The Inksie Art Team is pleased to showcase our very first product, the Inksie Ampersand Print. The design, made by Portland, Oregon-based creative studio Colorcubic, was inspired by Herb Lubalin’s famous ampersand designs. It utilizes patterning of Inksie’s icons to form the symbol.

The limited-edition, 11″ × 17″ posters were printed on Neenah Environment PC-100 White 80-pound cover with a metallic gold ink. Rebecca from Stumptown Printers, a print shop in Portland, made the prints on a Vandercook Universal 1 Press.

The Ampersand Print will be available in an edition of 250 upon the launch of Inksie’s online shop.

The studio works primarily in print and packaging; their portfolio consists of magazine spreads, business cards, letterheads, promotional items.

We are extending Inksie’s launch giveaway for one more week. Entries will be accepted up until Monday, August 9th, when the Inksie shop will launch.

We have received a lot of entries for the drawing. We want even more people to have a chance to hear about Inksie and win something neat. In addition, we’re including a new Inksie mystery t-shirt to the prize package.

As before, the ways to enter the contest are:

• Follow Inksie on Twitter
• Become friends with Inksie on Facebook
• Subscribe to Inksie’s newsletter
• Leave a comment mentioning your favorite Journal article

What equipment do you use? Do you use off-camera lighting, or do you rely solely on natural light?

I use a Canon DSLR and lenses from both Canon and Tokina. I solely use natural lighting for both outdoor and indoor shooting.

What software do you use to edit your work? What do you do to process your photographs?

Most of my post-production work is done in Adobe Photoshop CS5 but I also use OnOne Plug-In Suite 5, Noiseware, Noise Ninja and several others.

Color is a strong subject. What is your goal here?

My goal is to desaturate my images to an “eerie” tone that suits the apocalyptic and lonely mood in my work.

A pairing of images from Mr. Høltermand’s ‘K3nc2r1Hus4t’ and ‘Illuminated’ galleries.

There is a particular location you photograph in both K3nc2r1Hus4t (3rd from last) and Illuminated (the first image). What is this place and what is its significance to you?

Yes. Those are special light boxes found on the walls of the K3nc2r1Hus4t (a concert house – the numbers in the title stands for the four studios in the concert house). I think I like them due to their very graphic expression and because I have a past in the graphic design business I specially loved these.

For The Strange Attractor’s Still Life project, you used the Diana F+. These images, especially the early ones, are a dramatic departure from your architectural style. How much did the camera influence this? Can you describe your process and intent with these images?

The camera influenced it a lot. I had never previously worked with an analog/film camera and had a blast shooting away, not knowing if the pictures would end up being good or bad. I wanted to give a more personal feel around my work – a look behind the scenes of my life and the world around me. Most of the landscape photos were shot nearby where I live. I also included people in my shots (the little girl in some of the last shots is actually my daughter Sally) which is definitely not my cup of tea but felt that I had to try it out in order to move closer to a more human and personal photo-series.

For the Still Life project, Mr. Høltermand shot with a film camera for the first time.

Regarding this project, you wrote it “has definitely triggered the inner experimental photography child.” How, exactly? Do you plan on exploring this more?

Yes, definitely. It made me want to play more and experiment with my work. Normally I crave the clean, aesthetic and minimal but sometimes I feel the need to break out of that perfectionistic box that I love so much and make some noise. The Strange Attractor’s Still Life project definitely helped me want to try that out even more.

Who do you look to for inspiration?

I find inspiration in a lot of different places; magazines of all kinds but specially magazines about graphic design, photography and architecture. Books; I love those big coffee table books on graphic design, art, movies (mostly Sci-Fi) and cult classics – currently I have The Stanley Kubrick Archives lying beside me when I work – Kubrick is King. Music; Icelandic band Sigur Rós has been the number one inspiration in my work, I must say. Their music is almost always in my mind (and in my iPod while shooting) when I work on a photographic project, but also Hammock, Moby, Air, Efterklang, Trentemøller, M83, Max Richter, Mikael Simpson, Mike Sheridan, Olafur Arnalds – the list is endless. All of these sources of inspiration are my driving force in making my errie, melancholic, post-apocalyptic and moody world come to life.

