Prosperity and Peace

Here's some end-of-2011 / beginning-of-2012 inspiration, from the calligraphic decoration on the above bowl:

Planning before work protects you from regret;
prosperity and peace.

The earthenware bowl—from "Iran, probably Nishapur, Samanid period (819–1005), 10th century"—is one of the many humblingly-beautiful pieces in the Metropolitan Museum's New Galleries for the Art of the Arab Lands, Turkey, Iran, Central Asia, and Later South Asia. Watch this space for more oohs and aahs about the artifacts, especially the calligraphy that's woven throughout many aspects of the art.

Happy New Year! Here's to great planning, few regrets, artful work, prosperity and peace!

Inspiring for whatever you design

The current show at the AIGA/The Professional Association for Design focuses on books and covers, but the judges's articulation of "some of the attributes that, intuitively, guided their selection" work for any segment of the design or any work, for that matter.

The attributes are:

--Design that moves beyond the client's expectations
—Design that doesn't follow convention
—Design whose impact aligns with the project's intent
—Design that changes the practice
—Design that is value driven
—Design the matches the technology to need
—Design that entices you to want to learn more
—Design that translates well across platforms
—Design that raises awareness about a social issue
—Design that makes you shriek with delight

Judges Arthur Cherry, Barbara Glauber, Kimbery Glyder, Chip Kidd, and Joseph Sullivan inspired me in a world of "just get it done fast"-ness.

To come: thoughts on the work in the show.

Think Different + Think Location

Smart new destination for Grand Central Terminal: another Apple Store.

You've Come a Long Way Baby

At the MoMA exhibit of historically-interesting Diego Rivera murals, I was struck by the scrapbook entry with the caption noting the New York presence of "Diego Rivera, with his wife and A. Conger Goodyear, president of the Museum of Art." The wife: Frida Kahlo. Unnamed, undescribed, unthinkable nowadays. The curator was very sly to show this particular page.
***
"You've Come a Long Way Baby" is from an advertising campaign for Benson and Hedges. The ads come fully-packed with their own baggage. Below is the copy for a 1969 ad. Idiotic? Patronizing? Well-meaning? Commoditizing a movement?

Virginia Slims: 1969
"You've come a long way, baby."
"In 1912, Lucille Watkins had to sneak out to the chicken coop to smoke a cigarette. You don't have to play hide and smoke anymore. Now there's even a cigarette for women only."

Commercial Art Contributes to Fine Art

On a stroll through MoMA's DeKooning retrospective, I was intrigued to see wall text near "The Wave" (1942–44) that quoted DeKooning's friend Joop Sanders:

[DeKooning] used to do these things that they do in commercial art layouts—they cut out and do a sort of collage, a final pasteout. . . . that's something he did a great deal of in his early paintings.

"Pasteout" must be what we used to call "pasteup." Although we don't do pasteups any more—or for that matter call the field "commercial art"—it's interesting to see what DeKooning borrowed during the earliest of his many phases.

Shape Type, or Designing Typefaces is Trickier than you even thought

Another interesting typography game from the brilliant minds who created The Kerning Game.
Meet The Shape Type Game, where you try and match up type designs. Tricky, tricky!

Attack of the lozenges

A new design meme? I'm seeing a lot of these decorated lozenges lately, mostly on cookbooks and food-related items. And I'm wondering what they're actually called...

Aren't you?

Loud and proud at the Dunkin Donuts in Midtown.

DUMBO day

Some shots out and about in the DUMBO section of Brooklyn. It was an especially good day for some very textured grafitti.
 

If I ran the world

I would definitely make e-flux my economics director, and make currency based on Time.

I Know All There is to Know About the Kerning Game

Flying around the internet, twittersphere, and my classroom is the kerning game, where you get to try out your kerning chops. Some final kerning solutions I don't agree with, but what a fun idea, and some great technology.

More on the reason for sad Mac

While our posts contain lots post-its re Steve Jobs, here's another bit / byte taken from a great The New York Times article by James B. Stewart.

The entire article embodies the goal of great design. Two paras in particular struck me:

1.
“Steve Jobs and Apple never—ever—wanted to be a low-margin commodity producer,” Donald Norman, a former vice president for advanced technology at Apple and author of “Living With Complexity,” told me this week. “Even the Apple II had some charm to it. It was the first personal computer that had professional industrial designers. Before that they were designed strictly by engineers, and they were ugly. Steve was always, if not an artist, then someone who was charmed by style. He had this dream of something beautiful. If it was going to cost more, it didn’t matter. This was in his genes.

