Left, right, left, right, left, right, left…HALT…ATTENTION!!!

Hi there troops, good news from the front-lines: We have just announced our October 2 Open Theme WINNER!

We send our latest winner, Kookylove, a massive round of applause for a job well done!
Congratulations. Your Rise of the music design is absolutely rocking!

The concept of this image is adapted from a very famous historical photograph called Raising the flag on Iwo Jima. The photo shows United States Marines and a U.S. Navy corpsman raising the American flag on Mount Suribachi in Japan during the Battle of Iwo Jima.

This fresh take on this well-known known image is infused with musical awesomeness! It removes the negative military vibe and replaces it with an uplifting music theme.
We have seen a few designs come through in the past of soldiers wielding guitars instead of guns, but they pale in comparison to this well executed design.

When I say this is going to sell like ‘hot cakes’ that is an understatement of battleship sized proportions!

The colour of this design is very well balanced. The almost gradient effect of the greens and yellows looks absolutely breathtaking together. Very impressed how it looks on screen, which means it’s going to blow our minds when it gets printed on our super-duper t-shirts.
Really, I can’t wait for this one.

This is already Kookylove’s second win here on Springleap.com!
You will probably remember his cult classic Running with Scissorhands design which won our February 1 Open Theme this year. It seems that Kookylove has a great knack for taking well known iconic material and reinventing it in clever and unique ways.

Check out all of his amazing work on his Springleap profile page.

Well done sir, Rise of the music is set to become a Springleap classic!

Talk about a power slide to victory.

It’s insane how vast the internet is and how much amazing design just simply goes unnoticed!

Check out the Ampersandampersand page, which is dedicated entirely to the most legendary ampersand designs. That’s the symbol for “and”….sigh, ok this one dudes “&”.

I stumbled across this really awesome Tumblr page  a few days ago & was really excited.
Firstly because I am an avid fan of all things typography and secondly because the ampersand has always been my favourite logogram!
Anybody who is type obsessed like me will know just how crazy we can seem to ‘normal people’.
I don’t even know how often I have ranted on about how a font should or shouldn’t be used to one of my hapless friends. The response I usually end up receiving is an exasperated head shake, or eye-roll!

This is truly such a beautiful symbol! The curves of the ampersand have amazing natural flow, which gives typography artists ample fertile ground to go wild & create awe-inspiring designs.
Sheesh, I make it sound like we are painting some curvaceous model here.

I have gone through the entire list on Ampersandampersand & have come up with my TOP 3 (left to right): Camera, Akzidenz Grotesk Condensed Light & Gill Sans Mt Bold Italic

Sadly the Ampersandampersand project of putting together 365 of the sexiest most super-uber ampersand designs has come to an end. Well actually, it ended in December 2010…so almost a year ago now. This is why I said that it was insane how much awesome design goes “unnoticed”. I feel like the rabbit from Alice in Wonderland..."I'm late I'm late I'm late".
Sorry ;)

The awesome ampersand was in danger of falling in to disuse in more recent times, because of changes in sentence structure it is rarely seen in written paragraphs. Honestly, these days, it’s primarily used for formal business names, eg: Duncs & Duncs.

The saving grace of the ampersand has actually come from increased global internet use!

Who would have thought that the digital environment would be the saviour for any form of traditional typography!
This is strangely ironic, considering that digital writing forms, such as, text messaging (SMS) for mobile phones and micro-messages on platforms like Twitter, are slowly leading to a degeneration of the written word.

Well, while I say “degeneration”, there are many new-age type gurus who think that the transformation of text into a minimal form is actually an evolution!
Sorry, but I am not completely sold on this idea. I think there is a place for shortened text, such as with the online world, but we must not become lazy & let this tact start to affect our day-to-day writing. There is often quite a mountain of info which is simply lost in translation when you begin to ‘cut corners’.

The ampersand is surely here to stay! When I’m writing blogs, creating online copy, or simply sending a text to a friend, the trusty ampersand comes in very handy when optimizing space. The Twitter users out there will probably nod in unison at this remark…or those who pay dearly per SMS.

Not enough Ampersand awesomeness for you? Here are a few more places you can check out to well and truly sate that thirst:

1. Ode to Ampersand - Design Shack
2. The Ampersand - Gosedesign
3. Ampersands With Attitude - Smashing Magazine
4. The Mesmerizing Curves of Ampersands - The Design Cubicle

What are your favourite ampersand designs? Choose one from the Ampersandampersand site or post your own one below!
Here is the Ampersandampersand archive.

& that’s a wrap.

This King is definitely not slipping!

Kingslip is one of those designers who are able to create visually captivating designs with unique minimal style which has the ‘energy’ to challenge any and all competitors that come his way.

When it comes to executing a clever design concept, it is often the more simplistic, or minimal, styles which shine through!

Whenever Kingslip submits a new design you can be sure that his concept is ironclad and that the execution will instantly communicate this concept.
This is perhaps the defining power of Kingslip!

