January 2008
62 posts
“My first reviews came in. One said, ‘This so-called “comedian”...”
– Steve Martin tells Smithsonian Magazine about his punchline-less routine and the initial unfortunate reaction. [43FoldersDelicious]
The History of Visual Communication has a great collection of Bauhaus posters. The History of Visual Communication is another site that one could easily spend hours on. [KottkeFFFFound]
The Amazing Shape is the website for English illustrator Chris Grey. Grey is spending his lunch hours designing quick illustrations. The results are colourful (hey, it’s a .co.uk) and some are quite hilarious. [FormFiftyFive] It reminds me of the illustration journals of Craig Frazier: CF52 and 98Pages.
“I just thought now was the time for me to stick my neck out and root for someone...”
– Obey’s Shepard Fairey talks with Creativity Online about his recently released Barack Obama poster design and exactly what impresses him about this candidate. [Quipsologies]
Spacing Toronto examines the “urban fabric” (traffic grid work) of Mississauga, Ontario as it compares to nearby Toronto and other international cities. The grid of grids is really fascinating. [ModCult]
Not your average 247 lb. NFL tight end
Tony Gonzalez had a great 2006-2007 season, became a vegan, lost weight, gained it back, had another great season and still makes the time to show the Wall Street Journal how to make delicious protein shakes (with extra açai!). [UweBlog]
Itchy Robot has a gallery of photos with Found Typography. Quipsologies likes Thang. Many of these aren’t all that amazing and, actually, most of these are things we see all over the place. But even things like Walk are awesome.
The Boston Globe examines which graphic designer is best fit for the White House. And if tomorrow was election day, Obama’s designer would be president. And, in the design world, it seems to be a landslide victory. [DesignObserver]
Etsy user Remake posted a new product made from salvaged materials: accounting paper, file folders, ledger and legal pads and, topped off with, a rubber band. The results are “Rewrite” graph paper notebooks. I’ve loved graph paper since high school, and I’m thinking this would be a great pocket journal for designs or sketches. [5dotsTumblr]
Strange to think that I’m...
Cynical-C is keeping a log of Christ appearances. What’s the likelihood I find a Christ silhouette? I think I’m going to start looking closer to anything I cook, bake, roast, heat, cut, slice or generally look at. Maybe there’ll be a Christ shape.
Kottke does his best Godin
On Tuesday, Kottke posted about a couple great customer service experiences he’s had recently. There was a moment there where I wasn’t sure which of my favorite blogs I was reading. Seth’s Blog also had an interesting post the other day about digital pricing and what’s “actually” “fair”.
1. Usually when you order meat or cheese at the deli counter...
“Ignorance is not bliss. You can’t change something you don’t know about....”
– LifeHack.org article offering methods to consume more books in 2008. [Humachine]
"That belongs to the designer and the intern."
About 15 years ago, a design and his intern sketched up a logo for a football team. It took about 30 minutes to develop “the funky Patriot with a star on his hat and a flag shooting out of his head.” The logo is everywhere now. It belongs to arguably the best football team ever. [DesignObserver]
According to The Underwire, the Japan Origami Airplane Association is folding up a paper airplane which will, hopefully, be able to survive the long flight from the International Space Station to the Earth’s surface.
If they showed this after hours on the NASA network, I think they’d notice a ratings increase. Imagine: much like Santa’s sleigh, a tiny origami plane tracked worldwide...
“Can’t forget that smile / Can’t believe we met / Such a sudden kiss...”
– Lyrics from ”Walk You Home” from Super Furry Animals’ Love Kraft. They’ll be playing The Late Show with Letterman this Thursday.
It’s a little late in the day to acknowledge this, but photographer/documentarian Camilo José Vergara has been documenting public art portraits of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. since 1977. New York Times posted a slideshow of some of Vergara’s photographs. [UnBeige]
Everyone’s been talking about the Library of Congress uploading 3,115 public domain photos onto Flickr. If I had a few hours spare, I’d certainly spend them just browsing through these incredible photos.
After reading a poppytalk post about collecting, UPPERCASE blogger Janine Vangool decided to photograph her collection of vintage typewriter ribbon tins. The designs and colors are amazing. After seeing the great collection of tins, poppytalk asked Janine about the collection, how it got started and about some of her favorite pieces in the collection. [Design Observer]
This reminds me of Merlin...
“And you coming back to me is against all odds, and that’s what I’ve...”
– Phil Collins assisting a broken-hearted quasi-songwriter Starlee Kine makes for my favorite This American Life, which is practically on repeat even though it came out in August. I love the line “even Phil Collins can’t help but to quote Phil Collins.”
One of the many cool things in the January issue of Wired — David Byrne and Thom Yorke, Michel Gondry, cover story on fuel effeciency — is a super short article about supermarkets, calories and obesity that’s enhanced by an awesome supermarket infographic designed by Dan Marsiglio.
