Warhol-idays?

Barney's New York is celebrating "Andy Warhol-idays"... no kidding. At least it's not all tomato soup cans—to their credit, they do make good use of Warhol's often overlooked early fashion illustrations. You can flip through the holiday mailer and see the accompanying clothes online, or get a glimpse of the window via a review in New York Magazine. [Happy Warhol-idays to Sari for the links!]

Erasable Xerox Paper

Xerox is experimenting with paper that erases itself in 24 hours. "The technology, which is still in a preliminary state, blurs the line between paper documents and digital displays and could ultimately lead to a significant reduction in paper use." The eco benefits are potentially great, though scams and legal nightmares will doubtless abound. And inevitably there will be an installation someplace where an artist/designer splashes thought-provoking typography across the page and then has to continually refresh the wall of 8.5 x 11s as his or her message fades cryptically away right before our eyes, etc.

Architecture for Humanity Logo Competition

Architecture for Humanity has put out a call for a new logo design. The winner will receive $1000 and AFH's Design Like You Give A Damn book (previously mentioned here). AFH is a charitable organization that creates global opportunities for architects and designers to help communities in need. Deadline: December 15, 2006. [via DO]

I Will Pay For Good Design

Great shirt from Artefacture delivers this statement: "I will pay for good design." Should be worn by all clients and art directors. [thanks Alex]

13 Tzameti Winners

To anyone that entered the 13 Tzameti DVD cover contest, the finalists and winning design are up on MySpace. If your design was chosen and you found out about the contest via GDBar, let me know for some link love. The info originally posted about the contest is available here.

Absolut Lomo

Absolut Vodka and the Lomographic Society have teamed up for ABSOLUT LOMO. The print ad campaign focuses on how six selected artists have interpreted the Absolut brand and their artwork using a Lomo camera. But there is also a gallery open to submission, marking the first time in Absolut history that people have been encouraged to participate with their own photos. A fun way to get some visibility (or just browse cool photographs). [thanks to Johan and Yuthi]

Best Worst Video Game Ads

1up gleefully showcases the worst video game and tech advertisements of the 80s and 90s. And they really are astonishingly bad—I wish we'd had time to work things like this into our elitist art school curriculum. Surely neon bodybuilders, bizarre typography, dismal Photoshopping (granted, these are old ads) and the kid with the mullet all have considerable power to scare students into appreciating and aspiring to better design... [thanks Jason!]

Crap Hound Returns

Reading Frenzy press is reprinting issues of the 90s clip art zine Crap Hound, and issue 6 is now available. The "grand, disjointed theme" of issue 6 is Death, Telephones, and Scissors. Created by writer/designer Sean Tejaratchi, Crap Hound was/is appreciated for its sense of humor, lack of pretension, and—most importantly—great clip art, taken from vintage catalogs, advertising, obscure books, and found ephemera.

Greenophobia

Is green poison on the newsstand? Slate examines this widely-held publishing convention in an article sparked by the fact that the January 2006 cover of Harper's Bazaar was awarded "Best Celebrity Cover" last month by the American Society of Magazine Editors. The cover featured Julianne Moore smiling out from a sea of various greens—I remember it specifically because it felt like a visual breath air amidst all the wintry blues and residual holiday reds. [via DO]

Stretch Business Card

Advertising/Design Goodness spotlights the memorable business card of personal trainer Poul Nielsen.

Coroflot Design Salary Survey

Coroflot's 2006 Design Salary Survey is now available, complete with various info graphics. What I find especially interesting is how low the MA percentages are—I feel as though all my design peers discuss is going back to school for a Master's... [via Speak Up]

NeatFonts

NeatFonts.com is a treasure trove of freeware, shareware or demo versions of fonts ready to download. [via troyt]

Bond Title Sequences

The opening titles from all James Bond films, from Dr. No to Casino Royale, are available to watch online at Martin Klasch's blog—nearly 50 years of genre title design. [via BoingBoing]

Minilogue: Stop Motion Music Video

Drawn! spotlights Kristofer Strom's video for Swedish band Minilogue, an amazing four minutes of old-school stop motion animation.

