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.”

Tuesday… and some more inspired lines from the great Rumi…
Jalāl ad-Dīn Muḥammad Balkhī, جلالالدین محمد بلخى

+++

From the beginning of my life
I have been looking for your face
but today I have seen it
Today I have seen
the charm, the beauty,
the unfathomable grace
of the face
that I was looking for.

+++

Burdens are the foundations of ease and bitter things the
forerunners of pleasure.

+++

Your hand opens and closes and opens and closes.
If it were always a fist or always stretched open,
you would be paralyzed.
Your deepest presence 
is
in every small contracting and expanding,
the two as beautifully balanced and coordinated
as bird wings.

+++

In the body of the world, they say, there is a soul
and you are that.

+++

Late by myself, in the boat by myself
No light and no land anywhere
cloud cover thick, I try to stay
just above the surface, but I am already under
and living in the ocean of your love.

+++

Since I was cut from the reedbed,
I have made this crying sound.
Anyone apart from someone he loves
understands what I say.
Anyone pulled from a source
longs to go back.

+++

A rose’s rarest essence lives in the thorn.

+++

I died as a mineral and became a plant,
I died as plant and rose to animal,
I died as animal and I was Man.
Why should I fear? When was I less by dying?

+++

You were born with potential
You were born with goodness and trust
You were born with ideals and dreams
You were born with greatness
You were born with wings
You are not meant for crawling, so don’t.
You have wings
Learn to use them, and fly.

+++

What was whispered to the rose
To break it open
Last night
Was whispered to my heart

+++

We are the mirror as well as the face in it.
We are tasting the taste this minute of eternity.
We are pain and what cures pain both.
We are the sweet cold water and the jar that pours.

+++

Since you will come
and throw kisses
at my tombstone later
why not give them to me now
this is me
that same person.

+++

.

Growing up in cities of central Europe, I spent countless days visiting galleries (as a teenager, contemplating an art career) where I would stand for hours in front of classic paintings by great masters…

Today I chanced upon Google’s Art Project—the closest I’ve come for a long time to those joyful times of youthful wonder and discovery. Make a (virtual) visit to a growing number of top-notch art galleries around the world, zoom in to examine exquisite levels of detail, and come away truly awed… here.

Images: assorted details…

معمر القذافي

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).

(found in Design Observer)

Steven Heller had heard from various designers and design historians over the years about the existence of a Nazi graphics standards manual. No one could say they actually saw it, but they knew of someone who had… so it grew into something of a Big Foot or Loch Ness Monster tale, until one day he actually saw it too—and it had been right under his nose the whole time…

Thanks to friend Ian McCausland for the link (unfortunately, now broken).

—Buddha