Winnipeg Beach, Manitoba
I’ve had the pleasure and privilege during the past year of collaborating on a variety of sculptural pieces (and in the process, re-discovering a long-lost sense of tactility) with the talented (and smart, and lovely :-) ceramist Evelin Richter. This is one of our latest completed co-productions, The Vamp. You can see more sculptural works at Ev’s website: www.whatclayart.com
The Vamp: Voluptuous coil-built stoneware sculpture, wood-fired to ∆ 12 (vitrified, unglazed—the coloration is natural ash and flashing), mounted on a cast iron pedestal base, with woodstove-tarnished nickel ball-chain skirt; 280mm x 280mm x 630mm high.
Winnipeg, Manitoba
I’m generally not nationalistic, nor am I a flag-waver by nature… but I have to admit I do feel moved and deeply appreciative on this particular day each year—Canada Day. It falls mid-week this time, so not the long weekend of most years…. Read what 11 Canadian ex-pats had to say today about missing home in ‘Our True North,’ an Op-Ed in The New York Times.
Celebrating industrial design creativity… (from a selection of images provided by Nils J. Tvengsberg, IDSA—designers unknown).
There’s a list here of industrial design-related events around the world today.
Image: poster for the new film by Gary Hustwit, Objectified—watch a film trailer here.
PostSecret is an ongoing (by now international) community art project where people mail in their secrets anonymously on one side of a postcard. I have posted about PostSecret before here and here… the clandestine collective catharsis continues with gusto.
Paquetville, NB / Timmins, ON
On 2 July 2009 the latest set of commemorative stamps we’ve designed at Circle for Canada Post will launch concurrently—in the small Acadian village of Paquetville, New Brunswick, where chanteuse Édith Butler was born and raised—and in Timmins, Ontario, where renowned folklorist Stompin’ Tom (Connors) was first granted a 14-month contract to play at the city’s Maple Leaf Hotel. The set of four stamps also includes international rock superstar Bryan Adams and Robert Charlebois, a pioneer of French-Canadian rock.
Building on the market success of the Canadian Recording Artists series we designed two years ago (featuring Gordon Lightfoot, Joni Mitchell, Anne Murray, and Paul Anka) this set of stamps adopts the round CD-shape precedent for booklets (each artist is featured on a separate booklet cover) and the gummed souvenir sheet (popular with collectors and philatelists)—the latter also appears with dual cancellations with date of issue on the Official First Day Cover (OFDC). Booklets of pressure-sensitive stamps include envelope seals and information about the individual artists.
We also designed a set of postcards—each of these includes an additional performance image of the featured artist. We initially decided to create monochrome portraits for the artists (using a vector-conversion process based on sourced photography of dramatically varying quality levels) and then brought them all into the same dynamic visual “performance space,” a spotlit simulation of how they might appear live and on stage. As we did in the 2007 series, we incorporated a distinctive MetalFX® process of under-printed metallic inks into backgrounds and selvedge areas, adding a lustrous sheen that helps convey the feeling of shiny vinyl and “gold album” prestige.
These limited edition stamps will be available through post offices across the country as of 2 July 2009, can be ordered online by following the links at Canada Post’s website www.canadapost.ca, or by calling toll-free: 1-800-565-4362 (Canada and the United States), or 902-863-6550 (from other countries). Read the feature article published in Canada’s Stamp Details (Vol. XVIII No. 3; July to September 2009) here.
Images: the round souvenir sheet; the four postcards, each featuring an enlarged stamp/portrait; the OFDC with dual cancellations.
Somewhere in the great beyond, presumably…
George Carlin, who could speak colourful truth to power with rhetorical mastery and hyperbolic mirth like few before him, passed on a year ago this week… thankfully we can still enjoy samplings of his caustic brilliance such as this and this and this (language warning throughout) online.
Here’s lookin’ at you (and your social justice legacy) Herb…
Above: a sampling of the remarkable editorial cartoons of Herbert Lawrence Block, commonly known as Herblock (October 13, 1909 – October 7, 2001).
Lots more good stuff left us by Herblock here.
Portage la Prairie, Manitoba
The Manitoba Agricultural Hall of Fame has officially announced its inductees for 2009—among the nine individuals “judged to have made a significant and lasting contribution to agriculture in Manitoba within their lifetimes” is my dad’s older brother, my ‘Uncle Pete,’ Peter Jacob Peters, now 95. He’ll be giving a 5-minute speech (though he insists he needs 20 :-) at 1:30pm on 16 July at a ceremony open to the public at the William Glesby Center (11-2nd St. NE) in Portage la Prairie, Manitoba.
