There‘s a truism, a maxim, and at least a couple of proverbs in there…

(belated thanks to Pieter Bruegel the Elder for the illustration)

Berlin, Germany

Sigrid Albert, MGDC, is a Canadian designer colleague who is spending 3 months in Berlin. She does beautiful “urban sketches” and has set up an interesting blog to share her experiences, impressions, and visual expressions with her family and friends…

“I was born and grew up in Germany as a child and teenager, so obviously I speak the language, which helps. I have rented a bachelor apartment in a rapidly gentrifying former East Berlin neighbourhood and brought my laptop and client work along so I can afford this… I am mainly interested in the art and culture here, plus I will be pursuing my new passion of “urban sketching” from here as much as possible… Berlin is an amazing city and very inspiring for creatives.”

View Sigrid’s blog here (to view larger images than shown above as well as to read about them) and see an online gallery of her “urban sketches” here.

Barbara Kruger‘s Op-Art piece in today’s New York Times is very apropos.

Beijing, China

In mid-October, the Academy of Arts & Design, Tsinghua University hosted a 50-year retrospective exhibition featuring the work and distinguished career of my good friend (and former Icograda board colleague) Professor Yu Bingan. Widely known as “the godfather of Chinese type” and “a pioneer of visual communication design in China,” Bingnan has had an interesting and prolific career as both a designer and a design educator.

Originally from Shanghai, Bingnan moved to Wuxi at a young age to escape political turbulence. After initially attending Lu Xun Art Academy in Yan’an, he moved to Europe for six years and continued his studies at the Leipzig College of Graphic Design and Book Art, in what was then East Germany (it’s by dent of this that Bingnan and I can communicate in German, as I am practically illiterate in Mandarin).

Since 1962 he has been a lecturer at the Academy of Arts & Design, Tsinghua University (the former Central Academy of Arts & Design) and from 1985 to 1990 he served director of the Book Art Department. Bingnan has served for decades as an international design juror for arts & design competitions, his works have won distinctive international and national prizes, and he has published numerous articles and books on design theory. Bingnan became the first Chinese member of the Alliance Graphique Internationale (AGI), he served as a vice president of Icograda (2001-2003), and he continues to represent Icograda in China as a special liaison and through active promotion of Chinese graphic design associations.

Read an interview with Professor Yu Bingnan here; view more images from the retrospective exhibition here.

Among the artifacts on display at the retrospective was this newspaper article from 2009, when the Icograda World Design Congress was held in Beijing.

(Thanks to Sophia Shih for sending me the images for this post).

Seattle, Washington

Modern Dog is a design firm in Seattle that was founded in 1987 by friends of mine, Robynne Raye and Michael Strassburger. In 2008, they published a very cool book entitled Modern Dog: 20 Years of Poster Art. For the end-papers of that book, they illustrated a bunch of “dogs we know” and another bunch of “dogs we don’t know” (clever, right?). The book was a relative success… then fast forward to 2011, when they heard from someone that had seen a Disney™-branded T-shirt for sale at a Target™ store that appeared to feature “their dogs!” Here’s a little video that explains what happened next (watch video).

So, Modern Dog did what you would expect proud and proper dog-owner-artists to do… they complained that their work (and the likenesses of their own dear pooches) had been stolen, and then filed a lawsuit “against the Target Corporation, The Walt Disney Company and a few of their subsidiaries who sold the T-shirts” as is explained in this Huffington Post article (read the article).

Thing is, it’s “allegedly” quite well known that Disney et al “allegedly” employ a very large number of lawyers to dissuade little folks like Modern Dog whose work has “allegedly” been ripped off from successfully suing the large corporations for exploitative profits and resulting damages — because hey, that could set a disturbing precedent of “creators” like Modern Dog actually being able to protect their very own creations(!).

In June of this year, Modern Dog felt they had no choice but to sell their dear Greenwood studio home (the most valuable thing they owned) to relieve some of the growing financial burden of the stretched-out legal proceedings. That’s a damn gutsy thing to do, to protect the rights of “the little guy.” But that wasn’t enough (law suits in the USA are damn expensive), so Modern Dog has also launched a crowd-funding effort (visit it here). As Christopher Simmons puts it succinctly in a piece he wrote, “If they win, we all win. Modern Dog’s stand against copyright infringement benefits all designers and anyone who makes a living by creating.”

