|peace, love and ampersands|

The best designs are simple and clever. Like this fantastic Threadless submission by Budi Satria Kwan. I have designed quite a few T-shirts and always keep one to wear, so I already own too many... but this is seriously making me reconsider.

-J. Gibb

|i heart this|

Target has really been upping their game in the home décor department. Here's one of the wall art prints that recently caught my eye.

-J. Gibb

|conceptual coffee|

Graphic designers are lazy. We hate doing math, we look for shortcuts, and we steal—er... modify—ideas. I am no exception. Most of the time, it seems, I save time on a design by doing something fairly literal or expected.

For example, with this invite for a GOLD (Graduates Of the Last Decade) event, I was just going to create a coffee mug stain on a napkin and call it good. But then I saw this (I told you, we steal!) and decided to push myself further with more of a concept: spell something with stains. It proved to be quite the challenge, both in creating letterforms (somewhere between too obvious and just unclear) and making them look realistic. But I am quite pleased with the end result. And now I'm craving a granita...

-J. Gibb

|x marks the eating spot|

Now that I have my first "real" full-time job after graduating from college, I'm eagerly anticipating my imminent move to my first apartment. The current plan is to save a few more paychecks before venturing into the unforgiving world of bills and payments, but I'm starting to acquire furnishings as I discover them and/or as they go on sale.

I am a fairly indecisive person, especially when it comes to dropping major bucks, but when I saw this Pier One table base I knew I loved it. As a typography nerd, I love the simple yet strong letterform suggested by this design. I can't wait to set it up and put it to use!

-J. Gibb

|the force justified|

Typography AND Star Wars? Yup, this blog somehow managed to get even nerdier. But who can deny the awesomeness of these self-promotion campaign designs? Argue you cannot.

-J. Gibb

P.S. :-O>>> Thanks to Kelly Murray for being one of many to share this with me!