That comes across in color and composition, but it is most apparent through the absence of people in most of your photographs. Can you comment on this?

I like the viewer to feel alone. Like the last person on earth wandering around among this deserted beautiful architecture. It sets an unsettling and eerie mood that I like very much. And it makes the architecture stand out even more.

What are you working on now?

Right now I am working on several different projects; among others I am in the preparation for an upcoming exhibition in St. Petersburg this fall, where 40 of my photographs will be exhibited in the Manege, the largest exhibition hall of St. Petersburg. I’m also working on some personal projects and maybe a re-design of my website – who knows. Right now, no two days are alike, so you will never know which cool projects awaits me or are currently being shot and produced.

What are your plans for the future?

I always strive to become better in my field and hopefully I will be working with even more creative people and on even more insanely cool projects than I already have. So far it has been a true joyride and hopefully this is just the beginning.

You created the 3D typeface for German magazine Jpeople, correct? How did they approach you for the project?

I started this 3D typeface as a personal project in 2006 and finished it in 2009. It started as a 2D typeface; after I added grey tones to it I realized that there might be more than one way of viewing it than a 2D typeface. I began to see the possibilities of a 3D typeface and began experimenting with random words made out of foam board and wood. This resulted in a 3D typeface, constructed out of paper, that is easy to use, reproduce and has plenty of possibilities for design processes. Thanks to Zedz for being a good sparring partner, always there to bounce ideas off.

I presented the experiments, research, results and the whole 3D typeface in an A2 poster. Jpeople received a copy from this poster, they liked it and decided to write an article about it for their 3D issue, issue 12. They asked me if I could make a type treatment specially for Jpeople. This resulted in the Type piece (below), inspired by the colors of a shooting circle.

Do you have a name for the typeface?

The typeface is called 3D typeface. Pretty basic, but it says it all.

What was your process for developing the shapes on the 3D type? How did this translate to easy cut-out patterns for each letter?

First, I planned on making letters out of wood. I quickly realized that it would be hard to form words or sentences this way. Furthermore, people would not be able to experience the fun of making the 3D letters themselves. Therefore I had to come up with a more creative approach to trigger other people to bring this 3D typeface into operation. I had to figure out a way to produce and reproduce the typeface, ensuring the sense of playfulness stayed intact while working with the 3D typeface. This resulted in a typeface made out of paper: constructed by cutting, folding and gluing the paper together, like a building model.

Are you offering the EPS for the cut-out patterns as a download? Where might one find it?

Yes, the 3D typeface comes as an EPS file. By offering the typeface in this format, the final decisions on size and color are handed over to the user.

To purchase the typeface give me an email at jarrik@jarrik.com. Price is 35 Euro.

What is your experience working with type?

I explore the boundaries of what type is and what it could be. See how far I can push the boundaries between illegible but still readable type. In my subconscious there is always a concept within the typeface. If I look back at the Puzzle, Soft Machine and NBLight typeface they all started with a concept and a new approach on type. For the NBLight typeface Stefan Gandl (Neubau) and I started with a real installation. Since we could not use these images in Fontlab, Stefan suggested that we could make a vector/digital version of the typeface. This version is published in Neubau Modul and for sale on Neubauladen. A nice future of this typeface is that the cables of each letter are different!

How do you approach typography?

I see typography as shapes instead of the meaning of the word or letter. With this approach I design and treat typography, finding a balance between shape and readability. Always working within a concept and not by trends, which I think more people should do! We have to look forward and not to each other. Innovate and not recreate.

Since the start of the 3D typeface I approach and think more in 3D. Experiencing the whole process of printing the letters, cutting them out, gluing them together, arranging them in place and taking photos of them feels good. I just finished a new 3D typeface made out of blocks with on each side another form. Six or nine of these blocks together create a letter or a number.

The thoughts of not only thinking in graphic purposes, have broadened my vision and changed my approach of what typography could do. In the development of the 3D typeface I looked at the possibilities of 3D typography on buildings. Maybe this is the future of advertising on buildings?

What are you working on now?

