Penpont, Scotland

Andy Goldsworthy is a talented British artist who “collaborates with nature” to make transient, ephemeral creations—which he then photographs for posterity (and the inspiration of others). Goldsworthy’s goal is to better understand nature by means of intimate interaction and participation. He generally works with whatever comes to hand: twigs, leaves, stones, snow and ice, reeds, thorns, feathers….

“I enjoy the freedom of just using my hands and ‘found’ tools—a sharp stone, the quill of a feather, thorns. I take the opportunities each day offers: if it is snowing, I work with snow, at leaf-fall it will be with leaves; a blown-over tree becomes a source of twigs and branches. I stop at a place or pick up a material because I feel that there is something to be discovered. Here is where I can learn. ”

“Looking, touching, material, place and form are all inseparable from the resulting work. It is difficult to say where one stops and another begins. The energy and space around a material are as important as the energy and space within. The weather—rain, sun, snow, hail, mist, calm—is that external space made visible. When I touch a rock, I am touching and working the space around it. It is not independent of its surroundings, and the way it sits tells how it came to be there.”

“I want to get under the surface. When I work with a leaf, rock, stick, it is not just that material in itself, it is an opening into the processes of life within and around it. When I leave it, these processes continue.”

“Movement, change, light, growth and decay are the lifeblood of nature, the energies that I try to tap through my work. I need the shock of touch, the resistance of place, materials and weather, the earth as my source. Nature is in a state of change and that change is the key to understanding. I want my art to be sensitive and alert to changes in material, season and weather. Each work grows, stays, decays. Process and decay are implicit. Transience in my work reflects what I find in nature.”

“The underlying tension of a lot of my art is to try and look through the surface appearance of things. Inevitably, one way of getting beneath the surface is to introduce a hole, a window into what lies below.”

Austin, Texas

DJ Stout and his team at Pentagram Austin recently threw a fundraising party to help the homeless and to celebrate the release of Pentagram Papers 39: Signs. Designed by Stout, Signs is a collaboration with legendary Texas musician Joe Ely and renowned photographers Michael O’Brien and Randal Ford that focuses on the issue of homelessness. Donations received during the event went to the benefit of Mobile Loaves & Fishes, a 501(c)(3) social outreach ministry for the homeless and indigent working poor. Read the full story here… (the event poster is shown above)—a good idea and nicely executed.

(thanks, Banksy)

A great little video clip here (2:19 on YouTube) regarding the “vendor/client relationship” that comes frighteningly close to the service/value conversation that we designers often find ourselves in… well worth watching.

(thanks to Cameron Cavers for the link)

A premonition I had in my twenties that I wouldn’t
live beyond forty obviously didn’t pan out…
(message to self—don’t bank on your intuition, OK?)

Thanks Adrian for the ASCII portrait (and cheesy
Fraktur greeting :-) and to the many friends from
far and near who have sent their regards…

New York, USA

A clever wrap-around poster for the Global Coalition for Peace bearing a profound message; found here via visual culture. Big Ant International started out in 2006 as a small design studio being run by five students from the School of Visual Arts in New York City…

And, a timeless (also ironic) quotation by the USA’s 34th president (NATO’s first supreme commander) expressed exactly 50 years before the ill-informed and wrong-headed 2003 invasion of Iraq:

Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies, in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed. This world in arms is not spending money alone, it is spending the sweat of its laborers, the genius of its scientists, the hopes of its children… under the cloud of threatening war, it is humanity hanging from a cross of iron.

Dwight D. Eisenhower, 16 April 1953

Vancouver, Canada

Eric Karjaluoto is a design-focused thinker and a very good writer—he’s also a talented and award-winning designer, ‘serial entrepreneur’, and a founding partner at smashLAB, a strategic interactive agency. Many in our field know him for the Design Can Change initiative he spearheaded in 2007 in an effort to unite designers to address climate change. A piece posted by Eric yesterday on his popular blog ideasonideas is well worth the read, here…

“The invasion of design has begun, fueled by an army of talented newcomers and low-cost offshore services. This new breed trades methodology for mimicry and by doing so radically undercuts pricing, sometimes even working for free. Like it or not, supply and demand in the design industry is undergoing upheaval. Worse yet, for design buyers it’s getting harder to differentiate between good and bad design.” (full article here)

Thanks for sharing your intelligent views, and keep up the good work Eric!

