April 2009
41 posts
Moving is hard...
Sorry about the lack of posts. I am just trying to organize my room before I can organize my life. Here is Amnesty International’s new add. Do with it what you will. Via Gawker
-a
March 2009
46 posts
Things to hold laptops in.
So everyone has a laptop these days because it is just so damn portable. Problem is, when you do want to move it, you probably need some bumper pads and a handle. So here are some carrying and protecting devices I like or have. From zero dollars to alot.
Make one!
I made this for my friends birthday last year. It was really easy. No sew and can be made to fit any size. I used grey and...
Spike Jonz + Arcade Fire + Nostalgia + Magic...
“Spike Jonze + Arcade Fire + Nostalgia + Magic + Monsters + Snowballs + Scribble Font + Shouting Off A Cliff = this thing looks scientifically designed to fuck up hipsters’ shit.”
Via videogum
-a
Fill in the _________
One of a’s posts got me thinking about manifestos and my constant desire to write one. I did write one with K a year ago but put the thing aside when we started to sober up and never picked it up again. So for ease and convenience there is The Manifesto.
-J
Baltimore Infill
The Baltimore Office of Promotion & The Arts and the Baltimore Design Conversation have created a flickr project called Baltimore Infill. Artists and designers are encouraged to download a picture of a typical Baltimore block with vacants and empty lots, re-imagine how to use the space, and upload their image to Flickr.
-a
Repair!
I love a good manifesto. Platform 21’s Repair Manifesto.
-a
Logos in the Key of Helvetica
Webdesigner Depot recently compiled several company logos featuring Helvetica. The real question is, how many of these companies will still be around come next year?
ps- we listen to a lot of S.Wonder in this household.
-J
Flowing Data
Flowing data is a website solely devoted to finding good examples of infographics. Today’s is rather incredible, Little Red Riding Hood in animated infographics.
Slagsmålsklubben - Sponsored by destiny from Tomas Nilsson on Vimeo.
Original Post.
-a
Fwis
I’m pretty into this company right now. And while a lot of design companies have unnavigatable Flash messes for sites (Voodoodog I am looking at you), theirs is actually quite cool.
-J
Design Sponge
I am a rather big fan of crafternooning and online there is no shortage of blogs that feature projects that range from twee to tricky. One of my favorites is DesignSponge which features Before/Afters, city guides, and a fanstaic DIY section. Below are a series of the best (in my opinion) projects featured on DSdiy.
What to do with:
Time at Ikea (side table)
Contact Paper (windows)
Ceiling...
Faces of Fashion
New York magazine has a slideshow called Paris Runways Showed Beauty You Can Actually Emulate featuring hair and makeup from the Parisian Fa’09 shows.
Galliano (top) and Galliano for Dior (bottom) are simply stunning
Matte Pink lips @ Antonio Berardi
Green eyeliner @ Louis Vuitton
Giambattista Vali featured an ombre eye that went from brown to white.
A popular television...
Holy Trinity
Not that there aren’t other amazing title design companies out in LA/the rest of the world, but as of right now these are my three favourite.
Prologue
video
Shine
video
Imaginary Forces
video
screencaps/videos from Art of the Title
-J
Favorite Person
I am terribly sorry to completely repost something from somewhere else, that is also old, but new to me, but this is just too much.
Via Boring Old Raphael who sweetly and poignantly writes, “This is a tender short film by Miranda July and Miguel Arteta. I think the thing I like most about it is the (relatively) thoughtful and introspective conversations the video provokes. Pages and...
Periodic Table
Thanks to David for this. And still no on the tattoo. At this point I am just thinking too much about it. Maybe a font one?
-a
One Trillion Dollars
As a visual learner, I have a really hard time with things like math becuase I cannot visualize certain concepts and have an especially hard time visualizing large numbers. This really helps. Alot.
-a
Wait, What about Haussman?
Architects have revealed their plans to redesign Paris to create Les Grand Paris, integrating the disparate suburbs into the design. Seems noble enough, but this critic likens it to Daniel Burnham’s plan for Chicago… which was modeled largely after Barron Haussman’s plan for Paris. There must be a better analogy somewhere.
-a
Cover Club
When it comes to sites that feature book covers it probably doesn’t get much better thatn the Book Cover Archive.
-J
Heads will roll!
Cathy Horyn in Paris
Listen to Cathy Horyn talk about Paris Fashion week. She is so good.
-a
picture love...
Garance Dore and Scott Schuman and dating. There is not much that could make me happier.
Scott’s photo of Garance
-a
Linkages
I’ve been feeling a bit crappy today (got the shakes and dizzies while editing a film) so I’ve spent most of the afternoon eating cheese and browsing the internet.
What I Found
Square America | there is an archive/blog online as well and several interesting chapters, but I find the first page to be the most interesting. I hate going to flea markets and having to hand over...
Mapping Mistakes
I screw up GIS and mapping on a daily basis. One wrong coordinate or column definition and my maps look like bad pixel art. Apparently it happens to the best.
Matthew Bloch is the graphics editor for the New York Times. He is one of the guys repsonsible for all the amazing maps and graphics they have. His website has a section called Accidental Maps which is kind of like when you see an...
T of Chairs
The T for the cover of yesterday’s T Men’s Fashion Magazine (totally viewable online!), was by the artist Marc André Robinson. I really have an affinity for chairs, especially old castoff chairs, so have been a fan of his work for a while. He had a piece in the Unmonumental show at the New Museum a while back.
