Graphic design inspiration

Gabriel Abascal’s ethereal graphic design evokes daydreams of childhood clip art, Nintendogs and Hannah Montana CDs

As a means of healing his twelve-year-old self, this graphic designer reaches through the surreality of internet ephemera to unlock the person he always wanted to be, with the help of glowing labradors, esoteric diagrams and digital collage.

Golfee Branding - Graphic Design & UX UI Design

Golfee is a golf performance app designed to help players track shots, analyze game stats, and view GPS course maps. It empowers golfers to make smarter decisions, improve strategy, and understand performance through clean, intuitive UI.

IED Firenze Graphic Design Students Explore Speculative Design

What if an AI-led totalitarian regime banned analogue technology? What if we were forced to live underwater due to climate catastrophes? And what if our emotions were no longer private but visible to everyone? These are just some of the provocative questions that fuel speculative design—a discipline that dares to imagine alternative futures by blending creativity with research. It challenges conventional thinking, moving beyond aesthetics and functionality to turn design into a powerful tool for critical reflection. At IED Firenze, students of the Master’s in Graphic Design explored this forward-thinking approach in depth as part of their Research and Trend Forecasting course. Guided by professor and course coordinator Isabella Ahmadzadeh, they embraced the role of future thinkers, creating individual “what if” scenarios rooted in emerging trends. Lara Piknovik Located in the heart of Florence, IED Firenze is a hub for innovation, culture, and creativity. It offers an international environment where students from around the world come together to push the boundaries of design. The school blends traditional Italian craftsmanship with contemporary visions, fostering bold experimentation across disciplines. Each student developed a unique and thought-provoking premise—ranging from dystopian projections to critiques of current societal issues—as the conceptual foundation for a 32-page visual essay. These essays became immersive spaces for experimentation, where collage, personal artwork, typography, and AI-generated imagery converged to visualize speculative futures. The result is a collection of visual narratives that go beyond showcasing design skills. They question the trajectory of our world, examine the cultural and technological shifts ahead, and ultimately remind us of the power of design—not just to reflect reality but to reimagine it. To learn more about the Master’s Course in Graphic Design at IED Firenze, visit ied.edu. Riya Allen Nick Arbelaez Nicole Ferraresi Do stories and artists like this matter to you? Become a Colossal Member today and support independent arts publishing for as little as $7 per month. The article IED Firenze Graphic Design Students Explore Speculative Design appeared first on Colossal.

Review of the Year 2024: Top 25 Graphic Design

If 2024’s most read graphic design stories revealed one thing it’s that you all still hate Comic Sans but, you were ready to hear its side.

Blocky water purifier concept brings a fun touch of graphic design to your kitchen

Water purifiers are becoming more common sights in our homes, thankfully because of more attention being paid to one’s health. Because of that popularity, water purifier designs are also undergoing a shift away from the stereotypical white products that dominate the market to objects that can stand proudly in the middle of any kitchen. Most of these, however, still adhere to certain conventions, particularly the use of shiny metallic surfaces to mirror (no pun intended) the appearance of most kitchen appliances and cookware. This water purifier concept design, however, bucks the trends in more ways than one. Not only does it eschew the smooth curves of many water purifier designs, it actually embraces the rawness of blocky shapes, turning the appliance into a graphic design object. Even better, this design even lets you customize your water purifier to your tastes (pun not intended again). Designers: Yejin Shin, Cheolsu Park, Hyunjeong Lee (BEBOP) More design-conscious water purifiers try to display a pleasing image, which usually translates to generous use of soft curves, light colors, and minimal details. The Hyundai Quming Delight concept only checks that last item, because you might not even recognize it as a water purifier for being devoid of almost any and all identifiable features. It looks more like a piece of Mondrian sculptural art or giant toy blocks glued together, which is perhaps the thoughts that the design intentionally wants to evoke. The use of geometric shapes, particularly blocks, gives the Quming Delight a very different personality from other water purifiers. But what makes it even more special is that some of the sides of these blocks can be swapped out with other colored panels, opening the doors to customization and artistic expression. It’s probably going to clash with a purely black or purely white kitchen interior, but it will stand out in a good way. The design is also bereft of visible physical controls, and the only way to operate it is through a touch control panel in front that’s cleverly hidden behind a translucent color finish. It doesn’t seem possible to change the colors of this part of the machine, though. And the lighting for the buttons also seems to be fixed to a faint white glow. Thanks to its simple shape, using the water purifier is supposedly simple as well. The filter canisters are conveniently hidden behind the removable front panel, while the blocky faucet can be used and removed using a simple twisting motion. That said, it does mean you have to touch the faucet every time you want to turn it on, risking contamination from the dirt on your hands. There is also no catch basin in this design, which is a must-have for anything that dispenses liquid, and it would have been trivial to add yet another block for that component. The post Blocky water purifier concept brings a fun touch of graphic design to your kitchen first appeared on Yanko Design.