RECENT COMMENTS
In Praise of Shadows (1)Chicago Welcomes You (3)
Placing Memory (2)
Busted by Colombo, or, the Impediments of Style (10)
Today, 12.05.09 (6)
OBSERVED
Congratulations to Jorge Colombo — our favorite iPhone artist — on yet another well-deserved recognition! (Thanks to Scott Stowell.) [JH]Exquisite animation by Jeff Scher for the new Christmas Album by Bob Dylan. (Thanks to Eric Baker.) [JH]
A new installation by Tokujin Yoshioka for Hermès. Breathtaking, in every sense of the word. (Thanks to Jason Alejandro.) [JH]
How two ingenious graphics systems ensure the efficient delivery of lunch and laundry in India. [JL]
Fifty-six papers in 45 countries (and published in 20 different languages) join forces to run the same editorial on climate change. [JH]
Celebrating geometry in the natural world. And for the truly circular-enthused, here's a perfect holiday gift! [JH]
Design Observer's Job Board has new jobs in Duluth, NYC, San Marcos, Portland, New Haven, SF, Amsterdam, Philadelphia and Toronto. Companies hiring include The College of St. Scholastica, Conde Nast, Texas State University, Second Story, Gap Inc., Magellan, Dror and Diebold. Post your job today. [JSC]
Frank Gehry designs hat for Lady Gaga! [MB]
What housing is affordable? To find out, in New York City, see Who Lives Here? The site is sponsored by the Center for Urban Pedagogy as part of its Envisioning Development Toolkit. [NL]
The utterly brilliant iPhone artistry of Jorge Colombo: digital sets for an R-Rated Nutcracker. [JH]
Emigre No.70: The Look Back Issue – Celebrating 25 Years in Graphic Design written by Rudy VanderLans, comes out today. Also coming up: Gallery 16 in San Francisco will be presenting an exhibition featuring Emigre beginning December 18 and going through January 30. [JSC]
Joe Finder, writer of crime thrillers, is outed as the true type geek we know him to be! [JH]
Design Observer's Job Board has new jobs in Duluth, NYC, San Marcos, Baltimore, SF, Jersey City, Salzburg, Freeport and Portland. Companies hiring include The College of St. Scholastica, Conde Nast, Texas State University, GOOD, 3M, L.L.Bean, ROTO Studio and Landor. Post your job today. [JSC]
A portrait of the notoriously controversial Simon Cowell, in marmite. (Thanks to Andy Chen.) [JH]
Checking out Mumbai's wholesale market for Bollywood posters. [JL]
The Good Men Foundation, which offers educational, social, financial and legal support to men and boys at risk, has released The Good Men Project: Real Stories from the Front Lines of Modern Manhood, packaged by Poulin + Morris as both a book of 31 essays and a documentary film DVD. [JL]
Paying homage or just plain sloppy? Pedro Almodóvar's latest film, Broken Embraces (Los Abrazos Rotos), features a film-within-the-film that was ostensibly made in 1994 but whose set includes two chairs recently designed by Patricia Urquiola for the Italian company Moroso: Antibodi (2006) and Tropicalia (2008). [JL]
A well-reported article from Fast Company: The Rise and Fall of Design Within Reach. At Unbeige, an interview with writer Jeff Chu. [MB]
Four things I’ve learned about designers, by Warren Berger. [MB]
Amazing photographs of Dubai in decline by Lauren Greenfield. [MB]
Books to help you get rid of your car, and so much more: the 2009 Core77 Gift Guide is here! [JH]
The new monograph from architect Wendy Evans Joseph is a pop-up book. Amazing production by Melcher Media and legendary paper engineer Kees Moerbeek. [MB]
Design Observer's Job Board has new jobs in Philadelphia, Chicago, NYC, Toronto, Milan, Dallas, SF, Portland and Knoxville. Companies hiring include Philadelphia University, The New School, Minted, SAP, QVC, American Eagle, Martha Stewart Living and Deutsche Telekom. Post your job today. [JSC]
It's been simplified. It's been really simplified. With the advent of new technologies, is it time for Harry Beck's 1931 London Underground map to be completely overhauled? Plus: 100 years of London tube maps. [MB]
A love letter to the letterpress. [JH]
A teaser trailer has been released for the upcoming documentary The Visual Language of Herbert Matter by Reto Caduff. Here, Jessica Helfand reflects on "All Things Matter" and her personal experience in the darkroom making photograms with this master designer. [WD]
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Change Observer
In Praise of Shadows
By Jane WithersHistorians list 22 inventors of incandescent lamps prior to Thomas Edison’s commercially viable version. Yet despite the pace of technological change, surely debate surrounding lighting and energy should go beyond geeky discussions about technologies and bulbs? It should be a chance to explore new thinking not just about lighting and sustainability but about the quality of light, and to challenge the modern obsession with brightness that has held sway for over a century.
READ MORE | COMMENTS (1)
Change Observer
CO2 CUBES
By Julie Lasky While delegates from 200 nations meet in Copenhagen to defuse the time bomb of catastrophic climate change, a multimedia art installation floats on a barge near the Tycho Brahe Planetarium to remind participants and onlookers of how much damage is in the air.
