Melbourne, Australia

Spark was recently commissioned by Australia Post to develop a series of stamps utilizing landmark modernist architecture. Their successful design depicts the buildings in their purist form, expressing each as a sculptural piece and focusing on the play of light, shade, and form. Read more about the stamps here (from Icograda’s Galeria). Access a PDF of the feature article “Design down under…” that I wrote for Communication Arts magazine last year here.

A clever response to the seemingly ever-more-ubiquitous surveillance camera… source unknown.

London, U.K.

Furniture designer William Warren has come up with a practical set of solid plywood shelves that… when your time arrives, can be taken apart and reassembled as a coffin. As Warren explains: “We’re all going to die and we will need a coffin in the future, so why not make your coffin from something you’ve owned and loved for years and save your bereaved family having to choose one (and pay for one) at an already difficult time?” Why not indeed.

The Shelves for Life retail for £350. (seen in a back-issue of Wallpaper)

It’s Pi (Approximation) Day today ( 22/7 ) first celebrated 20 years ago by Larry Shaw at the San Francisco Exploratorium. Pi or π is the mathematical constant which represents the ratio of any circle’s circumference to its diameter in Euclidean geometry—it’s also an irrational number (it cannot truly be expressed as a fraction, and its decimal representation never ends or repeats), as well as a transcendental number (no finite sequence of algebraic operations on integers [powers, roots, sums, etc.] can ever produce it). More on Pi here or here.

Happy Pi Day :-)

(no comment necessary…)

From GOOD magazine…

A short history of black gold, from the ancient Persian army’s flaming oil-dipped arrows to today’s piercing pain at the pump… at a glance, here. (Thanks to Adrian Shum, a colleague at Circle, who has been a fan of GOOD for a while now…).

Winnipeg Beach, Manitoba

We’ve spent an interesting day of serendipitous garage-sailing along the lake… lots of stimulating objects (old tools, whatchamaycallits, etc.) that will find themselves repurposed and/or fashioned into art objects.

Stimulating images of reuse near and far… sources unknown.

The Modulor, by Le Corbusier…

Winnipeg, Canada

So… I’ve been thinking a lot about “bias” of late (“a tendency or preference towards a particular perspective, ideology or result”) and the not-so-nuanced role that it plays re: objectivity in this communication age… especially cognitive bias, for which Wikipedia offers an excellent resource list here.

Thanks Chris Lee (an intern at Circle last year) for the brain-image; thanks Marie-Aline Oliver (in Ottawa) for pointing me to the bias list.

Winnipeg Beach, Manitoba

Well, we finally launched my old canoe this past weekend… Ev’s been living on the shores of Lake Winnipeg for five years now (it’s the largest of Manitoba’s 100,000 lakes, the 11th-largest freshwater lake in the world, and at 23,553 km² [9,094 sq. miles] it’s larger than both Israel and Slovenia) and we’ve only been out on the open water a few times. Thanks to a special arrangement with Boundary Creek Marina, the old red Obukwin now has it’s own exclusive mooring on the island in the middle of the harbor, allowing effortless access. (For any friends in the area—if you care to use the canoe, just drop by Ev’s first for the padlock key and paddles—access to the island is across the dock-bridge you can see in the photo above).

Amazing as it may sound, our canoe seems to be the only human-powered vessel in the harbor… among the hundreds of yachts, cabin cruisers, sea-doos, and commercial fishing boats. As we sipped a cool beverage on the yacht-club deck on Sunday, I’ll admit we felt a little smug—we couldn’t help but overhear the party beside us discussing the cost of the 600 liters of fuel they had just pumped into their own cabin cruiser.

“Everyone must believe in something. I believe I’ll go canoeing.”
—Henry David Thoreau

Buenos Aires, Argentina

The Society for Environmental Graphic Design (SEGD) has honoured Ronald Shakespear, founder and principal of Diseño Shakespear Design Consultants in Argentina, with the 2008 SEGD Fellow Award. Ronald is an internationally acclaimed designer and the “father of environmental graphic design in Argentina.” Diseño Shakespear is an award-winning design firm specialising is the planning and design of signage, wayfinding, and identity programs for a wide variety of facility types, including the Buenos Aires Underground (Subte), Municipal Hospitals, Buenos Aires Signage System, Temaiken Zoo and many more.

