VerveCast

File under: Inspiring. (via Instagram)

I love this illustration for the food packaging of Middagsfrid.

Even if you’re more into graphic design than packaging design, check out thedieline.com for more inspiration.

The Shot Glass Card is a great way to help a friend celebrate their birthday with a drink!

Fifty Five Hi’s has a nice blog post with details, and there’s a fun video below.

One thing I learned in school was that designers need constraints. Without constraints, it’s too difficult to define the problem that needs to be solved. Tell a designed “do whatever you want!” and that’s just going to cause problems. Tell them “I need a logo that incorporates a sword, a monkey, and the color blue” and you’re more likely to get some good results.

I’m not sure if that’s all true or not, but it’s an interesting concept. What else is interesting? This banner ad for IKEA. Watch the video to see how a simple banner ad became something much more clever than a simple animation.

Digital creative agency Holler decided to push the boundaries and moved their entire web site to a Pinterest account.

So are these guys on the bleeding edge, or just looking for some publicity for a stunt?

This is only slightly interesting to me because it’s just another case of using a tool for unintended purposes. If you’ve ever used a butter knife as a screwdriver you know what I mean. Since the early days of the World Wide Web, I’ve seen people use web sites for things the developers never imagined. It’s just how things work. When the first blogging tools came out (which were specifically for creating a series of chronologically ordered posts) people found ways of creating entire (traditional) web sites out of them. It’s been done.

As for getting rid of your site and moving it all to Pinterest, others have done similar things… killing off their sites and moving to Facebook, or Myspace, or whatever came before. I see it as a “flavor of the day” thing, and not a long-term solution. Putting your trust that a new service (you have no control over) will be around in 5 or 10 years seems a bit risky, and I know digital creative agencies are all about “taking risks” but I also know that providing clients with solid, time-tested advice is a good strategy.

[Hat tip to Mana for finding this one.]