abdz—do - Thoughts on design, inspiration, UX career

Losing the Connection, Finding the Perspective

abduzeedo — Mon, 27 Apr 2026 13:20:51 +0000

Losing the Connection, Finding the Perspective abduzeedo April 27, 2026

Chasing the tail of the digital revolution? Discover "The Campfire Cure"—a journey of unplugging, recharging in the wild, and finding inspiration where the signal fades.

Another model was released. It thinks better, it’s faster, it’s more accurate. Then you go online or on YouTube and it’s the same story: how much better the model is, how it can now do the work I couldn't do before, or those claims of making thousands of dollars by giving AI full access to your bank account. With every new announcement, it’s rinse and repeat.

For me and I assume many others, it’s hard to keep up. Is everyone more savvy than me? Am I too old for this? I don’t know about you, but sometimes that’s exactly how I feel. I try to stay current. I have fun playing with these tools; I get genuinely excited and astounded by what they can do. But it’s so easy to get sucked into the loop of constantly trying to catch up, like a dog chasing its tail.

Despite this digital revolution, I’ve found peace and a way to recharge very far from it by doing something I started quite late in life: camping. I love the idea of disconnecting and breaking the routine. So, last year I got a camper van and we started exploring.

It’s amazing how much your perspective shifts when you simply step out of the rat race. Just being at a campground, seeing other people enjoying a disconnected life, changes your outlook.

AI will keep getting better. We will keep outsourcing work to these automations. But then what? For me, I know the answer. I want to go back to the basics. Sitting by the campfire. Reading a book (Kindle is fine) while I watch kids playing outside, riding bikes, or messing with the fire, trying to conquer it just like our ancestors did.

That, for me, is where inspiration comes from nowadays. It helps me become a better person and, of course, a better designer.

Here are some photos I’ve captured along the way.

Fhome Brand Identity for Indoor Skateboarding

jeff — Mon, 27 Apr 2026 12:20:28 +0000

Fhome Brand Identity for Indoor Skateboarding jeff April 27, 2026

Fhome is a brand identity for indoor skateboarding that trades wellness clichés for a hero yellow and raw black. Built by Nicolas Mores on a single insight — the home is the world's most underrated skatepark — the identity uses two independent marks: a lowercase wordmark and a swoosh inspired by the pop of an inflated deck.

Each mark stands on its own. Most of the time the brand appears simply as fhome, without "board" and often without the swoosh. The color system does the heavy lifting: Fhome Yellow (#F5DF4D) carries mood and volume, Fhome Black (#0A0A0A) carries weight. Together they do 90% of the work. A sage green and warm white fill in only when they earn it.

The system extends into an anthropomorphic skateboard mascot that refuses to stay in one place, moving through skateparks, couches, restaurants, and laundromats. The packaging unboxing experience is built around white kraft, a yellow blob pattern, brand tape, a printed flap, and a collectible sticker pack that ships with every order — the complete set retailing at under 84 euros.

More work by Nicolas Mores

Brand identity for indoor skateboarding

MakeMake Netflix Title Sequence: Motion Design as Camouflage

kai — Mon, 27 Apr 2026 10:07:40 +0000

MakeMake Netflix Title Sequence: Motion Design as Camouflage kai April 27, 2026

MakeMake's motion design title sequence for Netflix 2026 hides dinosaurs inside geology. The mountain crags are spines. Valley floors are creature backs.

Duncan Elms and the MakeMake team built this motion design title sequence around a single structural move: merge the creatures into the landscape so completely that the viewer is already inside the scale before the reveal registers. Pterodactyls read as specks against sweeping snowy mountain ranges. A sauropod's dorsal ridge passes for a rock ridgeline until the camera angle shifts. The camouflage isn't ornamental — it's the motion design mechanism, communicating geological weight without size comparisons or explanatory text. Displacement maps pull creature surface texture into the terrain. Fluid simulations carry the atmosphere. The sequence closes on a meteorite impact rendered with rigid body dynamics, rock debris scattering with the physics of something that ended 66 million years of dominance.

