TANGA-TANGA typeface by Velckro is definitely brightening up my morning. It’s as if petroglyphs and modern design had one awesome typographical baby. Love the subtle but artful shifts between upper and lowercase. I am particularly enamoured with the colour palette used to showcase the face – neons, pastels and neutrals on a midnight blue-purple background. Ah, summer brights and beautiful type…

I think music videos have so much potential to be beautiful, stirring, innovative pieces of art. Lately, they feel more like repetitive product placements than statements of art which seems like a waste to me. On the flipside of that trend is the fabulous band OK Go. They make one fantastic music video after another that showcases how an awesome end result does not need a giant budget. This new video for Skyscrapers is lovely in its simplicity – 3 minutes and 45 seconds of gorgeous colur and dance. I love the travels back and forth through rainbow hues including the vibrant costumes and painted background walls. The video was directed and produced by Grammy Award-winning choreographer and director Trish Sie (she’s the dame part of the couple) and also features dancer Moti Buchboot. Proof that a great music video just needs innovation, talent and a big dash of colour…

(information via the always colourful Colossal)

It’s hard to resist the beautiful visual language designer Paul Giambarba created for Polaroid in the 1960′s. A perfectly organized system of vibrant colour bar graphics and a rather handsome News Gothic typeface make for one unforgettable identity. While quintessentially 1960′s looking, I think the exact system could thrive today. Aside from the clean and colourful looks, my favourite part is how the boxes stack. Beautiful.

(photographs via aisleone)

I love these Modern Zen Gardens by Gardens of Wendiland. Available in colours including fuchsia, yellow, orange, purple, baby blue, black or white, these vibrant gardens are sure to liven up any workspace. Who needs a boring grey Zen Garden when you can have a modern pop of colour and a perfectly placed cactus? I don’t know about you but making designs in bright-hued sand sounds like the perfect way to combat stress…

(photographs via Gardens of Wendiland)
(thanks Catriana!)

French artist Suzy Lelièvre manages to take everyday objects and make them thought-provoking and playful. I especially love her pieces Gravity Dice and Dominos Gravitation. Why shouldn’t dice dots fall to the bottom of the cubes? Why wouldn’t domino spots all hail the mighty ‘one spot’ leader? I might refuse to play any games that aren’t as handsomely designed as these pieces…

(photographs via suzy lelièvre)

My love affair with facets doesn’t seem to have an end in sight especially when gorgeous work like the Blocks Series comes to life. Captured and conceptualized by Canadian photographer Evonne Bellefleur with blocks created by prop stylist Caitlin Doherty, the series features dreamy expanses of beautiful colour palettes and fascinating shapes. They are like rocks that have tumbled off of some sort of magical mountain. Not sure I can avoid buying one of these prints. Yep, the facet fetish continues…

(prints available/images via soti)

I posted about Alberto Seveso’s gorgeous high-speed ink and water photographs last year and had my fingers firmly crossed that he would one day work with mixed colours. When I spotted his new series called a due Colori, I fell in love with his work all over again. Dreamy plumes of vibrant colour billowing like fabric underwater? Just beautiful. See the rest of the series here.

(spotted on Colossal)

My love affair with Holi, the Indian Festival of Colour, continues to grow by the year. A joyful celebration that includes throwing vibrant powders and pigments? Yes please. I did a rather large post on the topic last year so take a look if you are after colourful eye candy today! I was also lucky enough to be asked to create a t-shirt design focused on Holi for Made in the Now, a Brisbane-based studio/shop that produces a design every 24 hours inspired by a top of mind news story of the day. With just a couple hours of time at your disposal, it is a challenging yet mucho fun project to work on! Long story short, my t-shirt design is only available today so if you are interested, take a look here. My thought was, as India celebrates Holi, the entire country is bursting with brilliantly colourful powder far into the midnight blue night…

(holi photographs via the big picture and tee design by chloé douglas)

How lovely are these Origami Boat Candles by designer Roman Ficek? Available in six colours, they are beautifully crafted facets of thin wax. I would love to see a pool with thousands floating about…

(spotted on design east)

There are a couple of blogs that I truly wish I could live in. At the very top of the list is Griottes, a French style and food blog created by Emilie Griottes that is so gorgeous that I feel slightly giddy when a new post is up. The handmade whimsical aesthetic, sublime colour palettes and beautiful culinary treats… Oy. When I spotted these Pantone Tarts on Griottes this morning, I fell even more in love with the blog. Simple and stunning with pitch perfect styling, these pastries are an imaginative take on the classic colour chips while showcasing the lovely hues of everyday foods. Is it crazy to hope Emilie creates a tart for every colour in the Pantone swatch book?

I did some research on styling this week and came across these beautiful painted walls by Bartsch, a Paris-based studio. I would be quite thrilled to have a dark wall of those gold moons in different phases in my home. Their craftsmanship is sublime but I was also drawn in by their choice of styling (including a great palette shot of paint cans). I love how Bartsch showcases their work – an expanse of pattern and colour with a world of small white objects living below. Monochromatic styling is becoming my new obsession…

I have been meaning to do a post on Saul Bass as he is a true colour and design hero of mine. I spotted this poster for 1957 film Love in the Afternoon today and couldn’t resist posting it. Gorgeous handcraft typography and cluster of primary colour. Don’t you wish modern movies would experiment with illustration as handsome as this? Time to prep a Saul Bass post…

(photograph via brain pickings)

If you’re like me, you might have double digit browser windows open at any given time. Don’t even get me started on the number of tabs I manage to create. The dramatic minimizing of browser window to dock on a Mac has always intrigued me and Emilio Gomariz explores this effect in his fascinating video, ‘Spectrum Cube’. Layer upon layer of perfectly organized browser windows form a beautiful study of colour and a dynamically shaded cube. How great is that end bit when all of the squares minimize together? After seeing this, I will never look at browser windows the same way again!

(thank you joseph)

It may be for children but I would love a copy of The Color-Play Coloring Book created for MOMA by Pascale Estellon. The oversized book is full of colour-focused activities that allow kids (and awesome adults) to play with colour mixing, light and dark shades, warm and cool hues and so much more. I can’t wait to see more spreads of this handsome book of colour learning. Many look frame-worthy!

I’m a big fan of bold branding and the recent trend of more flexible, customizable features like stickers, stamps and tape. The identity for Round Hill Music, a boutique music rights company with a catalogue including The Beatles, marries creative-focused detail with a slick, trustworthy corporate feel. New York studio Established NYC focused on the necessity of tape in so many facets of the music industry “from notes on a grand piano to markings on a recording studio’s mixing board to taping plectrums on the microphones during a live gig or damping snare drums”. Tape became not only the central logo feature but is used as an bold branding detail across the identity suite. It’s instantly recognizable (always the mission) and I love the mix of hot pink, silver foil and black and white. Elegant and artistic – the best combination possible…

(photographs/quote via september industry)

I recently came across the headquarters of Ziba Design, a design consultancy in Portland. The lobby features an installation of employee names laser-cut from wafers of Styrofoam and hung vertically according to date hired. As a vital prototyping material used by industrial designers and one that happens to be cheap and light, the use of Styrofoam is brilliant. Even better? The cluster of names is positioned across from large windows with a view of Portland’s waterfront. As weather and light changes, the wall will showcase different patterns of colours and shadows dancing across the typography. The piece will also constantly evolve as new Ziba employees are added to the piece (really highlighting people as the soul of any company). I love this installation not only for its beauty but as a example of fantastic material selection and, more than anything, how design need not be expensive to be stunning.

(photographs via aiga)