What Is Beautiful and Luminous and True

National Treasure Maira Kalman discussed "The Principles of Uncertainty," her amazing illustrated column, turned extraordinary book, turned opera, at the New York Public Library. The video is here.

Tonight!

Last Lecture

Randy Pausch is a married father of three, a very popular professor at Carnegie Mellon University—and he is dying. He is suffering from pancreatic cancer, which has returned after surgery, chemotherapy and radiation. Doctors say he has only a few months to live.

In September 2007, Randy gave a final lecture to his students at Carnegie Mellon. "There's an academic tradition called the 'Last Lecture.' Hypothetically, if you knew you were going to die and you had one last lecture, what would you say to your students?" Randy says. "Well, for me, there's an elephant in the room. And the elephant in the room, for me, it wasn't hypothetical."

Despite the lecture's wide popularity, Randy says he really only intended his words for his three small children. "I think it's great that so many people have benefited from this lecture, but the truth of the matter is that I didn't really even give it to the 400 people at Carnegie Mellon who came. I only wrote this lecture for three people, and when they're older, they'll watch it," he says.

Watch Randy's famous "Last Lecture."

con-tencion

A short film by Votredame, a production company in Milan.

My New Favorite Website

As the lady says: misinterpreting bad punctuation since 2005. Hysterical.

Via Design Observer.

An Interview on Be A Design Group

Nate Voss and Donovan Beery from the great design blog Be A Design Group interviewed me for their great design podcast, Be A Design Cast. They are great friends, and I think the show is great fun! Hope you enjoy.

Tonight in Cincinnati, Design Matters Live

I'll be at the Art Academy of Cincinnati in Downtown Cincinnati for the local AIGA chapter and HOW magazine interviewing John Foster of Fuszion Collaborative. Should be fun as the poster indicates. And I'll be signing books. : )

Art Academy of Cincinnati
1212 Jackson Street
Downtown Cincinnati

AIGA Members: free
Professional Non-members: $20
Student Non-members: $10

Presenting Sponsor: How Magazine
Supporting Sponsors: Art Academy of Cincinnati, Carey Digital, Marketing
Support Services, RIS the paper house

Great Friday Read

One of my absolute favorite design thinkers, Ellen Lupton, has written a wonderful article on AIGA Voice about how to "get a life." Enjoy!

Hysterical

Jim Gaffigan: "You know bacon is bad for you when it is healthier to eat a donut."

Separated at Birth?

Is it just me, or is there an eerie similarity between these two women?

Just imagine Ellen a brunette...


...or Liza a blonde...

And Now I've Seen Everything

Yup, you are seeing correctly: BRANDED FORTUNE COOKIE messages. For shame, for shame. Yet another reason civilization is doomed.

*sigh*

Getting Close!

I am so thrilled to announce that Design Matters is currently in the top ten for the People's Choice Award from the Cooper Hewitt National Design Museum! This is an incredible honor and I am so touched by the support I have received from my homegirls Cat Morley, Tina Roth Eisenberg, Bryony Gomez-Palacio, Marian Bantjes and Susan Benjamin.

And thank you to everyone who has voted! If you haven't voted yet, and are interested, please vote here. Thanks so much!

Karen Finley Is Back and Better Than Ever

Karen Finley
Nation Building
October 24–December 1, 2007
Reception for the Artist: Wednesday, October 24, 6:00–8:00 pm

Alexander Gray Associates is presenting an exhibition of visual work critiquing the Iraq War by renowned performance artist Karen Finley. Including works on paper and installation, Nation Building was shown early in 2007 with critical acclaim at Boston’s Emerson College, where she was the 2007 Artist-in-Residence. Finley’s exhibition with Alexander Gray Associates coincides with Performa 07, the biennial of performance by visual artists taking place throughout New York. She will be performing her new solo work, “WAKE UP!” each Sunday night at 7 PM at The Green Room (45 Bleecker Street) through November 18, 2007. It should be an amazing show from one of my favorite performance artists ever.

A Big Fat Crazy Honor

Believe it or not, somehow Design Matters was nominated for a People's Choice Award for the upcoming National Design Awards at the Cooper Hewitt National Museum in New York City. If you have any interest in voting for the show, you can vote here.

Thank you!

Marian Bantjes Unplugged

My dear friend, designer, illustrator, type designer, writer, photographer and one of the most talented people working today, Marian Bantjes, is interviewed by the always entertaining Nate Voss and Donovan Beery on the design blog, Be A Design Group. The interview can be found here.

