Melanie, Author at Design Work Life https://designworklife.com/author/melanie/ Design inspiration & how-tos for your everyday work and life. Tue, 30 Aug 2022 17:35:53 +0000 en-US hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=6.9.4 https://designworklife.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/09/cropped-dwl-icon-32x32.png Melanie, Author at Design Work Life https://designworklife.com/author/melanie/ 32 32 Badass Lady Creatives: Art Director/Designer Jenny Tondera https://designworklife.com/jenny-tondera/ Fri, 07 Feb 2020 17:00:57 +0000 https://designworklife.com/?p=80384 Jenny Tondera, Art Director at Spring Studios NY, hasquite a bit under her belt: she’s designed atMCAD DesignWorks, 160over90, andBloomingdale’s; she’s taught as an adjunct professor at MICA; and she co-runsParts & Labor Books, a small art book publisher. Jenny’s work really shines in projects where she combines zine sensibilities with a sophisticated restraint. When […]

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]]> Badass Lady Creatives [in History]: Amrita Sher-Gil https://designworklife.com/amrita-sher-gil/ Wed, 28 May 2014 13:00:09 +0000 https://designworklife.com/?p=81226 Amrita Sher-Gil (1913–1941) was an influential painter in the Indian modern art movement. Amrita is often labelled the “Frida Kahlo of India”, likely for her exploration of indigenous Indian culture as a means to self-discovery and a distinct artistic voice. Having only lived until age 28, Amrita managed to pack so much into a short life: she was well-traveled […]

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]]> Badass Lady Creatives: Hattie Newman https://designworklife.com/hattie-newman/ Wed, 21 May 2014 13:00:13 +0000 https://designworklife.com/?p=81117 I don’t know what’s in the water over in London, but the city boasts some pretty serious set design talent. A recent favorite is Hattie Newman, who works primarily with the cut-paper aesthetic. Hattie’s lovingly-crafted paper objects can be found in fashion stories, alongside articles, in window displays, and functioning as seasonal installations. She nails the […]

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]]> 13 Italian Illustrators Whose Work Will Inspire You https://designworklife.com/italian-illustrators/ Wed, 14 May 2014 13:00:02 +0000 https://designworklife.com/?p=80747 Italian illustrators are really showing up in the illustration scene right now. With bold color choices and meaningful messages, these illustrators from Italy know where it’s at. There’s an undercurrent in Italian illustration that I quite enjoy—a certain exuberance rendered quietly, layered on in color-blocked shapes. Each of the Italian illustrators featured below has their […]

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]]> Badass Lady Creatives in History: Sarah Wyman Whitman https://designworklife.com/sarah-wyman-whitman/ Wed, 30 Apr 2014 13:00:34 +0000 https://designworklife.com/?p=80037 Vital to the history of graphic design is the Arts and Crafts Movement, a notion that art and life are intrinsically bound to each other. The initially English movement is a rejection of industrialization. This distaste for machination expressed itself in romantic decorations and fine arts applied to everyday objects and spaces. Boston was particularly receptive to this movement when it […]

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]]> Badass Lady Creatives: Smriti Keshari https://designworklife.com/smriti-keshari/ Wed, 23 Apr 2014 13:00:35 +0000 https://designworklife.com/?p=79658 Among the most interesting creatives to watch are those who are not bound by title, but compelled to make earnest and important work in whichever form it may take. Smriti Keshari is one of those who is guided by the story. Most frequently, that looks like photography, writing, and producing films such as Food Chains, a feature-length documentary making its American […]

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]]> Badass Lady Creatives: Illustration by Miss Lotion https://designworklife.com/illustration-by-miss-lotion/ Wed, 16 Apr 2014 13:00:00 +0000 https://designworklife.com/?p=79228 Something about Miss Lotion’s illustration style feels nostalgic. To this child of the ’90s, her work conjures mental images of Nickelodeon and Highlights magazines, of character tees and public murals. All personal responses aside, Miss Lotion builds worlds with an widely-appealing charm. Miss Lotion is a moniker for Louise Rosenkrands, an illustrator based in Copenhagen, Denmark. This badass […]

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]]> Badass Lady Creatives: 6 Type Designers https://designworklife.com/lady-type-designers/ Wed, 09 Apr 2014 13:00:50 +0000 https://designworklife.com/?p=78629 People love to ask “where are the female type designers?”, but the truth is, their work is all around us. Carol Twombly’s typefaces come packaged with our software; Zuzana Licko’s Mrs. Eaves is everywhere; Kris Holmes co-designed the pervasive Lucida system. It’s a fair question, though—who’s doing awesome work now? Who haven’t I heard of? Here’s just […]

