A friend of mine recently was explaining his obsession with Factory Records. The label was a Manchester-based independent record label in the influential in the late 70s and 80s and still today. Their roster included some groundbreaking artists: Joy Division, New Order, James, OMD, and Happy Mondays. And not only was the label focused on curating a beautiful, interesting collection of music, but they paid the same amount of detail to the packaging and artwork for each release.
The label not only cataloged its music, but also its artwork and various other items. As someone obsessed with typefaces, album packaging, techno-pop, and music in general I have become very interested in the concept of the label and the albums, artists, and artwork. There was a coffee table printed a few years back documenting the albums. I just ordered it.
The Los Angeles Times Magazine examines fifty different LAPD badges from the past 140 years paired with significant moments from the City of Angels’ less than angelic history. The visual timeline starts with an eight-point badge from 1869 and the Chinese Massacre of 1871 when a mob of 500 murdered 19 Chinese immigrants in Chinatown.
Designer Jelte van Abbema was a winner at the Dutch Design Awards and the accompanying €10,000 Rado Prize in part due to his piece “Symbiosis,” a font created with e.coli bacteria. One could say this could be a nasty computer virus!
Van Abbema created the font by stamping bacteria into paper, and then placing the paper in a jury-rigged incubator, which provided the right humdity and warmth for the organisms. As they multiplied and died, the resulting fonts changed color and shape. As van Abbema says, bacteria “transforms the image to something new,” creating something that is literally alive, changing every minute without ever being tended.
As the post-Halloween haze lifts, lets take a moment to reflect back on some of the more imaginative, creative, and/or topical costumes from around the country that reverberated around the Internet and blogosphere this week. My favorite this year fell on the surreal artsy side of things. Artist Eric Testroete built a “papercraft self-portrait,” which reminds me of those easter egg modes in video games that turns all the characters heads into “big heads.” More after the jump.
Barack Obama’s campaign, which led to his election last year, was groundbreaking for many of the obvious reasons. One element that is sometimes overlooked is the visual imagery crafted by the campaign. Obama created a movement among many designers and artists inspired by his message of hope. His Design Director, Scott Thomas, harvested that power and theme. Everything, from the Obama logo to his website to his consistent typeface, reinforced the candidate’s message.
Designing Obama, a new book, will showcase both official and unofficial designs and images from across the country. It also promises to examine how design was used in campaign. The video above has me excited for the release.
Designer Rachel Berger was inspired by Michael Bierut’s 100 Day Workshop at the Yale School of Art. I cannot seem to find any info online about this workshop, but I am assuming it is a challenge to an artist to work 100 days straight with one theme. Berger’s exploration of color and writing and the emotional connection to color is pretty fascinating.
For 100 days straight she randomly chose a paint chip. Inspired by the color’s name and the actual color she then proceeded to write something, anything, inspired by her chip. On Design Observer she recently shared her favorite forty. The recollections are just enough to peak interest, but too little to pull you totally in. Case in point: #84, Straw Hat.
“I think I lived in a room, or maybe a whole apartment, painted this color. Is this the color of Julie’s apartment? My sense of recognition is as strong as my sense of disorientation. I don’t like this color, but I know this color, have awakened to this color, watched the sun crawl over it, nailed a picture hanger into it.”
I am obsessed and eggstatic about Studio TooGood’s and Arabeschi di Latte’s new collaboration. The Hatch is a conceptual art space created for London Design Festival that scrambles together pop art and eggs. Yes, an art installation that serves egg dishes to designeratti? Brilliant.
Stereotypes be damned: I love me some sushi. Before you can even finish asking me what my favorite kind of cuisine is, I’m not only already answering “sushi,” but most likely on my way to the nearest sushi restaurant. I’m a fan of all things sushi and its accessories, which is why I really like these hybrid chopsticks designed by Aïssa Logerot.
“Pressed, Stained, Slashed, Folded” was the name of the MoMA exhibit this past March that focused on works made with paper as the main ingredient. As someone who loves not only works on paper, but works that showcase its abilities as a material, I was extremely disappointed. As the title indicates, it seems they could think of only four things to do with paper. Luckily, Gestalten has come to the rescue with Papercraft, a big, beautiful book showcasing not only cute, small things, like the little paper fruits and vegetables on the cover, but also great big complicated works of paper, even animation.
As a follow up, Gestalten is releasing a series paper model kits from London-based design studio, PostlerFerguson. The Uzi, MP5, M4A8 and hand grenade are due out soon.
Ars Electronica Futurelab created Rope in Space, an interactive installation which puts a neat modern digital twist on the traditional game of tug of war. It permits players in two entirely different locations to play against one another.
Rope in Space may be perceived by one as only a high tech super expensive version of a 3,000 years old game; and this judgment would be complete valid. Though when we think in very nature of it as a web based interface that allows physical interactions we can see the great value that the piece stands for; it makes us think in how poorly we explore the virtual connections, that the internet can be much more than an exchanging of visual data, and the hyper-world can have form, weight and be touched by our own hands.
Check out a demonstration in this video. I’m available for a challenge. Anytime. Anyplace. Bring. It. On.