Peter J. Peters immigrated to Canada from the Ukraine with his family at age eleven (when my father was six). He took his schooling at Gretna in Southern Manitoba, and later enrolled in teacher training. At the outbreak of World War II, Pete enlisted in the RCAF—upon his eventual return from overseas service he attained his BSc. in Agriculture. Following graduation, he worked with the Extension Service of Manitoba Agriculture as a potato specialist (where he became known as “Potato Pete” to those in the field)—among other significant achievements he is credited with paving the way for the commercial potato industry in Manitoba. He also applied himself to the Strawberry Experimental Demonstration program at Hadashville in Eastern Manitoba, and as a direct result of his efforts, the Strawberry Growers Association of Manitoba came into being. Pete served as Secretary-Treasurer of the Manitoba Horticultural Association, was President of the Western Canadian Society for Horticulture, revitalized the periodical The Prairie Gardener, and wrote and published A Century of Horticulture in Manitoba. Aside from his horticultural pursuits, Pete is also a prolific poet (with too many published books to list here) and was active throughout his adult life in church and community activities, renowned for his entertaining hundreds with his photography-poetry-musical presentations.
Photo: Peter J. Peters in 1945 (while requisitioned to serve as a tri-lingual interpreter at the Nuremberg Trials after the war [on account of his fluency in Russian, German, and English]—a time he prefers not to speak about to this day). Thanks to my brother Jim for the scan from an old photographic print.
Nunavut, Canada (1949)
An inspiring 60-year-old flashback for the ultimate lesson in (Northern) sustainable architecture… from Canada’s National Film Board. (Note that the term ‘Eskimo’ used by narrator Douglas Wilkinson is today considered pejorative and has been replaced by ‘Inuit,’ which is the indigenous plural term for ‘Inuk’ [‘man’ or ‘person’]).
Austin, Texas
Yesterday President Obama signed new legislation that will heavily restrict the nicotine content and marketing of cigarettes, including the requirement that colorful ads and displays be replaced with black-and-white-only text. For a piece in its Sunday Perspectives section, the St. Petersburg Times asked DJ Stout (of Pentagram’s Austin office) what cigarette manufacturers like Marlboro might do to follow the new marketing rules… Stout suggests that to comply with the crackdown, tobacco companies should embrace the restrictions and make cigarettes look truly dangerous. This, of course, will still appeal to a core group of smokers.
“Over the years there has been an onslaught of public awareness messaging about the evils of smoking,” says Stout. “Unless you’ve been living in a cave for the last 50 years you are very aware that smoking is not only bad for you, it could very likely kill you. All smokers know this for sure but it doesn’t deter them.”
“Our marketing advice to cigarette companies in the new heavily regulated era is to fully accept the new aggressive anti-smoking restrictions and wallow in the government’s apocalyptic health warnings. Don’t make excuses or dance around the stepped-up marketing regulations, just transform the whole cigarette pack into a three dimensional warning label.”
Images above: Some of DJ Stout’s cigarette packages for an exercise in the St. Petersburg Times. Read the full posting here.
(Thanks Adrian for the link).
New York, New York
An inspiring eco-portrait by Edina Tokodi (the piece is made entirely of living plants) is currently hanging on a rooftop wall of Green Spaces NY in Brooklyn… see the full details here (via Visual Culture).
Mill Valley, California
Craig Frazier has decided to “post a new drawing every week in desperate need of a caption.” He invites anyone so inclined to write the words you think belong to that drawing, and to submit a line of no more than 30 words in length by Friday at 5:00 pm. The week’s submissions are then judged by “an editorial review board of one” with the winner announced the following week… and then appearing forever in the Drawords book.
Here’s how @Issue (where I came across this project) describes the gig… “For illustrator Craig Frazier, Drawords started as a welcome “relief from a day job where I’m given copy and am supposed to draw to it. Every stroke has to communicate something.”
“This is the reverse,” he says. Instead, as a way to keep his head and his drawing skills sharp, Frazier gave himself the assignment of producing a whimsical sketch a week, which he decided to email to contacts with an invitation to give it their own captions. “It was a way to connect with clients and give them a peek at the way I work and the way I see,” he explains.
The drawings were outside of Frazier’s commercial illustrations, experimental and surreal. He says that he discovered if he put enough “silly elements” in, then people let their imaginations take over from there. “They have come back with things that I would never have seen in the drawing. There is a collaboration going on that is very innocent and satisfying.”
Visit Drawords here. Read the new online version of @Issue: Journal of Business & Design here (where they also post the weekly Drawords runner-ups).
Tehran, Iran
An exhibition of posters and other works by the talented Iranian graphic designer (and mother) Parisa Tashakori is currently on display at VitrinRooz, here. Keep up the good work…
Images: Untitled; Peace; Khoramshahr.
