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This is the “award-winning” logo designed for the Catholic Church’s Archdiocesan Youth Commission by Gerry Kano in 1974.
Perhaps the 1970s really were simpler, gentler, more innocent times (?)… and it can happen that designers at times “get too close” to their own work to “see the bigger picture”—yet it seems hard to believe that no one in the decision-making and client-side approval process saw just how badly this could be interpreted.
Steven Heller offered some astute comments on this design in an AIGA article (from 2009): “On some occasions, logos are more than marks of failure or malfeasance; sometimes they unintentionally illustrate the foibles or folly of a company or institution all too vividly… the unfortunate pictorial relationship between the priest and the child, given our collective awareness… suggests a much too ironic interpretation. It’s a challenge to see what this positive/negative image once suggested, a guardian protecting the innocent, since the benevolence of its subject is no longer black and white. When a good design signifies bad deeds, the result is, well, a really unfortunate logo.”
Vienna, Austria
Once in a while you come across an image that just smacks you on the cheek… like these flavour-saturated compositions by Staudinger+Franke, a team of photographers and artists, created for the TMW London advertising campaign for Lipton Tea.
(found on designtaxi.com)
Atlanta, Georgia (from My Modern Met)
Using knives, tweezers and surgical tools, Brian Dettmer carves one page at a time. Nothing inside the out-of-date encyclopedias, medical journals, illustration books, or dictionaries is relocated or implanted, only removed. Dettmer manipulates the pages and spines to form the shape of his sculptures. He also folds, bends, rolls, and stacks multiple books to create completely original sculptural forms.
“My work is a collaboration with the existing material and its past creators and the completed pieces expose new relationships of the book’s internal elements exactly where they have been since their original conception,” he says. “The richness and depth of the book is universally respected yet often undiscovered as the monopoly of the form and relevance of the information fades over time. The book’s intended function has decreased and the form remains linear in a non-linear world. By altering physical forms of information and shifting preconceived functions, new and unexpected roles emerge.”
Dettmer is originally from Chicago, where he studied at Columbia College. He currently lives and works in Atlanta, Georgia.
View more of his incredible works here and an in-depth interview (with more images) here.
Dornach, Switzerland
This past week I had the pleasure of re-visiting a childhood haunt a few km from where I used to live… the Götheanum designed by Rudolf Steiner. While there, I picked up a reprint of Johann Wolfgang von Goethe’s colour-wheel graphic from his Farbenkreis (Theory of Colurs), written 200 years ago.
Should your glance on mornings lovely
Lift to drink the heaven’s blue
Or when sun, veiled by sirocco,
Royal red sinks out of view—
Give to Nature praise and honor.
Blithe of heart and sound of eye,
Knowing for the world of colour
Where its broad foundations lie.
—Goethe
(A cautionary note in the face of increased specialization and ever-narrowing vertical knowledge silos [happens in nearly every field nowadays, it seems]… which also underlines the fundamental value of lateral/horizontal thinking).
Santa Cruz, California
I love this… Jim Denevan makes temporary drawings on sand (and earth and ice) that are eventually erased by waves and weather—see more here.
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PostSecret is an ongoing community art project where people mail in their secrets anonymously on one side of a homemade postcard… I’ve posted about this collective exercise in empathic catharsis several times before.
Winnipeg, Canada
Much as I’m not big on formal events, I am looking forward to the gala black-tie dinner tonight at the Hotel Fort Garry on Broadway (which I’ll attend with Evelin and some colleagues from CIRCLE). This evening’s special honoree is our well-liked former provincial Premier, now Canada’s Ambassador to the USA in Washington, Gary Doer. This event is the 28th annual for the Concordia Foundation, a charitable organization dedicated to preserving the high quality of health and wellness services provided by Concordia (Concordia Hospital, Concordia Place, Concordia Hip & Knee Institute, Concordia Wellness Projects and Concordia Village).
CIRCLE is a sponsor of the gala event, and we also designed the related graphics and collateral materials. We recently launched a new website for the Concordia Foundation, here.