Amsterdam | Milano

Good 50×70 was created in 2007 as an independent, non-profit initiative with the the aims of promoting the value of social communication in the creative community, providing charities with a (free) database of communication tools, and inspiring the public via graphic design. 2009 represents the third year of this annual design contest involving posters that address (or confront) seven of the critical issues affecting today’s world. Read more here; view a gallery of the 210 short-listed finalists (selected by jury) here.

Some of my favorites this year: The Scream by Malgorzata Bedowsda, Poland; Guantánamo by Jose Rubio Malagón, Spain; Darkness (child labour) by Guowei Wu Wu, China; Extinction by Marco Valentini, Italy; HIV Positive by Giovanni Mastroeni, Italy. 

Steinbach, Manitoba

My uncle Jacob Jacob Peters (shown above with his bride Margaret Klassen in August 1949) was born 100 years ago today in Russia, at the height of the Bolshevik revolution. ‘Uncle Jake’ passed on September 18th, 1979… time sure does fly.

(Thanks to cousin Herbert J. Peters [Uncle Jake’s oldest son], a lawyer at Aikins, MacAulay & Thorvaldson LLP, for the heads-up and some old photos; thanks to my brother Jim for the scanned wedding photo).

Montreal, Québec

Netdiver has always made a special effort to recognize the work of female creators. “There are so many talented women blazing trails in design, sometimes it’s easy to forget that women are still severely underrepresented in many areas of the industry,” writes Liz Wolfe in a new online piece, describing Netdiver’s Powagirrrls gallery which “helps target this inequity through its focus on ‘women who rock the design scene…with more than pink design!’” See the the article by Liz here and more of Netdiver’s favorite female creators here. (At the  OFFF 2009 conference I attended in Portugal last week I was actually surprised to observe an almost equal split between male and female participants).

Images above: work by 25-year-old French illustrator/designer Mijn Schatje who “takes the conventions of wide-eyed doll art and elevates this genre to a whole new level of sophistication.”

Paris, France

Today marks the 120th anniversary of the inauguration of the Eiffel Tower, a global icon of France and one of the most recognizable structures in the world. Named after its designer, engineer Gustave Eiffel, the Eiffel Tower is still the tallest building in Paris, and has been visited by more than 200 million people since its construction (making it the most visited paid monument in the world). The metal structure of the Eiffel Tower weighs 7,300 tonnes while the entire structure including non-metal components is approximately 10,000 tonnes.

Maintenance of the tower includes applying 50 to 60 tonnes of paint every seven years to protect it from rust. In order to maintain a uniform appearance to an observer on the ground, three separate colors of paint are used on the tower, with the darkest on the bottom and the lightest at the top. On occasion the colour of the paint is changed; the tower is currently painted a shade of brownish-grey.

Lots more information and tower trivia here…

What it is depends largely on the value one imbues it with (think memetics), often comes down to where you find it (context counts a lot), and how you choose to define its transitory relevance…

ephemera
1398, originally a medical term, from M.L. ephemera (febris) “(fever) lasting a day,” from fem. of ephemerus, from Gk. ephemeros “lasting only one day,” from epi “on” + hemerai, dat. of hemera “day…” Sense extended to short-lived insects and flowers; general sense of “transitory” is first attested c.1639. Ephemeral is from 1576. Ephemeris “table of astronomical calculations” is from 1551. (from Online Etymology Dictionary)

Images: a few bits of ephemera from a nice Flickr collection here. 

Los Angeles, California

Matthew Butterick is a civil litigation attorney in Los Angeles. He runs a law office there, Butterick Law Corporation, where he does civil litigation and also advises artists, designers and musicians. Before becoming an attorney, Matthew got a degree in art from Harvard University, focusing on graphic design and typography. After college, he worked as a digital typeface designer. Then he started and ran a website development studio. Recently, Matthew created a remarkably informative online resource—Typography for Lawyers.

He explains, “Even though the legal profession depends heavily on writing, legal typography is often poor. Some blame lies with the strict typographic constraints that control certain legal documents (e.g. court rules regarding the format of pleadings). But the rest of the blame lies with lawyers. To be fair, I assume this is for lack of information, not lack of will. This website tries to fill that void. There are numerous guides on typography for generalists available but none specifically aimed at lawyers. So as one of the few typographers-turned-attorneys in America (yes, there are others) I figure that if I don’t do it, nobody will.”

