Holger Pooten and Lara Jade are two UK-based photographers whose portfolios have recently impressed me, specifically their personal work. I’m not sure what it is about having a disturbing element contrasted with a clean, fashion, styled aesthetic (like the image above by Holger) but for some reason I find it really engaging and comical - almost like black humour I guess. Holger’s personal work reminded me of Steven Meisel’s State of Emergency shoot for Vogue a few years ago. I really liked it but it created a lot of controversy when it was released, and I can see why, perhaps this was always the intention though and something that these two photographers are trying to achieve as well.

Jason Smith of Font Smith has just launched a new typeface for Mencap as part of their revised branding called FS Mencap. The face involved close development with focus groups over a 3-month period to ensure people with learning disabilities can see it clearly and are able to easily read it. I like that it has a really approachable, soft, friendly personality while not looking too childish or comic-like. I really like that there is a lot of research behind all of the design decisions made too. The shape of each letter is unique with each having their own defining feature, meaning it’s easier to tell them apart. The letter forms are all in their simplest form and dotted letters and punctuation have comparatively large dots to ensure clarity. I’m not sure about the actual new brand mark but Font Smith weren’t responsible for that.

This website for UniQlo Japan has an amazing mesmerising appeal to it. Everything is based around a 5 second beat, and it’s been executed beautifully — especially the type and colour. It’s one of hundreds of sites submitted for nomination for a D&AD award this year and I wouldn’t be surprised if it not only gets nominated but also wins an award. The list of submissions that have made it to the nomination round are announced this Friday so I guess we’ll find out soon.

Among other sites submitted for nomination was this campaign for the Nikon D40 SLR camera. Nikon wanted to demonstrate that the camera was easy enough for anyone to use so gave everyone in a small American town a camera and asked them to photograph their lives. The end result for the residents being an exhibition of everyone’s work, while for Nikon it served to create user-generated content for a digital campaign delivered as a website — along with user stories about how easy and fun the camera is to use.