Balloon Man

So you posted that you'd been seeing a lot of word balloons around lately, and I got to thinking about where I'd seen some. I think I'd mostly seen them on the "Talk to Chuck" campaign, but then my mind just blanked (tee hee). Lo and behold, what do I get in my email?

An invite to The Artist as Author, complete with a word balloon. Although, I suppose, used in its classic context. And a new word...Paintoonist!

Details for the Symposium (looks really interesting; we're big fans of Ben Katchor around here!):

The Illustration Program at Parsons The New School for Design presents
The Artist as Author—a symposium on self-illustrated texts in history and contemporary practice.
Saturday, March 27, 2010 from 3–8:30pm
The New School, Wollman Hall, 5th Floor, 66 West 12th Street, NYC
Free and open to the public

Patrica Mainardi (CUNY Graduate Center) on Popular Prints and Comics.
Emily Lauer, (MA MPhil CUNY) on William Thackeray's Vanity Fair illustrations.
David Kurnick (Rutgers University) on The Theatrical Impulse and the Illustrated Novel.
Ben Katchor (Parsons The New School) on Picture-recitation.
Jerry Moriarty (School of Visual Arts) presents his latest project: Whatsa Paintoonist?

Shakespeare Gets the Shakes

I love the strong typography for the Public Theater's construction hoarding, but it's ironic that the sign about reporting unsafe conditions covers up most of the immortal bard's name. BTW, not surprisingly, the Public's website is astounding.

A little O'buzz

Über pal to BTD, the lovely and talented Pat O'Neill just launched his eponymous website. Friendly and approachable (just like Pat!), the site's got wit and depth (get it!?).

A radio professional extraordinaire (WSJ Radio, Bloomberg...need we say more?), Pat also has amazing writing and culinary skills (check out the photos of some of his yummy creations). Lately he's been out and about writing food articles and sous-cheffing. You can read his latest article for Inside F&B (that's food and beverage, natch!) about business team building with cooking here.

I'm wowed by the bunny polenta! Parmigiano-Reggiano fur!

Did we forget to mention how charming he is? Sorry ladies, he's taken, but available for work!

Potluck

This flyer made me laugh. It seems to go completely against the idea of "potluck"!

Don't Speak

More packaging. The wordless version of these olive oils stopped me on my way through the aisles.

Spraypaint

A lovely bit of packaging for this Australian spray paint. Judging from the website, it seems that it might be targeted to taggers and graffiti artists.

Just one line, no pie zone

I love when people see something in a way that I've never seen it. By adding one line to the "No Smoking" sign, suddenly there are 3 dimensions...brilliant!

From Mumbai with Love

Sherebanu Baldiwala snapped some trucks for us in Mumbai; she snagged a "Horn OK Please" as well as a simple "Horn Please." Thank you, Sherebanu, for taking photos while citizens possibly wondered what you were shooting!

Photos © Sherebanu Baldiwala

Forever . . . Bubbles

Speech bubbles broke out of the cartoon box a while back. In a 2005 Presentation, Lorraine Wild mentioned that Barbara Glauber was working/playing with bubbles and the language of cartoons (I've paraphrased very loosely) when Barbara was in grad school. Around 2004, prompted by Debbie Millman, Omnivore created a logo with great and appropriate dialogue bubbles for the AIGA/NY Mentoring Program.

Lately, though, the graphic landscape is bursting with bubbles. Here are just a few items that I've snapped lately. Are there any highs or lows you've noticed?

More on today's not so special

Scary message. The sign you snapped for your perfume post makes the goods look pretty skanky (I just wanted to use that word). In a similar vein, I chuckled at the temporary signage on fancy Mad Ave, not too far from the Vera Wang store (immediately below).

While we're on hand-signage: for the last year, I've been fascinated by the antithesis of strong branding for this neighborhood flower shop. Not too long ago, the hand-made sign changed from 49 to 50.

The sign isn't much to look at, but I admire them for staying in business for a half century—and for having web presence as Primrose Florist.

Hmm, how special could this be?

It's amazing how signage really informs what you think about stuff. To wit:

Dockers ads

I had an old rock-n-roll boyfriend who used to say that "Dockers don't rock, and rockers don't Dock." But Dockers seem to be straining to achieve the cool factor with their new ads.

