Louisville, Kentucky

From the “a picture is worth a thousand words” file… flashback to a 1937 Margaret Bourke-White photo from the Great Depression. No further comment necessary…

Winnipeg, Canada

Doing online image research has become so easy… it almost seems wrong. A quick search for “vintage matchbooks” using Compfight (my favorite flickr™ search tool of late) brought up these beauties (among hundreds more, such as here, here, here and here). I love old paper ephemera (such as matchbooks)—methinks the considerable limitations of scale, art creation, and printing techniques in early times simply served to raise the design bar.

Winnipeg, Canada

I had a pleasant outdoor lunch at the Forks with old friend Gary Ludwig yesterday (Creative Director at Interbrand in Toronto, back in the ‘Peg for the weekend bar mitzvah of a friend’s son) and the inimitable(?) Dieter Rams came up in conversation. A discussion ensued regarding the intrinsic qualites imbued in Rams’ remarkable products designed for Braun in the 1960s and ’70s (I still use my ergonomically-perfect 30+ year-old Braun ET66 calculator daily—not even a change of batteries in three decades!), and Gary mentioned an article he had seen on Gizmodo recently that reveals the uncanny design similarity between Apple’s products today and Braun products from when we were kids.

When Gary returned to Toronto last night he sent me the link—here are Dieter Rams’ ‘10 principles for good design’ as often cited by Jonathan Ive (the “genius” designer behind Apple’s successful products):

• Good design is innovative.

• Good design makes a product useful.

• Good design is aesthetic.

• Good design helps us to understand a product.

• Good design is unobtrusive.

• Good design is honest.

• Good design is durable.

• Good design is consequent to the last detail.

• Good design is concerned with the environment.

• Good design is as little design as possible.

(Thanks, Gary).

Images: Some direct design comparisons between the Braun products by Rams and the Apple products by Ives. The interface of the new iPhone looks remarkably like my old Braun calculator (which I wouldn’t part with even if you offered me an iPhone in exchange). “Homage? Evolution? Rip-off? Decide for yourself…”

Stege, Denmark

Morten Flyverbom’s “Green Beetle” at Louisiana… inspiring!

Beijing, China

Check out Ethan Persoff’s GALLERY OF 35 ANTI-U.S. CHINESE POLITICAL CARTOONS (circa 1958-1960). “Culled and restored from reviewing hundreds of Eastern newspaper pages and illustrations, this set of 35 images represents what we consider the best late 50s editorial cartoons (Manhua) from China and Indochina. Set during a time of escalating western imperialism, these images react against U.S. military actions in Laos and Vietnam, and represent a unique moment of political commentary. It seems to be a hidden history, too.” Most of these comics have never before been re-published, and even fewer have ever been exhibited or documented… a real find for fans of period propaganda art.

Prague, Czech Republic

Time does indeed slip by quickly (and yet little seems to change)… I vividly recall the Russian surprise-invasion of Czechoslovakia on this day in 1968. Living in (West) Germany at the time (the event sent shock-waves throughout Europe) I joined peaceful protest rallies in Basel (where I was attending school, just across the Swiss border)—my first active political involvement as a 14-year-old. Read the NYT invasion story here.

Winnipeg, Canada

So… I’ve been thinking a lot about “bias” of late (“a tendency or preference towards a particular perspective, ideology or result”) and the not-so-nuanced role that it plays re: objectivity in this communication age… especially cognitive bias, for which Wikipedia offers an excellent resource list here.

Thanks Chris Lee (an intern at Circle last year) for the brain-image; thanks Marie-Aline Oliver (in Ottawa) for pointing me to the bias list.

(from www.silhouettemasterpiecetheatre.com…)

From a remarkable French website featuring thousands of antique postcards (of every genre)… century-old photographs (from around the world), poignant illustrations (like the Raphaël Kirchner above), and delightful ephemera. (Link no longer active, sorry).

…from a beautiful Flickr collection of vintage ephemera, here.