Evergreen/Everbrilliant

I'm catching up with holiday cards (yes, my timing is either very Italian or very pathetic) and finally checked out the brilliant Pentagram holiday greeting, which helps you learn what type you are.

You may have already seen this—especially since Kurt Andersen (rightly) crowed about it in one of he Very Short List entries a while back. Also, the game has set the design world all a'Twitter. I think you'll find it not only a hoot for yourself, but a great exercise to do with your students. The guy (a very thin body type!) who plays the "shrink" is as brilliant as the concept and programming.

Spot

Less noble than No Longer Empty's brilliant use of empty space is using carnival-like ersatz trash to make potential shoppers spot—I mean stop.

Record store redux

The not-for-profit arts organization No Longer Empty, which uses vacated properties in NYC to stage public art exhibitions, has re-opened the legendary Tower Records store on Broadway and 4th street with a multi-media art exhibition: Never Can Say Goodbye. The multimedia show spotlights work by more than 20 artists.



Uh, brilliant!

Stock photo loathing

There's nothing I hate so much in my inbox as an e-ad complete with stocky, schlocky photos. If you looked like this guy you'd have a job in modeling...wait, hmmm.



And this woman...that suit looks like it cost a fortune!

More than essence

Yesterday, Pat attended an event, "The Essence of Japanese Food," at the International Culinary Center and came home with this earthy hunk of naigaimo (apparently sometimes called yamaimo). The instructions for cooking seem pretty clear thanks to the charming line drawings.

The ever lovely Keihl's

Keihl's beauty products have always had nice packaging, but their store is to die for. This clever sign is all about the avocado eye cream.

Eisenberg's

This isn't the only funny sign I've seen out in front of Eisenberg's, the vintage 1929 sandwich shop at 174 Fifth Avenue in the Flatiron District. Keep an eye out!

Blow Up

This one's for Peter. Is it particularly American to have blow-up plastic figures? Are there such "ornaments" abroad? This past December, a friend who lives in Atlanta was fascinated by blow-up Nativity figures in Bay Ridge—so perhaps plastic blow-ups are a New York thing? Peter, how did Martial Arts schools present signage in Japan?

Letterpressing

A trip to the Chelsea Market yielded a stunning display of some letterpress work by Yeehaw Industries. Seems there's no style they can't handle.

If at first you don't succeed

This has to be the best advice ever. When I discovered my fortune yesterday, I had another cookie at hand; it had a reassuring but far less striking message. This "fortune" put me in mind of our conversations about trying too hard—or painfully sticking at something when it's just never going to be right. Sometimes it's as simple as picking another fortune cookie. If the shoe doesn't fit, don't wear it.

On a sort of related note, today I was tidying up and skimming-before-jettisoning ancient copies of The New Yorker. One article about Frank Gehry (Calvin Tompkins in the July 7, 1997 issue) talked about how at some point in the 1950s, Gehry went East to the Harvard Graduate School of Design and enrolled in the City Planning department. Tompkins wrote:

It was a mistake. City planning seemed to consist of endless group discussions, out of which came an endless flow of paperwork and not much else. He quit, and spent the rest of the year auditing all the Harvard courses that interested him. . . .

Another turning point was at the time Gehry had built his own house in Santa Monica and was working on Santa Monica Place,

"a fifty-million-dollar shopping center whose developer, the Rouse Company, was his most important commercial client . . . . Not lot after the shopping center was finished, the Rouse Company's president, Mathias DeVito, came to the Gehry's new house for dinner . . . "He sat there and looked around and didn't understand it at all," Gehry recalls. "He said, "You really like this? I said, 'Matt, this is the best thing I've ever done.'He said, "Well, if you like this, then you don't like that —pointing to the plan for the shopping center—so why do it?' I told him I didn't really want to, and he said in that case I shouldn't, and I agreed, and we shook hands and said we weren't going to work together anymore."

Picking another fortune cookie sure worked for Gehry.

To prove a point

This post is all about proving to my dearest that "Egg in a Hole" is a real thing, and not some kooky thing I came up with for breakfast. For those of you who don't know, you use a juice glass to make a hole in a piece of bread, put the bread in a frying pan, crack an egg in the hole and cook it. Smart cooks know to fry up the little circle of bread in the pan, too, and serve it as a "hat"! Served at Ronnybrook Farms in Chelsea Market, but you can totally make it at home.

