My good pal Luke Beard over in England started an interesting initiative at the beginning of 2010. ‘A Lyric a Day’ has Luke making an image showcasing a line from a song of his choice, and he’s been sticking to his guns creating interesting and textured designs every day since the launch.

Not only am I enjoying Luke’s textured creations (which I’ve been checking out for a couple of years now) but it’s interesting to see his work evolve as a result of this project. And it doesn’t hurt that he digs some of the same music I listen to :) I’m a big supporter of self-initiated projects as it’s an excuse to make things . . . which we should all do.

Luke’s main site is under construction, but check out his Flickr stream, the ‘A Lyric a Day’ Tumblr site and give him a follow on Twitter.

Ive really been enjoying the paint work of Jeremy Geddes. Nice clean lines and somber images of cosmonauts floating in space and urban scenes. I particularly like the topmost image, really like to have that one hanging in the living room.

Jeremy has a wonderful way of melding the past with the present. His cosmonauts have a certain 2001: A Space Odyssey flavor brought to modern street scenes, a strange but wonderful displacement

To see more of this talent, swing by Jeremy’s website, or drop him a comment on his blog.

Michael Bierut is a partner at the mighty Pentagram Design in New York. His client list includes Alliance for Downtown New York, Benetton, the Council of Fashion Designers of America, Alfred A. Knopf, the Walt Disney Company, Mohawk Paper Mills, Motorola, MillerCoors, the Toy Industry Association, Princeton University, Yale School of Architecture, New York University . . . the list goes on and on.

Posted above is a presentation Michael gave at the Galapagos Art Space in Brooklyn last month, a very honest, direct and humorous talk on the topic of clients. Good clients, bad clients, the traits of both, keeping good ones, getting rid of bad ones, etc. I found Michael’s points of view on the topic of clients extremely sobering, to the point of my feeling the need to change how I conduct Signalnoise in order to find those connections with clients needed to, not get rich, but to do good work with good people.

This is a video all designers should watch whether you are a seasoned veteran or a student. It’s a short 50 minutes, and well worth the time. Please have a watch, and please pass this on.

If you follow me on Twitter, you might have seen me talking about the Finnish rock band Reckless Love over the past few months. The 4 boys in the band, Olli, Hessu, Jalle and Pepe hired me last year to create the band’s visual identity including the logo, a couple of cd single covers and their official label debut album cover.

I’m happy to announce that their debut is due to be released on February 24th, coincidentally my birthday! Shown above is the final album cover design I created for the guys.

I mentioned this in a previous post about the band, but there is nothing better then working with someone who is excited about their project. That makes me excited, and inevitably makes the work better. Reckless Love’s sound is inspired by hard rock and hair metal bands from the 80s, polished and updated nicely. So naturally, the design hearkens back to that era being inspired by bands such as Mötley Crüe and Van Halen:

I’ve been listening to the final album for a little while now as I worked on the designs and I really can’t wait for the release. Its construction is honest, and they capture perfectly the elements of fun from the era that inspires them, without any irony. It’s no secret that I love modern updates of things past, so I’ve enjoyed every second of working on this project.

More to come on Reckless Love, but in the meantime you can pre-order the album from Record Shop X.

February 24th, rockers . . . mark your calendars.

I’ve seen these vintage Porsche advertisements floating around Ffffound and various design blogs for the past little while, but after coming across this post on A Time to Get I felt compelled to share them as well.

I’m seeing a trend in design recently utilizing vintage photography, either greyscale or muted tones with big bold typography and flat color blocks, perhaps inspired by ads such as these. I particularly enjoy the off-kilter diagonals used for the bold color treatments and typography baselines. Beautiful stuff.

File this one under ‘new favorite illustrator‘.

I can’t say enough good things about the work of Mads Berg. With a vintage travel poster and art deco flavor mixed with some Picasso and Bauhaus on the side, Mads creates a wonderful posters and illustrations with simple shapes and elegant typography. I’ve never described color palettes as ‘tasty’ before, but it fits his work perfectly. Killer stuff.

The samples I pulled from his website are the tip of the iceberg (or madsberg, heh heh). Be sure to flip through his extensive portfolio, you won’t be sorry.

I can’t think of another word to describe the photography of Lee Powers other then ‘cool’. If I were to direct a film based on my favorite action shows from the 1980s, I’d hire Lee to add this cool sexiness to every shot.

Excellent use of cropping and color, and Lee seems to dance on the line between slick and gritty. Great stuff.

Swing by Lee’s website as well as his Behance account for more.

It’s time to get the inspiration posts going on the blog again after a short interlude while I dealt with the Haiti donations last week.

It’s no secret that I’m a big fan of Lost, and I featured some excellent Lost-inspired artwork a few weeks ago. And now I’d like to showcase these beautiful posters designed by the talented and diverse Ty Mattson. According to his blog, he sat down to design an invitation to his ‘Lost premiere’ gathering, and had so many ideas that he ended up with these 8 cool posters. Well done.

I see some Bauhaus in there, a bit of Saul Bass, some 50s sci-fi. Fantastic work all around, I’d love to have a copy of that Locke design.

Swing over to Mattson Creative for more of Ty’s work.