Toronto, Canada

In the category of ‘strange but true,’ my old school chum Gary Ludwig (now Creative Director at Interbrand in Toronto), has “officially retired his beard… after 33 years of faithful service” and offered a ‘before & after’ shot to “help identify him, should you run into him without warning.” If you do, let me know…

Super-saturated yellow means “big independent film.”

Back to back: tough-love relationship ahead.

The only dress colour for romantic comedies? Red.

Running down a blue street? Thriller.

An enormous, looming eye can only mean horror.

View between the legs? Likely includes sex scenes and/or a hot female actress.

Hollywood, California

Christophe Courtois has compiled quite a collection of movie posters and put them together according to genre—here you can see what he tried to show at-a-glance. His point is that Hollywood movie posters have basically fallen into a number of design clichés of late, a change from the originality that posters exhibited, say, 50 years back. You can see more of his comparisons here.

Thanks to colleague Gary Ludwig for the link.

Winnipeg, Canada

I had a pleasant outdoor lunch at the Forks with old friend Gary Ludwig yesterday (Creative Director at Interbrand in Toronto, back in the ‘Peg for the weekend bar mitzvah of a friend’s son) and the inimitable(?) Dieter Rams came up in conversation. A discussion ensued regarding the intrinsic qualites imbued in Rams’ remarkable products designed for Braun in the 1960s and ’70s (I still use my ergonomically-perfect 30+ year-old Braun ET66 calculator daily—not even a change of batteries in three decades!), and Gary mentioned an article he had seen on Gizmodo recently that reveals the uncanny design similarity between Apple’s products today and Braun products from when we were kids.

When Gary returned to Toronto last night he sent me the link—here are Dieter Rams’ ‘10 principles for good design’ as often cited by Jonathan Ive (the “genius” designer behind Apple’s successful products):

• Good design is innovative.

• Good design makes a product useful.

• Good design is aesthetic.

• Good design helps us to understand a product.

• Good design is unobtrusive.

• Good design is honest.

• Good design is durable.

• Good design is consequent to the last detail.

• Good design is concerned with the environment.

• Good design is as little design as possible.

(Thanks, Gary).

Images: Some direct design comparisons between the Braun products by Rams and the Apple products by Ives. The interface of the new iPhone looks remarkably like my old Braun calculator (which I wouldn’t part with even if you offered me an iPhone in exchange). “Homage? Evolution? Rip-off? Decide for yourself…”