Winnipeg Beach, Manitoba
Best wishes to dear friends around the world on this momentous date—those of us in the Northern Hemisphere are celebrating the longest day of the year (as measured by how long the sun graces our position). Best wishes for Father’s Day as well—Dad, and all others in that paternal demographic…
Image source: here.
New York, New York
Some great photographs of legendary U.S. climbers in a flickr set here, shot by Jim Herrington. Shown above: Doug Robinson on a first ascent on Temple Crag in the Sierra Nevada, California; Glenn Exum strums in Colorado.
(Thanks to Winnipeg photographer friend Ian McCausland for the link).
Hartford, Connecticut
That’s a parental dictate that Kevin Van Aelst obviously never took to heart… see more of the man’s quirky (and often edible) oeuvre here. Shown above: Apple Globe (2007); Oreo Yin Yang (2005).
(Thanks for the link, Gerald).
Edmonton, Alberta
I’m delighted to share the news that good friend, award-winning* designer, and dedicated educator Sue Colberg has been honoured by the Society of Graphic Designers of Canada as a GDC Fellow—she’s the 13th Canadian woman and 63rd individual to be so bestowed. Fellowship is awarded by the National Society to a professional graphic designer who, by accomplishment or influence, has made a major contribution to graphic design in Canada—it is the highest honour that can be awarded by the Society.
Susan Colberg’s dedication to her students and her expertise in the field of graphic design has contributed to the influence and education of many generations of designers. An Associate Professor at the University of Alberta in the Art and Graphic Design Department, Susan teaches advanced typography, information design and the practice of graphic design. Her dedication to the GDC and its mission has been long and extensive. She has been involved since she was a design student and is a past president of the Alberta North Chapter. She also continues to serve on the board and is a Professional member in good standing. She is currently the National representative for GDC/ABN and has been the GDC’s Icograda Representative since 2003.
Read more about Sue and her GDC Fellowship here…
* News also arrived this week that Sue is once again a top winner in the 2008 Alcuin Book Design Awards.
Congratulations, Sue!
Portland, Oregon
I’ve seen a number of these memetic cartoon character depictions in the past and finally stumbled across the source—Michael Paulus. View the rest on his website here. Following is what Michael says about his “character study” of 22 present and past cartoon characters…
Animation was the format of choice for children’s television in the 1960s, a decade in which children’s programming became almost entirely animated. Growing up in that period, I tended to take for granted the distortions and strange bodies of these entities. These Icons are usually grotesquely distorted from the human form from which they derive.
I decided to take a select few of these popular characters and render their skeletal systems as I imagine they might resemble if one truly had eye sockets half the size of its head, or fingerless-hands, or feet comprising 60% of its body mass.
These characters have become conventions that are set, defined, and well-known personas in our culture. Being that they are so commonplace and accepted as existing I thought I would dissect them like science does to all living objects—trying to come to an understanding as to their origins and true physiological make up. Possibly to better understand them and see them in a new light for what they are in the most basic of terms.
New York, New York
A type specimen page (c. 1900) from the Schelter & Giesecke foundry of Leipzig, by way of the blog by the lads at H&FJ—where (if so inclined) one can revel in typographic nerdiness until the cows come home…
Vancouver, BC
You’ve been struggling with your marketing for years. Every time you take on a new initiative you hope for it to make a difference, but somehow you’re left back at square one. Although you have a new website or piece of collateral it hardly ever seems to make a difference. Where’s the disconnect? I suspect it’s in your story and the value you put on it.
“Young, progressive, out of the box”
A few weeks ago we met with a company that was having exactly this problem. They’re a respectable law firm whose website just didn’t seem to be doing what it needed to. They particularly liked a website that we had crafted for another firm, and decided that they should get in touch with us.
The meeting went swimmingly. They were all pleasant and had a lovely office space. They explained to us that they were quite different from other law firms, and that while others were rather boring and stodgy, they are in fact much younger, more progressive, and “out of the box” thinkers*. They didn’t think this came across in their current materials, and were highly dissatisfied with their existing website. They felt that if we built a site for them like the one we built for their competitor, it would remedy this problem…
[Read the rest of Eric Karjaluoto’s well written piece on ideasonideas here].
Madrid, Spain
Touted in the media as “Madrid’s Banksy,” the artist SpY’s work primarily consists of “the playful re-appropriation of urban elements that he replicates or transforms” as street art installations. His underlying attempt is to “break the automaton-like inertia of the urban dweller” by means of surprise, irony, and humour. Lots more here…
Images, from top: Cow; Lazyman’s Rubic Cube (available in six colours); Street Wars; Gardening.
(Thanks to Raquel Rivera [who I recently met at OFFF 2009 Oieras] for the introduction to SpY).
