The Smartbook Project: Rethinking the Book

We will be visiting the Slab today (Friday Jan 30th):

Strategic Innovation Lab (sLab), Rm 600, Level 6

2:00pm and 4:15pm, Friday January 30, 2009

sLab Explorations: Open dialogues on design, innovation and the future.

We live our lives split between page and screen. How can design thinking solve this dilemma? Can we design a hybrid medium for reading and writing that supports seamless migration from book space to screen space and back, without dependence on proprietary hardware? Can we leverage print on demand, smart tagging, social media and other technologies to envision a bold new future for the book? Come join our discussion.


www.slab.ocad.ca/

Group94

Great company that has an amazing folio. Been following their folio for a few years and thy never disappoint. Reason being, is because I am a web designer myself.

fav site of theirs: http://www.ourtype.be

Anti-racism poster

Sergio's Stickers

Urgyen's House of Cards

Last Touch

Simon's Night Light

my heart box... jina

Nazanin. Non-commercial poster

Fear the Donut

Click to enlarge.

breast cancer

Dream Of Peace

Untitled

Assignment 1: Courage (Joel Derksen)

Trip to Africa

Tsang Kin-wah

Andy Goldsworthy

Andy Goldsworthy is a British Artist/Naturalist who uses materials found in the environment around him. It just proves that creativity can be found anywhere.

Clemente Botelho

aeiko

aeiko is UK designer Pete Harrison. I don't care much for his new flash-driven portfolio site (or it's background ambient music) but his work has a high degree of polish.

Jasper Johns

American Abstract Expressionist/pop painter and Sculpture

Brian Jungen

http://www.catrionajeffries.com/b_b_jungen_works.html

Joseph Conforti

I would like to introduce an artist of repetition to you guys.For me his work just amazing, and i never thought you can use repetition to create such a great work like this.

Joseph Conforti is a master of repetition. He creates hypnotic wall sculptures comprised of individual panels, each of which contains hundreds of ceramic pieces. Raku, for those unversed in ceramic speak, is a traditional form of Japanese pottery dating back to the 16th Century. It involves low temperature kiln firing, followed by a combustible immersion that gives the pieces their crackled surface and characteristic carbon-black quality. Because the process is so unpredictable, atmospheric conditions from day to day can produce amazingly different results.

Looking at Conforti's work makes me exciting. The Zen-like nature of his production and assembly, no doubt comes through in the completed works.

Rik Oostenbroek

Rik Oostenbroek is an abstract artist and designer who uses collage in a digital medium.

You can visit his site: http://www.secretshowcase.com/ or read an interview with him here.

RETNA

Retna is based out of LA and works with text in a calligraphic graffiti style.

Depthskins Design Studio

This website belongs to a group of designers, that focus on website, print and identity branding. The design of the website (if you enter the flash version) has won several awards for interactive and uniqueness. 

AmoebaCorp

AmoebaCorp are a group of Toronto graphic designers (also OCAD alumni & faculty) who believe that PLAY is just as important as WORK. They understand that personal experimentation fuels commercial work, so they take time to do strictly personal and non-commercial work, just to play away from the boundaries of commerciality.

April Greiman

Graphic designer April Greiman has created a series of design images entitled "Made in Space" which she creates using a photographic technique she calls "drive by shooting".

Peter Saville

Peter Saville is another world famous artist and designer, who employs graphic design as a way to create beautiful non-commercial images, often in collaboration with other designers, photographers and artists. Saville’s “Waste Paintings” and “System Paintings” are compelling examples of collaborative, non-commercial digital design: http://www.showstudio.com/projects/018/018_start.html

Stefan Sagmeister Inc.

This is the studio website for Sagmeister Inc. It shows wonderful work and ideas from a world-class graphic designer and his design studio. Use Sagmeister's non-commercial work as an inspirational resource for Assignment I: Design for a Non-Commercial Outcome.

Grain Edit

Grain edit is focused on classic design work from the 1950s-1970s and contemporary designers that draw inspiration from that time period.





It is an inspirational site with content includes interviews, articles, designers’ libraries as well as examples of rare design annuals, type specimens, ephemera, posters and vintage kids books.

I like it because it reminds me of my childhood books and ads from that period, but also because it is great to see so many talented young designers drawing inspiration from this period in design.

Happy New Year!