Scared of Color: Overheard at Parsons

From Overheard In New York:
Girl: Yeah, I always wear black...I'm, like, scared of colors.
—Elevator, Parsons School of Design

How A Designer Grows

ConsumeDaily has come up with this info graphic charting a designer's self-worth/knowledge over time.

Kodak in Soho for November

Kodak will be opening a Soho store location at the corner of Wooster and Spring for most of November. Says Gothamist: "They're going to offer a bunch of Digital Photography lectures and one-hour courses—perfect if you're tired of hitting the Apple Store for your SoHo brand-centric "education'." More info.

NY Murals

The Manhattan User's Guide has a nice list of murals around the city. Maybe I'm just scarred from Parsons, but I have a very strong urge to take up my Holga, snap pix of questionable quality, and make a photo book.

Transparent NY Map

Thanks to good old Gothamist, this five year old Transparent Map of New York City, in which you can overlay different levels of info about the city (including historical info), is getting some fresh buzz. Read the full article in the Gothamist archives.

New Weird America

The term New Weird America, formerly applied to music, is now being applied to a certain illustration aesthetic. To skew Chief Seattle, since "all things are connected like the blood which unites one artistic family", I'm sure the application of this term from one genre to another was, on some level, a natural evolution. But who knows. It could be one giant conspiracy by the AIGA to bolster attendance for their upcoming Nov 16th lecture called PrettyUgly, which will feature the work of illustrators Aya Kakeda, Tara McPherson and Souther Salazar. More info here.

Type T-shirts

Type tees are all over the place. Spotted earlier today: one of several untitled designs done by 2k (as sold by Cartel Goods). From the various homages to decorative typefaces to Graniph's Helvetica classic, I think GDBar might have to start a resource page just for shirts. (This thread was kind of started by the previous post involving Veer merchandise.)

Free Calendar for Design Professionals

"Get a free 134-page, six-color weekly desktop calendar for 2006 from SMART Papers and Magnum Photos. Designed by New York firm Emerson Wajdowicz Studios, the spiral-bound agenda features never-before-published images of New York City from the photo agency and demonstrates SMART papers. This is the seventh year for Magnum’s popular calendar, and the company’s fourth collaboration with SMART. It’s free to design professionals in North America."
http://www.smartpapers.com/5_shop/newyork.asp

Adobe Various: Free Seminars, InDesign Plugin

Free Adobe CS2 Seminar, October 26th at the Type Directors Club Conference Center, New York City
Sponsored by Adobe and A to A Graphic Services, this seminar helps designers find creative inspiration and use the CS2 tools more efficiently and effectively. To register, email allanw@a2a.com

Speaking of, Tekserve also offers free seminars. There are two Photoshop seminars a month, as well as many other choices ranging from software specifics to general Mac education. These are free (for now—buzz was heard that they're going to start charging sometime soon), and nicely put together—take advantage!

Also, Insider Software has a free plug-in for V4.0.1 of Adobe InDesign CS2. The new plug-in enables automatic font activation in InDesign for all fonts managed in FontAgent Pro 3. The plug-in is fully compatible with font suitcases created by leading font vendors, as well as by FontAgent Pro and Insider’s font utility called Smasher.

Emigre Font: Puzzler

There is a new font called Puzzler from Emigre co-founder Zuzana Licko, creator of Mrs. Eaves and Variex (among many others).

The Bubble Project

Photographer Ji Lee plastered thousands of the word balloons all over the city, then went back and took pictures of what people had scribbled. Why post this here? Because, hilarity aside, it's a great example of how text can alter the meaning of an image.
www.thebubbleproject.com

Illustrated Strunk & White

Maira Kalman has illustrated good old Strunk & White (which, for the uninformed, is the legendary sourcebook for correct English language grammar and practice). An article in the New York Times has a few pictures, and the New York Public Library has a small showcase.