Let’s face it—a plethora of publishing tools (ergo, much of the typographic control in contemporary documents and communications) are now in the hands of the laity (designers’ clients, much as this may grate on some in our profession). Typography for Lawyers goes a long way in offering solid advice to anyone not formally trained in graphic design or versed in the finer points of typographic communication. Congratulations, Matthew!

(thanks to Oliver Oike for the link)

A cautionary message for the United States…

I know this is going to come across as preachy* and I apologize in advance. I’ve been saddened over the past two days at various news reports from our American neighbours, and I just can’t help but respond (rant warning)… It’s incomprehensible to me how such an allegedly “developed” nation as the U.S. can be so blind to basic rules of nature and the truisms of history—state it in whatever terms you like, but “you end up sleeping in the bed you make.” Three troubling traits, to wit…

1) Greed
The U.S. (Wall Street et al at the helm) has recently precipitated a global financial melt-down—we’re told that nearly half of the world’s wealth has disappeared within the past 18 months—affecting both its own hapless citizens as well as the rest of the globalized world. I’ve posted on greed before, so no need to blather on here… though my heart goes out to the auto workers being laid off in droves, to the tens of thousands who have been forced out of homes they can no longer afford, and to the would-be retirees who have lost their life savings and dreams for relaxation in their pensioned September years.

2). Violence
News out this week that Obama will be doubling the number of U.S. troops waging war in Afghanistan (big disappointment there, but I guess I was being naive in thinking that Bush’s departure would bring about a change in Washington’s long-standing, hegemonic approach to war-faring), and that he will be “fighting to prevent the release of photographs documenting abuse of prisoners in Iraq and Afghanistan by United States military personnel, thereby reversing his earlier position on the issue” after commanders warned that the images “could set off a deadly backlash against American troops.” Duh! The Russians have a great saying that applies here methinks: “Lies have short legs.”—I’d suggest that the only way for the U.S. to purge itself of the scourge and hatred it has brought upon itself through the practice of illegal torture and degradation of its opponents is to finally come clean, rather than to continue with a policy of obfuscation and cover-up at the expense of transparency and accountability. (Just imagine the redemptive and conflict-healing effect that a contrite apology and change of ways from Washington could have on potential young jihadists).

Particularly troubling was the story I chanced across yesterday (here) regarding the Explorers program, a coeducational affiliate of the Boy Scouts of America that began 60 years ago, now training thousands of young people “in skills used to confront terrorism, illegal immigration and escalating border violence,” with a focus on weapon use—essentially educating impressionable teenagers to be armed vigilantes. Is this not akin to training child soldiers? Are there not more positive alternatives than teaching militarism? Perhaps learning about organic gardening, for example, or conflict resolution, or bicycle repair, or learning another language, or acquiring sustainable living skills?

3). Injustice
Another big disappointment today was hearing that the promised shut-down of Guantanamo Bay and the end of the military commission system (tribunals) that the Bush administration created to try “suspected terrorists” is also being forestalled by Obama. But perhaps this also shouldn’t come as a surprise—the U.S. imprisons more of its citizens by far than any other nation on earth (with only 5% of the world’s population, the U.S. boasts 25% of the world’s incarcerated population—very profibable business for the likes of Halliburton, mind you, see comments re: “Greed” above). A look at the U.N.’s statistics on national incarceration rates is telling—the U.S. locks up nearly 7 times as many folks per capita as Canada does, more than 10 times as many as Denmark, and over 20 times as many as India. Home of the brave, land of the free?

*My father was a pacifist pulpiter, so I come by this naturally—is that a valid excuse? He taught me things like “if you live by the sword, expect to die by the sword,” and “you can tell a tree by its fruit…”

Above images: U.S. Explorers (a Boy Scouts of America affiliate) being trained in militarism; see more here.

New York City

Today is the opening reception and portfolio signing of friend Luba Lukova’s exhibition Umbrellas, Social Justice & More at La MaMa La Galleria. The exhibition presents a wide range of work including an installation with Luba’s critically acclaimed Social Justice poster portfolio. The Health Coverage poster, which is a part of the collection, was recently in a prestigious exhibit during the Inauguration of President Obama in Washington, DC. The La MaMa show will also feature Lukova’s prints, original drawings and 3-d objects.

