Walmart Rebrands

Brand New has mixed feelings about the new Walmart logo, and showcases their brand through the years (including a "frontier font" version during the 60s).

Rob Sheridan: Sketchblog

Bonus post: Who doesn't love stumbling into Monster land on a Saturday afternoon? While doing some technical wrangling behind the scenes at Blogger, I happened onto Rob Sheridan's Sketchblog. Sheridan, an art director and designer based in Los Angeles, maintains his sketch site as a "creative playground" on the side. His over-the-top blog design immediately sets the tone, and he works in a variety of styles, from retro to twisted to comic to cute—his monsters and astronauts are my favorites. He's also got a great series of wallpapers for computer and phone screens—his iPhone drawings are shown below. Enjoy!

CandyKaraoke

More Fun for Friday: For the CandyKaraoke show, over 70 of Ireland's leading artists and designers were asked to re-imagine their favorite album covers. Shown above: David Bowie's Aladdin Sane by Cliona O'Flaherty and Detail's interpretation of Abbey Road. What a cool idea! [via Drawn!]

Face Your Pockets!

Fun for Friday: the Face your pockets! projects wants to know who you are and what you're carrying around—empty the pockets of your bag, jeans, jacket, etc. onto a scanner, get your face in there as well, and create a visual record of your personal inventory. Adding your face is a bit of a new twist on the standard art school "What's in your pockets?" exercise, and the site has some fun images. [Thanks, Yuthi!]

MagCloud

MagCloud is a site that allows you to publish your own magazine. "All you have to do is upload a PDF and we’ll take care of the rest: printing, mailing, subscription management, and more." Could become an nice self-publishing resource, especially for independent artists—a catalog of a recent show or design event, for example. It will be interesting to see how things develop! [via Jason Santa Maria]

2008 Typophile Tee Battle

If you're interested in designing the 2008 Typophile t-Shirt, you have until Monday to post your entry. The winner gets three t-shirts, a copy of FontShop's Fontbook, and credit for the design. A few of the current entries are shown above—there is still time to get in there!

Eames Stamps Have Arrived!

The Eames Stamps promised by the US Postal Service (previously featured here) are now available and can be ordered online! Get them while you can!

ILT's Crossword 2

Though the race to complete the puzzle and win a copy of Veer's Anziano typeface has already been won, you can still tackle ILT's second typography crossword. Stuck? The answers are available in last week's Sunday Type (always chock full of excellent things).

Muji Award International Design Competition 03

The third Muji Award International Design Competition is on! The theme this year is "Found Muji"—find inspiration from "the wisdom accumulated by our predecessors all over the world" and apply it to modern product designs for Muji. For example, designers at Muji discovered that the traditional 90 degree socks hand-knitted by Czech grandmothers fit the foot much better than the shape of most machine-manufactured socks... so they now produce 90 degree machine-made socks. "In this way, a factor found in Czech tradition, culture, and wisdom was converted to a new MUJI product befitting our modern age." Entries will be accepted throughout July. [via Cool Hunting]

Carrie Marill

I'm enjoying the bird paintings of Carrie Marill. I was lucky enough to snag her piece The Faceted Couroucou when it was featured on Jen Bekman's 20x200 last year, but wasn't quick enough to grab today's print of A Dream World Glimmers In The Background Of The Soul (has anyone else noticed that the sellout factor for 20x200 is now almost instant? Sigh...). Marill describes her paintings and drawings as a direct response to her immediate surroundings—she is currently based in Goodyear, Arizona.

Louise Fili

If you are unaware of Louise Fili, take a moment to browse her weighty portfolio of restaurant identity work, package design, and books—you will probably see several things you recognize. Specializing in the design of restaurants and food packaging, Fili designed for Lubalin in the 70s, was recently inducted into the Art Directors Hall of Fame, and has co-authored several books with her husband, Steven Heller, including one of my favorites: Typology: Type Design from the Victorian Era to the Digital Age. [via 37signals]

Little Factory Typographic Scarves

More Fun for Friday: See if you can get your hot little hands on one of Little Factory's Typographic Scarves before they're all sold out! Laser cut from strips of ultrasuede, the scarves are available in uppercase, lowercase and numbered versions. [via Craftzine by way of *g—thanks!]

Michael Hughes: Souvenirs

Fun for Friday: the Souvenirs Flickr set of photographer Michael Hughes. His shots are mini exercises in composition and visual humor, and are as much about the things that we design and purchase to remind us of where we've been as they are about the various locations around the world. [Thanks, Yuthi!]

Jimdo

Jimdo was recently recommended to me as a choice for portfolio sites. Much like Carbonmade (previously featured here), this seems like a relatively sleek, affordable and manageable option. Note: if anyone is using these free/inexpensive sites for their design portfolios, send me a link! I'd love to check things out...

US Political Election Graphics Collection

Logoblink has a nice collection of US political logos through the years, including LBJ's cowboy hat graphic, Fred Thompson's purple Hollywood glamor shot, Jackson's rainbow, and lots of heavily dated typography (oh, the 70s!). Fascinating as a timeline of type and graphics trends, funnier as a stroll through politics past.

Scrnshots

Scrnshots is exactly that: screenshots. Intended as a way to share screenshots of web and screen-based design, the site allows you to tag, save favorites and share images with others. Similar to what Patrick Haney is doing on Flickr with his Web Design Inspiration photo pool (previously featured here), but with a broader community focus. A potential source of inspiration. [Thanks, Alex!]

