Friday, June 29, 2007

Design is not for the faint of heart

Fun for Friday: Can you find the 25 design terms before the clock stops ticking in Colle + McVoy's delightfully gloomy interactive look at the dark side of industry vernacular? There are at least eight of terms shown in the photo above... [via Coudal Partners]

Cult of the Amateur

"Is the web killing our culture?" asks 37signals—a new book by Andrew Keen declares this to most definitely be the case, using the term "Cult of the Amateur" to describe the rise of the online superficial (which includes "bad art"—this discussion is certainly relevant to art and design). People are have a field day bashing Keen in the comments, and I think they are right to sneer at a generally elitist and outdated argument against new forms of communication and visibility.

But this brings me to the reality that, both online and off, our particular industry seems to brim with practitioners of every professional range. How many graphic designers can the world need?" asked Melena Ryzik (rather snidely, I thought) in a recent NYTimes article about the Renegade Craft Fair. Are the DIY designers who cobble together earnings from alt-freelance efforts really more amateur and less skilled than a corporate GD who pushes the company logo around the page? Who defines good and bad, who sets the boundaries for amateur and professional taste? Unlike writing, the communicative success of visual design is not so easily measured, and people respond to what they see from a much more emotional place, regardless of whether they understand the designer's intent. The root of this argument about the death of culture, about good and bad art, seems to be whether or not you respect the audience's ability to assign new meanings, define what they like and create their own response.

Pictured above: a still from a Modest Mouse fan video—37signals applauds these enthusiastic amateurs.

Thursday, June 28, 2007

Type Camp 2007

Want to hang out on an island in beautiful British Columbia, talking about and working with type? Then Type Camp is for you. Led by typographers Marian Bantjes, Shelley Gruendler and Ross Mills, the five night experience on Galiano Island, BC, starts Sunday, August 12th and runs through the follow Friday. The first deposit payment is due by July 15th. [via Veer]

Wednesday, June 27, 2007

Weird Advertising Characters

Gotta love the warped nostalgia factor of Flickr's weird advertising character photostream. Imagine being a giggling fly on the wall of the meeting where the suits decide that their product is best represented by a dancing lightbulb, a corncob with a face, or, bafflingly, what appears to be a smiling colon. [via Drawn!]

Tuesday, June 26, 2007

Flexible Brand Identities

Identity and branding consultants Johnson Banks take a look at the rise of the flexible brand identity over the last few decades—the Target bullseye design or the old MTV logo. Logos are "becoming central to communication, no longer content to just be the the full-stop at the end of a piece of branded communication." [via kottke]

Monday, June 25, 2007

PSYOP

I'm researching the multimedia design firm PSYOP for an article and just can't stop watching their amazing collection of ads and TV spots. Relying heavily on illustration rather than photographic solutions, PSYOP has created a portfolio full of vivaciously stylish shorts that range from the ridiculously bouncy (ex. Coca-Cola) to the dark and moody (ex. MTV HD) and just about everything in between. Great for visual pick-me-ups and jolts of creative inspiration.

Friday, June 22, 2007

Maarten Vande Wiele

Fun for Friday: the work of Belgian illustrator Maarten Vande Wiele. An animator turned photographer, he now draws and does comics. Part of the fun of these illustrations is that are displayed online without any context whatsoever, making a trip through Maarten's portfolio site a colorful adventure in girl-themed confusion. [via Drawn!, where Luc has several additional Vande Wiele links available]

Design Feast

Design Feast is a directory of online resources and links that identifies itself as a "webliography" of design. The site is maintained by Nate Burgos, author of Thought Leadership by Design, "a lean no-frills volume of timeless and contemporary design thinking from voices in design and business" (or, in simpler terms: "Nuggets of insight to inspire everyone").