So, now there’s just over two weeks left until the Friends of Modern Dog online fundraiser wraps up, and they’re still in need of $15,000. That’s where you and I come in. Please consider making a donation (even $5 helps, and it sends a very clear signal to Disney, Target, et al…). Please also share this story of these brave “little dogs”  and their loving caregivers who won’t back down from doing the right thing—even in the face of teeth-baring hegemonic corporate behemoths.

Thanks in advance!

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Above, you see the end-papers of the book with the original doggie illustrations. Below, you can see the dogs that appear on the T-shirt… need more proof? Take a look at this comparative video.

Buenos Aires, Argentina

This week, a lovely little cloth-bound book of photographs arrived at my studio, Revisiting the Sixties by my long-time friend Ronald Shakespear. You can see more of his eclectic collection of images in an exhibit (PDF) here, or flip through the book online (via issuu) here.

«One day in 1964, I took a plane to Spain to go see Orson Welles, who lived near Juan Perón in Puerta de Hierro. I knocked on his door, without an appointment, and was surprised that he opened the door to me — it did not matter that I had arrived “just like that.” There he was, the great Orson, washing down an old Buick (which never actually ran). The fact that I had no appointment mattered not at all: “Never ask permission,” he said, “Never.”

That cemented my admiration for him. He invited me to the Plaza de Toros in Madrid, I spent a lovely afternoon and took some pictures that I still love. We spent an unforgettable afternoon watching the master bullfighter Curro Giron… then we went to the Plaza Butchery (to buy meat) and Giron gave the bull’s ears to Orson.»

Ronald Shakespear has accomplished what only a few chosen ones do: a total work of art, his own life. As he would say, let us draw a compassionate veil on the long years of our friendship… and throughout those long years, I do not remember him ever stopping to rest, ever taking a break from his multi-faceted creative endeavors that have brought beauty to all things around us, by adding colour to the existing grey. And that includes his photographic work, one of his many talents, where black and white give his touching images the importance of being a precious document of his world and ours.
—Edouard Golbin, Photographer (Paris)

Ronald’s photographs are, first and foremost, photographs. They are pictures of light falling unto things and somehow discovering (and covering) them: direct, strong, bold, more shadow than light. The subjects come later… They are all a self-portrait, a portrait of intensity as a photographic theme. Once again, it’s all Ronald: that is how he talks. That is his language. Those are his signs. Frontal, straightforward, no beating about the bush. Why should his photographs be any different?
—Jorge Frascara, Icograda Past President (Padova, Italy)

Narrative talent is a constant in the work of Ronald Shakespear… “Revisiting the Sixties” is flooded with a poetic yet earthly presence that can be seen in every single portrait. Ronald’s eye is a lens that encompasses all the senses and enables us to share into that intimate, personal world, not only through our eyes, but also through that which is beyond our eyes.
—Marcelo Ghio, Dean, Isil University (Lima, Perú)

Today, we know Ronald Shakespear as a designer with a wide portfolio of celebrated identity and environmental graphics projects. But in the 1960s, one of his primary modes of visual expression was portraiture, harnessing black and white photography to capture friends and celebrities in intimate moments. In his book “Revisiting the Sixties” he shares these photographs again — and today, with the benefit of time and the breadth of his design career, we can appreciate the threads that tie these photos to the rest of Shakespear’s body of work. Like his most successful logos, these portraits are simple gestures and yet they are iconic in their ability to communicate a great deal within a modest format.
—Leslie Wolke, Writer (Austin, Texas)

Some examples from a century ago, in England…

(source)

Madrid, Spain

I really like the way illustrator Fernando Vincente uses maps in his work… inspiring.

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David is back in Italy… after a two-year trip to the United States—corporate sponsors are acknowledged. For comparison, see a photo of David taken just over two years ago, here.

(This was sent to me individually by several friends in Europe, so I know it really must be true :-) Le David de Michelangelo est de retour en Italie après 2 années passées aux USA—merci aux sponsors…

(somewhere on the south coast, UK)

For the last ten years, every Friday, My Dog Sighs has created art on found materials and left them on the street for unsuspecting passers by to pick up, take home, and love. The project, called FreeArtFriday, has blossomed into an international movement with thousands of active members leaving a little bit of their heart and soul out on the street for somebody to find.

Each can has its own history, its own story to tell, feeding families before being rescued from the recycle bin and given a new lease on life as one of the growing family of Canman.

Find out more here. Watch a great little video here.