Mint

While browsing adorable shop fronts on flickr (and doing a little day dreaming) I ran across James Doiron’s flickr. James Doiron is a retail photographer with an enormous collection of images. By enormous, I mean nearly 26,000. The ones that interest me the most are scans he’s made from books on window displays and vintage advertisements. Many of them look like scenes from a play, and a few (here & here) might inspire your next Halloween party!

So, these probably aren’t the direction I’d take with my imaginary shop… but aren’t they incredible?

images: 1/2/3/4/5/6

For the past few years, I’ve been day dreaming about owning a brick-and-mortar shop. Some days it seems like a real possibility, and others I remember the startup costs, long hours, and the fact that I have no retail experience to learn from. Whenever I envision my shop, the storefront is always the first thing that I get excited about. “Window Dresser” makes my top ten careers list, seriously.

So, this morning I thought I’d share a few favorites by Anne Lucas, followed by some dramatic vintage displays this afternoon. Oh and if you haven’t seen the new Saipua shop, head over to The Scout right. now.

Photos by Anne Lucas 1/2/3/4

Coki is the talented lady behind the design blog Milk Tooth’s Rain, and I’m happy to welcome her as a new sponsor on Mint! She lives in Italy and when she’s not blogging, she makes beautiful crocheted things like the blanket above.

Thanks, Coki!

If you’re interested in becoming a Mint sponsor, please email me at mintdesignblog (at) gmail (dot) com for more info. Holiday spots are still available!

Braden Wise graduated from design school last year, and works as a freelance designer now. His portfolio looks like a mixture of impressive student projects and some real-life things mixed in, too. My favorite is a packaging concept called Road Aid. Braden says “When asked to redesign a first aid kit with a fresh twist, I turned to the concept of aiding a road trip experience. As an avid road trip fan, it was only fitting that I design a kit that not only heals, but also amuses. My strategy entails grouping the various items into four separate categories for easy access. The components fix wounds, while helping to curb the boredom caused by any dragged out road trip.”

Below is another student project, where Braden had to design two versions of the Bill of Rights, one modern and one traditional.

The next project is some identity work for a horse farm, taking inspiration from Egyptian architecture, southern vintage, and a theme of royalty.

This last one is a concept for a redesign of vitamin water.

He’s awesome, right?

I hope you all have great weekends! See you Monday!

Now you can get these beautiful letterpressed hangtags from Linda & Harriett with a colorful satin ribbon! They yellow/grey combo is calling my name…

Wouldn’t you love to own the font FIG? Designed by Eric Olson and available at Process Type Foundry.

“Named after the collaboration of Frank Sheeran, Ian Chai and Glenn Chappell that produced the FIGlet application, FIG is a set of three typefaces in the spirit of early email and ASCII art explorations. Written in 1991 using the programming language C, the FIGlet application allows users to create fonts with basic ASCII characters (see some examples of FIGlets). The FIG types capture the simplicity of the FIGlets with a family that includes a sans, serif and script.” —process type foundry

My most recent project for work was the most fun yet! It was my first stab at infographics, and I loved pulling together all the little illustrations and organizing everything. Flywheel’s marketing team, Dylan Haigh and Kristy Martino, wrote all the copy.

It’s still a work in progress, but eventually this will be available on our website as a PDF download. We’ll also share it with new clients who want some info on who we are and what we do. We’ll be posting the final version on OK Great I’m sure, but in the meantime… well, patience is a virtue I don’t have.

A few more photos up on my flickr.

[design copyright ellie snow & flywheel design]