Great product, photography, styling AND use of colour? Now that’s good design. I love this lookbook for Bloc Necklaces by Ladies & Gentlemen Studio. With photography by Charlie Schuck and styling by Ashley Helvey, the strong contrasting palette and mixture of shapes is simple yet strong. I particularly love the sheets of colour held up by models underneath the striking necklaces. Product photography I would happily hang on my wall…

(photographs via ladies & gentlemen studio)

Milwaukee-based artist Cassandra Smith has a portfolio plump with thought-provoking combinations of pattern, hue and unique surfaces. One of my favourite aspects of her work is the use of found objects. I particularly love her ongoing series of rough balls of rope transformed by vibrant paint. A beautiful contrast of colour and texture. I love when they all appear together, natural and bright lines strung from simple hooks. Yep, I would be more than thrilled to have the whole series hanging on my wall…

(images via cassandra smith; spotted on the jealous curator)

Who says the neon colour family must always be distractingly bright? I love the soft, almost washed neon look used in this Las Palabras Pintadas branding by Buenos Aires designer Lucía Izco. Add in the perfect neutral brown/grey background, one tone photography and some fabulous typography? The recipe for print design that makes neon feel fresh and sophisticated…

(image via lucía izco/behance)

Some works of art just make your day. I love these two pieces by Italian artist Andrea Marini. ‘Gemmation’ is a blooming wall of sculptural fibreglass that is both serene and exploding with texture. “Flows” is an installation of mirror waterfalls tumbling from the wall like starched bundles of tinsel. I’m a rather mesmerized by that gorgeous metallic beauty…

(images via andrea marini / saatchi online)

Dutch studio Raw Color has an exquisite eye for unique and memorable colour palettes. I love their identity for TextielMuseum and TextielLab and the wide palette created by using different intensities of five dusty bright hues and pops of neon. Cerulean blue and neon pink? Yes please! The typography is also beautiful as letters T, M and L overlap in varying opacities to create distinct colour combinations and overall patterns that mimic textile weaving. The opacities are turned up or down depending on if the lab or museum is the focus of the collateral. Entrance cards, stationery, stickers, publications, tea towels, building flags – the identity is wonderfully flexible and reflects modern textile patterns.

(image via raw color)

Modern wallpaper is bursting with non-traditional subjects from bold geometry to gradient effects to customizable drawing surfaces.

Elegant shimmer, hologram foil, mixed with colour, bold prints, copper details — I love the rise of metallic wallpaper patterns and finishes.

One of very favourite uses of wallpaper is small but mighty applications. From one feature wall to a nook or cranny that is now memorable, it is a brilliant way to bring pattern to a space.

Until recently, wallpaper was refereed to as a thing of a past. Yep, we had all supposedly moved on and become strictly focused on pure painted walls. Like most things in design (especially those with historical roots), wallpaper has modernized and evolved in a new direction. Bold patterns and unique treatments have replaced the wallpaper of yesteryear. In my latest post for Rena Tom, I talk about the various elements of this wallpaper revival including the general pattern direction, popular new finishes, interior use, wallpaper as a styling tool, art possibilities and even exterior products that are emerging. From home to retail, this new direction of wallpaper is worthy of exploration. Who doesn’t love a pop of pattern? Read my full post here.

(modern pattern photographs via: black. white. yellow., apartment therapy, hygge and west, design is mine, designers guild, studio ditte, desire to inspire and house to home; metallic wallpaper photographs moffat, jill malek, apartment therapy, afflante, hygge and west and michele varian; small application photographs via see that there, homedit, edison avenue, poppytalk, more delisious, houzz, mor til mernee and lorenzo castillo)

Bold typography, bright colour AND a handcrafted one-of-a-kind soul? Now that is the recipe for great print design. I love this simple but striking flyer design by Amsterdam studio OK200 for The Amsterdam New York Pop Up Show. Using the pink poster designs they hand-silkscreened for the event, the duo added a navy blue layer of flyer information on top. They sliced through the now chaotic surface to create 16 beautiful and unique flyers. I love the abstract typography crops and smashing mix of hot pink and navy blue…

(photographs via OK200)   

I love when unique colours pop up amid the expected holiday palettes. St. Valentine’s Day is awash in red and pink so these beautiful origami hearts by Melanie Blodgett and their spectrum of retro colours really tickle my fancy. Perhaps a new holiday palette has been born?