Free Peter Saville Fonts

A type-related incident for Friday: yesterday, Kottke featured a site offering free downloads of the Peter Saville fonts used in designing album graphics for Factory Records' artists like New Order and Joy Division. Turns out these aren't legit from Peter Saville (surprise), don't quite hold up against the originals (pictured above: part of the cover of New Order's Republic alongside the free download), and are just "shoddy versions" of other typefaces such as Trajan and Rotis serif. But if you like them, they're free. Meanwhile, if you want to know more about Peter Saville, visit his official site or read this Alice Twemlow article. Also, the complete graphic output of Factory Records is (legitimately) available in book form, previously featured here.

Keep Calm Shirts

People love the "Keep Calm and Carry On" message—Mark Coop's Keep Calm t-shirts are the latest hit (popping up on BoingBoing and on several shirt sites). Retro graphic message, now available to wear. Note: The t-shirt effort is unconnected to the print endeavor (previously mentioned several times).

Thursday, June 21, 2007

Carbonmade

If you're looking for a simple, sleek portfolio solution (that also seems to have a sense of goofy fun), Carbonmade looks to be a great option. The clean presentation keeps the focus on your images, and the sites come with a nice range of features. Their free plan gives you 5 projects (read: categories) and allows you to use 35 images. Drawbacks: no personal url—you'll have to be yourname.carbonmade.com (though you could always set up yourname.com as a gateway). I look forward to trying this out as a showcase solution for collaborative projects. [via the Webdesign Inspiration Photo Pool on Flickr]

Wednesday, June 20, 2007

More from Keep Calm

Bolstered by their success, the team at Keep Calm and Carry On have introduced some new products to their line, including the original Keep Calm poster in new colors, Keep Calm postcards, a new print with the slogan "Give It Your Best!" and two prints inspired by vintage eye charts. Great stuff! Keep Calm was originally featured here.
[Cheers, Lucas!]

Design Inspiration

The Design Inspiration blog posts interviews with the aim of introducing illustrators and designers to other creative professionals in their industry. Each interview is accompanied by images of work—up now, a Q&A with illustrator Glenn Mullaly. [via HOW]

Online and Virtual Art Exhibition

Above: My avatar checking out an exhibition at the Art Center in Second Life. Painting: Rhomus Riddle by Rostarr, 2004

I am starting to explore virtual art exhibition. If anyone has sites or virtual reality locations to recommend, please post a comment. So far, the results have been extremely varied, which leads me to believe that there is truly a gap waiting to be filled by smart and savvy artists and designers.

On the web, you have sites like the Lima Museum of Contemporary Art (LIMAC), a conceptual museum that has no offline counterpart. "It inhabits no physical space; it commissions no works; it does not host any real exhibits. The art, though, is real, taken from actual catalogs around the world to create an interesting visual visit." Cool Hunting describes the effort as "a conceptual art piece that playfully explores and deconstructs the institutions that house contemporary art in modern society, while at the same time questioning the line between fact and fiction in its actual institution, the internet. It's a thought-provoking experiment."

In virtual reality (VR) environments like Second Life, you have galleries like the Art Center and interactive exhibits like the Virtual Van Gogh exhibit (previously featured here). And visual performance artists are starting to experiment with VR installations. Through July 4th, artist Juria Yoshikawa explores light in immersive spaces at Second Life's White Cube Gallery—the photo above gives you a good idea of the virtual installation experience.

Despite the convenience of being able to explore international exhibits from home, I have yet to really be as satisfied with a virtual or online exhibition as I am with real world shows, but my hopes are high. There is an exciting frontier here. We'll see what the future brings.

Design Remixed: Daring Fireball

Tonight at the Apple store in Soho, John Gruber of the Mac blog Daring Fireball is giving the third in the Pro Sessions: Design Remixed series of talks developed by Apple and the AIGA. Subtraction's Khoi Vinh raves:"Not only does John offer some of the most penetrating business and technical analysis of the Macintosh ecosystem available anywhere, he’s uncommonly insightful about the dark art of interface design." Admission is free, but you'll have to fight the masses for seating, so get there early! Visit the AIGA event page or Daring Fireball.

