Portage la Prairie, Manitoba
The Manitoba Agricultural Hall of Fame has officially announced its inductees for 2009—among the nine individuals “judged to have made a significant and lasting contribution to agriculture in Manitoba within their lifetimes” is my dad’s older brother, my ‘Uncle Pete,’ Peter Jacob Peters, now 95. He’ll be giving a 5-minute speech (though he insists he needs 20 :-) at 1:30pm on 16 July at a ceremony open to the public at the William Glesby Center (11-2nd St. NE) in Portage la Prairie, Manitoba.
Peter J. Peters immigrated to Canada from the Ukraine with his family at age eleven (when my father was six). He took his schooling at Gretna in Southern Manitoba, and later enrolled in teacher training. At the outbreak of World War II, Pete enlisted in the RCAF—upon his eventual return from overseas service he attained his BSc. in Agriculture. Following graduation, he worked with the Extension Service of Manitoba Agriculture as a potato specialist (where he became known as “Potato Pete” to those in the field)—among other significant achievements he is credited with paving the way for the commercial potato industry in Manitoba. He also applied himself to the Strawberry Experimental Demonstration program at Hadashville in Eastern Manitoba, and as a direct result of his efforts, the Strawberry Growers Association of Manitoba came into being. Pete served as Secretary-Treasurer of the Manitoba Horticultural Association, was President of the Western Canadian Society for Horticulture, revitalized the periodical The Prairie Gardener, and wrote and published A Century of Horticulture in Manitoba. Aside from his horticultural pursuits, Pete is also a prolific poet (with too many published books to list here) and was active throughout his adult life in church and community activities, renowned for his entertaining hundreds with his photography-poetry-musical presentations.
Photo: Peter J. Peters in 1945 (while requisitioned to serve as a tri-lingual interpreter at the Nuremberg Trials after the war [on account of his fluency in Russian, German, and English]—a time he prefers not to speak about to this day). Thanks to my brother Jim for the scan from an old photographic print.
Nunavut, Canada (1949)
An inspiring 60-year-old flashback for the ultimate lesson in (Northern) sustainable architecture… from Canada’s National Film Board. (Note that the term ‘Eskimo’ used by narrator Douglas Wilkinson is today considered pejorative and has been replaced by ‘Inuit,’ which is the indigenous plural term for ‘Inuk’ [‘man’ or ‘person’]).
Austin, Texas
Yesterday President Obama signed new legislation that will heavily restrict the nicotine content and marketing of cigarettes, including the requirement that colorful ads and displays be replaced with black-and-white-only text. For a piece in its Sunday Perspectives section, the St. Petersburg Times asked DJ Stout (of Pentagram’s Austin office) what cigarette manufacturers like Marlboro might do to follow the new marketing rules… Stout suggests that to comply with the crackdown, tobacco companies should embrace the restrictions and make cigarettes look truly dangerous. This, of course, will still appeal to a core group of smokers.
“Over the years there has been an onslaught of public awareness messaging about the evils of smoking,” says Stout. “Unless you’ve been living in a cave for the last 50 years you are very aware that smoking is not only bad for you, it could very likely kill you. All smokers know this for sure but it doesn’t deter them.”
“Our marketing advice to cigarette companies in the new heavily regulated era is to fully accept the new aggressive anti-smoking restrictions and wallow in the government’s apocalyptic health warnings. Don’t make excuses or dance around the stepped-up marketing regulations, just transform the whole cigarette pack into a three dimensional warning label.”
Images above: Some of DJ Stout’s cigarette packages for an exercise in the St. Petersburg Times.
(Thanks Adrian for the link).
New York, New York
An inspiring eco-portrait by Edina Tokodi (the piece is made entirely of living plants) is currently hanging on a rooftop wall of Green Spaces NY in Brooklyn…
Mill Valley, California
Craig Frazier has decided to “post a new drawing every week in desperate need of a caption.” He invites anyone so inclined to write the words you think belong to that drawing, and to submit a line of no more than 30 words in length by Friday at 5:00 pm. The week’s submissions are then judged by “an editorial review board of one” with the winner announced the following week… and then appearing forever in the Drawords book.
Here’s how @Issue (where I came across this project) describes the gig… “For illustrator Craig Frazier, Drawords started as a welcome “relief from a day job where I’m given copy and am supposed to draw to it. Every stroke has to communicate something.”
“This is the reverse,” he says. Instead, as a way to keep his head and his drawing skills sharp, Frazier gave himself the assignment of producing a whimsical sketch a week, which he decided to email to contacts with an invitation to give it their own captions. “It was a way to connect with clients and give them a peek at the way I work and the way I see,” he explains.
The drawings were outside of Frazier’s commercial illustrations, experimental and surreal. He says that he discovered if he put enough “silly elements” in, then people let their imaginations take over from there. “They have come back with things that I would never have seen in the drawing. There is a collaboration going on that is very innocent and satisfying.”
@Issue: Journal of Business & Design
Tehran, Iran
An exhibition of posters and other works by the talented Iranian graphic designer (and mother) Parisa Tashakori is currently on display at VitrinRooz. Keep up the good work…
Images: Untitled; Peace; Khoramshahr.
Winnipeg Beach, Manitoba
Best wishes to dear friends around the world on this momentous date—those of us in the Northern Hemisphere are celebrating the longest day of the year (as measured by how long the sun graces our position). Best wishes for Father’s Day as well—Dad, and all others in that paternal demographic…
New York, New York
Some great photographs of legendary U.S. climbers in a flickr set, shot by Jim Herrington. Shown above: Doug Robinson on a first ascent on Temple Crag in the Sierra Nevada, California; Glenn Exum strums in Colorado.
(Thanks to Winnipeg photographer friend Ian McCausland for the link).
Hartford, Connecticut
That’s a parental dictate that Kevin Van Aelst obviously never took to heart… see more of the man’s quirky (and often edible) oeuvre here. Shown above: Apple Globe (2007); Oreo Yin Yang (2005).
(Thanks for the link, Gerald).
Edmonton, Alberta
I’m delighted to share the news that good friend, award-winning* designer, and dedicated educator Sue Colberg has been honoured by the Society of Graphic Designers of Canada as a GDC Fellow—she’s the 13th Canadian woman and 63rd individual to be so bestowed. Fellowship is awarded by the National Society to a professional graphic designer who, by accomplishment or influence, has made a major contribution to graphic design in Canada—it is the highest honour that can be awarded by the Society.
Susan Colberg’s dedication to her students and her expertise in the field of graphic design has contributed to the influence and education of many generations of designers. An Associate Professor at the University of Alberta in the Art and Graphic Design Department, Susan teaches advanced typography, information design and the practice of graphic design. Her dedication to the GDC and its mission has been long and extensive. She has been involved since she was a design student and is a past president of the Alberta North Chapter. She also continues to serve on the board and is a Professional member in good standing. She is currently the National representative for GDC/ABN and has been the GDC’s Icograda Representative since 2003.
* News also arrived this week that Sue is once again a top winner in the 2008 Alcuin Book Design Awards. Congratulations, Sue!
