Eriks DesignBuss

Who says designers have to work in brick-and-mortar offices?

"I wanted to explore my role as a designer,
travel and find clients."

Not Swedish design graduate Erik Olovsson, who is currently travelling around Sweden in a refitted camper van, going by the name of Eriks DesignBuss, whilst working for a variety of different clients. 

Olovsson explains "Maybe the local pizzeria needs help with new menus, the dentist a new business card, the local gallery a better logo, or the farmer a new sign… It is rare that a designer gets a deeper insight into a client’s business these days. It’s easy to hang around at the office and surf design blogs instead of finding inspiration in real life. Technology means we don't leave the office, we have Skype meetings and email contact instead of conversation around a coffee and a face to face contact. I wanted to change this.”

Eriks DesignBuss acts as a mobile studio and even contains its own print shop and photo studio.

Olovsson’s whereabouts and itinerary can be followed on his website.

Thanks to Pad19 for the information and research for this article.

Oil disaster turned into Art

In 2010 BP was responsible for the largest ever oil-spill in the history of the petroleum industry. During 87 days oil flowed unabated into the Gulf of Mexico, causing extensive damage to marine and wildlife habitats.

Many cleanup activities and projects ensued but one in particular drew art from the disaster through the project OIL & WATER DO NOT MIX.

Belgian communications agency Happiness Brussels teamed up with designer Anthony Burrill to create this poster.

With a limited edition print run of 200, the posters were screen-printed with the oil from the Gulf of Mexico disaster, with all benefits going to the Coalition to Restore Coastal Louisiana (CRCL), a non-profit organisation dedicated to restoring the Gulf of Mexico’s coastal wetlands.

The process involved some very dirty hands before achieving the final poster.

All the photos of the project can be seen here

Video of the OIL & WATER DO NOT MIX project

Many thanks to Pad19 for researching information for the blog post.

Cad-Cut vinyl printing - more versatile than meets the eye.

Cad-Cut vinyl printing is a basic and simple method of machine-cut shapes which can then be applied to textile using a heat-press.

The artwork must be in vector format, i.e. Adobe Illustrator, Corel Draw or Freehand, as the Vinyl Cutter or "Plotter" uses the vector lines to cut the vinyl with a blade. The excess material must then be pealed or “weeded” by hand so that only the cut shapes remain.

For basic, one colour, designs the process is quick and economical. However, for more complicated designs it can become very labour intensive.

Now for the fun part:

If you have a spot colour design in vector format, the colours can be separated and the whole design can be done using different colour vinyl!

The idea is to layer the colours one on top of the other until you have the completed design.

Given the huge range of colours and textures available for vinyl cutting, the results can be quite inspiring and unique. Especially by adding 3D material to accentuate parts of the design.

A great example of how versatile the process is can be seen in the following video

Handsum Designs