Tuesday, June 19, 2007

Georg Gerster: Swiss Air Posters

Pioneer aerial photographer Georg Gerster is known for stunning landscape shots that don't necessarily aim to be "beautiful pictures". The posters he shot for Swissair between 1975 and 1995 (now collector's items) are now available all together in a new book. [via DO]

Toord Boontje

Dutch-born designer Tord Boontje is "one of the most original and innovative product and furniture designers working today" and his work his showcased in a new hardbound book from Rizzoli (tip: buy on Amazon for a deep discount). The book is a survey of Boontje's work so far: "With stunning photography that's anything but white-backdrop conventional (think rings of fire and chairs dotting an open field) and delicate patterns punched into the actual pages, the edition has tactile appeal as well as being a refreshing retrospective take of a designer's career." Cool Hunting also has a short video showcase on Boontje that's worth a look.

5inch.com


Need to step up presentation of CDs or DVDs for a project or self-promotion effort? 5inch.com offers a range of cool silkscreen CD designs—I like the plastic ovals template design, and "HELLO My name is..." is a no-brainer for portfolio discs. These could easily make for nicely-designed party favors or gifts, too. [via The Cool Hunter]

Monday, June 18, 2007

People Will Always Need Plates

The products from People Will Always Need Plates feature beautiful line illustrations of iconic and typical London architecture against lovely infusions of flat color. Tea towels, mugs and, of course, plates are available. [via Print & Pattern]

Friday, June 15, 2007

Designer Slash Model

Fun for Friday: Designer Slash Model—"Is my design beautiful because I'm beautiful?" I resisted this for a while but finally watched the video this morning and had a laugh. From the soulless glam to the intentional spelling mistakes ("Traditional spelling is Fascist and often results in poor kerning. Never self-restrict.") to the flawed high-concept behind-the-scenes quips ("Design can change the world... especially if we change change..."), it's another hit from the clever crew at Digital Kitchen.

How NOT to display your artwork on the web

Charley Parker at the lines and colors blog has a great snarky post about what NOT to do when putting your work online. "Once you've made your images inaccessible, make yourself inaccessible." These issues could apply to many sites on the web, but he targets artists and designers, who certainly make many of these mistakes when fumbling to represent themselves online (hey, I'm guilty of a few myself).
[via Coudal Partners]

Thursday, June 14, 2007

Design Firm Websites

Design Meltdown takes a second look at the websites of design firms. "I attempted to focus on the smaller shops. It seems that the smaller you are, the tougher it can be to represent yourself well." The first part in this series is available here.

Economic Naturalism and Product Design

The economics of design are discussed in Tom Vanderbilt's article On the Squareness of Milk Containers, up now at Design Observer. For example, "Why, though the discs are exactly the same size, do DVDs come in such larger packages than CDs?" The article showcases Robert H. Frank’s new book The Economic Naturalist: In Search of Explanations for Everyday Enigmas (sounds like a good read!).

Hey, Hot Shot! Spring 07 Winners

The spring winners of the seasonal Hey, Hot Shot! competition for emerging photographers are up at the Jen Bekman gallery now through Sunday. If you can't make it to the gallery, you can view past and present series on Flickr. Pictured: Untitled (Roxy) by Kelly Shimoda

Ratatouille: Food Color Challenge

This NYTimes article about Pixar's new film Ratatouille examines at the research involved in animating the world of French haute cuisine. Particularly interesting is the section about color—"'Lettuce was really challenging,' [Sharon Calahan, the director of photography and lighting] said. The human eye is particularly sensitive to shades of green because there are so many variations in nature. Lettuce can easily appear too minty or a jarring lime green. 'Your brain knows what color lettuce is,' she said." Pictured above: a close-up of some green apples that appear as a small background detail in a larger frame (also shown). This attention to detail is part of what makes Pixar the still relatively unchallenged giant in the computer animation game. Ratatouille opens June 29—visit the official site to watch the trailer.