Art Chantry Mini-documentary

Art Chantry speaks his mind in Pearls Are a Nuisance, an interview with the iconic grunge poster designer. [via Coudal Partners]

DIY Penguin Classic Covers

Penguin releases select literature classics with blank covers, meant to be illustrated by readers themselves. "The covers are art-quality paper, and from internal Penguin efforts we know that they hold ink, paint, pencil and glue." Once drawn, you can add your cover to their online gallery. [via Drawn!]

Gutenberg! The Musical

Gutenberg! The Musical, a recent hit at the New York Musical Theatre Festival, is playing Off-Broadway during the month of December. In the two-man musical spoof, which is drawing comparisons to Waiting for Guffman, a pair of aspiring playwrights perform a backers' audition for their new project: a musical about printing press inventor Johann Gutenberg. [via Gothamist]

Happy Thanksgiving from GDBar

The crazy adventure that is holiday travel across the USA will take me offline for the rest of the week. Happy Thanksgiving to all—whether you celebrate the holiday or not, here's hoping the rest of your week is full of safe travel and good food. GDBar will return in full force on Monday.

Thanksgiving-themed New Yorker Magazines

This week's New Yorker features four separate illustrated covers from cartoonist and comic book artist Chris Ware. The New Yorker online has large images of the Thanksgiving-themed covers as well as a comic and an interview with Ware. [via kottke]

DIY Business Card Holders

A cool project over at designverb: DIY business card holders from paint chip cards (perfect for design nerds—we love color and generally like to fold stuff). Sounds crazy, but the results are actually quite polished and can be used for a variety of items (like MOO mini cards). You could also take Aaron's template and use it to make similar holders from other materials. [via HOW]

Oskar Fischinger on DVD

Oskar Fischinger: Ten Films showcases the work of animator Oskar Fischinger, best known for his work on the Toccata and Fugue segment in Disney's Fantasia. The DVD contains Fischinger's visual music films, home movies, animation tests, paintings, notes, and more—a treasure trove of tidbits from an animation pioneer.

Kuler: Adobe's Palette Generator

Adobe gets in on the palette site trend with Kuler, which tastes a bit like COLOURLovers but with added features like downloadable themes for use with CS2 applications. [via Alex Jones]

Client-manipulated Flags of the World

Clayborn Creative Consulting presents an animated tale of how clients might redesign various flags of the world. [via Frederick Samuel's Advertising/Design Goodness]

The new look of FujiFilm

Brand New examines the new FujiFilm logo, now purely typographic and without its signature mark.

Phaidon's Vitamin Series

Vitamin Ph: New Perspectives in Photography is the latest in Phaidon's Vitamin Series, which includes Vitamin P (painting) and Vitamin D (drawing). Vitamin Ph showcases over 100 contemporary photographers who have made significant contributions to the international art photography scene.

Teach Design Shirt

LoyolaLulu sells a strangely hued series of Teach shirts on CafePress that include Teach Design, Teach Type, Teach Art, etc. If you're looking for design-related shirts, don't forget places like Veer and even Threadless. [Teach shirts via swissmiss]

The Rest of Ze Frank

Fun for Friday: ok, everyone raves about The Show, but have you ever spent any time in the other corners of Ze Frank's online world? From the snowflakes to the orange trees to the singing frog, zefrank.com provides hours of ultimately pointless but oh-so-fun ways to squander your time. Games, generators, videos (I've been coming back for Annie and the dancing for years now)—the man is much more than a quick wit and a pair of unblinking eyes.

Retro Kid on Flickr

The Flickr group Retro Kid aims to focus not just on vintage children's books, but also on illustration done for albums, 45's, commercials, ads, games, toys—"If it's retro, and it looks cool, let's see it!" [via Alex Jones]

30 Emerging Photographers

Photo District News (PDN) showcases the work of 30 emerging photographers. People often ask me about ways to access the exploding world of new photography, and scoping out features like this is a great way to start exploring. I also love discovering new photographers via Jen Bekman's ongoing Hey Hot Shot series. Another great resource: Gothamist, who regularly feature photobloggers. [PDN link via Poppy]

Best Illustrated Books of 2006

Drawn! highlights the New York Times Book Review's picks for best illustrated books of 2006 (there is a slideshow on the NYT site—watch it before it becomes a subscriber-only archive item...).