Roast Pretz

OK, Japanese snacks are an easy target, but I never realized that "Salad" is the flavor of the Pretz...so what does Roast Pretz taste like? I'm afraid to find out! I'm even a little afraid of the salad flavor.

Drug Store Rug Store

I was going to be flip about the various aspects of Kebabian's—an oriental rug company in New Haven, CT. One part of the signage looks more appropriate for a drug store than a rug store. The typography is vaguely ersatz oriental. BUT, I am impressed by the store's history and love the interactive map which enables you to click on a region of the map to get info on rugs from the region. I wonder if your friend Kimberley knows about Kebabian's?

Rave on

Yes, this album came out in 2008, but the album cover for Danish band The Raveonettes' Lust Lust Lust is just so hypnotizing. As is the album!

Something completely different

This is opposite the American Sephardic Federation in pretty much every way. It's a quasi-graphic bad pun, a testament to the recognizability of The Man in Black, and proof that Rosewood still reigns as an overused system font.

A terrific logo

The American Sephardi Federation on West 16th Street sports a really lovely logo in the window.



It's a great use of the top of the Star of David as the top of the "A" in Federation, and the staggered type and change of type sizes is really effective in making the logo personable and memorable. Now, can anyone help with the Hebrew on the palm of the hand?

Urban Scrawl

A little bit window; a little bit found type. I'm impressed by the slit-like dots over the "i"s—and by the contrast between the big fat "NOW HIRING" and the more . . . er . . . cursive phone numbers. Also, how nice that someone's hiring!

And the dish ran away with the spoon

Fish's Eddy, a silverware and plate/glass store on Broadway, sells all sorts of cool dinnerware and housewares, much of it discontinued or overstocks. They also feature some pretty cool window displays, like this NYC skyline made of silverware.

The pits

Given what's going on in Haiti, an open construction pit seems like nuttin.'

Dirty Ice

I love signs upon signs. But who would ever want to take ice out of this thing!?



Meanwhile I've started watching Dexter which makes this old ice bin look slightly sinister.

Looks silly / works clearly

Here's a distant echo of the round shapes in the Companion logo. Although it looks comical to me,* this pictogram for handicapped hailers serves a purpose other than to somewhat-gratuitously tell an out-of-towner how to nab a cab. So, I'll stop snarking.

One cab driver probably gives a thumbs up to the pictogram and what it represents. According to a now-ancient New York Times article, when Rocco Filippone's son, then a student at Art Center College of Design in Pasadena, asked for advice about an assignment to build a better cab, Filippone said:

it would be a good idea to build a taxi that could handle a wheelchair. Too many drivers pass up passengers in wheelchairs because they do not believe they can afford the time it takes to help the passenger into the cab and then fold up the wheelchair and stow it in the trunk.

Here's more from the virtual old news bins: In November 2007, the incomparable Armin Vit wrote in depth about the taxi logo itself on his and Bryony Gomez-Palacio's blog Brand New (I realize that quoting a blog is like Mad Magazine's "Spy vs. Spy" feature.)


* Possibly, most pictograms seem comical to me.

Companion art show

Nice logo for a new art show that opened January 15 titled "Companion" at the Elizabeth Foundation for the Arts Project Space.

Blast from the past

Jia Cheng, most recent BTD intern, showed me the book she ordered from the library. This movie tie-in, Avatar: A Confidential Report on the Biological and Social History of Pandora, exhibits the almost-obligatory metaphor of crumpled paper and photos attached to pages with paper clips. Paper clips after the earth has been destroyed? Would so many old-fashioned photos have come through Armageddon? How did masking tape also survive the destruction? Why masking tape? Were all computers destroyed? Why do books that are reports based on shows or movies imitate other books? (Guilty! cf The Shield book we worked on together). All cranky comments aside, the illustrations of the flora and fauna in the book are great evocations of all that great stuff in the movie.

Here's a tiny bit more on Papyrus: shallow studies show that Cameron's crew sort of customized Papyrus—i.e. changed the letterforms as opposed to just adding 3-D, glows etc. Although I'm ashamed to admit that for me the movie is not about the type, it is odd that with all the bucks spent on the movie, the title gets the knockoff treatment.

So proud!