Right now I am working on a logo/logo system for my own studio. The idea behind this logo/logo system is: The work I make is my identity as a designer. People may know my name but they don’t know/recognize my work, or vice versa. That is why I use parts of the logos and typefaces I made for clients for my own logo. I use the letters from the logos and typefaces that are also in my own name.

What are your future plans?

I am working on a new project called 50 Wallpapers from the City of Amsterdam. The product is an A4 note block with 50 pages with 50 different walls. The seams/grooves in the walls are the lines that you could write on. There are street signs, graffiti tags and other specific signs that could only be found in Amsterdam. You can recognize Amsterdam through these walls. It is a project about public space and city culture. This idea could also work for other cities like Berlin, Paris, New York, et cetera. The cover of the note block is a typographic translation off a wall.

I am now in the phase where I try to find a publisher who is interested in it.

Besides this project I will work on some new identities, logos and I have a couple ideas for a new 3D typeface.

More of Jarrik Muller’s work may be viewed on his website and Behance profile.

How long after you started reading the Missed Connections section did you start making illustrations? What prompted this change – from simply reading to reacting visually?

From the first Missed Connection I read, I saw them as potential paintings. The idea for the series percolated in the wee hours that night and for once I woke up and got on with it! The decision to make it a blog, rather than just accumulate the images for some undetermined project down the line, was purely to enforce self-discipline. I thought that if even one person was looking at the blog, I’d feel obliged to keep producing the work. As all freelancers know, it’s not easy to maintain a personal project alongside all your “actual” work, no matter how enthusiastic you are. I didn’t want this one to go the way of the unfinished novel in the drawer.

The fact that more than one person looked at the blog was, and continues to be, the most extraordinary bonus.

Do you remember the first missed connection you illustrated? What did you find intriguing?

That’s the other great thing about having a blog as opposed to a shifting pile of drawings in a cupboard…it neatly archives everything. I can therefore tell you with accuracy that the first Missed Connections I illustrated was “I Had a Blue Hat,” on March 9, 2009.

You had a guitar. I had a blue hat. We exchanged glances and smiles on the subway platform. I pretended to read my New Yorker but I couldn’t concentrate. You got on the Q and I stayed on to wait for the B. You were lovely.

It felt like the perfect introductory one; it is almost the missed connection formula right there: We saw each other, I look like this, you look like that, I thought you were lovely, I know it’s a long shot but I’d really like to see you again. It was fun and easy to simplify the two characters to their accessories, with subtle details…the hat’s feather inclining wistfully and the guitar’s arrow leaving the scene.

Are you keeping the sources local?

For now I’m just concentrating on New York. There’s a deep well of material here, as colorful and fascinating and surprising as the city itself…but I’d quite like to do some rural ones one day.

Have you ever been contacted by one of your subjects?

Yes! A couple of times. The man who “shared a bear suit at an apartment party” wrote to me and even sent a photo of himself taken that evening in the costume! That was fantastic. The “long, curly haired” woman wrote, as did the “floral jacket,” and many people wrote claiming the “girl with the scrabble tattoo” was their dear friend.

Have you ever listed a missed connection on a site or in the paper?

No. I was tempted once, but it wasn’t a romantic connection, more a misunderstanding I wanted to clear up. I was on a bus, watching a man from the window who was grappling with a very, very big, heavy Ikea box on a very, very small, flimsy luggage cart. I was staring with what I thought was obvious empathy but this guy looked up, saw me and gave me the finger. (He happened to be rather cute, but that is irrelevant to the story.) He took out his iPhone, held it up, snapped a picture of me, and furiously flipped me off again. By this time I was contorting my face into increasingly grotesque grimaces meant to convey sympathy rather than mockery. I may have flapped my hands inanely. I can’t help thinking he enlarged that photo, hung it above his assembled Ikea unit and now uses it as a dartboard. I considered posting a message to redeem myself, but realised he would be way too busy with all those pieces of birch veneer and the wrong sized allen key to be checking Craigslist.

You’ve been working on the Missed Connections project for a little over a year. How long do you plan to continue?

Until I feel like doing something new, I guess. For now, the possibilities still feel infinite.

Is a book still in the works?

