The following sites and facelifts were published by Finnish leading web design companies on the last week:

» Innovate / JCDecaux

Nitro (22.09.)

Clean and professional design drive to explore the brand new Innovate site further. An advanced use of graphics and typography is impressing. This site has well-balanced layout. Great work Nitro!

» JCDecaux.fi

Nitro (22.09.)

Nitro redesigned JCDecaux.fi, fortunately this time local branch site is looking great yet in style of the group identity. My respect to the professionals!

» Vepsäläinen - Big Brother Huutokauppa

Creanor Dynamo Advertising (22.09.)

The Vepsäläinen - Big Brother auction site created with use of traditional web techniques. The vintage style guessed to be attractive for Finnish users.

» Finnair Tax-Free

Satama Interactive (22.09.)

This web shop’s design doesn’t going out of style of Finnair site it have functional layout and professional-level graphics.

» AJ Rahastoyhtiö

Innome (21.09.)

The financial service web site, it’s made simply and functional.

» Upcider Natural Knockout, The Uncles (19.09.)

Upcider is an alcohol beverage made from alcohol (4,7 %), sugar and fruit flavourings. Nice design and usage of graphics and typography effects. Usage of wood and brown colours is more suitable for cofee, in my opinion. I thought that it’s an ad of cofee when I saw first time Upsider cityposters from my car’s window.

» Alex Stubb MEP

Innome (19.09.)

Alexander Stubb, 36, is a Member of the European Parliament. This site is made graphically simple, but usage of typefaces is distracting a little.

» Suomen Suoramainonta

Convert Media (19.09.)

Suomen Suoramainonta Oy is a service company that offers its customers national distribution to households. Blue color scheme and folded paper corners. I saw something made in this style somewhere…

» Jenkki.com -update

Lahtinen & Mantere Saatchi & Saatchi (19.09.)

Jenkki is a brand of chewing gum in Finland. I have experienced complicated feelings when I explored this site’s design. Okay, there are the styles like grunge and cyberpunk… Designers of this have made efforts to make it attractive for teenagers probably. Some typography’s approaches requires extra efforts to start read some of the texts on this page.

» Café Esplanad web facelift

Activeark (19.09.)

At the first glance on this site my hand moved to scroll page upward, but few seconds later I found that upper graphic gives an expression of cthe page continued up. I don’t know, was it made up specially, or it’s a mistake of Art Director. I don’t sure about the value of this effect, made it by mistake or not. I like usage of typefaces and colors on this page.

Wrote based on information from rekaksois.com.

A short article about Nordic Design Blog appeared yesterday on Designers who Blog site.

Thanks for Catherine Morley for adding my blog to their site.

You can read her articles on Creative Latitude about blogging:

http://www.creativelatitude.com/articles/articles0905cat.html

There will most likely be a Creative Latitude article dealing with the subject “Designers who Blog” - worth to bookmark.

Here is just a sneak preview of latest products developed by leading Scandinavian Design Companies.

This time many of designers presents us their products made in legendary Scandinavian puristic and simplistic style - but with fresh power usage of colour.

David design

Gahan dining table. Massive wood oiled in differentcolors. Design: Eero Koivisto.

David design

Globlow XL pendant lamp. New large version of Globlow pendant lamp. Design: Vesa Hinkola, Marcus Nevalainen, Rane Vaskivuori.

Källemo

H C Andersen Källemo has received the right to produce a limited edition of the chairs named after Denmark’s most famous person. The chair is a homage to H.C. Andersen.

Iittala

Tris - New candle holder The Tris has character. It has both form and colour. Select from six strong colours. Design: Alfredo Häberli.

From scandinaviandesign.org

Link: HULGER - OLD FASHIONED CALLING THE NEW FASHIONED WAY

A famous HULGER offering now the YCABLE which plugs into the PC and PPHONE making it VOIP ready. Both products are Skype certified!

Have you had ever a task to build web layout measured in points? It’s looks unusual, but in practice there are cases when it’s really necessary. Here is a resource that may help you: Approximate Conversion from Points to Pixels

It’s a chart that converts points to pixels (and ems and %). It’s an approximation, which will depend on font, browser and OS, but it’s a good starting point.

100% Design 22–25 september 2005

presents the latest furniture, lighting, accessories, wall and floor coverings, textiles, kitchens and bathrooms. Earls Court 2 London UK.

Apples on vintage plate
Originally uploaded by Astrid Hagen.

The plate is Norwegian design from the 1950s (I think), from the award winning producer Figgjo

Uploaded by Astrid Hagen from Nordic Design pool on flickr on 18 Sep ‘05, 2.50pm EEST.

Thanks Astrid for beautiful photo and story!

On 20-22 of September in Auction hall of Stockholm will be celebrated Iceland culture festival. Industrial design, music, Iceland food and discussions about the new Icelandic export: money.

Link: Scandinavian design streamliner wooden toys lovely to the world Playsam exclusive gifts

Playsam is a well respected brand with a reputation for quality. The company is recognized internationally as an iconic Scandinavian design brand. Playsam is the leading Scandinavian design company for wooden toy design. Playsam offer baby gift, birthday gift, gift for him, unique gift, anniversary gift and graduation gift

Designers:

BJÖRN ALSKOG www.pstoys.se

BJÖRN DAHLSTRÖM

OLLE GYLLANG www.gyllangdesign.se

ULF HANSES

OLA WIHLBORG

Link: News & Events

It seems that VOLVO responding to high fuel rates and traffic problems hitting auto market.

This kind of model was awaited decades from VOLVO, but they’ve come with such offer only now.

Maybe it’s not too late?

A car that is 20 centimeter shorter than today’s S40. It will be called the Volvo C30 and the design is very much inspired by the SCC and the 3CC - two concept cars that have got a lot of credit for their looks.