One of my Intro to Design students complained that the subtitles in the movie Avatar are in Papyrus; it detracted from her movie experience. Let's hear it for the developing critical eye!

This photo cost me 50 cents

The guy at the Bleecker Street exit has changed his pitch. He's reworked his cardboard signs from "Homeless. Please Help " to "Please Help! Keep NYC a Little Cleaner." In addition, he now offers a service: he sweeps his area. Sorta savvy. The shot above shows his desktop, so to speak.

Art Guard

As usual, The Morning News online mag featured another great art project. This one's called "The Guardians of the Art World" by Andy Freeberg. He's taken pictures of the museum guards in Russia...



and contrasted them with photographs of the Chelsea gallery desk "heads".



Hilarious!

Images courtesy of The Morning News

Mission Unscrambleable

Today's best found type comes from Pat, who spied these letters on the ground this morning while walking up Tarrytown's Main Street. Pat knew that movie people, including Keanu Reeves, are in town, but what kind of thriller is happening in our village? We still don't know, but the letters were for the reincarnation of The Tarrytown Music Hall as the Orpheum.

Photos by Pat O'Neill, using his iPhone

Conflouded by fish

Okay, so Beth and I went and grabbed some lunch at a nearby deli and we both spotted this sign. But I think I snapped the picture first?

Different but the same

So this is nowhere near Nathan Hall, but the fish trivet by Donato D'Urbino and Paolo Lomazzi (at the MoMA Store) is a great way to make a whole out of parts.

Fab packaging

In the Mattress Factory gift shop in Pittsburgh, PA, I bought a fantastic pair of earrings that were made even more interesting when I realized that the mounting card was actually a cut out "N" for the Nathan Hall, the designer of the jewelry. He's also a composer, visual artist, collagist and much more. The only problem is now that I won't wear them; I've tacked the whole kaboodle up on my inspiration board!

Fireproofing

Furniture giant IKEA in Elizabeth, NJ was doing a little remodeling this season, and they cordoned off the aisles with this very utlitiarian "fabric". Is is Swedish for something?

Broadway Cautions

This is just silly weekend stuff: a caution sign with jazz hands.

A lot about text

Also a lot about text, the AIGA National Design Center is currently showing the best books and covers of 2008. The design statement proclaims: "Like early man drawn to the obelisk in 2001: A Space Odyssey, designers are drawn to grids. Points and lines used to organize layouts and space—the grid rules."* However, the most arresting pieces in the show were off the grid. This year's offerings included a lot of materiality and dimensionality—and I'm using these hoity-toity architecture toims on poipose—in the form of layers, coatings, die cuts and—most impressive of all—Sagmeister, Inc.'s wizardry in putting material for the Columbia Architecture School into three separate and interconnected books that create a ziggurat.

The typography held its own, but the tactile effects quirks distinguished this year's show for me. Many books in the show are like structures.

* I forgive the judges their odd analogy and incomplete sentence structure.

Run run run to Roni Horn

If you haven't seen it, the Roni Horn exhibit at the Whitney is one of the best shows I've seen in the last 5 years anywhere.
Horn's work is about the viewer perception and identity. She uses double images, double sculptures installed in different rooms, and multiples to provoke different sensations of viewing.


H&W, Roni Horn, Untitled #4, 1998
© Hauser & Wirth Zürich London

There are pictures of clowns, spirals of text, blobs of glass, the backs of birds' heads (above), cut up maps...so so so interesting and rich! I almost can't write about it because my reaction was so visceral; I spent almost 2 hours being hypnotized by the weaving of themes and artwork.
Her work is a lot about text (and specifically Emily Dickinson poems, below), and it's also about visual images.


H&W, Roni Horn, White Dickinson Blossoms Have Their Leisures, 2006
© Hauser & Wirth Zürich London

It is such a powerful and thoughtful show, and it closes January 24. Everyone should rush out and see it!

(And frankly, the Whitney has turned into the ultimate lesbian date, with Roni Horn's work on the 2nd and 4th floors, and the Georgia O'Keefe exhibit on the 3rd!)

A little trauma

OK, so this show has probably already come and gone (I don't have TV reception anymore thanks to the big switchover), but I'm smitten with the faux '70's Police Woman look of it all. This billboard triptych is very near the BTDnyc offices over on Houston and Broadway.