The New York Times T website has a an article about the artists...
Wedding Dress
Some of my friends have EXTREMELY inflated opinions of my skills and talents. For example, one friend, whom I love dearly, has asked me to make her wedding dress. My dressmaking skills basically consist of sacks with pleats for shape, but I think I have an idea courtesy of Lanvin Fa’09. She is amazingly tall and thin, so I am thinking this silk tulle top on a dutchesse satin calf-length...
Economy Size
The Economist tends to have some pretty good cover images. In the wake of news that cartels seem to get their way this week is no exception.
-J
I want to go to there...
Merci 111, boulevard Beaumarchais 75003 Paris Tél. : + 33 (0)1 42 77 01 90
Merci, combines together contemporary design with second-hand items, fashion brand and vintage, hardware section with beautiful of everyday objects and also a florist, a Used Book Café with new and second-hand books and a “Cantina” without forget, the haberdasher’s and perfumeur’s corner.
It is...
Paired Houses in Camden
Camilio Jose Verga photographs what he calls, paired houses in Camden; two joined houses, one abandoned, one occupied. This happens quite a bit in Baltimore as well, although usually in B’more the it is simply a block of row homes, where one or two will be occupied and rest abandoned. The City of Baltimore owns over 10,000 vacants. Verga tries to speak with the occupant of the occupied...
Read and Think
The Crisis and the Consolidation of Class PowerDavid HarveyMarch 6, 2009
How the Crash Will Reshape [Urban]America
A/W '09
This is a recap of Fa ‘09 fashion. Balmain. Thats all you need to know. For a lot of years you just basically had to know what Marc Jacobs was doing and you were set. Its now Balmain. They call it Balmainia. I HATE colloquialisms like that. Call it what you will. Links and pictures. I have a headache.
Garance says, “I saw all the girls pass by in their skinnies, and in...
Sol Sender
Video interview with the designer of the Obama logo who has now joined VSA Partners.
Long ago NYtimes had a Q&A with Sender. It apparently took less than two weeks to come up with the design that branded a presidential campaign
-J
New New Deal
This is a total repost of Gawker, but it works here. Old versus new. A little less fascist, aye?
-a
ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ
A graphic designer letter artist and his 4 year old nephew have fun with letters. http://www.letman.com/
-a
A SHORT INTRODUCTION TO THE WORKS OF LETMAN
He is cuckoo about letters, he loves them, so far is certain. He is also one of those fellows who can read a chunky novel in a couple of hours, but that’s a different story. His designs are transparent,...
How did I miss this? Illustrating the Financial...
GOOD Magazine asked its readers to submit global financial infographics. Some examples below, click to enlarge. They are updating with highlights, so keep checking back.
Also see Death and Taxes which visualizes your federal tax dollars. I bought one for my boss. It is hanging above his desk and literally everyone who comes into out office stares at it for at least 30 minutes. It is...
Iron
Outside my work there is a ten (?) foot tall sculpture of an iron (as in, an ironing iron). Over the weekend a hard ice and snowstorm broke it lose from the base and the iron shifted several feet over to the left. The iron looks like it is trying to make a break for it. A very slow run for freedom after years of being the background in too many tourists’ photos.
-J
Beck. Harry Beck.
Considered one of the greatest in design and simplicity the London Tube Map was brought into the modern age by Harry Beck, a draftsman who broke with geographical representation of the underground to create a map that, through color and a strict limitation to horizontal, vertical and 45 degree angles, brought order and clarity to the urban environment. Though the map has been tweaked over the...
It's not just whom you sleep with, but also whom...
Billionaire investor Warren Buffett warned in his annual letter to shareholders over the weekend that complex financial products — like the ones AIG was selling — are a time bomb precisely because of this web of mutual dependence.
With typical frankness, Buffett wrote, “Participants seeking to dodge troubles face the same problem as someone seeking to avoid venereal disease: It’s not...
Why I want to be a transportation planner...
America’s worst intersections, with exits off of, on to, or too close to count from the Cross Bronx Expressway, highlighted for you.
For the record, the Cross Bronx is 8 miles long. It also get number 30. (Click through to see the whole list) Exit number 1 is the worst exit in the history of the world. You (and alot of other people) get off, go up a super steep hill, stop at a stop...
Katz for J. Crew
Anyone get the new J. Crew catalogue yet?
yes, Alex Katz has joined Lauren Hutton and this hot hot man as models. Hurrah.
Seriously, this woman was born 66 years ago.
And yes, I really like J. Crew and its a snow day, so more pictures. And I kind of dig the layout of these anyway.
I would get married if she would be my flower girl.
I will wear this dress
very Mad...
Postal Puzzles
An artist plopped 130 letters with coded addresses into the mail. Only 10 didn’t make it to their intended destination.
One was delivered and bore the message “Solved by the Glasgow Mail Centre.”
via The Independent with a wonderful slideshow
-a
Night in the Museum
Behind the scenes at the scenes in the American Museum of Natural History from Seed Magazine.
via For Me, For You
-a
Maple and Home
I went home for the weekend and finally had some winterness. My father, brother, and I went up to the state park behind our house and did some nordic skiing. It was about 50 degrees, but the snow was still fine in most spots.
There are 5 lakes along the ridge in the back of my house. This is my brother overlooking Lake Minewaska.
50 Degrees meant Brooks Brothers blues out on the line.
...