Design, the Business World, the Future

Two recent articles highlight booming opportunities for qualified designers in the business world—key word: qualified. "We're not producing enough designers with the right skills," says Fast Company, while Core 77 examines ways in which design education needs to be reevaluated to create designers with desired skill sets but also with the necessary leadership abilities.
· Fast Company: Design's Growth
· Core77: Enlightened Innovation: Keys to Promoting Thoughtful Design Leadership in Education
This all also ties in to a previous post about Design Management and MBA crossover opportunities.

Cut and Paste NYC 2006: Video

In case you missed the actual event, Cool Hunting has created a video documenting the frenetic experience that was Cut and Paste NYC 2006 (previously mentioned here).

Creative Quarterly Magazine

Creative Quarterly targets college students studying graphic design, illustration, photography and fine arts. The new publication spent a year under the name Creative Convocation before being sold to the people at 3x3 Magazine, who've given it a total overhaul and recently relaunched. A great focused resource for students and their instructors.

Experimental Typography

The Softlightes Heart Made of Sound video is making the internet rounds in all its experimental typographic glory (totally unrelated to type, something about the objects and rhythm reminds me of Michel Gondry's Star Guitar video for the Chemical Brothers). If you're interested in experimental type but don't need the soundtrack, check out Sagmeister's Nature type and Oded Ezer's work with insect inspiration and Hebrew lettering.

CommArts: 50 Essential Bookmarks

Communication Arts recommends 50 bookmarks related to design, advertising, and more. [via Speak Up]

PRINT Regional Design Annual: 10 Years

PRINT magazine is releasing a showcase of ten years' worth of selected Regional Design Annual winners in a combined private website/DVD package. For roughly $50 you receive the DVD and a year of access to the site, which will allow you to easily search and view the 16,000+ pieces. Sounds like a great resource! [via swissmiss]

Factory Records: The Complete Graphic Album

Factory Records, 80s label of bands like New Order and Joy Division, collaborated with top graphic artists to create some of the era's most stylish music art. They release their complete graphic output (flyers, record sleeves, posters, more) in book format at the end of the month (available to pre-order). [via Cool Hunting]

Branded: International Call for Entries

Début Publications (UK) has put out an international call for entries for Branded, a visual resource for designers that will showcase the best of contemporary branding. There is a simultaneous call for entries in the cover design competition. Deadline for both: November 30, 2006.

I Am African

By now most people have likely seen the I Am African ads. Created by Iman for the Keep A Child Alive charity, the ads have set off a tirade of commentary (Paltrow, especially, got a furious scathing online). These ads and their parodies (ex. I Am Gwyneth Paltrow) present an interesting opportunity to examine the concept itself, the effectiveness of the execution, and the simple power of type and image to illicit reaction.

From the Exercising My Write blog: "The ads are attention-grabbing, yes, but do they call attention to the right thing? Do they accomplish their goal of drawing attention to the HIV/AIDS epidemic? Or will the intended message be lost in a flurry of outrage over overstepped boundaries of racial and cultural delineation? And if I don't agree to the proposed solution, is it okay for me to accept the ads because I agree with the underlying message of the campaign?" Or, more succinctly, "Why would Sarah Jessica Parker's endorsement encourage me to support this cause?"

Now that they've been around a few months and people have had time to digest them, what do you think about these ads as a design exercise? Comments welcome.

New York Art Book Fair

Presented by Printed Matter, the New York Art Book Fair is the first annual fair of contemporary art books, art catalogues, artists' books, art periodicals, and zines. Runs this weekend, November 17-19. Admission is free. [via Taschen, who will be holding court in Booth C]

Japanese Mac Ad

The Get a Mac ads have started running in Japan—Information Architects Japan provides a nice rundown of the cultural differences between the two campaigns. Interesting to see the same concept executed through a different cultural filter (the western versions can be viewed on the Apple site).