SEGD Fellows are selected for promoting the highest values in environmental graphic design, and significantly contributing to the direction and growth of the field. Past SEGD Fellows include Garry Emery, Robert Venturi and Denise Scott Brown, Lance Wyman, Ivan Chermayeff and Tom Geismar, Deborah Sussman and Massimo Vignelli.

Congratulations, my friend!

London, U.K.

Banksy, the mysterious guerrilla artist famed for his lightning graffiti art attacks, is a 34-year-old former public schoolboy called Robin Gunningham, the British newspaper Mail on Sunday claims… read the full story here. To be determined: how this may affect the man’s remarkable work. I’ve long admired his satirical take on politics, culture, and contemporary ethics… and I’ve posted re: Banksy before, here and here.

Re-mixed works by Micah Wright…

Adrspach, Czech Republic (from the New York Times)

“While it may seem suicidal, leaping across a gaping crevasse is actually an extreme sport that is gaining in popularity. Called rock jumping, or simply ‘jumping’ by the locals, this adrenaline-charged activity is taking place in the Adrspach-Teplice Rocks, a remote nature preserve in the northeast part of the Czech Republic.”

Known for its roughly 11 square miles of phallic sandstone formations, the region has been a breeding ground for lifelong rock climbers, including Jaroslav Houser, 63, the purported conqueror of more than 1,000 sandstone spires. In their frenzy to subdue as many unclimbed tower tops as possible, seasoned climbers like Houser unwittingly gave rise to rock jumping in the Adrspach. “The objective is to get to the top of as many towers as you can,” said Vladimir Prochazka, known as June Bug, a 59-year-old climber and a collector of Czech rock climbing histories. “You try to reach the hardest summit, sometimes by jumping.”

Read the full story in today’s New York Times here and watch an action-video here. Reminds me of doing the heart-in-throat Jump Traverse above 600 feet of air on Durance, Devil’s Tower, Wyoming….

Milano, Italy

The aim of Good 50×70 is to use designers’ skills to raise awareness amongst the creative community of the power we have to be a force for good (posters can have a positive impact on thousands of lives). There are 7 briefs from 7 charities on 7 issues that affect thousands of people around the world—participants pick a topic that inspires them and submit a poster on that theme. 210 posters (30 from each brief) are selected by a jury of leading designers, are then exhibited around the world, and are published in a catalogue—more importantly they are presented to the 7 charities for their use in potential campaigns.

Larger down-loadable versions of the posters are available at the Good 50×70 site. View this year’s winning entries here, and the 2007 winning entries here. (Thanks Adrian and Mark Simpson).

Manitoba, Canada

Well, another day of tornado touch-downs in our northern province… the weather patterns have clearly changed here over the past few years, and it now feels more and more like Kansas (look out Dorothy). Local weather over the past six weeks has been rife with tornado-watch advisories (e.g. as I write this), warnings, and documented incidents… catch a drive-by video of last year’s F5 tornado at Elie, Manitoba here or here (the latter shot by Hutterites from a nearby colony).

(from www.silhouettemasterpiecetheatre.com…)

From a remarkable French website featuring thousands of antique postcards (of every genre)… century-old photographs (from around the world), poignant illustrations (like the Raphaël Kirchner above), and delightful ephemera. View the online collection at www.cartepostale-ancienne.fr

…from Frank Chimero’s Inspirational Design Posters.

…by Michael Kenna. Photography as poetic quietude…

…from a beautiful Flickr collection of vintage ephemera, here.

…from The Ampersand blog (& many more there as well).

…with colorflip (beautiful in its high-chroma simplicity).

Washington, D.C.

From the “did you know” and “almost beyond belief” departments… according to the CIA’s “World Factbook,” the United States spent some $623 billion last year on its military (that’s $1.7 billion per day!) which dwarfs the military spending of all other nations combined. Yet this “leading superpower” gun-loving nation of 304 million people is already nearly $10 trillion in debt (view a debt clock here), the average U.S. citizen’s share of this debt is over $31,000 and the U.S. national debt continues to increase an average of $1.6 billion per day! Hmmm…

Image: a page from the May/June #77 issue of Adbusters

Shepard Fairey’s apt expression of the same dilemma… (read a great interview with Shepard on Fecal Face; see an archive of Shepard’s posters here).

