Street Sweets

LandersMiller did the design, using Hoefler & Frere-Jones's face Cyclone. Sweet.

Street Art

Wonderful typography, sorta reminiscent of what Paula Scher did for buildings years back. I know that's my cue to link to the Scher work, but I need to bolt. More chic street stuff: the Bowery's gone grid with this combo ad and . . . er . . . whatnot.

And, in a non-street mode, here's a moment of horn-tooting for Layout Essentials, which is now available internationally. Can you tell the country of origin by the cover?

Another kind of chariot

Don't know if this counts as "stacked" type, but the type here certainly is making a shape for another trend...specialty snack trucks are taking New York City by storm! Seen here near Washington Square Park.

Chariots of Fire . . . sorta

Making shapes out of type seems to be a current trend (is that redundant and repetitious?). So, the campaign for the ING NYC Marathon is not a new idea. That all said, like it. Clean. Strong type. A fresh riff on the hackneyed skyline. The bus is an unlikely chariot (and I hope it's not of fire), but it's a moving locale for PR for the ING NYC Marathon.

Immigression

Svenja Knödler, a talented designer who came to New York from Germany early in 2009, wrote such a clear and gracious e-mail of introduction addressed to Beth and Suzanne, that even though BTD has no openings, I wanted to meet her.

I was awed to see the depth, quality and simplicity of Svenja's book, Wasserwesen, conceived, photographed, and designed as her thesis the Fachhochscule Düsseldorf. Knödler implies the presence and effects of water without literally showing water itself. Taking the plunge into the new world, Svenja also produces a self-initiated project called "Immigressions." I love one of her pieces that also implies water.

The immigressions also make a great impression as a group.


Svenja Knödler's work covers the heights and the ultimate in earthy; the former in the form of a postcard for The High Line and the latter art direction for Jacques, a saucy-naughty mag for men.

Perhaps an "A"

On the other hand, Shaw's grocery store outside of Brunswick Maine gets an "A" for correct grammar. Perhaps a denizen of Bowdoin College rules the communications?

PATH train copy edits

Some irritated copyeditor/William Safire aficionado gave this PATH train advertisement the red line treatment, suggesting that "Now you can automatically refill your SmartLink Card from here" be changed to the more grammatically correct "Now you can refill your SmartLink Card from here automatically."



Margin notes say that the placement of automatically "doesn't make sense here", and overall the ad gets an F-!

Rocking the stencil

This truck has parked near my apartment a bunch of times, and I'm totally drawn to the stenciled side. Somehow the overspray seems to create a complete lockup of the name and address.



The vinyl letters that repeat the company information only serve to make this a better layout (as does the bumper sticker on the far right promoting this company's plan to "work for sex.")

The weekly . . . wha?

I can't even begin to guess what this garage, um, special, might entail. Seems like one of those "write the caption" contests. Hmmm. What a good idea!

Terry Meyers*, a friend and photographer, also shot this great in situ grid extravaganza. Vive la grille!


*A funny story about Terry: Rob's brother and girlfriend (now wife) were in town and wanted to meet me so they came to a party we were at, but got confused about which girl I was and thought Terry was the new girlfriend. The reports about the new girlfriend were simply glowing!

Stop in at NOLA installation "Open House"

Open House, an arresting art installation on the site of a former home in the Gentilly neighborhood, is the latest work by New Orleans Artist and Architect Susan Neely. The articles in NOLA's Times Picayune includes a video interview with the multi-talented Neely.

Photo of installation, above, by Mike Smith

Waiting for Joe Wilson's website

I so want to send a "shame on you!" email to Joe Wilson...

Adventures in Package Design

On first (and second!) glance, these shelves of floor cleaner sure look like Grape Drink. Not so fabuloso!

Pear-y silly

From the sublime (those asylum photos in Christopher Payne's book below) to the patently ridiculous.

I'd swear this was Japanese, but it's from a Brazilian blog.

Thanks to Noah Dziobecki for sending this.

Asylum

Words like "memoir" and "asylum" are so evocative. These days, "asylum" often evokes shelter, records, or politics; but back in the day, "asylum" conjured up images of the insane. In his book, Asylum, recently published by the The MIT Press, photographerChristopher Payne breathtakingly captures the closed—and bygone—world of state mental hospitals, where original utopian plans for restful shelter devolved into institutional decay. Payne has a great eye; his images are compassionate, gorgeous, and high-quality. One of Chris's brilliant ideas was to ask Oliver Sacks to write an essay to accompany the photos.

Trained as an architect at the University of Pennsylvania and at Columbia University, Chris Payne is also a lively swing dancer. Another word leaps to mind: "Renaissance Man."

The photo of Christopher Payne's book, Asylum, is a screen grab from Barnes and Noble.

Typographica

Well, if you didn't use/surf Typographica before, there's no excuse now. It's been redesigned this year, and it's such a great way to browse new (and old typefaces). They've decided to focus on type reviews, and leave the type discussions to the fine folks at Typophile, which is complete with a (get this) Typowiki.

Typographica's Best New Type of 2008 article (from April of this year) features an absolutely stunning new handwritten face called Memoir, designed by Stephen Rapp.