Netflix commissioned MakeMake to open Colossal Earth: The Dinosaurs and the result is a motion design title sequence Netflix 2026 viewers encounter as landscape first, creature second. Still frames hold as standalone compositions because the idea is structural — what looks like geology is the creature. MakeMake's studio statement puts it plainly: they weren't just inhabiting the planet; they defined it. That logic runs through every frame of this motion design title sequence for Netflix. The concept and the motion design technique are the same thing.

Motion Design Title Sequence That Makes Scale the Concept

Think Agency: Digital Agency Branding Identity 2026

abduzeedo — Sun, 26 Apr 2026 20:26:07 +0000

Think Agency: Digital Agency Branding Identity 2026 abduzeedo April 26, 2026

ONY Agency rebuilt Think Agency's digital agency branding identity in 2026 around one metaphor: liquid that shifts, flows, and never locks into place.

The core mark is a capsule form — three versions shown against white: blue, amber, translucent. Same shape, three different states. It contains photography, distorts it, holds it like liquid in a vessel. The signature green survived the rebrand but came back deeper — acid against black-and-white portrait photography in the "Mobile Trends" poster, where it cuts across a tight-cropped face and does all the heavy lifting. Photography across this digital agency branding identity system isn't illustrative. It's structural: a motion-blurred horse rider bleeds behind a white content card, an underwater figure reaches through a "Digital 360" frame. Eight scattered photos at diagonal angles on the cover — no grid, just controlled drift. The inspiration is Satoshi Kon's Paprika, and that reference holds: the system feels like it could reshape itself at any moment.

Digital Agency Branding Identity 2026: ONY Agency's Liquid System

Think Agency moved from mobile-focused shop to full-scale digital market player. That's a strategic repositioning — and ONY Agency built a system elastic enough to carry it. The white card layouts with oversized sans-serif type signal restraint. The liquid capsule mark, shifting from blue to amber to translucent across applications, signals something else: a 2026 digital agency branding identity that hasn't finished becoming what it is.

How Templo Built the CASI Brand Identity

jeff — Sun, 26 Apr 2026 13:05:22 +0000

How Templo Built the CASI Brand Identity jeff April 26, 2026

London studio Templo designed the CASI brand identity around hobo hieroglyphics and Matisse cut-outs: a climate brand built to inspire rather than alarm.

CASI (Climate Action Service International) is the sister organisation of the Gallery Climate Coalition, a non-profit focused on sustainable practices in the visual arts. The brief to Templo was clear: build a mission-driven identity that speaks to the creative community without resorting to guilt or alarmism. The result is one of the more considered CASI brand identity systems to emerge from cause-led design.

The logo's conceptual root is genuinely unexpected. Templo looked to hobo hieroglyphics, the chalk symbols used by Depression-era travellers to communicate safe routes and local dangers. Those marks were pragmatic, direct, and human. That same quality became the target for the CASI mark. Early reduced forms felt too polished. The breakthrough arrived on a hike with studio co-founder Pali Palavathanan and his daughter. She shaped forms with her arms, casting a shadow that read as an eye. That gesture crystallised the CASI brand identity logo: a standing figure with arms encircling its head.

CASI Brand Identity: Motion System and Type

Templo built a wider graphic system of Matisse-style cut-out forms. Each piece was hand-animated using traditional onion-skinning techniques, studying natural movement frame by frame. The motion language feels genuinely handmade rather than digitally smooth, preserving the deliberate imperfection that makes the system feel alive.

Balancing these organic marks is a quiet contemporary Grotesk typeface. The typographic restraint is intentional: it mirrors the ordered calm of a gallery space set against the generative energy of a studio. The CASI brand identity holds that tension throughout, from flyposters to business cards to digital.

Asanoha Kumiko Pen Holder: A 3D Print for Your Desk

kai — Sat, 25 Apr 2026 15:54:28 +0000

Asanoha Kumiko Pen Holder: A 3D Print for Your Desk kai April 25, 2026

The Asanoha Kumiko pen holder 3D print by designer Meyui is a desk organizer that translates centuries-old Japanese woodworking into something any FDM printer can produce. With 6,907 downloads and 18,512 likes on MakerWorld, it has become one of the most celebrated minimalist printable objects in the home printing community.