Corporate Logo Mashups

Brazilian designer Mario Amaya's initial series of corporate logo mashups created such online buzz that he put out a second series. Some are bizarre, some are arresting, some are baffling—random but worth a look! [via Brand New]

The Word of Mouth Manual, Volume II

BzzAgent's Dave Balter is walking the walk by promoting his book The Word of Mouth Manual, Volume II by—you guessed it—word of mouth on various blogs and sites. It's available as a free download over at 37signals (or, if you prefer, for $45 on Amazon). "If you want your customers to start talking about your products and services, this book is a must read."

Doug Cowan

Fun for Friday: Check out the sketchy coolness of illustrator Doug Cowan. Based in New York, Cowan creates images that seem simple but often surprise—movie characters, lots of animals (including a landscape of flying pink elephants!), inky-haired lovelies, comic book-style split sequences and much more can be found in his portfolio.
[via Cool Hunting]

The Pattern Foundry

The Pattern Foundry is a new online archive of digital patterns available for public license and use, featuring patterns created by an international range of designers and artists, including Wim Crouwel. Many of the patterns are unusual and very interesting—if things continue to evolve, this could become a wonderful resource.

Designer Wanted at 37signals

Exciting opportunity alert: 37signals is looking to redefine their look and feel, and you could be the designer to do it. Check out the posting and start brainstorming!

Furni Art Clocks

Montreal-based Furni sells a blank canvas clock that comes packaged with a set of permanent markers. If you're not inspired to design and create your own, they sell creations by other artists that were recently featured in an art exhibition—extra cool points: a third of the proceeds from each exhibition clock go back to the artist. [via Cool Hunting]

The Girl Effect

Currently making waves around the internet: The Girl Effect. Working with $100 million donated by the Nike Foundation and the Novo Foundation, Grow Interactive and ad agency rockstars Wieden + Kennedy have created a campaign that spotlights and invests in adolescent females in developing nations, who have a unique power to foster socio-economic change around the globe. The site is simple but powerful, packing a typographic punch that's bolstered by the G arrow logo. Be sure to check things out!

ColorFlip

Using a simple premise to cater to an audience of color lovers, Rafaël Rosendaal has created ColorFlip.com. You literally flip from one color to another, and that's it... but it's surprisingly fun, a little addicting, and a nice way to inject some color therapy into a hectic workday. Similar fun can be had on the Colours site from CPH Creatives, which quotes Marc Chagall: "All colors are the friends of their neighbors and the lovers of their opposites." [via JS]

Creative Freelancer Conference

Registration is now open for the first Creative Freelancer Conference, a 3-day business conference for creative-industry professionals who are flying solo (or would like to), slated to take place August 27-29 in Chicago. Presented by HOW and Marketing Mentor, the conference is for graphic designers, copywriters, illustrators and photographers, as well as solo practitioners of interactive, interior and industrial design. Bonus: at less than $500, registration is surprisingly affordable!

Viva Calaca

More Fun for Friday: Viva Calaca is an animated ode to Mexico's Day of the Dead from Bilbao-based designer Ritxi Ostáriz, who created the short as a personal side project. [via Drawn!]

Kate T. Williamson

Fun for Friday: get your hands on a copy of At a Crossroads: Between a Rock and My Parents' Place, the latest "graphic memoir" from writer/artist Kate T. Williamson (author of the also wonderful A Year in Japan). I was thoroughly drawn in by Williamson's illustrations of her experiences, which include Hall and Oates concerts, leafy landscapes, suburban nightlife, Halloween, and much more. Check out Williamson's official site for more of her work.

LogoLounge 5: Call For Entries

Designers have until June 30th to submit work for LogoLounge Vol.5, the next in the series of popular books on logo design. Even if you don't enter, be sure to check out the rest of the LogoLounge site, including logo trends and featured designer sections.

Interesting Business Cards

French blog Fubiz has a collection of 70 interesting business cards, some from familiar names like Jason Santa Maria and Marian Bantjes. Most are memorable, some are clever, and a few are wonderfully weird. [via Cool Hunting]

Design Melt Down: Portfolios 9

Design Melt Down delivers its ninth showcase of designer portfolios. It's always interesting to see how designers are showcasing their own work—presentation in 9 seems to be playing it a bit safe, so be sure to check out some of the eight previous installments.

Gaia Dingbats

New at MyFonts, the Gaia dingbat font. Created by Brazilian designer Ricardo Esteves Gomes, the ornaments can be used alone or in combination to form cool graphic patterns. Inexpensive (currently on sale) and with lots of potential!

Saving the Spark: Developing Creative Ideas

Over at A List Apart, Mark Boulton has a great article up called Saving the Spark: Developing Creative Ideas. He emphasizes what we all already know: that most good ideas don't arrive in an illuminating flash and that it's an ongoing challenge to be professionally and productively creative on a daily basis. "To stand up to this challenge, you need to arm yourself with some good tools." Worth a read!

Boone Speed

I'm enjoying the work of "adventure photo-artist" Boone Speed. From rock climbing action photos to blurred vistas, Speed's shots capture an often dizzying sense of texture, motion and physicality that can range in scale from epic to intimate. [via Cool Hunting]

Showcase of BIG Typography

Smashing Magazine takes a second look at big typography used online, highlighting more examples of loud yet elegant onscreen letterform action. The first showcase of BIG type is also still available to view.
[via Quipsologies]

ilt's Sunday Type

Don't miss i love typography's weekly Sunday Type posts. Bursting with great miscellaneous type finds, yesterday's edition features the mother of all initial caps, a birthday tribute to type designer Alejandro Paul, some Flickr goodness, two downloadable desktops (including a June calendar), and more. What a great way to start the week!