Coudal Presents Layer Tennis: Booty and the Beast

If you are going to be screwing around on Friday afternoons this Fall (and who isn’t?) make sure you’re screwing around somewhere with high-speed web access.

The new season of Coudal's Layer Tennis is under way. They are hosting a series of live design events every Friday afternoon. They originally called the game "Photoshop Tennis" but since there are a ton more tools that can be used alone and in combination to create things, they wanted to open the games up to millions of new possibilities. The season wouldn't have happened without the support of Adobe® Creative Suite® 3, the weapon of choice for creatives everywhere and Layer Tennis players alike.

How The Game Works
The matches will be played using lots of different applications, from Adobe® Photoshop® to Adobe® Flash®, but the basic idea is the same no matter what tools are in use. Two artists will swap a file back and forth in real-time, adding to and embellishing the work. Each artist gets fifteen minutes to complete a "volley" and then we post that to the site. A third participant, a writer, provides play-by-play commentary on the action, as it happens. The matches last for ten volleys and when it's complete, everyone with an opinion sounds off in the Forums and then they declare a winner.

All matches take place on Fridays, live at 2pm Chicago time, 3pm New York time.

This week I will be providing the Play by Play commentary!

This is what we posted for the Match Preview, which you can see in full regalia on the Coudal site.

While last week’s match featured a battle between contrasting styles—the cerebral vs. the visceral and the designer/programmer vs. designer/illustrator—consider this week’s line-up a battle of the beguiling and bewitching Brits.
Both Neil Duerden and Matthew Star Thomas are self-described illustrators who combine organic vector art with fairy tale photography. Both create balmy, breathy work that teeters between the real and the surreal. But that is where the similarities stop. Look a bit closer and you'll see where Thomas is naively dreamy and hallucinogenic, Duerden packs a power punch of provocation.

Perhaps this match will be more than a raunchy, rancorous volley to and fro, but rather a timeless test of wills. Either way, behold the empyrean challenge between the Master of Sublime and the Hot and Hungry Wolf and remember: one man's quest is another man's conquest.

Neil Duerden
The Man: Neil is a self confessed Mac monkey based in a rural miners' cottage 20 miles north of Manchester, UK. He creates work that combines elements from mixed media and photography with complex, interlacing vectors to create pieces for multi-national clients, all over the world. He's always on brief, hungry for commissions and looking for the next big thing.
The Mood: Manic

Mathew Star Thomas
The Man: Couscous Kid is the work of Mathew Star Thomas, an illustrator and designer based in Bath, UK. Impossible to pigeonhole, Couscous Kids' dream-like, innocent style compels his audience to dance eerily through life. At first glance, all is as it seems (with hints of sixties abandonment) but upon closer inspection, his work reveals 21st century humor and physical freedom hidden among the sublime and ridiculous forms and characters.
The Mood: Panic. (Psych) Limber. Yeah, that's right. Limber.

Join us at 3pm ET for the Layer Tennis Smack Down!

If You Are Following The Diana Inquest

All evidence is being filed here.

Onslaught

The follow up to Unilever's brilliant Dove film "Evolution." Perhaps even better than the first.

From Ad Age:
"Beauty-industry advertising is coming under attack once more by beauty advertiser Unilever in a follow-up to the widely honored Dove "Evolution" viral video that broke today in the U.S.

The success of 'Evolution' has helped 'Onslaught' generate numerous blog mentions of it as a follow-up to the original.

Dove's "Onslaught" features a close-up of a cute red-haired preteen girl to musical refrains of "Here it comes" from U.K. group Simian's "La Breeze," followed by a barrage of beauty-industry images and ads featuring booty-shaking lingerie models, cheesy direct-response-style pitches promising cosmetic miracles, scenes of plastic surgery, time-lapse effects of yo-yo dieting and bulimia, all leading up to the tagline: "Talk to your daughter before the beauty industry does." The video, like "Evolution," comes from WPP Group's Ogilvy & Mather Worldwide, Toronto. And it directly supports the Dove Self-Esteem Fund, which has set a goal to reach 5 million girls globally with programs by 2010. To that end, Unilever this year also will enlist yet-unnamed celebrities to appear at events to reveal how stylists, makeup artists, photographers and computer technicians produce their onscreen and on-page looks."

Perhaps they should start by looking at this site?