Hindu Deities & Rock Gods

Good (and interesting) things often happen in threes. First, Will Kane spotlights The Little Book of Hindu Deities, new from Pixar animator Sanjay Patel. Second, the ever-impeccable BibliOdyssey showcases a Kalighat album of gods from 1875. Third, Koldo Barroso ties the Hindu pantheon to his examination of rock band logos.

90 Years of British Vogue

British Vogue celebrates its 90th anniversary with an extensive online archive of covers (including the great illustrated early ones). [via DO]

MTA Arts for Transit Book

Gothamist showcases Along The Way: MTA Arts For Transit, the new book about NYC subway art—there are more than 150 pieces of public art in a variety of media down there! Somewhat bizarrely, the book's intro has been written by actor Stanley Tucci.

Maira Kalman in Paris

Seems like Paris is on everyone's mind lately (perhaps autumn inevitably brings thoughts of European escape). Even Maira Kalman gets in on the mood with a series of Paris illustrations in the New York Times. I love that she visually noted her visit to Deyrolle, one of my favorite Parisian curiosity wonder shops. [Cheers to Sari]

Letters are nothing without designers

During a dinner at ATypI 2006, a room full of designers were given 5 minutes and 1 page to create their own letter. Presented by the Association Typographique Internationale, the ATypI 2006 conference was held earlier this fall in Lisbon. [via Make Ready]

High Priority Contest

Speak Up announces the first-ever open contest to design the "High Priority” typographic illustration that appears regularly in New York Magazine (previously mentioned here).

UPDATE 12/8: Spencer Fruhling's entry is the winner. Speak Up has an excellent rundown of the contest.

The public role of the graphic designer

"Do designers have a role in the creation of symbols for a country, a culture, an ideology or a mentality? Are they co-authors of the ‘visual text’ with which a country or a culture expresses itself? Does that make designers co-responsible for what is conveyed in that ‘text’? These questions and more are discussed in the new book The public role of the graphic designer. [via DO]

Grid Systems

Design Mark Boulton presents Five Simple Steps to designing grid systems, a series of articles covering grid creation for both print and modern web. [via Make Ready]

Book

Mac Premo and Duke Riley of Brooklyn teamed up with Belfast brothers Oliver and Rory Jeffers on Book, a collaborative sketchbook project that has yielded amazing results. They passed a sketchbook back and forth for 36 weeks, each making a spread in response to the previous entry. The battered end product is a wonderful mashup of creativity, much of it available to view online—you can even by your own edition or order prints of spreads. [via design*sponge]

Animated Music Videos

The Idolator Music blog asked animator Tom Eaton to list his favorite animated music videos. Eaton, who has created a video for Sufjan Stevens' upcoming holiday box set, picked an interesting range of videos, from the old Sesame Street classic Pinball number spot (aka onetwothreeFOURFIVE... sixseveneightNINETEN... eleventwehehehehehehELVE) to the more recent Junior Senior Move Your Feet (also arguably a classic). While we're on the subject, my favorite animated music videos are Röyksopp's Remind Me and a-ha's Take On Me.

Art Directors Club: Young Guns 5

ADC Young Guns 5 is the fifth biennial showcase of artists 30 and under who are creating innovative work in the fields of art direction, advertising, publishing, graphic design, illustration, photography, film and video, packaging, environmental design, experimental fashion and interactive media. The exhbition preview/book party is tonight ($10 for non-members) and there will be a panel discussion on the 13th. The exhibition runs through November 22.

Print and Web Communities Together at the AIGA

The AIGA's Khoi Vinh surveyed attendees at the recent Zeldman lecture and examines the results on his site Subtraction. The room was filled with a healthy balance of print designers, web designers, and those that do both, creating the opportunity for Vinh to muse on the AIGA's potential role in bridging the gap between these two communities.

Fontshop November Calendar

The latest in FontShop's free monthly calendar is available. Each month features a different typeface—November's spotlight is CP Company, designed by Fabrizio Schiavi.