Aesthetic Apparatus: How They Do What They Do

Thank you, Core 77

"How To Think Like A Great Graphic Designer" was reviewed on the super site Core 77 by Robert Blinn.

Cause/Effect:Design As Change Agent

Cause/Effect:Design As Change Agent is one-day event that looks at the intersection of design and social responsibility in its current and historical contexts. When designers respond to local and global crises, design becomes their causal force and change their endgame. In this arena, good design is held to breath-takingly high standards. It is judged instantly ineffectual if it only serves as aesthetic anesthesia and fundamentally flawed if it does not garner real-time results. A wide range of creative practitioners will demonstrate how they have embraced this challenge, tackling the causality of reform in their work while keeping their formalist integrity intact. Join them for an inspiring examination of accountable design that embodies the beautiful solution, the intentionally humane and the ethically sound.

Moderator
Steven Heller

Confirmed Speakers
Marc Alt
Frank Baseman
Nicholas Blechman
Seymour Chwast
Carin Goldberg
Chris Hacker
Randy Hunt
Alan Jacobson
Kristin Johnson
Jacqueline Khiu
Seth Labenz
Bobby Martin
Lara McCormick
Phil Patton
Mark Randall
Roy Rub
Haruko Smith
Scott Stowell
Lisa Strausfeld

TIME AND PLACE
Saturday 15 December 2007 8:00AM–6:30PM
Tishman Auditorium
The New School
66 West 12th Street
Between Fifth and Sixth Avenues

Register HERE!

Four of the Many Sides of Serbia

One Side:







Another:







Another:







And one more:

Alive and Well and Living in Serburbia

We finally made it to Serbia and it has been grand. The Publikum Project launch went off without a hitch and was received with great fanfare.

Aside from the amazing hospitality and incredible generosity of these wonderful people, I am bewildered by some of the things I am seeing. To wit: bombed out buildings standing frozen in time (think Oklahoma City-type photographs) sitting next to a modern apartment complex and a shopping center. I asked Nada what she thought of this and she replied, "we have been living like this for so long, you forget that this is even part of our daily landscape."

Indeed. I will post a picture tomorrow.

Worse Things Could Happen

While it seemed like hell yesterday, worse things could happen than being stuck in Munich. The fog at the Belgrade airport was so bad that after the 7 hour flight to Germany, the 3 hour layover and the actual full flight to Belgrade, Air Traffic Control refused to let our plane land and sent us to BUDAPEST. Or as my friend Milligan calls it (she lived there for five years) BUDAPESHT. So we sat on the runway for an hour before the decision was made to send us BACK TO MUNICH. Which we did. Upon arrival, 200 angry Europeans stormed the Luftansa Customer Service desk to grab the only option we were offered: sit in the airport for 6 more hours, take a flight to CROATIA, then take a three hour bus trip to Belgrade. Which would have meant that we would have been traveling for nearly THIRTY HOURS without sleep, I might add (I lost the Ambien that Jen gave me, don't ask). For a few minutes, we were left huddling in a corner while I bitched and moaned and refused to stand on the line and refused to wait six hours and then take a BUS in Croatia. Then my inner New Yorker kicked in and I got us to a little known Luftansa help area (don't ask) and told them, with all due respect, I couldn't make make this prescribed trip with all of the other stronger, more capable Europeans. Being near tears probably helped (but no, I didn't cry). So the only nice Luftansa person we met actually gave us a hotel room in Munich, dinner and breakfast vouchers, a taxi voucher and a smile. She also booked us on the morning flight to Croatia, where the nice Publikum people are coming to pick us up in a car, for a three hour guided sojourn to Belgrade. The Belgrade airport is still officially closed, though the weather is fine in the city. Go figure. Dinner was lovely--there is nothing, *nothing* like German potato salad in GERMANY and the coffiee is the best I have ever tasted. EVER. So after the longest journey I have ever taken goes into its third day, I do have to sheepishly say that, indeed, worse things can happen.

Thanksgiving in Serbia

Publikum Project Book


Publikum Project Contributors


Publikum Book Excerpt


The Publikum Project originated fifteen years ago in wartime Serbia and in that time it has become a meaningful example of design working to overcome boundaries in both communication and in cultures. I am now heading off to Serbia to participate in the launch of the 2008 Publikum Project.

The year’s effort has resulted in two extraordinary publications and a documentary film. Guide for Living 2008, the over-sized twenty-four-page coffee-table book visually articulates hopes, dreams, desires, wishes and goals, and provides “advice” for how to measure time over the course of the year. Guide for Living 2008 also includes a wall calendar featuring extraordinary original contributions from twelve of the world’s greatest designers. Guide for Thinking 2008, the companion piece to this ambitious project, contains lively, entertaining and inspiring insight into the lives of the designers contributing to Guide for Living 2008. I worked on curating the project and co-edited the material with Nada Ray. George Mill was the Creative Director, and the principal designer of the 2008 project was the magnificent Sean Adams of Adams Morioka.

