Berlin, Germany

An impressive joint venture of the Buchstabenmuseum (Museum of Letters) and a dozen dedicated students from the University of Applied Sciences in Coburg has transformed a former beauty salon into an impressive museum experience in the heart of Berlin. An elevated walkway in the museum serves as a central element and leads the visitors throughout the exhibition spaces where “the letterforms are featured as heroes.”

What began as a school assignment developed into a thesis exhibition and leaves a lasting legacy for the benefit of anyone interested in typography and signage. Beyond ideation and design, students also gained valuable hands-on experience by spending a week at the Lichtenfels Innovationszentrum (a makerspace) building and assembling fittings and display components.

Read a full account of this great student-led project here.

The Buchstabenmuseum was founded as a nonprofit organization in 2005. Its founding was inspired by an enthusiasm for typography and a passion for preserving typographical signs and characters. The museum aims to collect, restore and exhibit letters and characters from Berlin and around the world. Hundreds of letters have been saved from neglect or destruction and placed on display in the museum. Through the systematic preservation and documentation of these historical objects, the Buchstabenmuseum has become both a reminder of past eras and a laboratory for ongoing discussions. It is currently the only museum that focuses exclusively on individual letters as symbols.

Buchstabenmuseum — Karl-Liebknecht-Str. 13, 10178 Berlin-Mitte

—Steven Wright

(from unconsumption)

—Nelson Mandela

(from today’s San Francisco Chronicle)

Yesterday, an Ecuadorian appellate court upheld a historic $18 billion award against Chevron for the company’s deliberate contamination of the Ecuadorian Amazon. The decision is the largest environmental award ever handed down and the result of an 18-year legal battle brought by some 30,000 indigenous peoples and farmers seeking a clean up of contaminated sites, clean drinking water, and health care.

Amazon Watch and Rainforest Action Network, which have spent years fighting on the side of the Ecuadorians in their effort to hold Chevron accountable for these egregious environmental crimes and human rights abuses, released the following statement in response to the verdict:

“For a second time, in a jurisdiction of its own choosing, Chevron was found guilty of widespread oil contamination in Ecuador’s Amazon. It is a historic triumph for the thousands of victims who have suffered for over four decades from Chevron’s drill-and-dump practices.

“Yesterday’s ruling, based in large part on Chevron’s own evidence, once again proves that the company is responsible for deliberately dumping billions of gallons of toxic waste sludge into local streams and rivers, which thousands depend on for drinking, bathing, and fishing, and created a public health crisis in the rainforest region.

“Chevron has spent more than a decade and hundreds of millions of dollars in a vain attempt to evade accountability and in doing so exacerbating the suffering of thousands of rainforest residents. The company says it will continue deploying its armies of lawyers with yet more legal stonewalling tactics, still hoping that its unlimited resources can outspend and outlast the course of justice. But the guilty verdict sends a loud and clear message: It is time for Chevron to clean up the Ecuadorian Amazon.”

The Ecuador decision comes at a time when Chevron also faces criminal charges and fines up to U.S. $11 billion in Brazil for its negligence in its operations. If convicted, the company will be permanently banned from doing business in the South American country.

See images here from a recent trip into the Amazon rainforest near Lago Agrio, Ecuador looking for crude contamination and open toxic waste pools abandoned by Texaco (now Chevron) after three decades of oil drilling operations. Open unremediated pits of crude oil and toxic waste water are easy to find scattered throughout the jungle even today.

.

—Rumi

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.

Ventura County, California

“If life imitated art, it would be a simple matter to follow the dotted line and snip a 200-foot dam near Ojai off the face of the earth. For years, an alliance of environmentalists, fishermen, surfers and officials from every level of government has called for demolishing the obsolete structure.”

“Matilija Dam was built in 1947 for flood control and water storage. But officials say it was flawed from the outset. For decades, it’s been holding back silt as much as water, depriving beaches 17 miles downstream of the sand they need to replenish themselves. It’s also been deemed a huge obstacle for steelhead trout, an endangered species that was once a trophy fish luring anglers from across the country.”

“Now, an anonymous band of artists has weighed in, apparently rappelling down the dam’s face to paint a huge pair of scissors and a long dotted line. The carefully planned work… is, no doubt, Ventura County’s most environmentally correct graffiti by a dam site.”

Read the full story from the Los Angeles Times here. More about Mantilija Creek and the dam here.