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]]> Badass Lady Creatives: New Shop from Leah Reena Goren https://designworklife.com/fw-2014-leah-reena-goren/ Wed, 02 Apr 2014 13:00:13 +0000 https://designworklife.com/?p=78596 This Monday, illustrator and surface designer Leah Reena Goren announced her new shop, and with it, her Fall/Autumn 2014 scarf collection. The collection is exemplary of good textile design: you could frame these on a wall and admire the details, but they look just as great when, you know, worn as a scarf. The line […]

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]]> Badass Lady Creatives in History: Sofonisba Anguissola https://designworklife.com/sofonisba-anguissola/ Wed, 26 Mar 2014 13:00:08 +0000 https://designworklife.com/?p=78179 Though this column has featured creatives from the 20th-century onward, women have long been active participants in the arts. Among the first female artists to build an international reputation is Sofonisba Anguissola, Italian Renaissance painter. Most famous female painters of Anguissola’s generation and beyond were born to painters. Anguissola (1532–1625), on the other hand, was the […]

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]]> Badass Lady Creatives: Poster Design by Jessica Svendsen https://designworklife.com/jessica-svendsen/ Wed, 19 Mar 2014 13:00:50 +0000 https://designworklife.com/?p=77439 Jessica Svendsen, a designer at Pentagram, is talented across print and environmental media. Where this badass lady creative really shines is in her poster designs; each poster is distinctive, a fully-considered project in its own right. Most of this work was produced for Yale University (some of under the direction of Michael Beirut), where Jessica […]

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]]> Badass Lady Creatives: Interview with Liz Danzico, Creative Director at NPR https://designworklife.com/liz-danzico/ Wed, 12 Mar 2014 13:00:29 +0000 https://designworklife.com/?p=77408 It’s hard to believe Liz Danzico has as many hours in the day as the rest of us. She’s the founding chairperson of the MFA in Interaction Design Program at SVA; has held various UX-leadership positions with the likes of Happy Cog and the AIGA; maintains a smart liberal-arts blog; and has served as a design consultant, advisory board […]

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]]> Badass Lady Creatives: Kiwi Designers and Illustrators https://designworklife.com/kiwi-designers-illustrators/ Wed, 05 Mar 2014 14:00:36 +0000 https://designworklife.com/?p=77048 New Zealand is known for its extreme natural beauty (see Peter Jackson’s Tolkein movies for reference), and its design scene is pretty great, too. This week’s badass lady creatives are among the young and talented Kiwi designers and illustrators. Veronica Cordero Veronica Cordero is an Auckland-based graphic designer with a portfolio which spans print, branding, web, and […]

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]]> Badass Lady Creatives: Comics by Yumi Sakugawa https://designworklife.com/yumi-sakugawa/ Wed, 26 Feb 2014 14:00:42 +0000 https://designworklife.com/?p=76754 As of late, comics are enjoying greater popularity—and respect from the art world. One of the best side effects of this trend is a wider variety of perspectives: notably, the emergence of a looser style used by illustrators such as Yumi Sakugawa. This week’s badass lady creative is a comic artist/illustrator based in Southern California. Yumi regularly […]

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]]> New Portfolio Site: Kitkat Pecson https://designworklife.com/kitkat-pecson/ Wed, 19 Feb 2014 14:00:19 +0000 https://designworklife.com/?p=76358 Illustrator/designer Kitkat Pecson just launched her new portfolio site a few days ago. If you’re looking to revamp your website—or build a new one as your graduation date looms—this one sets a great example. The site is effective for a few simple reasons: The work is the star of the show—[reasonably] large images! Project descriptions are well-considered, […]

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]]> Badass Lady Creatives [in History]: Lola Álvarez Bravo https://designworklife.com/lola-alvarez-bravo/ https://designworklife.com/lola-alvarez-bravo/#comments Wed, 12 Feb 2014 14:00:27 +0000 https://designworklife.com/?p=76060 “I was the only woman fooling around with a camera in the streets and all the reporters laughed at me. So I became a fighter.” “Fighter” is the best word to describe Lola Álvarez Bravo (1907–1993), one of Mexico’s first accomplished female photographers. Bravo was orphaned in childhood (father deceased, mother abandoned her), and was sent […]

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]]> https://designworklife.com/lola-alvarez-bravo/feed/ 1 Badass Lady Creatives: 5 Textile Designers https://designworklife.com/textile-designers/ https://designworklife.com/textile-designers/#comments Wed, 05 Feb 2014 14:00:54 +0000 https://designworklife.com/?p=75713 Textile design is a specialty that may seem simple, but requires quite a bit of thought: how large to scale this pattern? How will these colors translate onto sheer fabric? This week’s Badass Lady Creatives are surface design pros who make it look easy. Helen Dealtry is Woking Girl Designs, a Brooklyn-based textile design studio; she […]