READ MORE | COMMENTS
Places
Placing Memory
By Mark KlettOn the morning of December 7, 1941 — 68 years ago today — the Japanese navy attacked the United States' base at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, triggering the U.S. declaration of war against Japan and entry into World War II. Soon after the federal government implemented a program that was even then controversial and has since been condemned as racist and unconstitutional: the forced relocation of U.S. citizens of Japanese ancestry to internment camps located throughout the West. Placing Memory mixes contemporary color photographs of the abandoned camps, by photographer Todd Stewart, with period black-and-white, government-commissioned images documenting the life of the internees. In his review, photographer and Places contributing editor Mark Klett describes the juxtaposition as poignant and provocative — a timely reminder of a troubling history, given current fears of domestic terrorism.
READ MORE | COMMENTS (2)
Observatory
Busted by Colombo, or, the Impediments of Style
By Owen EdwardsThe restrained high style of the ad men in Mad Men has revived a painful memory of one of my life-changing moments.
In the mid-sixties I worked as a press rep for CBS-TV in New York. Though low on a steep vertical hierarchy, I felt I had the kind of dream job I’d seen in movies like The Hucksters and Sabrina — an office (windowless) in the CBS building on Sixth Avenue, a good salary at a time when a floor through apartment on a nice street in Greenwich Village cost me $125 a month, and a charge account at Brooks Brothers that I worked like a farmer works good black loam.
READ MORE | COMMENTS (10)
By Eric BakerChange Observer
Chicago Welcomes You
By Jennifer EhrenbergHow to redesign a resettlement process for immigrants who may never have seen a streetlight, cooked on a stove, used a toilet that isn’t a hole in the ground or handled any type of currency.
READ MORE | COMMENTS (3)
Places
it is what it is
By Gavin BrowningFounded 15 years ago, the New York-based 2x4 is one of the most influential and and prolific design firms around (their portfolio includes the graphic design of a few issues of Places, from the mid-'90s). Now they've published it is what it is (or ... Are we done yet?) — a thousand-page portrait of the interdisciplinary studio. Gavin Browning, coordinator/curator of Columbia University's Studio X in downtown Manhattan, reviews this latest contribution to the genre of the monumental monograph.
READ MORE | COMMENTS (15)
Observatory
No Small Matter: Science on the Nanoscale
By Felice C. Frankel, George M. WhitesidesWe glance, and turn away without noticing. We don’t ever really see, and then we forget what we have seen.
READ MORE | COMMENTS (1)
Observatory
Ramparts: Agent of Change
By Steven Heller Few American magazines are agents of change. Most are chroniclers of their time and place — lightning rods, not lightning. Ramparts magazine has been dead for almost two decades, but to look back at it, it stands out as one to remember.
READ MORE | COMMENTS (4)
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Audio: Design Matters Archive
Peter Buchanan-SmithPeter Buchanan-Smith, founder of Buchanan-Smith LLC and the author of Speck and The Wilco Book.
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Observatory Archive
Books + Store: Books Received
Ken Smith: Landscape ArchitectKen Smith
Mitch Epstein: American Power
Mitch Epstein
Emigre No. 70 the Look Back Issue: Selections from Emigre Magazine 1-69
Rudy Vanderlans
Chief Culture Officer: How to Create a Living, Breathing Corporation
Grant McCracken
Sol LeWitt: 100 Views
Susan Cross & Denise Markonish, editors
What Good Are the Arts?
John Carey
The Modern Wing: Renzo Piano and The Art Institute of Chicago
The Art Institute of Chicago
Unpacking My Library: Architects and Their Books
Jo Steffens
The Visual Miscellaneum
David Mccandless
The Design of Business
Roger Martin
More Books Received >>
Recommended Books
Bibliographic: 100 Classic Graphic Design Books
Jason Godfrey
A fundamental resource for graphic designers and teachers, Bibliographic surveys classic graphic design books with full-color large images. Since these books cannot be easily purchased, this thoughtful survey is a gem for book lovers. [WD]
Buy This Book >>
More Recommended Books >>
Jason Godfrey
A fundamental resource for graphic designers and teachers, Bibliographic surveys classic graphic design books with full-color large images. Since these books cannot be easily purchased, this thoughtful survey is a gem for book lovers. [WD]
Buy This Book >>
More Recommended Books >>
Overpainted Photographs
Gerhard Richter
I know it's unfashionable to say but these images are heartbreakingly beautiful. Anyone interested in visual communication should at least have a look. Richter has found a rare and original hybrid between mechanical reproduction (photographs) and subjective expression (painting). In addition, Siri Hustvedt’s catalogue essay is a gem. [AHL]
Buy This Book >>
More Recommended Books >>
Gerhard Richter
I know it's unfashionable to say but these images are heartbreakingly beautiful. Anyone interested in visual communication should at least have a look. Richter has found a rare and original hybrid between mechanical reproduction (photographs) and subjective expression (painting). In addition, Siri Hustvedt’s catalogue essay is a gem. [AHL]
Buy This Book >>
More Recommended Books >>
Expanding Architecture: Design as Activism
Bryan Bell & Katie Wakeford, editors
This upbeat compendium is a cross-section of public-interest design polemics and projects. The projects have low budgets and large ambitions, and include remediated riverways in Taiwan, microcredit-financed housing in Mexico, lightweight shelter for Kosovo refugees, and affordable prefab in Virginia. [NL]
Buy This Book >>
More Recommended Books >>
Bryan Bell & Katie Wakeford, editors
This upbeat compendium is a cross-section of public-interest design polemics and projects. The projects have low budgets and large ambitions, and include remediated riverways in Taiwan, microcredit-financed housing in Mexico, lightweight shelter for Kosovo refugees, and affordable prefab in Virginia. [NL]
Buy This Book >>
More Recommended Books >>
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