August Summer "Simma Down" Playlist composed with Koderville

Summer sure is coming to a slooooooow down. So it is time my friend to start to close shop, but not without a good soundtrack for those last memories of the summer. Thankfully fellow blogger, Koderville (see Support and Supporters to the right-->) has helped iDR put together this playlist. Known for his picks of hip hop, and rap genre he gave us a flavorful palette of music that you'd want to bookmark until winter! Its a little bit of everything, I've added some girly stuff like Rihanna's new dance hit Disturbia. I will let you be the judge....shouts to Koderville and to you, our listeners.

Hellz Bellz interview with Lanie!

Itsdesignrelated.com got a chance to catch up with Lanie from Hellz Bellz check it out the interview!

Hellz-Bellz: "a tribute to non-conforming female youth of today." Tag team partners for life, Miss Lawn and Bam have risen to the top of lady lifestyle apparel by dominating the street scene all over the world with their eye catching and innovative designs. Read more about their passions, their struggles, their inspirations...


if iDR opened your purse and dumped everything out...what would
expect us to see?
I carry huge bags, so here you go: BlackBerry World Edition, Burt's
Bees® Beeswax Lip Balm, business cards, clean sheet notebook, Crooks &
Castles wallet (that holds way too many credit cards), Evian water
bottle, Lancome Juicy Tube, Sharpie highlighter, 2 LA Parking tickets,
#5 Mechanical pencil, Gucci make-up bag, Porter camera case for my
Canon digital elph, and tons of loose change

Favorite city?
New York City
       
Lanie, you must travel a lot...in cases of a delayed flight...what
do you do to remain calm, and occupied?
I work on my laptop/black berry or just chill out and listen to my iPod

What is currently playing on your iPod?
Ryan Leslie | Addiction




 By building your brand do you feel that you've developed a
following.
Developing a following with Hellz wasn't initially the goal when
starting Hellz. When I started Hellz, it was more of an outlet for my
creativity than a "brand". After a span of 3 years, it's grown from a
part time hobbie to a full time hobbie that puts food on the table. I
say hobbie, 'cause I'm having way too much fun doing this to even call
it a job.  But amidst all the fun and hard work, we've created a
following of strong, intelligent women who are able to relate to me
and what Hellz is all about.

Through being able to profile and understand purchasing patterns of your customer, has it influence your creativity or business decisions?
Although most companies keep in mind what sells and what doesn't when
designing, I try to not let it influence my creativity or business
decisions. I have to be confident in myself that even though there's a
style/graphic that doesn't sell well in retail that that doesn't mean
it sucked. There's been so many times that I've designed something and
buyers/consumers just didn't get it, then next thing you know another
company does something similar to it 2 seasons later and it becomes a
hit... urgh, that can be so frustrating. So as a creative person and
forward designer, it's my job to continue to push the limits of
design. The last thing that I want with my company, is to let buyers
or purchasing patterns of my customer dictate how I design.





Not many people know that Hellz is owned and designed by a wife and husband tag team. Some of us would imagine these ingenius designs might spring from a conversation during a home-cooked dinner!?
Yeah, both Bam and I own Hellz :) Not a lot of people know because for
a while I was designing Hellz on my own. Then luckily, I was able to
convince him to get on board and help me out. It's strange because in
so many ways we're alike and not alike in the way we design and work,
however somehow we make it work and we're the best "tag team".
Everyone always asks me, "How are you able to work and live w/ your
husband?" and my answer is always, "I don't know, it just works".
There's nothing better than working with your best friend... but like
all relationships we're gonna have times where we butt heads and have
disagreements, but we've learned how to work things out and not allow
any work issues bleed into our personal lives as husband wife.
That's funny that you say people would imagine us coming up w/ ideas
over dinner, because that's what happens a lot of the times, lol.

