MOMOKO MASHUPS

Brand Thoughts: Fashionista

After publishing with a blackletter logo since 2007, Fashionista decided it was time to reconside and redesign its stoic face as well as swap its back-end CMS from Movable Type to Wordpress.

The old logo was this oversized, domineering, gothic lettering thing that said “spiky, aggressive, old-school news brand.” That’s not what Fashionista is. The editors of Fashionista are excellent journalists who will be critical when it’s called for, but they’re also unashamedly fashion lovers. They might poke fun from time to time, but they’re not spiky or unnecessarily aggressive. And they’re also inherently new-generation when it comes to how they go about their business — they use a blog platform, Flip cameras, smartphones and various social media to deliver their content and engage their audience — so unless we were being very ironic with the gothic, old-school newspaper font thing it just wasn’t really appropriate. I’m also a big believer that the logo and furniture on the site should be a little subservient to the content — it’s the content that engages and the content travels well beyond the site too — so we also needed something a little less imposing.
— Jonah Bloom, CEO/Editor-in-Chief, Breaking Media

More treatments of the new logo at Brand New.

A New Kind of Typography

LAIKA from Michael Flückiger on Vimeo.

Michael Lebovitz pointed me to this cool dynamic typography tool where you manually stretch and contort the typeface. There’s a dial that controls the LAIKA typeface to elongate or widen the font. On Sputnik, the typeface is influenced by people’s swaying motions against the wall. The project is part of Michael Flückiger’s bachelor thesis and he explains his idea behind the concept:

Since not much work has been done in this field, we devised a system in which a typeface would not be defined static font styles anymore but would be able to change it‘s shape and appearance at any moment reacting to a broad spectrum of inputs.

Here are more of his typography experiments:

Details Pandoras Box from Michael Flückiger on Vimeo. Continue reading…

Visionaire 57: A Plug-In, Electric Magazine

This post was originally published on PSFK.com

The fashion and art publication Visionaire has continuously used a variety of unique formats to present its content. For the 57th issue, the publication draws inspiration from the two-seater Smart Fortwo car. Visionaire 57 “2010″ will be the first plug-in electric issue in the publication’s history. As seen in the photo above, the plug is shaped like Daimler’s compact automobile. Continue reading…

Muji Manufactured By Thonet

Thonet, the oldest furniture brand in the world and the German manufacturer of high-quality furnishings, is producing a simplified form of bentwood and tubular steel furniture for the Japanese retail chain Muji. The products are manufactured entirely at Thonet’s headquarters in Frankenberg, Germany to the company’s customary high quality standards.

Continue reading…

Rabbit on the Run

Some cute tunics by Rabbit on the Run from Los Angeles. They remind me of cut-out shapes characteristic of Native Japan.