2.Mr. Jobs “had an exceptional eye for design, and not just an eye, but an intelligence for design,” Ms. Antonelli said. “We don’t talk just about the looks, but how objects communicate: The specific shape, how it feels in the hand, under the fingers, how you read it in the eye and the mind. This is what Steve cared passionately about.”

The phrase "If it was going to cost more, it didn't matter" puts me in mind of my purchasing a case for my phone on the street a few weeks ago . A sign touted, "Phone cases $5." (Yay! Less than the $40 at the Apple Store. I'm embarrassed to admit that sometimes price does matter to me, but that's not my point here.) I chose a funky design and pulled out a 5 dollar bill. The salesguy gently corrected me.

He: "It's $7.
Me: "But the sign said '$5.'"
He: "Design is extra."

I've been using my street epiphany ever since. Design makes a difference. It's extra.

Photo is a screenshot from The New York Times article.

Sad Mac

Before it's too late,  I wanted to post this "sad mac" sign I saw on the 14th Street Apple Store.

Thank you, Steve Jobs

Steve Jobs, from a 2005 Stanford Commencement Address

When I was 17, I read a quote that went something like: "If you live each day as if it was your last, someday you'll most certainly be right." It made an impression on me, and since then, for the past 33 years, I have looked in the mirror every morning and asked myself: "If today were the last day of my life, would I want to do what I am about to do today?" And whenever the answer has been "No" for too many days in a row, I know I need to change something.

In-Game Entertainment

To commemorate the last weeks of baseball season, here's a bit of what I enjoyed during last week in the Pittsburgh Pirates' PNC Park. The Pirates aren't at the top of their league. But PNC is a lovely park, my favorite Pittsburgh fan is a lovely man, and the Bucs won 2 out of 3 games. The big surprises to me were the short videos played prior to each Pirate's at-bat. The videos were sophisticated, witty, and showcased the home team's town. There were even a few different visual styles in the rotation. From my brief exchange with someone at the Pirates.com site, I learned that the videos were created by the In-Game Entertainment department; unfortunately, I don't have specific credits.









Although the trick of aged paper or graphics to make new books "look" old is itself old, the screen for the Pirates player stats were amusing. )Maybe it was the atmosphere.) They must have a custom font, too, for the swash initials.

The most memorable part of the days out at the ballgame was the sports propaganda. At a crucial point in the 9th inning in the best of the three games, a clip from the movie "Pirates of the Caribbean," featuring the battle cry "Hoist the Colors!" whipped every Pirates fan into a frenzy. Hoisting the colors/waving those symbols (not to mention the night's free tee shirts) did the trick. The Pirates won.

Every Spring's a new season. Let's go Bucs (and for this season, Good Luck, Yankees (big payroll and what we've learned from "Moneyball" aside).





Sorry about all that extra, uncropped, possibly redundant branding for PNC and PNC Park!

Sunny with a chance of Truth

Janet Malcolm's article about Thomas Struth ("Depth of Field," The New Yorker, September 26, 2011) contains a great quote by Struth:

I think what matters is that when the circumstances are prepared well and the people sit and look into the camera there is always a chance of truth.

When the circumstances are prepared well in our field, there is also always a chance of truth.

Advertising Vehicles

While we're talkin' trucks (I realize you were talking types—both faces/fonts and sterotypes), here's a moving medium to get attenton while on the road: trucks. The "Milk's favorite cookie" road campaign is brilliant. Mr. Oreo was truckin' too fast for me to capture the side view; perhaps I'll get lucky on the drive back to NY. After seeing the road-ad, I just couldn't get one of my favorite cookies out of my mind.

The breast cancer message is clearly less frivolous (although, clearly, not shot with said attribute).

A bad type choice

Although it does say a lot about the owner, in its own way.

Boot-i-ful

This is a belated pick-up on your heels/soles tribute to Fashion Week; to wit, my recent fascination with cute boots. The format normally consists of a very short skirt or jacket paired with boots. Of course, it helps to be between the ages of 15-25 to pull off this look. Not shown: open-toed boots, some with zippers, many of them suede.

Soles in 15

Heels in 5. Go Fashion Week!

  

Remembering Forward

In On Being, broadcast early this morning, Krista Tippett held a conversation about remembering forward a decade after September 11. It's worth a listen. The thought-provoking comments and questions complement the heartache of hearing family members read the names of—and giving personal shout outs to—otheir lost beloveds.