Yes. It is to be called You Probably Won’t Read This: A Year of Missed Connections, and will be published by Workman in 2011.

What projects are you currently working on?

I have three picture books on my desk in various stages of completion, and they’re all overdue. (Shh, don’t tell my editors.) One particularly exciting one is Aldous Huxley’s The Crows of Pearblossom. It’s the only children’s book he ever wrote and it’s an honor and an enormous thrill to be illustrating it.

You directed and designed for The Navigators’ music video. Have you ever worked on a project like this before? What was it like to direct the video after designing the matchboxes?

I have never done project like this – this was in my charge from the very beginning till the end. The actual direction wasn’t hard, it was all about the finalized designs, good locations and capable editor (thank you, Petr from asfalt.tv, again.)

How did you get the idea for for the video? Why matchboxes?

I had the idea of matchbox video in my mind for quite a long time. I am a big fan of vintage and retro graphics, especially Eastern European [graphics] (Czechoslovakian, Polish, Hungarian). Matchboxes with its messages had a long tradition in communist Czechoslovakia, they were used mainly for communicating quite dull or weird messages, such as “Don’t stir vegetables while cooking;” “Tetanus kills;” [and] “Fertilize half of the fields this winter.”

How did you make them?

I was interested in designing each matchbox as if it worked on its own but together they’d build a consistent collection of lyrics. The very first idea was an old mad man showing his collection of matchboxes, as if he just has coincidentally found out that the words on them are very similar to the ones in the song.

Mr Fuksa designed a booklet for The Navigators’ record “My Place.” He created matchbox-style graphics for each track on the album.

How long did it take to design all of the matchboxes? What became of them?

The whole design of matchboxes took four days. I was working overnight and my wife was not very happy…I saved some of them form me and my friends, but the majority of them were handed out at the party for the very first run of the music video. They were handed out for free and became a huge hit! I designed the CD cover and the booklet in the same design style.

How do you know The Navigators?

This was my first encounter with the band. I was trying to find a band who sings in English and have a good song full of lyrics which would be suitable for this idea of mine. My friend got me a tip for the Navigators and we found out that we have similar sense of humour and we literally clicked.

What projects are you working on now?

I am working on a second music video for Navigators, writing some ideas for two more music videos for other bands and meanwhile I do freelance designs for companies from [the] US, Netherlands and Czech Republic.

Do you hope to continue with production work, or do you want to do more design work?

I would like to do half and half. I can’t currently decide what I’d like more, whether shooting or designing. I really like to put my twisted sense of humor into everything I do and I don’t mind if it is moving image or the still design.

Unfortunately, Mr Rams was not available for an interview. His thoughts on each principle, reproduced with permission from Vitsoe, come from conversation with Mark Adams, Managing Director of the furniture company.

Based on my experience as a designer, I have distilled the essentials of my design philosophy into ten principles. But these principles cannot be set in stone because, just as technology and culture are constantly developing, so are ideas about good design.

Good design is innovative.

The possibilities for innovation are not, by any means, exhausted. Technological development is always offering new opportunities for innovative design. But innovative design always develops in tandem with innovative technology, and can never be an end in itself.

Good design makes a product useful.

A product is bought to be used. It has to satisfy certain criteria, not only functional, but also psychological and aesthetic. Good design emphasises the usefulness of a product whilst disregarding anything that could possibly detract from it.

Good design is aesthetic.

The aesthetic quality of a product is integral to its usefulness because products we use every day affect our person and our well-being. But only well-executed objects can be beautiful.

Good design makes a product understandable.

It clarifies the product’s structure. Better still, it can make the product talk. At best, it is self-explanatory.

Good design is unobtrusive.

Products fulfilling a purpose are like tools. They are neither decorative objects nor works of art. Their design should therefore be both neutral and restrained, to leave room for the user’s self-expression.

Good design is honest.

It does not make a product more innovative, powerful or valuable than it really is. It does not attempt to manipulate the consumer with promises that cannot be kept.

Good design is long-lasting.

It avoids being fashionable and therefore never appears antiquated. Unlike fashionable design, it lasts many years – even in today’s throwaway society.

Good design is thorough down to the last detail.