Fiat currency as illustrated by Brian Romero.

from www.samwreimer.com… (launched to promote bard and book)

Well, here it is at long last “warts and all”— Sam W. Reimer’s Gray Matter Graffitti: remnants of collections lost… an early gallery from some alleyways & other by-ways. This initial collection of some 200 original written works (of which only a handful have previously seen the light of day) draws from a prodigious assemblage penned during four decades of expressive poetic ideation—as the book title suggests, these poems have percolated in the bard’s brain long enough—they’re good and ripe by now and ready to be read by all.

Sam’s poems provide a plaintive voice for our tempestuous times—his unique commentaries on life and love (and love-lost ennui) are at once poignant, unapologetically direct, and (often) edged with the tragic—his ponderings range from the profane to the sacred, drill deep, and dare to pose unanswerable questions. Unheralded, unsung, and little published though Sam’s inspired ruminations have been in the past, they’re finally compiled, printed, bound, and available for a broader readership.

It’s our hope that as you dip in and out of this book, you do so with an open mind (which, like a parachute, works much better than when closed)… and as you read, let Sam’s pen sketch stories, pictures, contemplations on blank pages of your own imagination. The works offered are Sam’s invitation to laugh, to cry, to curse, and to reflect—on opportunities long gone and outcomes yet to come. Enjoy…

(from the Introduction, by Robert L. Peters, Editor)

Images: the book’s cover; illustrated chapter titles (poems in the 214-page book appear in eight thematic chapters).

Visit the new www.samwreimer.com website here.

Berlin, Germany

100 years ago today, “SOS” became effective as the worldwide standard for the International Morse code distress signal (· · · — — — · · ·) when it was included in the second International Radiotelegraphic Convention (which was signed on November 3, 1906, and took effect on July 1, 1908). This distress signal was first adopted by the German government in radio regulations effective April 1, 1905, and SOS remained the maritime distress signal until 1999, when it was replaced by the Global Maritime Distress and Safety System.

From the beginning, the SOS distress signal has actually consisted of a continuous sequence of three-dits/three-dahs/three-dits, all run together without letter spacing. In International Morse Code, three dits form the letter S, and three dahs make the letter O, so “SOS” became an easy way to remember the correct order of the dits and dashes. In popular usage, SOS became associated with phrases such as “Save Our Ship” or “Save Our Souls,” though by some accounts, “these phrases were a later development, most likely used to help remember the correct letters (something known as a backronym).”

Hmmm… backronym. I think I like it, like it, yes I do!

Winnipeg, Canada

Wow… what a weekend! Rock-climbing with good friends at Gooseneck in NW Ontario (an ACC Club Climb and wilderness camping with Bettie), refreshing swims in the pristine lakes of the Canadian Shield, gardening in Manitoba’s Interlake with Ev (first delicious home-grown salads of the season!), a scorching sunny afternoon on the strands of Winnipeg Beach (interrupted by a deliciously cool thundershower, replete with hail), community fireworks … I feel truly privileged to be a Canadian!

When I arrived in this great country 35 years ago (with nothing but the jean-jacket on my back) I had no idea what a wonderful life lay in store. I continue to be in awe of this country, and of the remarkable opportunities it offers… thank you, Canada!

Happy Canada Day to all…

Holzen-Kandern, Germany

I received some family pics from my kid-brother Phil today (with wife Tammy, niece Amanda, nephews Michael and Alexander)… they’re just back from a summer holiday in Corsica. Since February, Phil and family have been living in Holzen, a quaint medieval-era Black Forest village known for its proliferation of storks and the (equally) fertile surrounding vineyards.

Harare, Zimbabwe

“In an an attempt to cow and intimidate people into voting, Zimbabwe’s state security agents have launched “Operation Red Finger” to identify if people have voted by checking if they had indelible ink-stains on their finger. Those who have not voted could be beaten and forced to do so…” (from colleague Chaz Maviyane-Davies—keep the faith, friend, truth always prevails).

Los Angeles, California

“Speed, style and grace—these epitomize the Golden Age of travel in its simplest form. The 1920’s and 1930’s ushered in an unprecedented era of travel to exotic and romantic destinations. And nowhere was this more clearly expressed than in the travel posters of that time. The Los Angeles Public Library’s collection of travel posters perfectly captures this era, and with this exhibition, the Library shares its bounty with the public for the first time.”

“Among the highlights are two posters issued for the 1936 Munich Olympics; steamship posters for the NYK Lines, the Orient Lines, and the Grace Lines; and outstanding airline posters for Air France and Pan American. Most of the posters share an Art Deco sensibility; however, there are two wonderful examples of Futurist design. All the posters capture the essence of this era in a way that no other medium can…”

View the collection of travel posters here. Along the same vein, check out my earlier post re: Luggage Labels here.

