu of the traditional, Circle has opted to distribute holiday greetings electronically (past cards drew from Chinese proverbs, ancient rune translations, etc.). This year's message was written by Robert L. Peters.

Recommended Viewing: guardiandojo.ca

New Guardian Dojo - Kyokushin Karate Canada website, originally uploaded by Adrian J.K. Shum, CGD.

I'm very pleased to announce the launch of a new responsive design website for Guardian Dojo - Kyokushin Karate Canada. Please visit us at www.guardiandojo.ca - be sure to check it out on your iPad or mobile device!

Launched just in time for the presentation I will be giving at the next PechaKucha Night Winnipeg - Vol.12... the last one for 2012. Should be interesting to say the least!

Hope to see you there! Osu!

COOL! www.typographicposters.com

If you like typography, and/or posters (I like both), I highly recommend you check out www.typographicposters.com... an online collection of largely type-based posters from around the globe... sweet! Go check them out for yourself at www.typographicposters.com - enjoy!

Kudos to Robert L. Peters and Matthew Wells for the link - cheers!

COOL! iPhone - Typographic Reference Manual...

I'm on the verge of taking the plunge, and getting me an iPhone... do I really need it? No. Do I want one? HELL YEAH! The fact that GDC Members can get a discounted iPhone rate from Rogers adds to the enticement... ;P

Seriously, aside from the obvious 'cool factor', the iPhone applications are what really attract me... like the one above, which was recently posted to the GDC Listserve by Marilyn Matty - a long standing contributor to the GDC Listserve. If you're a designer, I'd think that this application will be highly valuable to you... learn more about the application at their website, http://typographyapp.com/ - enjoy!

Thanks to the Marilyn for sharing the link with the GDC Listserve - cheers!

Recommended Viewing | GOOD Transparencies Archive...

A recent query on the GDC Listserve for books discussing the topic of information graphics inspired me to post a link to the GOOD Magazine Transparencies Archive set on Flickr

The kind folks over at GOOD Magazine, whom I've blogged about previously on MUHSASHUM, here, never cease to impress with their handling of complex information in graphical formats.

Well, I'm an obvious fan, so this set on Flickr is pure 'eye-candy' to me... ;D check out the GOOD Magazine Transparencies Archive set on Flickr, here - enjoy!

If you're still interested in books about information graphics, I'd recommend you check out the works of Edward Tufte - cheers!

Recommended Viewing | Carved in Stone...

The Leeds School of Business flew master lettercutter Douglas Coffin from Sandpoint Maine to carve the Koelbel name into a new building.

Coffin is one of only six lettercutters in the US. View the video to see the carving in progress and hear Coffin describe the art, techniques, and pleasure inherent in this rare (perhaps dying?) art form. Watch the video embedded above or on YouTube, here - enjoy!

Happy 25th Birthday Tetris!

This Saturday, Tetris the world famous falling brick/puzzle game turns 25! Excerpt from CNET news:

...created by Russian programmer Alexey Pajitnov in June 1984, Alexy had an immense love for puzzles, and felt compelled to create a game that allowed players to arrange distinctive puzzle pieces along the bottom of a field or "matrix." Pajitnov chose the name Tetris by combining the words "tetromino" and "tennis." The game was first made available on the IBM computer.

It quickly enjoyed popularity and was ported to a variety of other platforms. In 1987, it became a major hit in the United States. But it wasn't until Nintendo released its version of Tetris for the Game Boy in 1989 that Tetris reached critical mass. According to The Tetris Co., the Game Boy version of Tetris sold more than 35 million copies.

I have fond memories of playing Tetris on my original Game Boy (back in the day)... video games and technology has come a long way in 25 years. In celebration of this historic occasion, I offer you Human Tetris, watch the video embedded above or on YouTube, here - enjoy!

COOL! Compfight...

Compfight is a really neat, Flickr image search tool. Intended for finding images on Flickr for comps, inspiration or research, Compfight is not affiliated with Flickr but makes good use of the Flickr API.

There are a number of different settings you can use to filter your search results, try Compfight out for yourself and see what you think, check it out at www.compfight.com - always double check the image license before use (CC or otherwise) and respect the rights of the content creators... enjoy!

COOL! Graphic Design - The Forgotten Web Standard (Video)...

Graphic Design: The Forgotten Web Standard on Vimeo.

