A good friend of mine passed away only 3 months ago. In an effort to cope with the loss I decided not to ignore it and act like it never happened, but instead to dive right into all of the great things that he showed me and revisit old influences that we shared. If there is one thing that this man knew about and shared his knowledge on, it was music. I still remember the day we were sharing albums in his office and he insisted that I take home and check out Lymbyc Systym’s Love Your Abuser.

Back then, and this was probably in 2007, I wasn’t really digging the instrumental tunes. Maybe my musical palette was not yet refined. There was something there, but I just didn’t know what it was. This band was the first that I dug out of an old hard drive and became instantly immersed.

The loss and grief certainly influenced my reintroduction to them, the comfort it gave me, however after listening to that freshman album I realized how smart my friend was. Why he chose the music to share became apparent. His depth of knowledge in music, both listening and performing, really made him a genius in the subject. Just give it a listen for yourself. Any song, really. Most of them are so complex that it is hard to believe that you only listened to 10 or so tracks. For working, exercising, driving and breathing, Lymbyc Systym is the best.

Propellerhead just released a great, addictive app for the iPhone called Figure. This app allows you to create and record a single loop using several preset instrument libraries, but what’s better is that you can easily tweak and augment the sound, giving you tons of possibilities. The design of Figure is spot on. It is minimal (as it should be), simple, intuitive and pleasant to look at. The only downfall for this $0.99 app is that you have no way of saving/exporting your recordings. Hopefully they end up coming out with an update to save your clip, but for the price, it is no big deal.

With a baby due in September, I have been going through every possible scenario for the development of my child’s personality. One thing is for sure, this kid has to love Zelda. I believe that an appreciation for one of the most classic video games will lead to great things. For the nursery, I found these great posters by Allan Peters. I was going to make my own of some sort, but these are too good. Perfectly simple, too!

I love zombie movies, or in some cases I take it that true horror buffs wouldn’t consider some of them zombie films, but more of an epidemic or illness rather than being (un)dead. Nonetheless, the films have just the right amount of gore, action and humor to keep me hooked. Even that whiny, mostly boring show on AMC keeps me coming back every week. With every new movie comes a new poster. They are usually way over the top and awesome. Here is a collection I put together with the help of Rick Poyner’s article on Design Observer called “How We Learned to Live with Zombies.” Read it here.

In honor of their upcoming 50th anniversary, the Modern Art Oxford is displaying 50 exhibition posters from their archive to the public. Stuff like this makes me really appreciate the simplistic design sensibilities of so many designers from the UK.

Check out the collection here. Idea for this post found here.

Simon C Page is back with another series of prints dedicated to a field of science. As usual, they are fantastic. Great colors, great type, great minimalism. View them all here.

See his other set of posters devoted to astronomy, here.

Yaris, it’s a CAR! is the brilliant new campaign starring Michael Showalter, doing what he does best: wear a suit and say funny things. This is a lighthearted, state-the-obvious campaign that really works. No performance shots on a European road, no generic voice over. Just a very sarcastic and hilarious idea. Check it out here.

So, it’s been a while since I have been active on here and made a post. I blame work and wedding planning. However, when it comes to my ignorance of current events, NPR favorites, new music and most work conversations direct towards me, I blame M83’s new album Hurry Up, We’re Dreaming.

On the upside, this album has convinced me to tie up the ol’ running shoes and hit the streets. The variety of upbeat, energetic songs full of intense vocals and the slower, more atmospheric tracks makes for a great running companion. If you haven’t heard it, listen to it. If you have, you should probably listen to it again. I mean, who knew I could be obsessed with a track titled Intro?

Swedish designer/developer Jonas Eriksson’s work is amazing. I first stumbled on his work when scouring dribbble for some UI design inspiration. There I found the most amazing almost-iPad app called 76 Synthesizer. This piece, for me, proves his brilliance without having to take a look at anything else he has done. The amount of detail and thought that went into this is unbelievable. This attention to detail is what I strive for when designing apps for the industry I work for. It makes for a much more pleasant experience. I am not quite sure how I would use or navigate the synthesizer app, most likely because I never understood those things, but I hope to be able to download it someday.

His website claims that he only has six years of experience under his belt. Within those six years Jonas has accumulated quite the portfolio and client-base. The portfolio is full of amazing UI, web and CG illustration design all for some big name folks.

Do yourself a favor and take a look.

Being a huge fan of Herb Lubalin and pretty much everything that came out of that man’s brain, I love these posters that intelligently incorporate his ITC Lubalin Graph typeface. To me, this typeface speaks to all things techy with a dab of playfulness. It is super friendly and precise, which is why I love it. Used as the display face, it holds up well with the bold stature of the IBM logo. It is also always great when used in a multi-line headline and on highly-conceptual minimal poster. Check out more at Ogilvy.com.

Images via Fonts In Use