Neenah Paper does Eames

I am usually not one to get excited about paper (ha, so it was probably inevitable that I ended up working in web design), but Neenah Paper, in collaboration with the Eames Office, has just launched a new "design materials collection inspired by the work and working philosophy of designers Charles and Ray Eames". Check it out at http://www.neenahpaper.com/Eames/pressrelease.asp?ft=Home.

Pay-What-You-Wish Night at the Guggenheim

Guggenheim
1071 5th Ave, New York, NY 10021
www.guggenheim.org

Remember: Friday nights, from 6pm-8m, are pay-what-you-wish instead of regular admission. The Guggenheim is currently showing an exhibit on Russia, which is surprisingly in tune with the fall folklore fashion trends. Though the word is that minimalism will be back for spring, it will be interesting to see how the current taste for all things decorative continues to impact various areas of design (look at type trends: Rosewood already went mainstream, etc.).

JC Report Open Call for Cover Designs

Head's up illustrators/photographers/designers with an interest in fashion—the JC Report, recently identified by various publications (including a national nod from Time magazine) as the coolhunter's hot source for fashion info, runs an open call for cover design submissions. No money involved, but if your cover is selected you get a bio blurb on the site, which is relatively high profile and is basically guaranteed to increase your visibility. Check out the details at http://jcreport.com/design.jsp.

Subway Art

A showcase of all the various art/artists that we zone by in the subway stations: http://nycsubway.org/perl/artwork

Mxyplyzyk's Annual 20% Off Sale

Mxyplyzyk, one of my favorite design stores, is having a big sale this weekend (Oct 15-16th). Definitely worth a look! A great place to buy design-related gifts and home stuff... and fun stuff, too. Tip: get directions off the website—they're at 13th and Greenwich but apparently people always get lost trying to find the place..

Tokion Creativity Now Conference

Tokion Magazine presents the Third Annual Creativity Now Conference
Cooper Union, October 15th and 16th
This unique symposium will bring together top figures in art, design, fashion, photography, film, new media, publishing and marketing. In the same room for the first time, the people shaping today's popular culture will spend two days exchanging their ideas, methods and inspirations before an audience of 2,000.
For more info, visit the Tokion site.

Dining Out: Reading Menus

Gothamist (one of our favorite NY sites) has an article today about how certain NY restaurants are providing diners with tiny flashlights and reading glasses in an effort to help them decipher their menus. Trusty Gothamist then calls for better designed menus with (gasp!) legible type and busts out some statistics from Psychology Today about how the human eye actually deciphers printed matter. Interesting, especially if you're out there as a designer forced to cram tons of text into a limited space (and we have all been there). Read the article.

Displaced Designer Hurricane Relief Effort

From the AIGA:
Many Gulf Coast designers have been devastated by the impact of hurricanes Katrina and Rita. The AIGA Mbulance will be in New York this Friday collecting supplies for designers from the Gulf Coast. Computers, software, and office supplies are needed, as well as anything else that would help designers rebuild their studios. Gift cards to office supply and computer stores also make a wonderful donation.

Drop off donations between now and Friday at the
AIGA National Design Center, 164 Fifth Ave
11:00–6:00
http://www.aiga.org/content.cfm/reliefeffort

AIGA Fall 2005

Lots going on at the AIGA in the coming weeks. From the 50 Best Book Covers show (free and always pretty interesting) to various lectures (not free... but also usually pretty interesting). Check out the AIGA events page for more info.

Free Mondrian Lecture at Guggenheim

Dr. Nancy J. Troy: Making Mondrian(s)
Tuesday, October 18, 6:30 p.m.
FREE (not much at the Guggenheim is free, so take advantage)
The Professor of Art History at USC examines Piet Mondrian's work, and in particular his last unfinished painting, Victory Boogie Woogie. Visit the Guggenheim lectures page for more info.

Maxalot Wallpaper

Maxalot.com has a new range of design-oriented wallpapers. For those of you interested in pattern and textile design, take a look. There is even a design by, yes, flippin' Joshua Davis (who is suddenly EVERYWHERE).

Logo Lounge

Just found this great site all about (you guessed it) logos: logolounge.com/. Don't miss the trends section!