A lot of people look to HB as the first women's wear in a heavily male dominated industry. How do you find HBs position an advantage? Do you look to the guys lines as a source of inspiration?
Well, first of all Hellz definitely isn't the first female line in
street wear... there's been other lines like, MOB and Claw Money that
were established before Hellz was. I'm always honored to be
categorized with brands such as theirs. Just to be a part of this
movement of females stepping up and doing their thing (and killing it)
in an industry that's typically run by males is not only liberating
but also very empowering. We've been able to create a niche that was
untapped prior to us coming along. Now you have other female brands
coming up who have seen us as great inspirations for what they do,
whereas a few years back the only source of inspiration for us were
men's lines... it's dope to see that that isn't the case anymore.

iDR loves that you pick iconic, strong women of the 70s and 80s. If you could pick a batch of women today, which ladies would you like to add to your list?
Agyness Deyn, Kate Moss, Omahrya Mota, Santi White, Chloe Sevigney,
Angelina Jolie

check some of their favorite chicas of today!


How do you find HB paving way for future women's wear brands?
Hellz is opening up doors and creating opportunities for future
women's brands that weren't so opened minded to the thought of women
making a name for themselves in this crazy male dominated industry.

iDR cant get enough of your clever wittiness in your writing on your tees. How do you create these tees? Do you think of a strong direction in writing first or does the art/graphics/theme direct the writing?
Everything begins with an idea and goes from there. We'll take that
idea, do research and create a concept that's cohesive amongst the
graphics, design and verbage.





What is your process in developing a whole collection?
Research, research and more research

is there anything else you would like to tell your fans, friends, peers, women in pursuit of fashion?
Follow your heart and let your passion for fashion take you to where you wanna go to achieve whatever goals you may have... and do you and fuck the rest!!





Thanks Lanie for taking the time to catch up with us! All of the editors here are super excited to see your new goods. It's definitely inspiring to see women in the creative fields such as fashion succeed and prosper.

To see more of Lanie and her awesome line, check out her site: WWW.HELLZ-BELLZ.COM

Interview conducted by Courtney
Produced by Jessica
*thanks for the love! feel free to repost, link back to us and cite the source. mucho thanks!*

Nikita Photoshoot Contest!

Nikita is back with the second photoshoot contest opportunity!

Twice a year, Nikita takes its newest and hottest designs to some amazing locations around the globe. They shoot the photos with some of the coolest girls on the planet (i.e. from the Nikita team) and showcase the brand new collections through their catalogues, via websites and other mediums, throughout the world.

Just last year and for the first ever time, Nikita invited some girls through the launch of a little photoshoot contest and picked out three lucky ladies as special guests to join them on the journey. The lucky winners, selected from hundreds of entries, earned themselves some cool photos along with some great times with the Nikita crew and of course, a bundle of new clothes to take home!

* * * Last year’s winners shot on location in Vancouver * * *


Check it out for your chance to be a Nikita gal on the next trip happening October 2008! The winning girls (one from the US and one from Europe) will be flown to the secret location where the photoshoot will be held. They will join the Nikita crew from Iceland, including founder and head designer Heida Birgisdottir and members of the Nikita team.

ENTRY DETAILS:

Get snappy with some sassy snaps of yourself and e-mail them over. Photos can be as funny, wild and creative as you want to make them but we also do wanna see what you look like and hear about what you enjoy doing.

Name, address, date of birth and contact details are essential, so please don’t forget to include them. You can send in as many pictures as you want but total file size of all the pictures must not exceed 2 MB. E-mail your entries to interns@nikitaclothing.com before 15th September 2008.

Please note that entrants must be 18 years old or over as of October 1st 2008. Entrants must also have a valid passport.

Your entries will be showcased via Nikita’s website, Myspace, Facebook and Mpora! Make it happen and make it good!

You can check out some of the winner’s entries from last year HERE

www.nikitaclothing.com

Courtney's Type Tricks and Tips

Another weekly dose!

