This week is a very tasty and special flavor of Creative Juice. I want to welcome you to very first Creative Juice Studio Flavor featuring one of my favorite design studios and friends. The Collected Works. For this edition, I asked TCW co-founder, Justin Colt, to share some design inspiration from the TCW HQ. And he didn't disappoint. Enjoy!
PS. If you have any fav design studios or agencies that you would like to hear from. Please let me know here.
Creative Juice is a weekly newsletter published every Monday morning so you can start your week feeling inspired creatively to make cool sh*t and get paid for it. Every Monday I share something gorgeous, a portfolio of the week, three creative finds, one amazing post from social media, and one lesson I learned recently.
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TL:DR
SOMETHING GORGEOUS: A Lesson in Finality
PORTFOLIO OF THE WEEK: An Inspired Portfolio
CREATIVE FIND 01: Y2K Inspiration Meets VR World Building
CREATIVE FIND 02: A Special Celebration: 50 Years of the Parka
CREATIVE FIND 03: We Threw Ourselves a Party with Tasty Swag
One Gram: A Hit of Nostalgic Inspiration
ONE LESSON: Don't Run Out Of Money
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Something Gorgeous
A Lesson in Finality
Dirty Furniture #6 Bed
We were recently introduced to "Dirty Furniture" by the amazing people at Stack Magazines. This was incredibly exciting, but also heartbreaking. We loved everything about this magazine and their current issue - which also happened to be their last.
Originally conceived as a Kickstarter project in 2013, Dirty Furniture started as a long-form exploration of objects that hide in plain sight. Each of their six issues focuses on a different piece of furniture, starting with the couch, table, toilet, closet, phone, and finally putting it all to rest with the bed.
In a world where design is becoming more and more commodified and social media pulls our attention in a thousand directions, it was refreshing to sit down and read about the ways that the design of everyday objects can give space to larger conversations about our relationship with them, ourselves, and different societies around the globe.
This last issue is also beautifully designed and printed. Everything from its smaller size to how it mixes paper stocks was a reminder that screens can't replicate the feeling of a physical magazine. Goodnight Dirty Furniture, I'm sorry we didn't meet sooner.
PS. You can still get issues 4, 5, and 6 of the magazine on their website.
Portfolio of the Week
An Inspired Portfolio
Rabiya Gupta
Rabiya is a former intern of ours. We loved - and continue to love - that her portfolio not only shows the breadth of her work with a variety of styles in eye-popping colors, but also how she thinks about design systems.
Take, for instance, her brand identity for a Museum of Asian Culture. She shows a clear thematic inspiration - "culture flows like a river" - and sets up a construction for a logo mark that immediately connects with a meandering line holding space for the letters MOAC (but also stands alone as an icon). This motif lends itself beautifully to environmental signage - it's like it was made for an arrowhead to cap it off and point you to galleries and the cafe. Thoughtful use of typography and color add a solid weight to a playful, but grounded aesthetic. Like a river itself, it's a system that can stretch to fill the gaps and recede when it needs to.
That's just one example - be sure to check out her psychedelic take on Poodle Caboodle, or a reinterpretation of Goldfrapp's albums with custom type and hand lettering. There's a lot of eye candy here, and clear intention behind it. Rabiya's portfolio doesn't push the boundaries of what a website can be, but it does exactly what it needs to: let brilliant work shine without getting in the way.
Score: Rad
Built with: Wix
Creative Finds
Y2K Inspiration Meets VR World Building
In-game Assets for Virtual Reality Game Nock
We've been pals with the incredibly talented team at Normal VR for a while now. When they asked us to help out with their incredibly fun game Nock - think soccer meets archery in VR - we never expected to have walked away saying we contributed to honest-to-goodness video game development. We paired Nock's high octane gameplay with a futuristic y2k-inspired aesthetic that helped give each Nock item a distinct look and feel. Texturing in-game models with different decals, stickers, and finishes gave the impression that the Nock game world had a host of sponsors, brands, and even item manufacturers, and above all else, looks and feels fun.
A Special Celebration: 50 Years of the Parka
Limited Edition Zine and Motion Package for The North Face
The North Face is celebrating 50 years of its iconic parka. We were stoked to collaborate with them and craft a design system that supported both motion and print materials for this celebratory campaign. We loved that it not only paid homage to its role as technical gear for extreme conditions, but also as a cultural symbol. This system enabled us to integrate campaign photography and written interviews with the incredible Conrad Anker, Jimmy Chin, Quannah Chasinghorse, and Danie Sierra. Our favorite part, though? The limited edition zine, printed on 100% recycled paper.
We Threw Ourselves a Party with Tasty Swag
Ten Years of TCW
Thanks for indulging us thus far in the newsletter. We recently celebrated a big milestone - 10 years! - and were feeling a little self-indulgent ourselves. One of our long-standing goals was to have a custom beer can with our name on it, and we finally fulfilled that when we collaborated with Five Boroughs Brewing Company. The commemorative can released exclusively at The Collected Works 10 Year Anniversary Party™, which was graciously hosted at the brewery. To complete the look, we designed a small branding system, complete with wristbands, tees, stickers, and more.
One Gram
A Hit of Nostalgic Inspiration
@cultkits
I've been obsessed with vintage soccer kits lately, and it's all because of Cult Kits. Their posts are curated with the perfect mix of nostalgia, rarities, and fresh takes on classic shirts. From Fiorentina's classic Nintendo shirt, to Barcelona's classic teal Kappa Jersey, all the way to Bureau Borsche's branding and design for Venezia FC, this has been an unexpected source of inspiration.
One Lesson
Don't Run Out Of Money
It sounds obvious, but looking back at the last 10 years of our studio, this is one of the pieces of advice that we keep coming back to. As creatives, it's easy to overlook financial planning and budgeting while letting passion guide your work decisions. I think it's very important to educate yourself on these topics, and to be comfortable talking about money, especially if you're just starting your career.
The first year or two will definitely be hard, but the goal should always stay the same: just don't run out of money. What this means on a deeper level is that you keep an eye on your overhead, make sure that you're charging a rate that's fair to both your clients but also to yourself. And don't forget about taxes.
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