Kumiko is a Japanese joinery technique that assembles small pieces of wood into geometric patterns without nails or glue. Meyui translates this tradition into FDM printing, wrapping a hexagonal pen holder in an Asanoha (hemp leaf) surface pattern that reads as deliberate ornament rather than maker showiness. The outer texture catches light as you move around the object, while the form stays clean and resolved.

The holder comes in two sizes: large at 110 by 95 by 100 millimeters and small at 94 by 81 by 90 millimeters. Both share the same slanted opening angle, which tilts pens toward you for one-handed retrieval. Inside, nine compartments with varied diameters organize everything from broad markers to thin mechanical pencils.

Print the Asanoha Kumiko Pen Holder on Any FDM Printer

This model prints at 0.16mm layer height, two walls, 15% infill, and requires no supports. The two-component construction, an outer shell and a separate inner insert, lets you print each piece in a different color. Navy and silver, beige and cream, black and white: the combinations work because the form is restrained enough to let color do the work. Print time runs roughly eight hours for the large profile.

Download the model free at makerworld.com/en/models/1258888. Meyui also offers a small hex variant and an A1 Mini-tuned profile for those dialing in settings for a specific machine.

Tattile: Studio Yellowdot's 3D Printed Furniture at Milan 2026

kai — Sat, 25 Apr 2026 14:39:13 +0000

Tattile: Studio Yellowdot's 3D Printed Furniture at Milan 2026 kai April 25, 2026

Studio Yellowdot Tattile 3D printed furniture translates Barilla ARTISIA pasta shapes into a daybed, rocking chair, and chaise at Milan Design Week 2026.

For Salone del Mobile 2026, Barilla's luxury division ARTISIA commissioned two studios to translate pasta geometry into furniture. Hong Kong and Istanbul-based Studio Yellowdot partnered with Barcelona robotics fabricator LAMÁQUINA to create Tattile, a three-piece seating collection whose forms are drawn directly from pasta profiles. The word "Tattile" is Italian for tactile, a nod to the haptic quality that defines both pasta's ribbed surface and the furniture's corrugated aesthetic.

Each piece in the Studio Yellowdot Tattile 3D printed furniture collection is fabricated using large-format additive manufacturing in wood-composite filament. LAMÁQUINA, a Barcelona studio specializing in robotic fabrication research, handled production of the three pieces: a daybed, a rocking chair, and a chaise lounge. Each form mimics the ridges, spirals, and curves of Barilla's signature pasta shapes, using additive manufacturing to translate culinary geometry into seating at furniture scale. The material choice, a wood-composite filament, adds warmth and surface texture that echoes pasta's rough, porous character.

Studio Yellowdot Tattile 3D Printed Furniture at Milan Design Week

The Studio Yellowdot Tattile 3D printed furniture collection is on view through April 26, 2026, at Via Melzo 34 in Milan's Porta Venezia district as part of Edible Reveries, ARTISIA's broader installation presented during Fuorisalone. The Edible Reveries program explores how pasta geometry, a culturally loaded form, carries new meaning when translated to furniture scale. The project traces how food culture, material science, and robotic fabrication converge into objects that hold the memory of their source. The full installation is documented at Voxel Matters.

SaaS Tech Logo Branding Project by Nilima Islam

abduzeedo — Fri, 24 Apr 2026 23:44:12 +0000

SaaS Tech Logo Branding Project by Nilima Islam abduzeedo April 24, 2026

A SaaS logo branding project merging architecture and digital-age minimalism. Nilima Islam designs the SPHERO cloud identity with the precision of craft.

The brand rests on a geometric wordmark—block letters with a hexagonal mark that doubles as an S and a node. A spider web construction grid, a monochrome palette in dark and white, and a clear visual hierarchy: the wordmark, then the hexagon, then supporting type. SPHERO brands itself as cloud infrastructure built on precision. The mantra reads "Code. Scale. Dominate"—loud, but the visuals keep it grounded.

