Tag Archives: Kickstarter

Monday Load of Links

Back after a short vacation to Melbourne to see Sir Paul McCartney in concert. A large load of design related links to start of the working week (obligatory cat video back next week!)

Not my sort of music, but the Wu Tang Clan have certainly paid a lot of attention to their visual image over the years.

I’ve sometimes thought of starting my own Kickstarter project over the years )I’ve certainly funded my fair share of them), here’s some tips on funding your own Kickstarter campaign.

The Smudge reminds me of the type of publications produced by the British underground press in the 1960s. I’ve just purchased a couple of back issues and I’m really looking forward to reading them.

Speaking of the British underground press of the 1960s, this new book purports to include the cover of every British underground paper that launched in the sixties. I may have to purchase my own copy when finances allow after the Christmas season.

With each issue based around a single object, MacGuffin magazine is a platform for fans of inspiring, personal, unexpected, highly familiar or utterly disregarded things. It’s a beautifully designed magazine and weighing in at a hefty 220 pages, a thorough read. The latest issues is on ‘sinks’.

Looking to donate some money in this season of giving? Women Who Code and Design That Matters may be a good place to park some cash if you are in a charitable mood.

The Time person(s) of the year are the silence breakers. Thank God it’s not D2S.

Would you kill to work at one of these companies? (I might come close if Adult Swim offered). Interesting that The New York Times is one of the choices too.

Designer Dave Sedgwick discusses how to push a brief.

I’ve been known to take a Skillshare class or two. This one on The Art of the Story: Creating Visual Narratives by Debbie Millman looks fantastic (it features Paul Sahre as an added bonus!)

Legendary logo designer Ivan Chermayeff has died.

I really like these ceramic and porcelain ghosts.

What did graphic design look like in the medieval period? A question that I’m sure has been on all our minds at one point.

Lots of people reflecting on 2017 online at the moment. This is a pretty good list of what one person learned throughout the year.

Ultraviolet is the Pantone colour of the year.

 

Monday Load of Links

Ease into the start of the working week with some design food for thought and inspiration.

Vaughan Oliver is the designer behind the look of the classic 4AD music label, for artists such as The Pixies and This Mortal Coil. He has a Kickstarter campaign for a new book that you can donate to.

Stackmagzines.com has their finalists up for their annual magazine awards.

Pentagram partner and graphic designer Natasha Jen talks about her favourite and most challenging work.

IBM wants to create the Helvetica of the 21st century for some reason.

Oliver Jeffers is an an amazing talent across various creative disciplines. Here he talks about art, the universe and everything.

Ivy Ross is the Head of Design for Hardware at Google, here she discusses how human connection is essential to your bottom line.

Stefan Sagmeister will critique your design work on Instagram.

Ever wonder how other creatives ‘get-up-and-go’ in the mornings and wind down at the end of the day? Extraordinary Routines has got you covered.

There seems to be a recent influx of magazines covering issues of mental health and well-being, sign of the times or a passing fad?

The 1980s and 90s were the glory days of album cover design, with labels like 4AD, Stiff and Factory almost as famous for the designers they had creating those covers, as for the music itself. Mute also had an amazing visual vernacular, though one perhaps not so aligned with a singular designers vision. They have a book coming out looking back on those cover designs.

Does the price of entry for creatives impact the makeup of the industry?

Looking to balance you life a little more? Maybe The Swedish lifestyle trend Lagom is the answer.

Paul Sahre On Kickstarter

I’ve made no secret of the fact that Paul Sahre is one of my very favourite graphic designers, so when I saw that he was looking for sponsors for a new project through Kickstarter, it was a no-brainer that I was going to contribute.

“Saturn V Relaunch” is a photography project and book that will see Paul rebuilding and launching a Saturn V model rocket, some 40 years after his father tried to do the same thing. Paul’s design and 70s era rocketry = awesome in my books.

Paul describes the project as “a shot at dad redemption… in order to introduce two boys (his sons) to the grandfather they will never know”.

Going back to the end of the Apollo space missions on the early 1970s Paul remembers his father – an aerospace engineer – building a Saturn V model rocket. After months of cutting, gluing, sanding and painting, Paul’s father launched the rocket in an open field, only to have the chutes fail, and the model rocket plummet back to earth. Paul remembers this as the first time he ever saw his dad fail – at anything. So when he recently discovered the launch pad in his now late father’s attic he decided to take the experience full circle by trying to launch the rocket again.

In Paul’s words,  “Saturn V Relaunch is a tribute to the days before NASA cutbacks when every kid wanted to be an astronaut in order to explore the unknown, if only in our own backyards And to all of the model rockets that caught fire on the launch pad, exploded mid-air, were lost in a tree or disappeared from sight, never to be seen again.”Saturn V Relaunch sees Paul building another Saturn V model from the same vintage Centuri model kit his father used (he found one on eBay). Upon completion, the rocket will be launched publicly from Sahre’s father’s 40-year-old launchpad. The entire process and the launch, which is planned for the second quarter of 2013, will be documented and self-published as an art/photo book, which Sahre will write and design himself. There is also a plan to produce a short documentary on the Saturn V Relaunch.

The cool part is, every Kickstarter backer gets their name affixed to the exterior of the rocket, which Paul is “envisioning as” a Nascar type situation, with the rocket covered with names”.

For Paul  the project is about more than a model rocket. It is “about a time machine posing as a model rocket”! But it is also about exploring “some basic ideas that we can all relate to: memory, family (specifically fathers), loss, trying again, and what (and how) we pass on to our children”.

So for five bucks you can be a part of this project, and if you’re feeling even more generous, there are various rewards offered at various money donation levels. I’ve found donating to Kickstarter projects to be a very rewarding endeavour in the past and I’m looking forward to seeing the results of this one later in 2013.