The following video was played as part of Mike Kus' talk at FOWD London 2009. It's sped up footage of Mike designing his slides for his talk. Mike thought that it would be interesting to show it because he thought it would interesting to see the design process he went through whilst making them. It also features a footage of slides being designed that never made it to the final slide deck... it's quite neat IMO.

You can view Mike's presentation at FOWD London 2009 , here - enjoy! Thanks to Davin Greenwell for posting the link to the GDC Listserve - cheers!

COOL! Book Cover Archive...

A very cool and handy website to share, www.bookcoverarchive.com - is a website dedicated to the appreciation and categorization of excellence in book cover design (all covers are the copyright of their respective publishers).

Browse covers via designer, book title, genre, etc., - go and check it out for yourself at http://www.bookcoverarchive.com/ - enjoy!

Thanks to Ian MacCausland and Rob Peters for the link! Cheers!

COOL! Happy Valentine's Day...

...from Marian Bantjes. I received this in the mail earlier this week. Mysterious...


...lovely (and sweet - FYI, the chocolates weren't from Marian, they're from the equally lovely & sweet, Carol MacKay)


...and very much appreciated! Thank you Marian!

Happy Valentine's Day! Apologies for the poor quality images, as usual they really can't do Marian's work justice.

Go visit Marian's website at http://www.bantjes.com/ to see better pics and read the description of the project by Marian, here - cheers!

Recommended Viewing | 2008 GDC Manitoba Chapter Annual Report...

The 2008 GDC Manitoba AGM and Graphex 2008 exhibition was held yesterday evening at the Park Theater. In case that you missed it, pictures from the event have been uploaded to the GDC Manitoba group pool on Flickr and a PDF version of the annual report (designed by Jeope Wolfe, MGDC and Communications Chair for GDC Manitoba) has been uploaded to the GDC Manitoba Chapter website.

Visit the Manitoba Chapter website to download a PDF copy of the annual report, here - enjoy!

Thanks to my fellow Board Members/Executives for an awesome two years, to those who are leaving, you're contributions will be greatly missed! For those who decided to stay, and the new members who decided to step-up, I look forward to working with you over the next two years. Cheers!

R.I.P. Shigeo Fukuda | 1923-2009

It's with great sadness that I learned today through Rob that Shigeo Fukuda (an internationally recognized Graphic Designer, Design Sensei, artist, sculptor, and master illusionist) has passed on. Long have I been an admirer of Fukuda-san's work, I love his poster work.



The international design community mourns, as one of its brightest stars (or a comet if you prefer) has fallen. There's an article in the Icograda eNews regarding his passing, here. You can view some examples from his prolific body of work, here and here - enjoy.

Rest in peace Fukuda-san. You will be missed.

The Year is 2009...

Wow. It feels somewhat odd to say that... the year is 2009. For me personally, 2008 was a blur of a year. My apologies for the lack of posts over the past few weeks... I took some time off from blogging over the holiday season, but hope to be back to a more regular posting schedule soon. Look for some interesting things to come... ;)

Until then, a belated Happy New Year!, wishes for peace and prosperity to all in 2009! Cheers!

Recommended Viewing | The Grid System...

I highly recommend you check out The Grid System, the ultimate online resource for grid systems. Excerpt from the website:

Made popular by the International Typographic Style movement and pioneered by legends like Josef Müller-Brockmann and Wim Crouwel, the grid is the foundation of any solid design. The Grid System is an ever-growing resource where graphic designers can learn about grid systems, the golden ratio and baseline grids. Created by Antonio Carusone, graphic designer and author of the design and typography blog AisleOne.

Some very cool and highly informative stuff (IMO) on this website... check it out for yourself at http://www.thegridsystem.org/ - cheers!

Recommended Viewing | Designing Minds: Marian Bantjes...

Designing Minds has posted a video of Marian Bantjes (friend, renowned designer, illustrator and typographer extraordinaire) from her appearance at the Design Matters Live event presented by Adobe and the AIGA. From the Designing Minds description:

A portrait of world-renowned designer, illustrator and typographer Marian Bantjes sharing her love for the design community and the importance of staying connected, even while working from her idyllic rural home studio. She speaks about her transition from a more traditional design career path to a much more personally fulfilling mix of work. Marian has an obvious love for what she does, sharing some of the inspiration for her recent projects as diverse as hand-drawn valentines to the type treatment for the "Want It!" campaign at Saks Fifth Avenue.

Marian's insights in this portrait are important for anyone who cares passionately about design and respects the craft of the artist.