Nothing must be arbitrary or left to chance. Care and accuracy in the design process show respect towards the consumer.

Good design is environmentally friendly.

Design makes an important contribution to the preservation of the environment. It conserves resources and minimises physical and visual pollution throughout the lifecycle of the product.

Good design is as little design as possible.

Less, but better – because it concentrates on the essential aspects, and the products are not burdened with non-essentials. Back to purity, back to simplicity.

This is the last entry of a ten-part series based on Dieter Rams’ Ten Principles of Good Design. The Journal asked writers and illustrators to contribute to the project. Each writer wrote on one of Rams’ principles; each illustrator reacted to a writer’s essay.

I am a big fan of Dieter Rams and his ten principles. This last principle sums up all previous nine principles into one:

Find as few solutions for as many problems as possible.

Which is a nearly perfect definition when you talk about design as product design. To understand its theoretic core you need to see that he uses two slightly different notions of design in the same sentence.

Good design is as little design as possible.

With design, as in “Good design,” he refers to design as a form of basic engineering. With design as in “little design” he refers to design as the process of giving shape. (In German, design is Gestaltung, literally: shaping.) If you replace the two notions of design with these more specific definitions, the sentence sounds less paradoxical (and less rhetoric):

Good engineering is giving as little shape as possible.

So good engineers avoid shaping objects? Isn’t engineering just that: giving shape to a concept? Yes, it is: Good engineers focus on shaping the necessary parts of a product. In other words:

In a perfectly engineered product every shape is necessary.

Which, of course, is consistent with the rhetoric in principles two, four and seven. The only way for me to add some opinionated salt to the ten principles – which, to me, read more like a poem than an engineering guideline – is that design also needs a break from total consistency to feel humane and approachable.

Oliver Reichenstein wrote on Rams’s tenth principle, Good design is as little design as possible. Mr Reichenstein is the founder of the design firm Information Architects. Lab Partners, Ryan Meis’ and Sarah Labieniec’s design and illustration studio, created the above illustration based on Mr Reichenstein’s essay. They have designed and illustrated for numerous clients including Monocle, Wired Magazine and HP.

This is entry nine of a ten-part series based on Dieter Rams’ Ten Principles of Good Design. The Journal asked writers and illustrators to contribute to the project. Each writer wrote on one of Rams’ principles; each illustrator reacted to a writer’s essay.

Designers are not tree-killers or waste-makers. Rather, we are material utilizers, for better or worse. We create experiences, provide information, and promote interactions, whether it be in products, printed materials, or the spaces we inhabit. Rams was quite ahead of his time with his statement, “Good Design is environmentally friendly.” Today, environmentalism is all the rage. You’d be hard pressed to find a brochure, a piece of packaging, or even an iron that lacks a small statement or tiny leaf proclaiming its care for our world. Worse than that, big brands seem to tout their environmental concern – so much that there is almost a backlash to it.

But this isn’t what Rams’ principle was about.

We have so many options as designers today. The bright side of the trendiness of environmentalism currently seen in the consumer world is that we as designers are pushed a little harder to make conscious choices about the materials we use and decisions we make. For example, there are widely available and well-made recycled papers and plastics, as well as soy-based inks.

But this also isn’t what Rams’ principle was about.

The beauty of Rams’ ninth principle is that it interacts and relies on the others. Like all of them, it says one thing: good design is thoughtful. To be thoughtful, we must be asking questions, and the question for every project must be, “what is our environment?” This single question leads to many others. They provide a rubric for judging our work. In it, we set limits on what materials we use and how much, we decide the lifetime of a particular piece of work.

Aaron Heth wrote on Rams’ ninth principle, Good design is environmentally friendly. Mr Heth co-hosts Read Between the Leading, a podcast for design education and discussion. He recently graduated from Savannah College of Art & Design’s design program and is freelancing in the San Francisco area. Jeffrey Bowman created the above illustration based on Mr Heth’s essay. Mr Bowman works under the name Studio-Bowlegs. He is currently enrolled as MA student at The University of Huddersfield, and has designed for numerous clients, including Urban Outfitters, Computer Arts, and Nike.