Maximalist design: sweet & opulent Victorian valentines
I’d call this style maximalist marzipan—almost too saccharine, but the dimensionality of the collaging and diecutting is of enduring beauty and interest. I am always touched when I see fragile ephemera in good condition. It’s poignant to peek into sentiments a century-plus old. The layering impulse is one people still have: the more lace doilies, … Continue reading
Red Shoes type is on point
While I was collecting screencaps for yesterday’s post on the doomed heroines of Black Swan and The Red Shoes, I sat up and took notice of the beautiful type, lettering and handwriting peppered throughout the latter movie, and even given loving closeups. For inspiration purposes,
Spec work Hall of Shame: Egency’s Design Challenge
Every so often, an “opportunity” comes crawling into my inbox. Sometimes it’s an offer to collect UK lottery winnings, or facilitate money transfers to Nigeria. And sometimes, it’s an offer for me to do design or illustration work and not get paid for it. Egency, a new arm of Agfa Graphics, will offer stock marketing … Continue reading
Denver Broncos endzone pattern
I don’t follow football, but while I was at the gym I saw a recap of the Broncos-Chiefs game that showed, in the endzones of Invesco Field (aka Mile High Stadium), a retro blue and orange diamond design. Color me impressed. Not only did it look great on TV, it did two other things. One, … Continue reading
Old-school photo line conversion in Photoshop
It all started here: I was mesmerized, not by Steve’s mustache, but by the graphic, vibrating, toothy line screens he promised. Decades ago. Design history books had shown me the quick and dirty magic worked by slapping one of these babies on a photo. Goodbye boring, hello instant illustration. And we can keep it a … Continue reading
Hand-tinted silent film promo cards
This post is dedicated to dear friend and film buff Charlie Fisher. Long ago as a junior copywriter à la Peggy Olson, he penned a tagline for Oreo knockoffs—”the black and white cookie with the Technicolor taste.” The silent films here were shot in black and white, but their promos are certainly speaking Technicolor. Click … Continue reading
Crop circles & Fleurons of Hope
Fleurons of Hope is a font created as part of Font Aid III to benefit the victims of the South Asian tsunami of 2004, an effort coordinated by SOTA. It is no longer available on myfonts.com, but can be found packaged with Building Letters Three. I collected the images of crop circles and type ornaments … Continue reading
rebecca henretta | design » into « words 