Copyrighting Creativity... Quark Logo Rip-Off

Some of you may know about this already (was September's buzz, apparently).
Articles on the Quark Logo Adventure:
antipixel.com
quarkvsindesign.com
creativepro.com
mikeindustries.com
underconsideration.com/speakup

Quark logo issues aside, as an active member of Threadless (see previous post), I am always stunned at the number of rip-off artists that flagrantly steal other people's work and present it as their own. There is currently a bit of a scandal—one of the best-selling shirts has turned out to be a design stolen from a Japanese site. The girl who designed the shirt swears innocence and claims to have never seen the Japanese site. Scam or synchronicity? Who can say.

Always document your process, people. It may come down to sue or be sued.

DUMBO Art Under the Bridge Festival

October 14-16
www.dumboartscenter.org
Back for its 9th year, the Festival features exhibitions, installations, live art, open studios, music, dance and video all just over the river between the Brooklyn and Manhattan bridges.
http://www.dumboartscenter.org/festival/2005/

GDBar Link Update

The link to access the forum has changed, due to some backend growth (woo hoo, GDBar is growing steadily!). The main page of the forum is now located at www.graphicdesignbar.com/forum.html (previously the .html had been optional). Yes, a tiny change—but an important one. Thanks!

Joshua Davis 2

Joshua Davis (see previous post) is featured as part of the upcoming Small Talks series presented by the AIGA. Registration begins Friday for the Wednesday, November 9th lecture.

Photo New York

The 2nd International New York Photographic Art Exposition
October 6th-9th at the Metropolitan Pavilion, 125 W. 18th Street
Over 40 installations by galleries, private dealers and artists from around the globe showing the finest contemporary photography and photo based work. Artists & galleries showcased include Patterson Beckwith, Michael Garlington, Tracey Snelling, Unholy Erection, Creative Thriftshop, de Soto, gescheidle and Bernard Toale. Seminars will also be offered.
More info: www.photonygalleries.com/

Architecture Week

October 6th-11th
This week is New York's third annual architecture week. Billed as an "Architecture Festival", more info is available on the Center for Architecture website.

Pantone Color Cue 2

Combining two Pantone Libraries in one hand-held device, the Pantone Color Cue 2 lets you identify the colors that inspire you and match Pantone colors wherever you go. Pretty cool. As expected with anything Pantone, prices fly pretty high, but perhaps the promise of unlimited cosmic color identification power is worth it.

Urban Alphabet/Daily Candy

Some of you may have had classes with Alicia Peck at Parsons. Apparently she's doing very well for herself. Her site Bellamuse and her Urban Alphabet typography photo series are featured as the focus of today's Daily Candy email.

DailyCandy, a free daily e-mail newsletter that aims to be "the ultimate insider’s guide to what’s hot, new, and undiscovered." If you can stomach the chick-lit style illustrations, some days they do actually have interesting recommendations.

Color LA/Yoffy

Came across this artist today. The Tetris painting alone had me sold.
"Aspiring to create simple expressions of a complex thought, Yoffy promotes a universal aesthetic that blends the modern idiom with retro-chic flavor. Using clean shapes, flat planes of color, smooth lines and dynamic composition, his prolific body of work collectively defines the graphics of today while paying tribute to the crisp, cool simplicity of the 60’s and 70’s."
www.color.la/

Veer Merchandise

Taking things a step beyond stock photos, Veer.com offers a variety of design-related stuff, from t-shirts to portfolio bags. Brilliant. Check it all out on the Veer Merchandise page.

Seventh Annual Altoids Curiously Strong Collection

September 29 - October 29, 2005
New Museum of Contemporary Art, Chelsea

Altoids Curiously Strong Collection was established in 1998 to honor and support emerging artists by providing meaningful exposure and recognition in a public art forum. The Collection provides a snapshot of contemporary artistic practice, representing the diversity of media, and aesthetic sensibilities being developed by up-and-coming artists.

More info is available on the New Museum site.