Wednesday, June 13, 2007

Reactee

A recent Springwise article spotlights "dialogue t-shirts" like the Reactee. A message (personal slogan, question, cause) is printed on a t-shirt, along with a keyword and number to use for text messaging. If you have a reaction, you send a text and then receive a return message from the wearer of the shirt. The wearer can edit their return response—a DJ lists her upcoming gigs, an Obama fan rotates reasons for her politics, a sports nut sends back recent scores and future games... In savvy hands, these shirts could be wonderful tools for ad campaigns or personal visibility—you could even use them to hunt for work (one shirt asks "Need a dog walker?" but could easily say "Need a designer?"). Another way for designers to initiate communication.

Virtual Van Gogh

Second Life blogger Natalia Zelmanov showcases Virtual Starry Night, a Van Gogh exhibit currently on in the SL metaverse. In this exhibit, your avatar can physically enter Van Gogh paintings—on the right, above, Natalia is shown sitting on the pool table in The Night Café (an image of the actual painting is here for comparison). Second Life is proving to be quite the playground for new and interesting ways of exploring art and exhibition—the Goldsmiths students who presented their degree show in virtual reality were previously featured here.

Type quizzes

Two fun type-related quizzes provide a little welcome diversion. The first asks What Font Are You?—be braced for a questionable result (I was Fixedsys... ???). The second is the Arial vs. Helvetica quiz—can you tell the difference? If not, read the accompanying article by Mark Simonson called The Scourge of Arial. [Both quizzes via How About Orange—Jessica was also unhappy about her result, as shown above]

Design Directory

GDBar was recently included in the online Design Directory, which is made "by designers for designers" and covers resources across a number of disciplines and industries. Thanks to the team at Design Directory for adding this blog to the mix!

Tuesday, June 12, 2007

Museum Mile Festival Tonight

Tonight is the 29th annual Museum Mile Festival, which means FREE admission to nine museums (including the Met, the Cooper-Hewitt and the Guggenheim) and a traffic-free street party stretching from 82nd to 105th street. Festivities, which guarantee lots of live music and street art, kick off at 5:45 pm. [via Flavorpill]

Threadless Iconoclast

The latest Threadless Select tee is called Iconoclast and is covered with—you guessed it—iconography. The effect is a little bit hip-hop, a lot Japanese family crest (see kamon), a dash of airline info graphic, a dose of pyjama. The shirt is definitely a conversation piece—people are already arguing about the meanings and sources of the various images, which include a Black Power afro fist pick, rockets, pills, ninja stars, eco coffins and more. The shirt was designed by Dan Funderburgh, who has some pretty amazing wallpapers.

Electrolux Design Lab

Product design students, take note: Electrolux Design Lab is an annual global household appliance competition open to undergrad design students. Sustainability is the theme of this year's 5th annual contest, so if you have an idea for an appliance that is environmentally sound and commercially viable, get on in there! "The goal is to go above and beyond simple energy and water efficiency and suggest ways to foster sustainable behavior and product usage." The grand prize is 5,000 Euros and a six-month internship at one of Electrolux’s design centers.

Monday, June 11, 2007

Design Lessons, Sopranos Style

At Design Observer, Michael Bierut examines what we have learned from the Sopranos, from aesthetics (“Keep my eyes?") to client relationships ("Don't squeeze him dry right away.") to the unintended consequences of technology ("Fucking internet.") and beyond.

