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We love design; it’s what we do and it drives us to nurture the partnerships we have with our clients. We believe that listening is critical, process is key, collaboration is vital, and that design is a valuable contribution to the world of business, art, and culture. The 21xdesign blog features anything from discussing recent projects, exploring antique books we love, to the technologies that drive our profession.

Spreading the Message: #neveragain

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Spreading the Message: #neveragain

About a year ago, we turned on our TV’s to hear that yet another senseless mass shooting had occurred at a high school in Parkland, Florida. Watching the horrifying images of police cars and stretchers in front of Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School, we had two choices: we could turn off the television and try to forget it happened, or we could do something about it. As designers, our instinct is to try and make a visual impact on society and we knew 21xdesign needed to take action. We started creating posters with the American flag as their...

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Why We Are Not Setting New Year’s Resolutions

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Why We Are Not Setting New Year’s Resolutions

Our team at 21xdesign would like to wish everyone a Happy New Year! New Year’s Resolutions are a curious pressure that we put on ourselves especially since the cards are stacked against us!  “This Year, Don’t Set New Year’s Resolutions” is an article I read by Ashira Prossack from Forbes magazine and it has made me think about the possibility of ‘resolving’ my resolutions. Prossack says less than 25% of people actually stay committed to their resolutions after 30 days, and only 8% even accomplish them. She suggests making your...

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Transformation: The Delaware County Libraries System Website

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Transformation: The Delaware County Libraries System Website

We were delighted to be given the opportunity to transform the Delaware County Libraries System website. Books and reading mean so much to us that this was a project close to our heart! Let‘s take you through some our journey as we undertook to transform the DCLS website to what you presently see. We’ll explain how we worked with DCLS to create an online presence, that answered DCLS’s mission, and along the way ended up winning an international design award. On our first look at their original website, we knew the redesign would be no easy...

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21 Reasons to be thankful

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21 Reasons to be thankful

This year, 2018, is a special year for us in a curious way. This year marks our 21st anniversary as a design studio. 21 years for 21x. Cute. Yes, it’s hard to believe, but in 1997, we decided to go out on our own, and make a go of it in the world of design. I’m not sure we had an idea of what was in store for us in the upcoming decades, but we both knew that the time felt right, and we felt as if we had enough prior experience to give us some kind of chance at making a good run of it. I don’t think we ever thought we’d still be in business...

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Shelf Life – Tales of Edgar Allan Poe, Illustrated by Fritz Eichenberg

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Shelf Life – Tales of Edgar Allan Poe, Illustrated by Fritz Eichenberg

In honor of Halloween, this week’s Shelf Life is dedicated to the inventor of the genre of mystery itself: Edgar Allan Poe! Tales of Edgar Allan Poe is an edition that compiles several of his short stories together. The collection is full of detailed images from illustrator Fritz Eichenberg that bring Poe’s eerie words to life. Fritz Eichenberg was a German illustrator who fled to America during World War II. After coming to America, he became well known within the publishing world for his ability to transform authors’ words into a single...

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The Case for Morning Doctor’s Appointments

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The Case for Morning Doctor’s Appointments

Effective immediately, I am no longer scheduling any important doctor’s appointments in the afternoon. This sudden change of thought doesn’t come from a strange superstition or a sudden change in my schedule, but a curious book When: The Scientific Secrets to Perfect Timing by Daniel Pink. Backed by research studies from the fields of psychology, biology, neuroscience, and economics, Pink shows that we make countless decisions without a second thought. We think about why we are making decisions (I am sick, I must see a doctor), but we never...

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We Think Timing is an Art, But It’s Really a Science

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We Think Timing is an Art, But It’s Really a Science

What if I told you there was a time of the day you shouldn’t go to the doctor’s office? Or the solution to your afternoon slump is not to power through, but rather to take a restorative break? Or what if I said you shouldn’t drink coffee as soon as you wake up? All these questions, and many more, are answered by Daniel Pink in his informative novel When: The Scientific Secrets to Perfect Timing. According to the well-researched author, we think timing is an art, but it’s really a science. I’m sure you’ve indulged in your typical how-to book,...

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Raising Awareness about Gun Control

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Raising Awareness about Gun Control

When we’re in the trenches with work sometimes it feels like there’s not much time for anything else. We love creating work but we can forget to take a breath and enjoy the fruits of our labor. So in the next few blogs we are going to acknowledge some of the work and our clients that we have collaborated with. Over the past months we have been thrilled to receive a number of awards for some of our work. We would like to show and tell some of these in the next few blog postings. Protest posters have always been a tool of expression. They can...

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Play and Dream with “Beyonder” a role playing game

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Play and Dream with “Beyonder” a role playing game

We love working with Flying Nightbear Games! We love their culture of collaboration and testing new ideas and exploring directions for their products, which makes them just about the perfect client. Over time we have worked with them to develop the branding for their company and their role-playing game Beyonder. We have created their website and designed two books for Beyonder, as well as an array of marketing pieces that augment the game. The books are entitled Imbelnhi’s Bestiary and Beyonder: the science of the six. They feature over...

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Mid-century modern in Slanted Magazine

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Mid-century modern in Slanted Magazine

21xdesign was invited to contribute an essay about Portuguese mid-century design in Slanted Magazine, the German design publication based in Karlsruhe. Dermot MacCormack’s piece discusses the influence of two mid-century designers, Victor Palla and Sebastião Rodrigues. Although not widely known outside their native Portugal, they were both, nevertheless, important designers who paved the way for the development of a home-grown graphic design aesthetic, that was influenced by the prevailing mid-century movement that coursed throughout Europe...

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