The following is footage of the Publikum Project including the work of Paula Scher and Karlsson Wilker.


Paula Scher


Karlsson Wilker

Thank You, Design Observer

Please

A piece I worked on with my team at Sterling for the Op-Ed section of the New York Times.

Madonna's first live performance at Danceteria, 1982

Madonna's first ever live performance of her song 'Everybody' in 1982 at Danceteria. It was broadcast on WOW TV on the 'No Entiendes' show. *Love* the MC and her male dancers as much as the songstress herself.

A Brief History of Computers, on the Computer

One of my students, Kelli Garnett, created this wonderful film on the history of computers.

Linzie Hunter's Spam One-Liners

Linzie Hunter uses her bad-ass illustration skills to doodle up some classic spam-isms in her Spam One-Liners Flickr set.


Via the always wonderful Core 77.

What Every Woman Should Know

Rather descriptive footage of women's genitalia from Dr. Debbie (no relation) during her visit to the Tyra Banks show. I can only imagine what extra-terrestrials would think of humans if they were viewing this.

Wondrous Music Video by Stewart Smith

Via Design Observer, an amazing, *amazing* music video by Stewart Smith for Grandaddy's "Jed's Other Poem" created entirely on a 1979 Apple II Plus with 48K of RAM.

Design Matters Live, Tonight with Alan Dye

Adobe and AIGA San Francisco are presenting a very special series—Design Matters Live: Life, Love and the Pursuit of Design. Joining me today, November 8th, for our final show of the season, is my dear friend Alan Dye.

Alan Dye joined Apple as the Creative Director in November of 2006. Prior to this position, Alan managed the overall brand aesthetic for award-winning lifestyle brands kate spade and JACK SPADE, and he was a Design Director and Partner at Ogilvy and Mather’s Brand Integration Group where he worked with Motorola, Miller Brewing company, Levi’s, and Times Square, NYC. Prior to joining Ogilvy, Dye spent four years at Landor Associate’s New York office doing brand identity work for clients including Delta Airlines, Pepsi Cola, and MADD. He has also done independent design work for the National Basketball Association, Madstone Films, Balmori Associates, and the PUSH design conference. Alan’s work has been recognized by several design shows and magazines, including Communications Arts, Print, I.D., AIGA, and Graphis. Last year, he spoke at the AIGA New York chapter “Fresh Dialogue” event, and he was selected by Print Magazine as one of their New Visual Artist’s in the annual “20 Under 30” issue.

For more information about the series you can go to www.designmatterslive.com

Communication Arts reviews "How To Think"

Best CD of 2007 so far

Radiohead's new album, In Rainbows, was recently released as a digital download available only via the band's web site. There's no label or distribution partner, and when you put In Rainbows' 15 songs into your cart, and check out, a question mark pops up where the price would normally be. Click it, and the prompt "It's Up To You" appears. Click again and it refreshes with the words "It's Really Up To You" — and really, it is. According to Time magazine, "It's the first major album whose price is determined by what individual consumers want to pay for it. And it's perfectly acceptable to pay nothing at all."

Which is incredible. Not only because of the extraordinarily generous statement by the band, but because it is an extraordinary CD. Not quite as amazing as Kid A, but nearly. Rush, rush, rush over to their site and "buy" it. And pay something for it, because it is worth every penny.

Tennis, Anyone?

Bonnie and Clyde. Scarlett and Rhett. Bogie and Bacall. Butch and Sundance. Thelma and Louise. All great friends or great lovers or great adversaries. Every once in a while, they are all three. But in some way or another, these celebrated duos have come to embody what it means to be great partners. On Friday, November 2nd at 2:00 PM Central time, you can add Bantjes and Vit to the list. Or more accurately put, Bantjes vs. Vit.

The kind folks over at Coudal Partners are currently hosting a series of live design events on Friday afternoons called Layer Tennis. They originally called the game "Photoshop Tennis" but these days there are so many more tools that can be used to create and they wanted to open up the games to millions of new possibilities. The matches use a lot of different applications, from Adobe® Photoshop® to Adobe® Illustrator®, but the basic idea is the same no matter what tools are in use. Two designers swap a file back and forth in real-time, adding to and embellishing the work. Each designer gets fifteen minutes (yes, you read correctly: 15 minutes) to complete a "volley" and then Coudal posts the results 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 a winner is declared.

I had the distinction of providing the play-by-play commentary several weeks ago, and let me tell you, this experience is harrowing at best. It is fast, it is furious and it gets real messy, really fast.

It's hard to imagine who will win this one. Both our dear friends, it is hard to imagine who to even root for: the girl with the delicious swirls or the bad boy with the feisty fingers.

On your mark, get set...go... and may the best man win.

Hello Kansas City