Credits:

Producer: Rachel Talbot
Associate Producer and Sound Engineer: Matthew Hendershot
Editor: Lance Edmands
Assistant Editing: Hei-Man (Anita) Yu
Camera: Michael Coleman
Additional Camera: Michael Tucker, Rachel Talbot
Animation: Colin Yu
Design Matters Live poster: Marion Bantjes
Music: Music Box
Design Matters theme music: RJD2

You can watch the video embedded above or via Zoom In, here. Read my previous posts about the über-talented Marian Bantjes, here - enjoy! Go Marian Go!

Via Type for you.

GDC MB Lunch Talk w/ Tétro Design...

Yesterday, we had the first GDC Manitoba Lunch Talk for the Fall season, "Designing the GDC National Website." This lunch talk was presented by Paul and Andrea Tétrault (Tétro Design), and focused on the design of the 'front-end' of the new GDC National Website (CMS/'back-end' coding powered by SmallBox Software).


The presentation was well attended, informative and enlightening... I think Tétro has done a great job, and deserve applause/thanks from all the GDC. You can see more pictures from Paul and Andrea's presentation on my Flickr, or via the GDC Manitoba/GDC National Flickr Pools - enjoy! Thanks again to Tétro, for a job well done!

The GDC Manitoba Lunch Talks, are part of the Manitoba Chapters' ongoing professional development activities... as the current Activities Chair for the GDC Manitoba Chapter, I'm looking forward to the lunch talks and activities we've got planned down the road! Look for more information to come... visit the GDC Manitoba Chapter website often, for more information and updates as they become available - cheers!

Cursive...

This past weekend I was in Brandon, Manitoba (with my brother) to attend the Battle in Brandon, a kickboxing/muay thai event (held at the Wheat City Golf Course/Curling Rink) where Guardian Dojo members, Sean Devlin and Rox Lui competed. Anyhow, while having dinner with my brother, we couldn't help but notice the diversity of the handwriting on the wall (signatures on charity donation cards)... it was interesting to see the variety, which brings us to the topic of today's post. When was the last time that you wrote/used cursive handwriting?

Now, I handwrite on a daily basis but, it's definitely not in the traditional cursive style (as seen in the above image)... I don't even recall the last time I wrote in true cursive. I wonder how many people today, can write the cursive alphabet without reference (do they even teach this in school anymore?). We tried while waiting for our dinner and both of us failed miserably... sad.

Give it a whirl! Don't look at the image above! See how well you recall your cursive - cheers!

Image via Wikipedia

WICKED! Design Ignites Change Poster by Marian Bantjes...

My apologies for the lack of posts this past week... I've been rather busy (I realize that's not the best excuse - so sue me). ;P Anyhow, I received this awesome (understatement), Design Ignites Change poster in the mail last week and have only now, gotten around to opening the poster tube and snapping a couple pictures to share with you all. The poster was designed by the exceptionally talented, Canadian designer, illustrator and typographer, Marian Bantjes (who's work I've long been a fan of - see here).


This laser cut poster was designed for the AED (the Academy for Educational Development), as part of their ongoing AED Design Social Change Projects. The proceeds from this poster went towards supporting AED's Speak for the Child project, which provides assistance to children orphaned by HIV/AIDS in Kenya (a very worthy cause in my opinion). You can read more about the laser-cut poster on Marian's website, here - and on AED's Design Social Change site, here.

This poster will go quite nicely with the other Marian Bantjes poster/work I have in my collection. Both these posters (as far as I know) are SOLD OUT! But, if my 'Spidey-sense' is correct, you can expect to see more amazing/inspirational work from Marian soon!



Images (from top to bottom): the Design Ignites Change poster, the poster back-lit on the Circle light table, a cropping of a portion of the other Marian Bantjes poster in my collection (sadly, pictures could never do this intricate, vector poster justice, it's run in a metallic blue ink on a heavy weight paper and the detail is mind blowing), a close-up detail from the above poster.

Go Marian Go! Cheers!

Wicked Artist | Dan Dos Santos...

My good friend, local designer/illustrator James Gillespie (KALAMAFRAZ), sent me this YouTube link to Dan Dos Santos' Warbreaker Cover Illustration - Oil Painting Demonstration. All I can say is WOW. Check it out on YouTube, here. You can see more of Dan's work on his website at http://www.dandossantos.com/ - enjoy!

Thanks for sending me the link James, cheers!