It’s been a little while since I gave a bit of an update on what’s going on around these parts. I like having a more frequent update schedule on Signalnoise with work and inspiration stuff, but sometimes client and preparation work steps in and must be done. It’s all fun, but leaves little time for writing.

So, here’s the scoop. As of a few weeks ago Signalnoise Design Studio Inc. has become an official business entity. I have been operating as strictly an individual freelance artist for the past few years and I felt it was time to make the push and set up the structure needed to grow in the business realm. So I have been going through the motions of setting up everything needed to get all processes running smoothly. It’s all new and weird, but it’s all exciting.

At the same time, I’ve been working diligently on a new version of Signalnoise.com. If you’ve been following my tweets over the past while you would have noticed me bitching about CSS stuff, and that’s why :) When it comes to my website I’m a real sticky bastard about not changing things too drastically, mostly because I’m happy with how simple everything is and I don’t want to have to get used to some new crazy thing. So, the new Signalnoise.com will be a bit beefier but maintain a similar overall aesthetic. I have no solid launch date as yet, so all I can say is ’soon’.

While at the same time I’ve been working with some really great clients, two of which are Reckless Love and Nike while cultivating some new exciting jobs over the past few weeks. Not only will I be kicking off these new projects, but the next few months will see me speaking at FITC Toronto (see my presentation entitled Back to the Future) this April.

On top of everything else, I just returned from an excellent trip to New York where I took part in Immersion Day at Getty Images’ office as part of the ThinkCorps team. I’ll have more to say about this soon as it might require it’s own post, but some big highlights were meeting folks like Adelle Charles and Josh Smibert from the mighty Fuel Brand Inc., fellow canuck Chad Mueller from Inspiredology, John Fiorelli of the Cut & Paste digital design tournament and a bunch more. Awesome bunch to hang with.

As you can see, it’s been a wild 2010 for Signalnoise so far with no sign of letting up. Just the way I like it.

We are in the midst of Olympic mayhem here in Canada, considering Vancouver is the host and our country invented winter. Since the games officially kicked off, the crack team over at The Canadian Design Resource have been posting a lot of wonderful Olympic material from the past. Lovely stuff, so I plucked a few of my favorites to show here.

And if you missed their tweets, the CDR have been guest blogging over at Sports Illustrated to bring some homegrown flavor to their coverage of the event. Be sure to check out Part I: Canada’s Emblems, Part II: Canada’s Posters, and Part III: Torches and Cauldrons.

Beautiful illustration and design work by Netherlands-based artist Stefan Glerum. Stefan’s obvious and honest appreciation of illustration from the past took me by complete surprise this morning. Not only is his pencil work beautiful and appropriately aged, he had an excellent eye for aesthetic, color and typography.

His hand-lettered elements and odd characters harken back to 1920s Europe, maybe with a touch of Bauhaus and Parisian Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec? At any rate, I’m thrilled to see someone take such an off-kilter illustration style and apply it to modern projects and events.

This work is so accurately executed, I can’t believe it’s current. Check out more work by Stefan Glerum on his official website.

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.