After having a session in the print rooms, Antony Ward was telling me about how he was looking to construct a business card and he had a couple of ideas. One of the great things he showed me was one of the paper stockist books that he obtained from a specialist paper manufacturer, G.F.Smith . I was amazed, lit with Helvetica and looking so pretty it looked like a piece of art in its own. Based in Hull conveniently where Antony is from, they specialise in high-end paper and printing their website is pretty cool too, I'm gonna try and email them and see if I can get hold of some samples. I also had a look at a less fancy paper manufacturer John Purcell in London, a less fancy website and design but offer a wide range of premium papers at i believe competitive price, but I'll have to have a look into it properly, but I found it really interesting the comparison of how each company presented itself differently.

I've been thinking lately about producing a business card, simply to design something for my self and give a much more professional feel to myself as a designer.

On looking at illustration there are so many illustrative techniques I could go with for the 'What is Good?" project. I really want some nice simple illustration that are not overly complex and with content that provides crucially to this brief that is entertaining. I found these via Lella and Zee, whom always have something interesting to look at and hosts one of my favorite design blogs, these illustration are by Marc Johns. I love the simplicity, play-on-words and such. His website is full of his things and also hosts a shop on Etsy for his original drawings and prints and publishes his work in books. I also love the way he talks about him self in the third person, like his drawing he seems to be full of wit.

On Looking at creating an identity, Luke Hallam one of my fellow peers and good friend had looked at creation of an identity for the restaurant company La Strada. This was what I was looking for in terms of an identity, simple use of colour with a visual style spread across their range of media including business cards, menus and even down to the chocolate wrapping and the uniforms of the restaurant staff. Other things I like about this is the use a limited colour pallet, eco stock and fabrics for the menu and business card, its simplistic yet elegant. I would like to use much more illustration in my designs, making it more fun and playful yet in-keeping with a professional look.

The identity was created by Transformer Studio, whom have a lovely interactive website.

Having pitched my concept for the "What is Good?" project, one of the first things that was suggested was to just get on creating some visuals. So I booked some sessions in for the laser cutting machine at South Leeds CLC (I couldn't apparently do it in college, so meh), and then I've just prepared my screen to do some printed napkins as a sample for the project and I also wanted to do some foil blocking, which looks awesome. In the mean time I thought i'd do some more contextual research and I found these lovely visuals by Alex Merto, a freelance graphic designer in new york who works a lot with printed media for various clients and works on various projects such as window visuals to publications, I love his working style for instance the way a trip to Japan inspired him to make a small magazine out of the bands that he saw. Lovely stuff. Here are some of his poster pieces he has created from trails of thought, the doubts he has had when he has produced work. Via Pitch Design Union.

In the spirit of Christmas I had a look back at BeastPieces Letterpress and they've been creating some loveliness for clients and such from Christmas, which seems a long way away I know but its gonna creep up on us (I even have my first Christmas presents bought). This festive decoration was designed at Eight Hour Day as a desktop piece which was printed over at BeastPieces. Lovely, simple 2 colour graphics, I like the type symbols used to illustrate tinsel and baubles. Its got me thinking about what I'd like to do for a Christmas card this year.