"HUMILITY: Imitate Jesus and Socrates."
Yesterday was Ben Franklin’s birthday. As one of my favorite figures in history, American or otherwise, I find out something interesting about him each time I read about him.
Note to self: find a good Ben Franklin biography.
Since it relates to American history, the Library of Congress website has a great feature: Today in History. Yesterday’s page focused on Franklin.
Strange Maps, a must-read for map geeks, has an interesting map, which labels US states with the name of a nation having a matching Gross Domestic Product. [Marginal Revolution]
DJ Stout and Pentgram’s Austin office had the difficult task of creating a lovely magazine redesign with the sum of these parts: a “low art budget”, a “small design staff” and, literally, some cows. The new Dairy Today cover design features dairy cow portraits and minimalist design. [The Underwire]
'All are for protection from the storms'
Back in October, a time capsule was discovered while doing renovations on Mexico City’s Metropolitan Cathedral. The contents were just released today.
Discussion of time capsules always leads me to think about what would a) most accurately represents our times b) most accurately represent me today to those who might open the capsule 200+ years from today.
"Comic Sans is illegal"
With the goal of bringing “bad design to justice,” Design-Police.org posted a set of templates designed to be printed and pasted to “bad” design. This would be a pretty handy tool for a design professor who writes the same notes over and over. But the red.. oh the red. [SocialDesignNotes]
The 43Folders article earlier reminded me of Rodcorp’s How We Work Series, a running list of documented productivity techniques from some of modern history’s greatest thinkers, authors and scientists. From to Paul Cezanne to Bill Murray, Rodcorp seems to be gradually covering the spectrum of habits applied to achieve recognized success.
I want to do something like this but for what...
“Inspiration is for amateurs. I just get to work.”
– Brian Oberkirch of 43 Folders looks at the artist’s process for GTD (getting things done) by looking at the specific techniques used by painter Chuck Close.
“Creative work is mostly showing up every day and enduring a million tiny failures as you feel your way to something a bit...
New York designer Nicholas Feltron, for the third year in a row, has designed an annual report about his life. The 2007 version of the report covers all aspects of his life (travel, music consumption, frequented restaurants and alcohol intake) and is beautifully designed. [Kottke]
“(1) Finish a project. (2) Start a project.”
– ‘Be Kind Rewind’ director Michel Gondry shares with New York Magazine the sequence of events, influences and/or contacts that got him to his current career point.
This might be the movie I’m most anticipating this year. Also, Wired talked with him in last month’s issue....
“If you want to do something great, you need to bring great people.”
– The Atlantic posted a Q&A with Helvetica: The Film producer/director Gary Hustwit. He talks about the film’s origin, production and reaction. The DVD is out.
“Idea generation is an addiction. It is an engaging, brain-spinning indulgence...”
– A recent Behance intern expressed disappointment when discovering the creative company spends less than 1% of their time “generating ideas.” They suggest making ideas happen instead of generating more ideas.
The nonist posted some Saul Bass scans from the 1962 book Design In Motion.
The designs are mini-commercials for Olin Mathieson Chemical Corporation. Stills don’t really explain the animation sequence for these “corporate presentations” but the clean iconic Bass design is still beautiful.
“Apparently, technology doesn’t care who you hate.”
– Today’s Seth Godin blog post beautifully addresses how technologies hate their replacements. Also, Brand Autopsy combines some of Godin’s best quotes with photos of his action figure.
An Economist article originally posted back in mid- December informed me that prices of beers will likely be increasing as the cost of hops and barleys are also on the rise. It truly is a sad day.
On a side note, did you know you spell ‘spigots’ like spigots? Weird.
100 miles off the coast of San Diego lies Cortes Bank. Surfline presents an audio slideshow documenting professional surfers Gerlach, Snips, Greg Long and Twiggy as they surf some of the biggest waves of their lives — some estimated at 100-foot. [Kottke]
The Underwire posts about an upcoming Freaks and Geeks reunion. Featuring seven cast members and the show’s creator, this San Francisco Sketchfest forum is the largest reunion since the show was cancelled in 2000. Though some of the crucial cast members are missing (notably the awkward Jason Segel/Nick Andopolis), it’d still be great to hear what these cast members had to say about...
ah, the glue life
BBC NEWS reports a boy in Mexico tried to stay home from school by gluing himself to his bed. It did not work. He did, however, get to watch cartoons while the parametics dissolved the glue. [Anarchaia]
Michael Bierut walks The Atlantic through the history of typography, book cover design and talks about the background for his wonderful book 79 Short Essays on Design. [Kottke]
I got 79 Short Essays on Design for Christmas and have been amazed by how the stories address design in a beautifully broad way. The story on the Hypertext of Kabokov might be the basis of an upcoming blog entry.