This jar top, found in our basement while looking for nails to solve a household emergency, may provide a glimpse of the culinary tastes of the Swedish former owners of our home (from the jars of nails, there's a clear indication that they were far handier than we are). Schmaltz can mean fat or exaggerated sentimentalism, and the script type for "schmaltz" fills the bill (or gill). The herring leaping through the "y" is an additional bit of... well...typographical schmaltz.

Swedish butt

I only spotted one IKEA employee wearing these IKEA branded pants! I wonder if they have any special features, or if you need a hex wrench to button them!

Works every which way

Happy Valentine's Day.
xoxo + oxox

Mumbai OK Please

I asked my friend Sherebanu Baldiwala, who lives in Mumbai and works for Landor, about vehicles in India. Sherebanu said she'd snap some photos for us that will show "in depth the creative and vibrant type work done on transportation by local artists." I'll be interested to see if Sherebanu shoots any vehicles with "Horn OK Please." In the meantime, Sherebanu sent a link to an article about how Creative Review, UK, worked with one of the principals of the firm Grandmother India, who in turn got Mumbai's leading taxi artists to create taxi typography for CR's April 2009 cover. The process shots taken during the taxi customization are great.


Photo from Creative Review, UK, April 2009 issue.

Horn OK Please

Or is it OK Horn Please? Or Horn Please OK? An enticing looking new Indian place on Newark Avenue in Jersey City (known as Little India).

According to Wikipedia "Horn OK Please" is a phrase commonly painted on vehicles in India. This is spotted almost without exception on commercial vehicles like trucks, buses or local taxis.

The purpose of the phrase is to alert a driver of a vehicle approaching from behind to sound his/her horn in case they wish to overtake. Fascinating! And tons of cool Horn OK Please signage to be found, apparently!

2-Way Clothespins

Not sure why these never caught on! I'll have to test them on the clothesline in the Spring and report back.

MultiCulti II

A gorgeous gold holiday card (i.e. around the time of Western New Year) from Thailand from Noom Kittayarak and Pui Rattanopas was so gorgeous in all its gold glory that I had to turn the card over to see the credit.

Who knew it's possible to buy a card produced by Hundred Stars Co Ltd under license from Hallmark. You can care enough to send the very best even from Bangkok. My scan doesn't do the card justice (it couldn't go for the gold). What's even cooler than the card, though, is all the great handmade stuff that Pui has created. My favorites are the crocheted Andaman coasters, in vibrant colors.

Chocolate O!

Did you know that Karen Finley has a new show that just opened featuring Ms. Coc-Oa as Jackie O? KF is also looking incredibly well-preserved. In this article she talks about remembering Grant Park as the site of riots...yet she seems to have no wrinkles!



Maybe Feminism keeps you young!

Please file this with the rest of my posts under "obsessed with wrinkles"!

Multi-culti

Pottery Barn Kids has adorable little music/jewelry boxes, and there's a choice of ballerinas inside! Check out the non-blonde one!

Gone Today; Hair Tomorrow

Yes, I meant to invert the old saw. It's not Jenny Holzer, and it's not even proper performance art, but my getting my twelve or so inches shorn and mailing a braid to Locks of Love to help little kids recovering from cancer was as close to a Karen Finley moment as I'll ever get. Come to think of it, maybe I'm just getting started; with Valentine's Day coming up, a body suit of chocolate could well be my next act.


Speaking of hairy, today Kurt Andersen's extremely most excellent Very Short List had a squib on Ok Go's video. The whole thing makes me happy, but I particularly heart the swampfolk musicians.

And Carry a Big Stick

As a contrast to the MTA...

Like an ersatz Jenny Holzer, I loved the flipping sign on the NJ Transit train...it got a little...poetry-ish!And the grid inside to create the letters is totally fascinating, but a little to tall for me to snap a pic!

Last Stop; Last Word

Speaking of elegance at an advancing age, the aptly-named larger-than-life MASSIMO Vignelli was the the most theatrical, confident, and riveting presence at an an all-star AIGA/NY event called Navigating the Labyrinth. Organized by Paul Shaw with invaluable collaboration from Abby Goldstein, the panel consisted of maestro Vignelli, Michael Hertz, Peter Joseph, Doris Halle, Jan Conradi, Tom Geismar, and Lance Wyman.

There's already been much ink and ether about the NYC subway system, standards, Standard (the typeface), Helvetica (the comeback-star typeface), and past, present and future signage (all of it fascinating). For me, there are three things from the eve that are most memorable:

1. The subway signs on narrow columns. The wacky hyphenation had most of us in the audience tittering and reaching for our iPhones and digital cameras. Talk about a niche audience!