I see red people

Erik Piepenburg's 's New York Times article about the various posters for the play Red is a example of the many ways to solve one problem. The title of the article, "When the Color is Primary," is witty as well.

Screenshot is from the NYT website.

Edward Hopper in Maine

OK, I'm prejudiced. My father, who was from Brunswick, Maine, loved Hopper. So, I couldn't resist capturing the banner in front of the Tondreau Block.

Far better than any self-referential photo opp is the "Edward Hopper in Maine" exhibit at the Bowdoin College Museum of Art until October 16. The 32 oil sketches, done on Monhegan Island from 1916 to 1919, were revelations. Splendid. Generous use of paint. Humbling. Dare I say abstract? Fresh. Does the painting below put you in mind a bit of Richard Diebenkorn?


The portions that I saw of ancillary film, made for The National Gallery of Art in Washington, were revelatory. And the tidbits gleaned from a podcast interview with Carroll Moore, the producer of the film, were reassuring to those of us who can't get started. When Hopper was blocked, he went to the movies.

Screenshot of Hopper's Monhegan painting is from the Bowdoin College Art Museum website.

The New Jersey Firemen's Home

Every year on Labor Day weekend Boonton, NJ there is the Boonton Fire Department Labor Day Fair, a.k.a. The Boonton Labor Day Carnival, complete with pig roast, beer tent, rides, junk food, zeppole, and games.

Also in Boonton over on Lathrop Avenue surrounded by a beautiful stone fence, there is the New Jersey's Firemen's Home (no mention of what to do with the Firewomen) for retired Firemen. Inside there is also a cool firefighting museum. But the coolest thing about the NJ Firemen's Home...? The gate and it's fantastic metal lettering.

Happy Labor Day. And thanks, firefighters.

Sobering

Recently, a family situation required that my sister, my husband, and I be in three different states and in constant motion and communication. Far from being teenagers, we texted a lot. And drove a lot. And even though we tried to avoid doing so, we occasionally texted while driving. A film on AT&T's siteshows that it was dumb luck that we didn't have another dire family situation in the form of an accident. Driving while texting can be as dangerous as driving drunk. Sobering.

Stamps for different kinds of post

The beleaguered Post Office is said to be cutting back, but it hasn't cut back on intelligent, informative, and well-designed stamps. I was tickled to see the "Pioneers of Industrial Design" commemoratives, which pay homage to some of the designers of many of America's iconic and useful objects. The history on the back of the stamps is great as well. I'm going to have a hard time using these stamps as postage.

You could say that some of the products shown on the stamps are like industrial equivalents of Proust's madeleines. Seeing a Brownie camera or Fiesta pitchers catapults me (a designer of a certain age, admittedly) into a love of consumer goods I didn't know I had.

Just my Type

You and your student will be proud to see that a book reviewed in the NYTimes today talks about that pesky Papyrussed title for "avatar."

County Fair Truck

We All Scream for Ice Cream

Making Life Count

The design world was shocked by the passing of Sylvia Harris on July 24, 2011. Citizen Research & Design, the business founded by Sylvia Harris, contains an announcement of her passing as well as remembrances and links to still more eloquent memories. I didn't know Sylvia Harris. I certainly knew of her and her admirable work.

Sylvia Harris's work was important, had a point, a cause, and was about leading people to great / greater purposes—no easy feat. "Voting by Design," a poster Sylvia art directed for the University of Minnesota's Design Institute, struck me with its clearly successful "communications map of the American voter's experience." I included the poster in Layout Essentials, headed by "Make Space Count."

Sylvia Harris made many things count, including the curtailed time she had to leave a rich legacy of thinking, planning, guiding, and communicating. For me, Sylvia Harris's work speaks for itself.

***

Including links to the easily-found (and wonderful personal) recollections seems a bit vulture-like. Besides, a quick search yields all the sites I mentioned. But below is the spread which shows Sylvia Harris's Voting by Design, an extremely disciplined breakdown of a crucial process.

I'm melting!

My friend Scott Meadows is an extremely talented commercial photographer,

but he's also added a twist: time lapse!



We've been emailing a lot about the State of the Animated Gif (aka cinemagraph, cinemagif), and web videos...I've been reading a lot of blogs that mention them, like this viral dandelion time lapse on Gawker, hair cinemagraphs and other gifs on Art Fag City, the Gif Shop link on Swiss-Miss, and the fascinating I am not an artist animated gif collection.

Scott's also been working the animated gif to get the time lapse thing like this great sparkler!