websites!

in spite of not publishing anything in a while, I’ve been relatively busy here at SquatterStudios. All my summer projects have wrapped up and I should have photos to post in the coming days/weeks.
Also, my website is up. It’s been up for quite a while (you may have noticed) but with no content. I’m actually working on changing that right now—as opposed to saying I’m doing it online, but really not even thinking about it. Currently, I have a good portion of three different projects up there. It may not be hot-off-the-press new work, but at least something is there.
And, last—for today—Jonathan Canlas has finally launched his updated site, wrapping up a summer-plus of grueling work for him, which we’re both very excited about. I hope to have some pictures of the books I designed for him by late next week. As for today, though, Just the website. Take a gander. Dane Hansen—as always—did the masterful flash work.

more korean design

These were the images I was intending to post a couple weeks ago. I found them today on an old backup, external hard drive. As far as I can understand, these guys below are some of the Micahel Beiruts and Stephan Sagmeisters of Korean design.

Min Byung-Geol



Chung Byoung-kyoo


Ahn Sang-Soo (again)

안상수

Some (dated) samples of Korean designer, Ahn Sang-Soo. I said I’d post some Korean design if I found some. Yeah, that was a while ago. Oh well, what with me isn’t just a bit late?

have a nice weekend

I’ve really been enjoying Adrian Johnson’s stuff recently.
And, speaking of recently, I’ve noticed a pretty widespread movement back to naïveté in design and illustration—’70s-inspired characters, paper cut-outs, and so on… Working on a cartoon that pulls a lot of inspiration from my/our childhood(s), I’m really having fun looking at all these different artists work.

hangul.

designed by Ahn Sang Soo— the gate is designed using all Hangul ‘letters’

Today (10.09.08) is Hangul Day in Korea—a day to celebrate their alphabet. This was brought to my attention by my favorite typography geek-out blog over at Hoefler & Frere-Jones. Jonathan Hoefler gives a pretty good, accurate, and interesting history/description of the language over there, so I won’t go into that here.
What I do want to talk about is this… I spent a couple years in Korea. I’ve been there three different times in three different capacities—missionary, friend, and student. Each visit gave me a different insight into the culture over there and I absolutely love it over there. One thing that did disappoint me to some degree, however, was the lack of really good design present in day-to-day. For quite a while I wasn’t overly smitten with the Hangul alphabet—it doesn’t have the flash of Japanese Hirogana or the “profound symbolism” of Kanji. Hangul is simple, geometric, practical… But, wait, isn’t that like the Swiss ideal? Isn’t that like every designers dream?
My perception of the lack of good design in Korea was not a very accurate reflection of reality. And it becomes less and less true every day. I was recently back in New York at the ADAA Awards show. I spent a couple days with a bunch of really talented, student designers from literally all over the world. Intersting to me, the country with the most represetation wasn’t the USA, it was Korea.
There were a couple Korean designers that really stood out to me, but unfortunately I can only find a link to this one’s site: bykyong.com. Check here work out. There’s some really creative, fun print and web work. She intermixes both Hangul and English in many of her designs—which I think is really reflective of the lifestyle of Korean 20–30-somethings.
I’m a little disappointed I don’t have more to show on a design blog right now, so I’m going to keep my eye out over the next couple days for some good Korean design and post some more. There is a lot of it out there.
Korea kind of feels like the forgotten little sybling of the über hip, ever-present, always on the top of pop and technology culture, Japan, and the growing world power, center of Asian-cinema, origin of Oriental culture, China. So, it’s cool for me to see them get a little attention.

bizarre…

i love this!
from www.quinta-feira.org.

sneaker boom

(in case the watermark didn’t give it away, images taken from sneakerfreaker.com)

Most of the time I spend drooling over unobtainable product is spent looking at shoes—usually basketball shoes: NIKEs, Air Jordans, etc… Every once in a while I come across a pair of Vans or Adidas that are tempting, but I usually feel that the other companies that are trying to jump on this Sneaker Bandwagon are simply trying too hard.
And then I came across these PUMA beauties. Simple. Classic. A little old-school edge with the high-high top velcro.
Anyways… smitten. Great design.