2. The subway signage was changed from black type on a white background to white type reversing out of a black background because of dirt and steel dust. Steel dust! Keeping the signage pristine was a job too big for any urban Mr Cleans.

3. After the main discussion—and slams at the sign shop described as "medieval" by design all-stars, a man who'd been rocking and fidgeting in his seat throughout the panel discussion a few rows ahead of me bolted up and said he was the man at the MTA responsible for all the signs. Introducing himself (and his much of his staff, who also attended the event), John Montemarano said his shop followed graphic standards but occasionally adjusted them just a little when they felt they had to do so. Mr. Montemarano also pointed out what most intrigued me: Massimo Vignelli is from the North of Italy. John Montemarano's family is from the South. So, the discussion became a lively game of opposites: North vs. South. Planner vs. Artisan/Fabricator. As goes life, so goes design. There are opposites to reconcile. Design co-existing with production; ideal colliding with real.

For me, the last word comes from Paul Shaw in a response to my congratulatory email:

"I prefer Standard (Akzidenz Grotesk) to Helvetica (and Massimo vice versa)but both are really acceptable for a sign system as long as the rest of the system is done well. Some of the horrible signs the sign shop made in the past are fine because they work within the Unimark system. Those that are not fine are the ones that ignore the system."

Systems—subway or signage—exist for a good reason.

Ultra Alexis

Around 30th and 6th Avenue there are a lot of construction sites, which can only mean a lot of posted bills. Here's the Spring ad campaign for the fabulous jewelry designer Alexis Bittar (I'm ashamed to admit how many pieces of his I have, although they have gotten more popular and way more pricey than when I got them)...



...featuring Joan Collins (previously Alexis Carrington), who, at 77!, is looking marvelously preserved and/or photoshopped...or both!

Suzy Creamcheese

Speaking of retro packaging, here are some wooden cheese crates, spied in a flea market. A 1972 land use survey notes that some of the earliest manufacturing industries in Boston were located in Charlestown, MA—including the Mayflower Creamery, founded, 1837, which made Mayflower's Cream Cheese. These wooden boxes seem to be from mid-20th century. I welcome any info about this stamped typography.

The Dada of French Cuisine

While we're on food, Adam Gopnik, who's one of my very favorite writers, took the phrase you often quote about art and applied it to food. Here it is, from the April 28–May 5, 1997 issue of The New Yorker:

Escoffier's formula for food was, in essence, the same as Jasper Johns's formula for Dada art: take something; do something to it; then do something else to it. It was cooking that rested, above all, on the idea of the master sauce: a lump of protein was cooked in a pan, and what was left behind in the pan was "deglazed" with wine or stock, ornamented with butter or cream, and then poured back over the lump of protein.

Regarding the too-much-butter problem you mention: perhaps at some point Escoffier would have discovered the French equivalent of ricotta in place of buerre.

*I'm still reading then purging old magazines; perhaps I should use them for papier maché

Lava cake mix

As much as I admire the retro type on this cake mix box, I can't help but think that this dessert can easily be homemade instead of mixed up out of a box. (I recommend this recipe from Gale Gand/Food Network.)



Meanwhile, though, a million years ago (okay, 2004), the New York Times published a great article about the science of a particularly interesting chocolate bundt cake called the "Tunnel of Fudge". The chemistry of the cake is that the amount of sugar super-saturates the cake batter, so it will never fully "cake" all the way through. When the cake is cut, the inner bundt part just oozes out. I've made it more than once, and it's totally a showstopper. Easy, too! Here's the recipe.

The original tunnel-of-fudge cake won second place in the 1966 Pillsbury Bake-Off Contest for Ella Rita Helfrich of Houston. That version used a fudge icing mix to create a gooey chocolate center. But Pillsbury discontinued the icing mix, and the resulting clamor of home bakers led Pillsbury to release a recipe for making tunnel-of-fudge cake from scratch. Shirley O. Corriher, a bio-chemist and cook, took up the challenge.

While we're on the subject of chocolate cake, here is my hands down favorite recipe, which uses ricotta cheese as the binder (no butter to soften...always my downfall!).

Lights are bright on Broadway

This building directory is not as festive as your type class, but it's a clear and enlightening combo of function and alphabet city.

Notepads with syntax

Where type stands in for meaning and/or actual design. An excellent specimen set for my Typography class. Discuss. Alternatively, cry in your typography soup.