Being able to express his ideas in this manner is not always as easy as it seems. The problem with most minimal designs is that they don’t make ‘full use’ of the t-shirt canvas. Often these designs seem lost against the t-shirts veritable sea of flat colour. Kingslip has a superb knack for taking his designs a step further and making them work seamlessly with his tee.

Take a look at Kingslip’s most recent winning design for the October 1 Open Theme compo, entitled Still life with mustache and guns. This winning design caught the attention of the voters from very early on in the competition and managed to defeat some truly awesome competitors. Still life with mustache and guns is a prime example of minimal design rising to the top and showing its true worth!

Not so long ago I composed a mail which touched on the timeless battle between intricate and simple design. Kingslip is a design guru who sits atop the latter group’s ‘movers and shakers’ list and who constantly sends through quirky fun minimal design which has the ability to blow even the most intricate designs out of the water.
There are very few Springleap designers of the simple/minimal style that match up to this man. If you would like to read more on this subject please read my Intricate vs. Simple design posting.

Check out Kingslip’s full spread of super cool designs in his myDesigns section.

As always I can’t wait to see what well designed ‘rabbit’ this magician pulls out his hat next!

D

With so much hype built up around Apple lately, I was stoked to see that another company, who also constantly delivers insane innovation, has taken a bold new step in connecting with their community.

The Sony Ericsson Xperia Studio is in essence an online entertainment platform for designers, artists and collaborators to showcase their work, which they feel can change the world as we know it. That’s right, Sony Ericsson are in essence trying to “remake reality”. This wicked cool platform will be constantly updated and will include an ever-growing cache of world-class contributors.
I’m getting excited WOOP WOOP!

I’m totally loving the collaborators that Sony Ericsson’s has gathered to showcase this initial phase in this exciting new project. They really have created some brilliant content to showcase how the Xperia brings the worlds of various professionals to people like you and I.

The Sont Ericsson Xperia Studio project has interesting people such as Dr. Joshua Peek, who is an astrophysicist who has created a way of viewing our universe with the “naked eye”. Basically using the Xperia Arc and the good doctor’s new app, you can view the night sky in a way you never imagined. In essence you will be able to pick up gamma rays, X-rays and far infrared, which will make the night sky explode with radiance!

The next collaborator I would like to mention is Annabel Linquist, who is an artist/musician, hailing from New York. She records the sounds of Paris on her Xperia and used the audio samples in order to create a song she calls Patch a Signal. Very cleverly done I must say. Such a cute little song as well, done in a very quirky nursery song style, hehe.
The interactivity of the video is also pretty cool too! You can click through to find out more or take a look at the photos of her journey with a simple click on the playing video. Nice one! I would love to create my own music on the move. Imagine how much fun this would be. I’d club-hop around Cape Town and make a mad trance track or two ;)

Ok, so there are so many amazing collaborators, which you MUST check out for yourself…however, I have one more for you!
Every single Xperia Studio project has been video clip which documents its creation…so don’t worry, you won’t miss out!

I absolutely love the ocean and anything to do with it, which is why when I saw Ed Sloane’s insane video about the search for the perfect wave and how he uses the Xperia to capture such amazing shots I had to include it on my collaborator list.
I just love how he not only use his Xperia for amazing images, but uses it as a complete device to check weather forecasts, swell, wind direction and any other technical info they might need to capture that perfect shot! WOW.

As a community manager myself I know how important your community is to the sustainability of your company, especially with a platform such as Springleap. We are nothing without our amazing community and wicked cool designers! We love you guys ;)

Check out the Sony Ericsson Xperia Studio for yourself and get involved on the Sony Ericsson Facebook and Twitter page.

I’m completely impressed with Sony Ericsson, well done on an amazingly innovative platform!

D.

HeeeeeeHaaaaaawww…. Howdy Pardner!

Congratulations go out to our October 2 Open Theme contest winner, Kingslip.

Once again this brilliant Springleap design veteran is back with a mega-impactful submission.
Kingslip is very well known around these here parts for creating designs that have a clearly palpable concept, which he delivers with perfect balance and clean style.

His latest winning design, Still Life with Mustache and Guns, is gonna bring out the fearless gunman in you!

This is the most epic design that could have possibly won for this time of the year.
It comes just in the nick of time for November…which we all know is Mo-vember month.
One thing is for sure – This is going to be my theme t-shirt for the month!

Are you ready to get into the Mo-vember spirit with Kingslip and his Still Life with Mustache and Guns?

It was just the other day that I wrote a blog article on the battle between intricate and simple designs.
This is a perfect example of how simple design can be flawlessly executed in order to create designs which captures the imagination of voters…no matter where they are from!

This is a brilliant new design which we are sure will do very VERY well in our store.
We have already received a wagon load of positive feedback from people who can’t wait to get this funky-vintage design on their backs as soon as possible.

We gonna go guns akimbo and hold-up this design train….thats right put your hands in the air and give this design all your love!

If you would like to see more of Kingslip’s super-duper design please visit his design page HERE.

Well done dude, great to see you back with another Springleap WIN.
Respect!!!