(photograph via you are my fave)  

These vibrant soaps by Mamoucha are full of lovely colour swatch combinations and patterns. They would certainly add a striking dash of abstract art to any soap dish…

(photographs by/soap available via mamoucha here and here or anthropologie)  

A fantastic print campaign for Expedia by Ogilvy & Mather that uses airport IATA codes to form clever travel-related phrases. There are over 9,000 three-letter IATA codes for airports around the world so I can imagine it was quite the task to sort through them and find witty copy. For example, WSH EWE WRE ERE (or Brookhaven, Ewer Indonesia, Whangarei, Erave) and SUN SEA SND SEX (or Sun Valley, Seattle, Seno, Sembach). I love the pops of colour and stamps in the corner providing a bit more context to the travel code wish. Oy, so simple and brilliant. There is plenty of fun to be found in the luggage carousel…

(photographs via/spotted on creative review)  

Statistics are just better when you add colour, yes? I love this data visualization of interior design colour statistics by designers Mie Frey Damgaard and Peter Ørntoft for global paint brand Jotun. A seamless combination of handcrafted design nd consumer data. I’m not completely certain about the colours selected but the diagram concept and its styling are fantastic…

(photographs/video via behance)

Modern neon, bright colour and strong typography — is there a better combination? The Melbourne Theatre Company utilizes all three elements in their 2013 season identity created by Interbrand. I love the custom typography called ‘MTC Neon” and its modern angles, glowing finish and nod to theatrical heritage. A glowing typeface could easily appear cheesy or fake in print but I think Interbrand does a smashing job of using the effect in an truly elegant way. Appearing on dark photographs and backgrounds, it allows titles and type to dramatically “light-up” different scenes (regardless of application). I particularly like the program covers as they highlight how the typeface could be used in photographed or physical 3D. Arts are an illuminating pillar in our society and here, Interbrand has crafted an identity that really captures that sentiment…

(spotted on and images via BP&O) 

“Private Moon” by Russian artist Leonid Tishkov has captivated me for quite some time. The mobile art installation and visual poem tells the story of “a man who met the Moon and stayed with her forever”. Leonid has travelled the world with the piece for ten years, placing the illuminated artificial moon in unexpected places across China, New Zealand, Taiwan, Moscow, Italy, the Arctic, France, Austria and so forth. I love the massive scale and glowing beauty of this work and how it manages to bring a rather inaccessible natural wonder down to earth. A “private moon” indeed. As Leonid puts it, “the moon is a shining point that brings people together from different countries, of different nationalities and cultures. And everyone who gets in its orbit does not forget it ever. It gives fairytale and poetry in our prosy and mercantile world.” Personally, I find it simply magical. Fingers crossed this installation reaches Canada one day very soon. I will be first in line to see it…

(there is a great interview with leonid about this project on his blog. read it here)
(photographs by boris bendikov, po-i chen and marcus williams, all via leonid tishkov) 

The hues attributed to fruit photography often focus on juicy primary colours. Captured by Jojo Filer-Cooper, this beautiful photograph caught my eye because it is a unique showcase of the elegant colours and textures of fruit (all against an ocean turquoise backdrop). Not your average fruit bowl…

(photograph via jojo filer-cooper)  

British artist Richard Caldicott creates beautiful abstract colour in his series “Chance/Fall”. What could easily be striking geometric paintings are actually layered photographs full of ethereal and filtered light. Oh, the blocks of vibrant colour…

(photographs via galerie f5,6) 

White, pops of colour, edge painting, letterpress — the personal identity of Brooklyn designer Daniel Renda is chalk full of details I love. The colourful logo slash and back of the letterhead are particularly strong punches of hue. Oh the power of colour and personal branding…

(photographs via daniel renda; spotted on design work life)