1. I cannot get enough of this packaging system for Jamie Oliver’s line of food products, designed by Pearlfisher. I already posted it to my tumblr a while back, but it came up on Lovely Package yesterday and I figured I just had to make a post about it. I’m such a sucker for systems, and this one is no exception to the rule. I really enjoy how the different types of food products follow separate guidelines. Gives the whole line a lot of variety, yet they still read as coming from the same place. Toss in the letterpress type,  handwritten type  and the color palette and you’ve got a big fan. This would have been a good reference for the “Local Market” project we worked on in my Advanced Design class.

2. Colourlovers, a site that I’ve been a member of for a long time, but not actually a participant. Well, that has changed! I guess yesterday was just a good day for color, because now I’m totally infatuated with creating color palettes. I’ve been nitpicking, but here’s one I posted yesterday:

Color by COLOURlovers

Maybe this will be a good tool for creating palettes for design & print projects?

3. As a designer who is just starting out, few things scare me more than running into legal issues. I thought a lot about this when I was creating posters for my thesis last year. Even though I wasn’t planning on selling any of the posters, I searched for images on compfight, with the commercial use option turned on, just in case I ran into any trouble. Honestly, I’m not even sure that would have protected me from any potential trouble, but it was comforting to know that I had at least tried to go the extra mile. That said, I’m definitely surprised at the amount of appropriation in the design world, especially among poster designers/artists. I guess I shouldn’t be surprised, but still, look at some of these examples from the excellent flickr set by b_caruthers:

Same fish/woman’s head straight from the original to a Death Cab poster.

I suppose you could say the Nate Duval Spoon poster is a tribute to the original, but that can only go so far.

This is same image, slightly tweaked.

And this? It even uses the same colors!

I can’t say that everything I do is an original idea through and though, but I try to take a unique approach on everything. How are these appropriations ok? How is this remotely legal?