“Internationally recognized, New York based Luba Lukova is regarded as one of the most distinctive image-makers working today. Whether by using an economy of line, color, and text to pinpoint essential themes of the human condition or to succinctly illustrate social commentary, her work is undeniably powerful and thought provoking. A recent review in The Boston Globe observes: “Luba Lukova’s posters and illustrations have punch, and they are laced with such feeling that they often merit a second look. Her work doesn’t wrestle with the classic riddles of high art. It is, as graphic art should be, strong and pithy but its messages are not always simple.” (Cate McQuaid, When graphic art becomes high art)

Lukova has won many awards including Grand Prix Savignac at the International Poster Salon, Paris, France; the Golden Pencil Award at the One Club, New York; and Honor Laureate at the International Poster Exhibition in Fort Collins, CO. Solo exhibitions of her work have been held at UNESCO, Paris; DDD Gallery, Osaka, Japan; and The Art Institute of Boston. She has received commissions for her work from the The New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Time, Adobe Systems, Sony Music, and Harvard University. Her evocative theatre posters have graced numerous stage productions in the US and Europe. Lukova’s work is included in the permanent collections of the Museum of Modern Art, New York; The Library of Congress, Washington, DC; and Bibliotheque Nationale de France. In 2009 publisher Clay & Gold will release Speaking with Images, a new book about her art. Later this month she will also receive the honorary degree of Doctor of Fine Arts from Lesley University.

Congratulations, Luba!

Images: six of the 12 posters from the Social Justice portfolio.

Buenos Aires, Argentina

If you’re into information design or environmental graphic design (and can understand Spanish), this is the book for you—an autobiographical record of “a life in design” by Ronald Shakespear—who categorizes himself as one of the “sirvientes de la gente” (people’s servants), obsessed with legibility, clarity, and the elegant utility of eficacious messaging in the urban landscape. Visit www.shakespearweb.com to see the work of Ronald and sons Lorenzo and Juan… congratulations, Gentlemen!

Cupertino, California

Artist Dylan Roscover has done a great job of recreating a famous Steve Jobs picture using a selection of Apple’s classic typefaces (used since its beginning in the 70s). The message contained in the portrait:

Here’s to the crazy ones. The misfits. The rebels. The troublemakers. The round pegs in the square holes. The ones who see things differently.

They’re not fond of rules. And they have no respect for the status quo.

You can quote them, disagree with them, glorify or vilify them. But the only thing you can’t do is ignore them. Because they change things. They push the human race forward.

And while some see them as the crazy ones, we see genius.

Because the people who are crazy enough to think they can change the world, are the ones who do.

(found here)

Porto, Portugal

Ev and I decided to make a one-day jaunt up to the coastal wine-making city of Porto yesterday (hence Port wine), three hours by train north of Lisbon. Although the forecast was for cloudy weather with showers, the rain (mostly) held off and we were treated to beautiful shafts of sunlight illuminating this remarkably textured old city. We certainly got our exercise in the 9 hours or so we spent walking up and down the hilly cobble-stoned streets, including an airy crossing of the Douro River to visit the venerable Ramos Pintos house of port. Following the obligatory tastings Ev decided she had a hankering for the fruitier white port—a bottle of which then accompanied our picnic dinner of fresh breads, local cheese, fruit, and pastries—a meal fit for a prince, though at a pauper’s price.

Images, from top: vernacular signage; a lovely old motorbike; ubiquitous illustrated Portuguese tiles; bridge over the river Douro; view across the river from in front of the port houses; period posters for the Ramos Pintos port brand; Ev in front of the Majestic Cafe and in the fresh market.

Freiburg, Germany

From my friend Silvie (who knows more about Tamiflu than you want to know), an apt allegory regarding the mainstream media’s hype du jour…

+  +  +  +  +

Drei Tiere treffen sich….
Sagt der Bär: Wenn ich brülle, zittert der ganze Wald.
Der Löwe: Wenn ich brülle, zittert die ganze Wüste.
Und das Schwein: Wenn ich nur huste, zittert die ganze Welt…

+  +  +  +  +

Three animals meet…
The bear says: When I roar, the whole forest shivers.
The lion quips: When I roar, the plains tremble.
And the pig retorts: All I have to do is sneeze, and the whole world quakes with fear.