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]]> https://designworklife.com/textile-designers/feed/ 2 Badass Lady Creatives: Julia Yellow https://designworklife.com/ba-lady-creatives-julia-yellow/ https://designworklife.com/ba-lady-creatives-julia-yellow/#comments Wed, 29 Jan 2014 14:00:45 +0000 https://designworklife.com/?p=75287 Editorial illustration has quite the reputation for (thrillingly) tight deadlines. Despite the fast-paced nature of this specialty, illustrator Julia Yellow creates hyper-detailed scenes for her editorial clients. I came across this week’s Badass Lady Creative in a well-timed article on suppressing the “apology reflex” and was amazed at how many tiny points of interest Julia packs […]

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]]> https://designworklife.com/ba-lady-creatives-julia-yellow/feed/ 1 Badass Lady Creatives [in History]: Cipe Pineles https://designworklife.com/cipe-pineles/ https://designworklife.com/cipe-pineles/#comments Wed, 22 Jan 2014 14:00:04 +0000 https://designworklife.com/?p=74899 This month’s badass lady creative [in history] is for the editorial design nerds: Cipe Pineles, a force in twentieth-century art direction. Pineles broke several gender barriers in the publication world, all while working to produce smarter magazines for the young American woman. Austrian-born Cipe Pineles emigrated to the United States as a teenager in 1923. […]

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]]> https://designworklife.com/cipe-pineles/feed/ 8 Badass Lady Creatives: 6 Lady-Made GIFs https://designworklife.com/6-lady-made-gifs/ Wed, 15 Jan 2014 14:00:20 +0000 https://designworklife.com/?p=74037 Illustrated GIFs are a bit like peanut butter fluff sandwiches: an already great thing with some extra sweetness on top. This week’s Badass Lady Creatives apply a variety of styles to the semi-gratuitous medium of the moving image. Tara Dougans is an art director / illustrator living and working in Amsterdam, the Netherlands. Her best pieces are […]

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]]> Badass Lady Creatives: Interview with Illustrator Tuesday Bassen https://designworklife.com/interview-with-tuesday-bassen/ https://designworklife.com/interview-with-tuesday-bassen/#comments Wed, 08 Jan 2014 14:00:17 +0000 https://designworklife.com/?p=73457 Personal projects are sure to appear on many a designer’s New Years Resolutions list—mine included! To ring in 2014, I talked with kickass illustrator Tuesday Bassen about her bevy of side projects: a yay-ladies zine, a small press, and a ceramics line. MR: What prompted you and Lindsay Eyth to start your zine, Miserable & […]

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]]> https://designworklife.com/interview-with-tuesday-bassen/feed/ 2 Badass Lady Creatives [in History]: Varvara Stepanova https://designworklife.com/ladies-in-history-varvara-stepanova/ https://designworklife.com/ladies-in-history-varvara-stepanova/#comments Wed, 25 Dec 2013 14:00:49 +0000 https://designworklife.com/?p=72857 The Russian Constructivist movement was a huge catalyst for graphic design and applied arts; in the years following the 1917 Bolshevik Revolution, a group of avant-garde artists in the Soviet Union rejected art-as-navel-gazing. They believed that visual arts could and should be used for social progress, and—surprise!—there was much to design for the new culture. […]

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]]> https://designworklife.com/ladies-in-history-varvara-stepanova/feed/ 1 Badass Lady Creatives: Illustrators to follow on Instagram https://designworklife.com/illustrators-on-instagram/ Wed, 18 Dec 2013 14:00:49 +0000 https://designworklife.com/?p=72618 Too many blurry shots of food in your Instagram feed? Need something to break up all the selfies? More and more illustrators post works-in-progress to their Instagrams, making for a delightful peek into other people’s processes. For more illustration work in your feed, check out these WIP-heavy accounts: London-based Eleni Kalorkoti (@elenikalorkoti) uses her Instagram account […]

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]]> Interview with Product Designer Jessica Harllee https://designworklife.com/interview-with-product-designer-jessica-harllee/ https://designworklife.com/interview-with-product-designer-jessica-harllee/#comments Wed, 11 Dec 2013 14:00:25 +0000 https://designworklife.com/?p=71719 Badass Lady Creatives celebrates talented women working in the creative industries. This week, I chat with product designer Jessica Harllee about her work at Kickstarter, hackathons, and embroidered poo. MR: So, you’re currently designing for Kickstarter in New York, by way of Virginia. Can you tell me more about how you got to where you […]

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