On choosing Type
Typography is not a science. Typography is an art. There are those who’d like to ‘scientificize’; those who believe that a large enough sample of data will somehow elicit good typography. However, this sausage-machine mentality will only ever produce sausages. That typography and choosing type is not a science trammeled by axioms and rules is a cause to rejoice.

For further reading: http://ilovetypography.com/2008/04/04/on-choosing-type/


Something Interesting: Kinetic Typography
Kinetic typography refers to the art and technique of expression with animated text. Similar to the study of traditional typography of designing static typographic forms, kinetic typography focuses on understanding the effect time has on the expression of text. Kinetic typography has demonstrated the ability to add significant emotive content and appeal to expressive text, allowing some of the qualities normally found in film and the spoken word to be added to static text. Kinetic type has been widely and successfully used in film as well as in television and computer-based advertising. Perceptual psychology research on attention, reading performance, and comprehension has indicated that time-based presentation of text can be used effectively to capture and manipulate a viewer’s attention and in some cases improve overall reading performance.

For further reading: http://www.cs.cmu.edu/~johnny/kt/


Indesign Keyboard Shortcuts for Styling Text
Bold: Cmd-Shift-B
Italic: Cmd-Shift-I
Normal: Cmd-Shift-Y
All Cap: Cmd-Shift-K
Edit Style Sheet without Applying it: Cmd-Option-Shift-Double click style

INSIGHT WAREHOUSE SALE!!

Philippe Starck, one of the most prolific designers today

ITSDESIGNRELATED.COM's Krazy Kids Radio ReCap!

You know that feeling when you hear yourself talk on voicemail? Or even on the answering machine? Somehow the way you think you sound like is not close to what comes out of the little speakers, ugh! Well that was what it was like when I heard my own voice on the Krazy Kids Radio! At the very least the DJ's Ant-1, Ruby Red-I and JBoo were generous enough to let me come by to take some pics. Lucky me it was a "BEST OF GIRL GROUPS" playlist, hmmm even better!

Check out the photos, but let me warn you this mix is beyond what is played in this little clip...there's so much more old and new, fun and funky so I encourage you to download this mix here!

ITSDESIGNRELATED.COM Visits Krazy Kids Radio from itsdesignrelated.com on Vimeo.

Green Label Art Volume 2

6 New Artists 6 New Bottles
www.greenlableart.com





Featured Artists:
Mark Smith, Brand Jordan
PJ Richardson, Stussy designer
Mike Sutfin, Star Wars & World of Warcraft illustrator
Maze, Kidrobot
Troy Denning, Invisible NYC tattoo artist
Billy The Artist, New York artists

Fatlace & itsdesignrelated.com's Art Unlimited Event Recap!

itsdesignrelated.com's Art Unlimited from itsdesignrelated.com on Vimeo.

In case you didn't get a chance to pass by Fatlace, peep this clip. It's a snip of what when down; a jump off to an awesome Saturday nite! There was wine, cheese, koi fishes, bikes, friends, black and white photography, chatter, illustration, bumpin music, hugs, walking in and out of fatlace, smiles, exchanging phone numbers, folks chillen, lots and lots went down. We only hope to do it again, as iDR enjoyed supporting the artists along with our friends over at FATLACE.

Of course this wouldn't have happen without a lot of help. So here are the people we heart so much:
Mark and Ronnie over at Fatlace (big thanks, if it wasnt for you two this wouldnt have happened)
Paloma with Illiteracy
Ant 1 and $ir Tipp with Ri$ky Bizness
and all of the artists: Steve Ha, Phil Mamuyac, Marcus Ubungen, and Samual Rodriguez.

and of course those who plugged us, thanks thanks
Wild 'N Krazy Kidz
Ri$ky Bizness
Social Lush
Design Rehab
Plstk
Your Pal Marcus
Slam X Hype
Tell.A.Vision























additional photos contributed by Paloma, thanks!