(Image of unknown source, received from brother Phil.)

Lisbon, Portugal

It’s been 14 years since I was last here (for the 1995 Icograda Congress) and the city has changed a lot, though mostly in a good way I would say (thanks largely to Portugal’s integration with the EU, it seems). Façades are brighter and there also seems to be more optimism in people’s faces (in spite of the global economic crisis). While we have attended most of the OFFF conference, Ev and I have snuck away for some delightful (low cost) touristic actvities. After a death-defying taxi ride with a drunk and angry Russian cab driver (local cabbies would not help him with directions) on Friday night, we’ve concluded that Lisbon’s efficient Metro is the saner and more efficient way to get about…

Images, from top: Ev on a midnight stroll, framed by the Arco da Rua Augusta; “Free Hugs” in a plaza the day we arrived; a sign that caught our eye; mothers and children (worth defending, one assumes) as ornament above the gates to the Military Museum; a Smart alternative to SUVs; Ev taking in the permanent collection at the very fine Museu Calouste Gulbenkian; a portrait by Victor Brauner, Avant-garde Romanian painter, from the current exhibition at the Museu do Chiado/Museu Nacional de Arte Contemporânea.

Lisbon, Portugal

I gave my talk today to a jam-packed and very generous, appreciative crowd… though very gratifying, I’d have to say the level of enthusiastic feedback was almost embarrassing (organizer Hector Ayuso Ross informed me that mine had been the first ever OFFF presentation to elicit a standing ovation). It’s a relief to have my talk behind me… (these things can be intense—especially with an audience of thousands).

Numerous OFFF participants asked me later if I could provide them with a copy of my talk. I am planning to create a screen-resolution PDF version (within the next week) which includes all the quotations and much of the imagery used—if you attended the OFFF event in Oeiras and would like a copy of my presentation, please contact me by e-mail here and I will send you a link to where you can download the presentation.

Images: one of my title slides; Andre, a young Portuguese participant from 400km north of Lisbon shared this sketch he did of me in his Moleskine during my talk—thanks, dude!

Lisbon, Portugal

offf is off to a fine start… an impressive stage setup, thousands of excited attendees in queues… and an inspiring opening keynote by Neville Brody. Sweltering heat inside the massive hall (appropriate perhaps, as the venue was formerly a foundry)—though a sunny and pleasant 25 degrees outside, with Ev spending part of the day catching up on sleep on the beach in Oeiras. Should be a fun few days… a new offf blog here will likely feed updates. Neville’s closing thought (which is bound to set the tone for this event):

“For the first time in history we live in a place where the future looks worse than the past…,” ergo his admonition for designers to “move to an empowered place beyond both fear and hope.”

Images: the massive Hanger K which holds 4000; the hyper-energetic OFFF crew celebrating completion of the setup; queues on opening day; the convenient re-charge station; the inimitable Brody (photo found online).

San Francisco, California

“This is a relentless age we’re living in, a time when innovative solutions—or any solutions, for that matter—to our seemingly infinite problems seem in short supply… so how do we come up with new ideas? How do we learn to think outside of normal parameters? Are the processes in place for doing so flawed? Do we rely too much on computer models? On consultants? On big-idea gurus lauding the merits of tribes and crowds or of starfish and spiders? On Twitter?”

In today’s New York Times, Allison Arief suggests that “…we’re all so mired in it that we’ve forgotten how to get out of it—how to daydream, invent, engage with the absurd;” this is why she is so enamored with the work of inventor, author, cartoonist, and former urban planner Steven M. Johnson, “a sort of R. Crumb meets R. Buckminster Fuller. Johnson is a former urban planner, and his work tends toward the nodes where social issues intersect with design and urban planning issues.”

Worth a read, here.

Melbourne, Australia

Rhett Dashwood has spent his spare time over several months searching Google Maps and discovering land formations or buildings resembling letter forms. These are the results of his findings limited to the state of Victoria, Australia.

Winnipeg, Canada

Best wishes to colleagues and comrades near and far on this, International Workers’ Day…

Image: Russian girl waves hat while watching May Day parade, Moscow (detail of 1958 photo by Howard Sochurek for Life).