For quite a long time, as a teenager, I was fascinated by perfumes. Maybe because of Patrick Suskïnd’s book or maybe because of the exquisite packagings, I was attracted to the world of scents as a bee is to honey. I then learned to identify vetiver, amber, musc, florals and all the other beautiful words attached to the practice of the nose. And probably, if it wasn’t for the chemical studies, I would have go down the road of being a nose myself. So, when I heard one of my favorite design studio had released there first perfume, my heart beat stopped for an instant.

M/Mink is a perfume about paper and ink. Solid black ink, chinese calligraphy, a hint of clove and salt, or so they say. I want to smell it, touch it and embrace it…  I need to find a bottle of this jus.

Check out the press release, it’s beautiful.

Can one be nostalgic for something he or she never knew? Cause I sure do. Whenever I stumble upon something letraset related, I dream of having to set up things the old ways. Which of course, I’ve never had the chance to my whole life. I’m really thankful for Creative Pro to have uploaded such treasures : scanned pages of the 1970/1973 letraset catalogs. Dreamy.

“Do not design to please anyone,

Do not design to fit any useless standards,

Do not design out of angst or tiredness,

Do not design only for money or fame or things that will fade away.

Design for it to be the best design you’ve ever seen on the field. ”

… is my new mantra I recall in every moment I feel lost facing a crappy “bad design moment”. You can also replace design by “Live”, which works well, somehow.

I hope you all had a great time lately.
Love & good kerning

Zélia

You may have stumbled across the excellent dollar redesign by Dowling Duncan on DesignBoom this morning. Not only is this a very interesting design project, but the execution is fabulous: different sizes to help master the different bank notes, strong colors and bold graphical choices : it’s really how I’d wish I’d design bank notes myself. But strangely, I realized I never thought about redesigning bank notes before. Because to me, the old, dull colors, same size, strange old school design was the way it has to be. Like many objects of everyday, like toilet papers, pencils, administration letters, tax advices and all, I didn’t noticed how they were designed becaue, well, they were designed a non shocking way after all. What if all these were exceptionally designed, I wonder? Would the general level of designess increase? Would it even be possible? This sounds like an utopia, suddenly, where ugliness would take its toll like a rebellious act.

And what about you? What everyday object would you redesign if you had the opportunity?

(images: Designboom)