Josef Muller-Brockwurst

In warped tribute to Josef Muller-Brockmann, and "inspired by all the sausages in Berlin", Battin silkscreened a cartoonish meaty valentine to the circular grid. Ridiculously brilliant. Battin (AKA Philip Dam Roadley-Battin) is a designer and photographer based in Copenhagen and Berlin (psst, if you're in those cities, he's looking for a job).
[via Coudal Partners]

Erik Spiekermann Interview

The Ideas on Ideas blog has a great interview with Erik Spiekermann in which he discusses the challenges, headaches and rewards of running a design business. The article is full of inspiring soundbytes that are useful to both seasoned pros and new designers—most will echo at least one of his sentiments. Examples: "I’m best when I improvise, which makes it difficult for our people sometimes to work with me" and "I am good at inspiring other designers. I am not very good at the daily aspects of running a business." [via Subtraction, where Khoi Vinh gets thoughtful about balancing the often conflicting (as in the case with Spiekermann) personal and professional.]

Friday, June 08, 2007

The visual art of Mark Mothersbaugh

Fun for Friday: the visual of art Devo guy and Wes Anderson soundtrack guru Mark Mothersbaugh. "During his downtime on early worldwide tours with DEVO, Mark Mothersbaugh began illustrating on postcards to send to his friends and family, which he still creates, and has been creating every day for over 30 years. It's an obsessive habit/hobby which still yields anywhere from one to a couple dozen new postcard-sized images per day." [via Drawn!]

Thursday, June 07, 2007

More websites that use illustration

Design Meltdown's third showcase of websites that use illustration is now available. Illustration can breathe unexpected life and motion into the grid-based structure of web design, and is still generally under-used as a tool by web designers. The first two DMD showcases were previously featured here.

Who knew? Courier a fave among writers.

In a fascinating article, Slate asked a number of prominent authors to reveal what typeface they compose in and why. Courier was the favorite. Courier? You may be sneering at your screen, but the reasons for these choices are very interesting. "I talked to my therapist, and she said my love of Courier stems from my childhood," admits Elisa Zuritsky. "I dislike the temptation of making a raw draft look like it's already typeset," says Jonathan Lethem. Unsurprisingly, Times Roman is also heavily used—in a quote that should place a bit of a chill in the heart of any typographer, Maile Meloy states: "I'm so used to Times that other fonts look strange and unfamiliar. It might as well be my own handwriting on the page.

Nina Katchadourian: Sorted Books

For her Sorted Books project, artist Nina Katchadourian rearranges books so that a new story is told by the series of spines. I love the creation of entirely new visual meaning—and in the caption paragraphs, Katchadourian reveals just how deliberate and conceptual the work has become. [via Jason Santa Maria]

Michael Bierut: 79 Short Essays on Design

Michael Bierut has a new book out called Seventy-nine Short Essays on Design. He acknowledges that it may be a difficult book for some. "It is a 272-page book about design that contains no pictures. Each essay is published in a different typeface, and you may not find every typeface equally easy to read." And the majority of the essays can be read for free in the Design Observer archives. But Bierut has wrapped his words up in book form because "putting the words on paper changes the claim those words make on your attention. Is it better? Is it worse? The answer may be different for every reader."

Wednesday, June 06, 2007

London 2012

Ouch. The response to the new London 2012 Olympics emblem is harsh indeed. Brand New, overwhelmed, turned things over to its parent blog SpeakUp—read their post entitled London, How do I Hate Thee? Let me Count the Ways. Or read this more diplomatic article from the BBC, in which Sebastian Coe defends the new look with staunch enthusiasm. Or, if you are truly up for more, visit the London 2012 site, where there is a film and everything. (And Leslie, I agree there is a whiff of Zoom...)

UPDATE: Design Observer reports that there is a petition for the logo's withdrawal and that the graphic has been accused of causing epileptic attacks when animated.

UPDATE: Coudal Partners offers reasons why we should love the London 2012 logo.

See the comments for more updates and links.

FontShop June Calendar

The latest in FontShop's free monthly calendar is available. Each month features a different typeface—June's spotlight is Armchair Modern, designed by the team at the PSY/OPS foundry.