A great online gallery of Esquire magazine covers dating back to 1933… here.

From Doodleblog.co.uk…

“You are never more than two metres from a doodle.™ Proliferating in phone pads, cutting into meeting agendas, nosing from the dreadful nests in the last pages of a school exercise book… this site is a continuous celebration, analysis and personal contribution to the plague.” Lots of doodles here including some great quotations.

Source unknown… a clever urban reminder that whatever we let down the drain here will likely resurface in a river, lake, or ocean… somewhere else.

And two somewhat more overt covers, from Denver and Minneapolis…

From the Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago: Jana Sterbak’s Sisyphus Sport, 1997, Leather straps on granite (backpack), 132 lbs. (60 kg).

Decoding Design:
Understanding and Using Symbols in Visual Communication

“Our culture has lost touch with the archetypal principles that underlie simple numbers and shapes,” writes author Maggie Macnab “…principles that lie deep within the unconscious and have a psychological and spiritual impact on us.” A longtime designer and teacher immersed in symbolism and visual literacy, she delivers the leitmotif with fervent zeal: “As designers, it is our responsibility to create conscious and lucid communications. We can’t afford to contribute to information junk….”

This engaging design theory book fulfills its stated purpose, to: “connect us back into the language of nature, to revive our understanding of source, and to create communications that flow unobstructed by an intelligence that has lost its way in the world.” A quote attributed to Galileo Galilei sums the author’s intentions in “demystifying and decoding” visual language—“You cannot understand the universe without learning first to understand the language in which it is written…” without which “we wander in a dark labyrinth.”

Having made the case for more cogent design at the outset, the book delves deep into symbolism, pattern awareness, and “the recursive nature of nature.” (I love that line). Ten subsequent chapters (each introduced with a compelling illustrated plate by Joel Nakamura) illuminate the subject by “bringing shape to meaning,” and vice versa by means of case studies, “deconstructions” of well-known logos, and depictions galore—all-the-while demonstrating how visual communication can “tap into the dynamic energy of the collective psyche.”

The sources Maggie cites are wide and varied (Jungian psychology, Aztec shamans, Unitarian Universalism, Sufi Enneagrams, sacred sexuality…) and visuals draw from a vast treasure house of the familiar as well as the unexpected, arcane, and esoteric (DNA helices, Buddhist mudras, Arachnid webs…). Through it all, she weaves together a persuasive narrative to support her rubric that what sets humans apart from other mammals is our ability “to understand how basic patterns connect, allowing us to alter our experience…” and thereby to symbolize.

Decoding Design will appeal to anyone interested in the “why” behind effective graphic design and communicative form-giving. Well researched, well designed, well referenced, and with hundreds of visual entry-points for the reader, it successfully achieves its claim—a must-buy for design students and visual communication practitioners—even the best-read in our field are sure to learn and benefit from it.

—Robert L. Peters, FGDC

224 pages, softcover, $35
Author: Maggie Macnab
Published by HOW Books
www.decodingdesign.com

+ + + + +

The book review I wrote appears in the July 2008 ‘Illustration Annual’ issue of Communication Arts (#361). Decoding Design’s innovative cover lets you “dial in” a selection to “reveal the relationship between numbers, concepts, & symbols.” Learn more about “design with the power of natural law” (and watch a Youtube feature) here.

Chicago, Illinois

Following my FITC talk today various people asked if they could receive a transcript (e.g. of the numerous quotations in the presentation). If you’d like me to e-mail you a PDF file, please let me know via the ‘contact’ form here.

Cheers…

Chicago, Illinois

Another great day walking around in the windy city… the architecture is remarkable, and we took in the fantastic Jeff Koons exhibit at the Museum of Contemporary Art.

Chicago, Illinois

Ev and I are spending the weekend in Chicago, in advance of my speaking at FITC’s Design & Technology Event here. Today’s highlights: a lengthy visit to the Art Institute (even though much of the main gallery is under construction, and a sizable portion of the permanent collection is on tour); an incredible solstice evening at Olive Park beach on Lakeshore Drive (Lake Michigan).

Art: Anish Kapoor’s Cloud Gate (110 tons of polished stainless steel); Jaume Plensa’s Crown Fountain; Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte by Georges-Pierre Seurat; Nighthawks by Edward Hopper; where did Van Gogh go?