Summer Olympics 2008

I love the Olympics. So many emotions wrapped up into a series of momentous events, not just for the athletes competing, but for those watching and supporting. If you want to show your support and enthusiasm without sacrificing style, these fashion finds are truly inspired by this year's Summer Olympics 2008.



Fallon bangles, $115 to $165, at Opening Ceremony, Los Angeles


Puma ring bags by Sander Lak, $300, at Puma, Westfield Century City


Nike Sportswear Air Max 1, $250, at Opening Ceremony, Los Angeles
An Opening Ceremony Exclusive-Invitation Only 8.8.08 event


Philip Crangi Last Place ribbon key chain, $40, at Opening Ceremony, Los Angeles


Consumer version of the U.S. Olympic Basketball Team's official shoe.


Puma medallion bags by George Omerod, small, $49, and large, $79, at Puma, Westfield Century City
Source: LAtimes

Hopefully all things go smoothly in controversial China, and hopefully the "fog" disappears.

Studio Visit: Alexis Bittar

Jewelry designer Alexis Bittar is known for his Lucite pieces, adored by the likes of Kim Cattrall, Madonna, and Cameron Diaz. But how does he transform plastic into such coveted baubles? We took our video cameras down to his sprawling Dumbo studio to see the process up close. Though he used to make jewelry in his bedroom, Bittar now employs a team of 160, who carve and paint each piece by hand. Press play to see just how Bittar transforms Lucite from shapeless chunks to essential accessories.

via. NY Mag

Typography Clip

Courtney's Type Tricks & Tips

Some how at work I've been given the responsibility of informing my team about typography. As a designers we've all gone through typography classes, however, after time goes by and as we get older sometimes we all need a brush up. So I will share this weekly drop of information with you as well.

From Elements of Typography
Robert Bringhurst

1.2.4 Choose a typeface or a group of faces that will honor and elucidate the character of the text.

This is the beginning, middle, and end of the practice of typography: choose and use the type with sensitivity and intelligence. Letterforms have a tone, timbre, character, just as words and sentences do. The moment a text and a typeface are chosen, two streams of thought, two rhythmical systems, two sets of habits, or if you like two personalities, intersect.
The root metaphor of typesetting is that the alphabet is a system of interchangeable parts. Every comma, every paranthesis, every e, and in context, even every empty space, has style as well as bald symbolic value. Letters are microscopic works of art as well as useful symbols. Typography is the art and craft of handling those doubly meaningful bits of information. A good typographer handles them intelligent, coherent, and sensitive ways.


A fun site to check out is myfonts.com you can find fonts and it suggest fonts that have the same characteristics for more variety. 

UO: PLAY by C. Ronson

Urban Outfitters is rolling out these designer collaborations faster than I can keep up...the latest is by Charlotte Ronson.
click here to read up on what inspires this designer.

Courtesy of WhoWhatWearDaily.com

a bit pricey for me, but easy, mellow pieces to play in...

1. Cozy Cardigan ($98)
2. Reversible Onesie ($108)
3. Mini Dress ($108)
4. Pinstripe Short ($88)
5. Rosebud Blouse ($83)
6. Reversible Tank ($68)

Unison Home

Time after time I get tired of the quality of Ikea but love their design sensibility. I think of home furnishing and bedding as an investment because of the long hours at work. Quality and longevity are key issues that Ikea just cant deliver. So if you are looking for that design aesthetics that is clean and modern check out: Unison Home. Below is information from the Unison Home website:

Unison was formed by Robert Segal + Alicia Rosauer with the vision that modern design can be a livable, breathable, everyday part of life. After four years of designing and living in Finland, they decided to bring their design sensibilities back to America. Robert and Alicia combine their extensive background of textile design and photography to create products that offer a minimalist style with emphasis on color and innovative print design.

Unison’s first collection of printed bedding and throw pillows mix organic and graphic inspired motifs for a modern and colorful look. When designing textiles, Robert and Alicia are inspired by nature, architecture, photography, traditional textiles and textural patterns – what they see living in Chicago, in their travels, in their everyday.