Taipei, Taiwan

I’ve just accepted an invitation to make a presentation as a Salon speaker and participate in a panel discussion (in the Economic Development stream) at the 2011 IDA Congress Taipei this coming October. My talk will follow the Keynote by Esko Aho, Executive Vice President, Corporate Relations and Responsibility, Nokia Corporation (who also happens to be the former Prime Minister of Finland). I guess I should start to think about my lecture topic…

The International Design Alliance (IDA) is a strategic venture between the international organisations representing industrial design, communication design, and interior architecture/design; the International Council of Societies of Industrial Design (Icsid), the International Council of Graphic Design Associations (Icograda), and the Federation of Interior Architects/Designers (IFI). IDA’s mission is “to bring the benefits of design to world bodies, governments, business, and society;” it’s vision is “of a design community working together for a world that is balanced, inclusive, and sustainable.”

Themed ‘Design at the Edges,’ the Congress will emphasis the borders between the design industry and stakeholders of design from other sectors. The programme “highlights cutting edge design paradigms whilst addressing the importance of dialogue and collaboration.”

Anywhere you go…

Like most designers I know, I am always taking pictures of signs. Though well-intentioned, the goal of clear, unambiguous communication (such as advisories, warnings, way-finding aids, notice of restricted activities, etc.) is frequently misconstrued and misinterpreted—and often with humorous results. I’ve finally started to compile a collection of some of my sign pics from around the world in a Facebook album, here.

Above: warning of a steep path in a crocodile sanctuary, South Africa (thanks to colleague Guy Schockaert for this pic from a game farm we visited together a decade ago); a particularly confusing railway crossing/right-of-way sign in Wanganui, New Zealand; “no motorcycles or riderless bikes” in Havana, Cuba; “touch electric crotch at your own risk” on a Caribbean cruise ship.

(I also welcome sign-pic submissions from others: rob[a]robertlpeters.com).

(found at @issue | written by Delphine Hirasuna)

The Leo Burnett India ad agency commemorated the 141st anniversary of Mahatma Gandhi’s birth (on 2 October 2010) by creating an alphabetical font in the Devanagari script in the style of Gandhi’s trademark wireframe eyeglasses. The special typeface was the brainchild of Burnett’s national creative director KV “Pops” Sridhar, who wanted to inspire younger generations with the teachings of Gandhi. The glasses symbolize Gandhi’s vision and his visionary thoughts on truth and nonviolence.

Sridhar explains, “The way he saw the world is completely different than the way we do—and hence the glasses, to subtly nudge people into thinking like him again.” Gandhi had originally given the glasses in the 1930s to an Indian army colonel who had asked the great leader for inspiration. Gandhi reportedly gave him his glasses and said, “These gave me the vision to free India.”

Burnett staff designers and typographers spent several weeks working on the digital eyeglass font. Visitors to their site can download six posters, each featuring one saying of Gandhi, as well as the font as wallpaper or a screensaver. (Originally only in Devanagari, the font is now also available in English). The educational website also made Gandhi’s eyeglasses interactive. By clicking on the glasses, different parts fly off to become part of the font, forming a mantra or a letter of the alphabet. The site also contains a message board so people can specify which Gandhi saying they want on their poster, or make their own Gandhi sayings and proverbs for use in a nameplate or other medium.

Leo Burnett India is also promoting the font on Facebook, Twitter and other social network platforms and allowing Facebook users the option of having their profile page transformed entirely into the Gandhiji font. Plans also call for the creation of typeface imprinted merchandise such as postcards, mugs and T-shirts…

Karaj/Tehran, Iran

Vitrin Rooz is a “virtual exhibition platform” for graphic design and designers with the stated intention to “show the right path and deepen insight on visual communication.” After a period of restructuring, Vitrin Rooz is now back with an engaging new website offering solo exhibits, group exhibits, workshops, and more… (I’ve posted about Vitrin Rooz and designers it has featured a number of times previously, here).

(from Creative Review)

In death as in life: Peter Saville and Ben Kelly’s memorial to their friend and collaborator Anthony H Wilson is three years late, but it was worth the wait. Factory Records founder Anthony H Wilson died in August 2007. Just over three years later, a memorial headstone designed collaboratively by Wilson’s long-term associates Peter Saville and Ben Kelly with Paul Barnes and Matt Robertson, was unveiled in The Southern Cemetery in Chorlton-Cum-Hardy, Manchester.

The black granite headstone carries a quote, chosen by Wilson’s family, from The Manchester Man, the 1876 novel by Mrs G Linnaeus Banks (aka Isabella Varley Banks), the story of one Jabez Clegg and his life in Victorian Manchester. The quote is set in Rotis.

Found here.

Winnipeg, Manitoba

If you’re in or near the ’Peg on Saturday, 12 March, please consider coming out to this gig at the West End Cultural Centre in support of the West Central Women’s Resource Centre—a community-based initiative in the diverse West Central neighbourhood of Winnipeg that is empowering women to help themselves, their families, and their community to safer, healthier lifestyles.

The fundraising concert features hometown girrrl Romi Mayes (pronounced “raw me”) along with the flamboyant Flying Fox and the Hunter Gatherers. Local crafts will also be in abundance; all proceeds go to WCWRC.

Image: the event poster we designed for WCWRC at CIRCLE.

Vilnius, Lithuania

I’ve just accepted an invitation to speak at the “spring” icograda design week (conference) in Vilnius in May. I’ve never been to Lithuania before—looking forward to this, and to crossing paths with many old (and new) Icograda friends again…

Paris, France

“Death is Not Justice” exhibitions organised by poster for tomorrow opened in some 50 locations around the world on 10/10/10… exhibiting 100 of the 2094 poster submissions received from 81 different countries. While last year’s initiative was coalescing opposition against the Death Penalty, this year’s focus for poster for tomorrow is “The Right to Education.” View past poster galleries and learn about the latest call for entries here.

Images: It must be stopped by Natalia Lazarashvili, Georgia; We need the time to reflect, Tomoko Miyagawa, Japan; a spread from the available catalogue.

Winnipeg, Canada

I love quotations, as anyone who spends any time on this blog knows… and perhaps inevitably, I’ve found myself quoted not infrequently—all a part of the give and take of human beings exchanging thoughts in this age of information and ideas. I was pleasantly surprised today (and a little flattered, actually) to hear from Angie Zubrin, another graphic designer here in the ‘Peg, about a video she had discovered online featuring a quote of mine… here.

(on products… almost everywhere)

We each encounter them almost continually—so much so that I would suggest we have become numbed by them. These ugly, intrusive little zebra-contrast patches have been a part of buying and selling since the first bar-coded item, a pack of Wrigley’s chewing gum, was scanned in 1974… we’ve been hearing the ubiquitous bleep bleep ever since.

Bar codes were originally invented in 1952 by Bernard Silver and Norman Woodland in Philadelphia, USA, but it wasn’t until 1973 that Woodland created an entire bar-code system, the Universal Product Code (UPC), to help stores track inventory and make check-outs faster. The UPC barcode was the first bar code symbology widely adopted by the grocery industry, followed by the EAN code format (similar to UPC, used internationally) in 1976.

The black bars represent a sequence of numbers. The five digits on the left represent the product’s manufacturer, with the five digits on the right representing the specific product. Bar codes are configured the way they are to permit a laser scanner to read the varying widths of lines to determine the digits listed underneath. The information is transmitted to a store computer which matches the numbers to a product price—in the bleep of a second.

Images above: at top, the UPC-A, the universal product code seen on almost all retail products in the USA and Canada; below, a selection of creative bar code iterations from Japan… go figure.