Winnipeg Beach, Manitoba
The last few days have been a blur of activity, helping Ev prepare for the 8th WAVE Artists Studio Tour. More than 130 visitors dropped by for a studio visit, and it was good to receive feedback on the figurative sculptures and other works Ev and I have collaborated on since last summer. Read more information about the event at What? Clay Art & Curios—there’s another chance to take in the self-guided WAVE tour on the September long weekend (5 & 6 September 2009)…
Images above: a tired Ev poses with Wallflower after the tour ended last night; the outdoor display of Uncultured Enigmas proved to be popular with visitors once again; the wall-mounted sculpture Darwin’s Creation (Enigmas offer clues to missing links, in honour of Charles Darwin’s 200th birthday this year); and Peer Pressure, Ev’s social commentary re: failing corporatism and the workaholics who drive themselves down along with sinking enterprise.
Wherever…
A nice collection of quirky signs from around the globe here, submitted by readers of the UK’s Telegraph… a sampling above from Paris, the UK, India, USA, and South Africa.
(thanks to Gerald Brandt for the link)
Taipei, Taiwan
My good friend Prof. Apex Lin (distinguished designer and educator) is currently publishing a book entitled “設計論語” about “designers’ definitions of design.”
Shown above are a few of the pages I’m submitting—my views on the role design can play re: a better future; a proposal for how a simple, proactive reshuffling of the norm can “raise the bar” as regards ascendant creativity; and a depiction of visualization in relation to the role individual Weltanschauung plays in the conveyance of visual communication (the latter is a re-work of an invitational poster I first created for the GDC@50 celebrations with the statement: Design is the application of intent. Graphic design targets the eye, and ultimately the mind’s eye, of both the individual beholder and the broader audience. Strategy, concept, message, and visual vocabulary connect sender and receiver by means of graphic acuity and attraction… you see?”).
(all discovered via today and tomorrow; here, here, and here)
Winnipeg Beach, Manitoba
It’s been a busy art weekend, helping Ev prepare for the upcoming 8th WAVE Artists Studio Tour this next weekend (13/14 June and then again on 5/6 September)—essentially a self-guided tour of artists’ studios and galleries along the western shores of Lake Winnipeg. We were able to put the finishing touches on several sculptural pieces, including Many more of us live next door… (shown above), our first truly collaborative sculptural work, which went to the Fishfly Gallery yesterday. Ev is hoping this piece might also be cathartic—she’s had the Beatles’ Yellow Submarine song stuck in her head since she first heard it as a young teen some 40 years ago (this ‘song in the head’ is the conceptual premise for this particular sculpture).
“Having a wonderful time—wish you were her…”
Going nowhere fast…
It’s time to get Bettie licensed and back on the road again.
Falcon Lake, Manitoba
Word just in from “my muddy little half-brother” John Paul, who it seems is getting faster with age… he just finished in 2nd place(!) in the latest Manitoba Cup race at Falcon Ridge Ski Resort—the only one to beat him in the ‘Expert Men’ category was Paul Benson, who races at the Elite/Nationals level. Congratulations!
When he’s not on his mountain bike or chasing after his hyperactive kids, JP can be found at the controls of Private Ear, a new recording studio in Winnipeg where he is an audio engineer and partner (producing albums for the likes of The Waking Eyes).
(that’s my wee bro with the determined look on his face, number 303…)
Shiraz, Iran (Circa 1370)
I’m certainly no expert in the field—but for the past few years I have quite enjoyed Persian poetry, particularly the works ascribed to Khwāja Šamsu d-Dīn Muḥammad Hāfez-e Šīrāzī (Persian: خواجه شمسالدین محمد حافظ شیرازی), typically known by his pen name Hāfez, born in 1315 in Shiraz and passed on in the same locale 75 years later. Hāfez (often also spelled Hafiz) became the most celebrated Persian lyric poet and is often described as “the poet’s poet.” Here’s a sampling of why I really like this particular righteous old bard…
+ + +
The small man
builds cages for everyone
he
knows.
While the sage,
who has to duck his head
when the moon is low,
keeps dropping keys all night long
for the
beautiful
rowdy
prisoners.
(Dropping Keys)
+ + +
Even after all these years,
the Sun never says
to the Earth
“You owe Me.”
Look what happens—
with a Love
like that,
It lights
the whole
sky.
(The Sun Never Says)
+ + +
God
and I have become
like two giant
fat people
living in a
tiny boat.
We keep
bumping into
each other and
l
a
u
g
h
i
n
g.
(Two Giant Fat People)
Hong Kong
Excellent graphic depictions of various global statistics by recent
Central St. Martins graduate Toby Ng. See more here.
Tiananmen Square, Beijing, 20 years ago today… (photo by Jeff Widener)
