Randburg, South Africa

You do know about DESIGN> MAGAZINE, right?

You don’t!? DESIGN> is a free subscription information platform “where the worlds of creativity, innovation, knowledge, technology and business converge.” It seeks to engage designers from all disciplines, inspiring the design-conscious and the design-curious throughout Africa… and beyond.

DESIGN>’s editorial content is rich and diverse and covers a broad scope including the fields of advertising, architecture, the built environment, cinematography, communication design, construction, exhibitions, fashion and apparel, industrial design, interior design, intellectual property, jewelery, packaging, paper, production design, retail and technology. It also explores “contemporary meta-disciplinary convergences within the fields of arts & crafts, design promotion, education, popular culture and business, among others—so that it appeals to a wide cross section of readers.”

Check out the latest issue online, here. The images above are posters by designer Harry Pierce, from a feature article about his work, values, and process in the current issue (#17).

(Congrats to good friend [and former Icograda board colleague] Jacques Lange, DESIGN>’s Group Editor).

Toronto, Canada

An essay I compiled for Applied Arts Magazine (pulling from various articles I’ve penned over the past years) appears in the current issue (Vol. 25, No. 4, October 2010) with the following pull-quote featured on the cover…

“NEED is the father of thought. I would like to think that designing and dreaming have traveled in lockstep since our species began to walk upright… Graphic design ignites passion, identifies, informs, clarifies, inspires, and enables communication… Design shapes culture and it influences societal values.”

Read or download the whole essay here (384 KB PDF).

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Thanks Gregor—you know I like these… actually static optical illusions that only appear to be animations—fix your eyes on one part of the above image for a moment and the almonds stop moving… cool, eh?

(original image source unknown)

Prague, Czech Republic

By dent of having an interest in vintage graphics and ephemera, I hear from a fair number of folks around the globe who are really into retro stuff from yesteryear… to wit, the persistent Boris Adamicko from Prague, who would really love to sell you some of his (admittedly impressive) label collection. You can contact him directly at badamicko[a]upcmail.cz

Bonne chance, Boris.

London, UK

It has taken humanity less than nine months to blow its ecological budget for the year, according to data from leading independent UK think-tank nef (the new economics foundation) and Global Footprint Network, a California-based environmental research organization.

Ecological Debt Day comes a full month earlier than last year, reflecting not only greater consumption of resources on a global scale, despite the recession, but also improvements in data collection giving a more detailed analysis than ever before. The new research, for example, indicates that the world has less grazing land available than previously estimated.

(Thanks to Jacques Lange in South Africa — sorry, link is now broken).

From the troubled land of sans/sens…

I grew up with Helvetica (almost literally—during my elementary school years while living in Reinach [on the outskirts of Basel, Switzerland] I would pass by Münchenstein by tram twice daily; Münchenstein is where the Helvetica typeface was developed in the late 1950s by Max Miedinger and Eduard Hoffmann at the Haas’sche Schriftgiesserei [Haas type foundry]).

So, while I admit to a biased preference for Helvetica over Arial (dubbed by many in our field as a “shameless impostor”) I do find it interesting to observe how much fuss some designer colleagues raise over the similarities and differences of these two leading sans-serif faces.

(I’m not sure of the original source of the image above, but it does provide a useful comparison of some of the similarities and differences in “tone of voice” of these two popular faces).

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Friend Martyn Schmoll has suggested a great little article on
I Love Typography: Arial versus Helvetica.

Antibes, French Riviera

“This sculpture is a creation by contemporary Catalan artist Jaume Plensa, who lives and works in Barcelona and Paris. Born in 1955, Plensa studied art at the Escola Llotja and in the Escola Superior de Belles Arts de Sant Jordi. He is currently one of the most important sculptors on the contemporary art scene. Plensa made his name in the 1980s with simple, large forms made from cast iron. His work then evolved into sculptural installations using light, sound and language…”

( From Yves Peters’ serendipitous encounter with Nomade during his vacation on the Côte d’Azur, from an article on The FontFeed).

I’ve only been to Antibes once, during the sweltering hot summer of 1979 — a bit of an abstecher on a road trip from Switzerland to Spain with my wife Beverly. I’ll admit, my most vivid memory is of the seemingly endless beaches populated with a preponderance of topless sunbathers — which I recall Bev found to be somewhat shocking (at first).

Thanks to Sal Randazzo for the link to Yves’ post (sorry, link no longer works).

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“Non-violence leads to the highest ethics, which is the goal of all evolution.
Until we stop harming all other living beings, we are still savages.”

~ Thomas Alva Edison

“There is no such thing as a minor lapse of integrity”

~ Tom Peters

“The only tyrant I accept in this world is the ‘still small voice’ within.”

~ Mahatma Gandhi

“Ethics is nothing else than reverence for life.”

~ Albert Schweitzer

“Even the most rational approach to ethics is defenseless
if there isn’t the will to do what is right.”

~ Alexander Solzhenitsyn

“In law a man is guilty when he violates the rights of others.
In ethics he is guilty if he only thinks of doing so.”

~ Immanuel Kant

“No man can purchase his virtue too dear, for it is the only thing whose value must ever increase with the price it has cost us. Our integrity is never worth so much as when we have parted with our all to keep it.”

~ Ovid

“The strength of a nation derives from the integrity of the home.”

~ Confucius

“It is curious—curious that physical courage should be
so common in the world, and moral courage so rare.”

~ Mark Twain

“Relativity applies to physics, not ethics.”

~ Albert Einstein

Spreading, worldwide…

A few months ago, Greepeace called for the design of a more appropriate logo for BP than a shiny green sunflower. Winner of the “Best Rebranded Logo—Popular Choice” is Laurent Hunziker of Paris, France. This “picture is worth a thousand words” image is now spreading virally…

here & there

I chanced upon a nice little collection at The Typographic Circle… more here.