SaaS Logo Branding Approach

The brand guidelines lay out a structured system: mark variations, typography rules, and color constraints that leave no room for accident. The app icon test shows how the hexagonal mark holds up at small scale, while the construction grid reveals the math behind the geometry. Everything is monochrome. No gradients. No color to hide behind.

SPHERO's saas logo branding proves restraint works—a saas logo branding system where the mark reads at 16px on a dashboard tile. That's a real design problem. Nilima's portfolio at behance.net/polynil90 shows similar work across multiple brand identity projects.

Soulz: Brand Identity for a Social Media Agency

jeff — Fri, 24 Apr 2026 22:59:14 +0000

Soulz: Brand Identity for a Social Media Agency jeff April 24, 2026

Soulz brand identity from Uncave Studio anchors a high-contrast dark serif wordmark low on bubblegum pink and periwinkle lavender across all touchpoints.

Uncave Studio, based in Esteio, Brazil, designed the Soulz brand identity for a social media agency founded by Janine and Larissa in Sapucaia do Sul. The challenge was giving Soulz a presence that reads as both strategic and emotionally warm, avoiding the cold minimalism common to digital agencies. The solution sits in the tension between a heavy display serif and the softness of its color field.

The Soulz wordmark anchors at the lower left of its frame, letterforms filling roughly a third of the composition. The typeface draws on high-contrast strokes, thick verticals meeting hairline diagonals, in deep chocolate brown against a bubblegum pink ground. That pairing repeats across the collateral: lavender publications, pink business cards, and a warm yellow social template all share the same dark ink, keeping the Soulz brand identity coherent across every color.

The Soulz Brand Identity Across Physical and Digital Touchpoints

Helvetica Now handles all secondary copy, from the tagline on a pink dad cap to founder contact details on white letterhead. The shift between the display serif and a clean sans-serif builds a clear typographic hierarchy without added complexity. A secondary pattern of vertical dark-brown stripes on pink appears on card backs and social templates, adding rhythm without competing with the wordmark.

The system extends to a lavender tote bag and a large-format billboard, both demonstrating the Soulz identity holding at scale. The heavy serif maintains its presence even at display size. Uncave Studio published the project in July 2025. View the full Soulz brand identity on Behance.

Kettal Brings the Eames Pavilion System to Life 77 Years Later

jeff — Fri, 24 Apr 2026 14:07:02 +0000

Kettal Brings the Eames Pavilion System to Life 77 Years Later jeff April 24, 2026

Kettal and Eames Office finally bring the Eames Pavilion System to market, turning Charles and Ray's 1949 modular steel-frame design into livable spaces.

The Eames Pavilion System is one of the most consequential unrealized projects in twentieth-century design. Charles and Ray Eames conceived it in the late 1940s as modular, prefabricated housing based on a steel-frame structural grid with adaptable, industrial components. It was never commercially produced. Now, 77 years later, Kettal and the Eames Office have brought the Eames Pavilion System to market.

Kettal, the Barcelona-based manufacturer, began development in 2024 alongside Eames Demetrios, grandson of Charles and Ray and director of the Eames Office. The process started with archival research: technical drawings, correspondence, and period industry catalogs helped reconstruct the original design intent. The first full prototype was assembled in spring 2025.

The Eames Pavilion System: From Prototype to Product

Kettal's engineers translated original profiles and connections to current technical standards without altering the form. The result is a modular system of steel-frame pavilions with floor-to-ceiling glass facades and colorful infill panels in the Eames palette: blue, yellow, red, and warm industrial tones. Black steel framing meets wood walls. Frosted glass diffuses light next to open mesh windows. The Eames Pavilion System scales from residential to commercial use, with facade panels configurable for privacy or public exposure.

For Eames Demetrios, this launch is more than a product. Charles and Ray's writings always described their houses as intended for series production. The Eames Pavilion System, produced by Kettal, makes that vision real. Photography by Yosigo and Rocafort, courtesy of Kettal.