The exhibition "Maira Kalman: Various Illuminations (of a Crazy World)" opened at LA's Skirball Center this week. Having admired the show from afar, I was excited to go to a public "conversation" Tuesday night between Kalman and the curator Ingrid...
Oil & Water
Screen printers out there will appreciate Anthony Burill's poster "Oil and Water Do Not Mix," which is printed from oil gathered from a beach in Louisiana after the Deepwater Horizon explosion. Prints are for sale and proceeds support the Coalitio...
Is (web) Design Dead?
In an essay on wired.com Dylan Tweney posits that we have reached the age of the "Undesigned Web." Since content and design are coded separately, content can essentially free float, allowing users to access it from various media striped of its ori...
Two For the Road
* Kate Murphy in the NYT provides an analysis of the typographic choices of politicians vying for positions in the 2010 election cycle. Her conclusion: Candidates???of both parties???have made a conscious move away from Obama's '08 Gotham and other "m...
NYC's urbancanvas Competition
Yesterday NYC Mayor Bloomberg revealed the winners of the city's urbancanvas Design Competition which challenged participants to create artwork to decorate those usually boring protective structures that surround construction sites???an initiative t...
Radioactive Anticipation for Lauren Redniss's Latest Book
I have trouble reading long handwritten texts and consequently have never gotten into graphic novels and comic books, so the fact that I read Lauren Redniss's 2007 book Century Girl in a single sitting attests to her abilities both as an artist an...
Markets of Britain by Lee Titt
So this video isn't design related, but I think everyone can benefit from a few minutes of well-executed deadpan. via Amy Sedaris's list of top five viral videos for New York Magazine
Buried Alive! Vintage Posters Discovered in London Underground
During renovations to the Notting Hill Gate tube station, Mikey Ashworth of the London Underground found a treasure trove of old posters on the walls of an elevator passageway, which had been sealed off during construction in the 1950s. Check out ...
Psst: The Dolphin Studio Calendar
A couple of years ago an art director friend gave me a gorgeous holiday gift: A calendar from The Dolphin Studio of Stockbridge, MA. I have since started giving them as gifts myself, and now receive an annual reminder when the next batch is hot of...
Kindle Plugin for InDesign
Amazon recently released a beta version of a plugin for InDesign that allows user to convert INDD files to Kindle format. The company already provided ways to digitize and self-publish texts via Kindle???all free???and now this makes it easier to publ...
Pie (Lab)
(photo credit: Alessandra Sanguinetti for the New York Times) In grad school we were taught to broaden our definition of "designed things" beyond traditional media to include the less tangible???a single moment, an experience, behavior. Certainly ph...
Barcelona's La Merc?? Festival: Opening Night Projection
During a recent visit to Barcelona I stumbled upon an experience I had admired from afar on my blog almost a year ago: 3D building projections. The evening before the start of the city's annual Merc?? Festival we passed through the Placa de Sant Ja...
Postcards from Spain & London
Clever construction screen in Bilbao printed with the architectural plans for what's being built behind it. Video booth graphic at the Guggenheim Bilbao. Unintentionally illicit photos of Serra's working prototypes. Final pieces, in situ. Rough tr...
Test Driving the Net-a-Porter App for iPad
Since the iPad appeared in the spring, I've been looking forward to seeing how print media adapts to the digital opportunities presented by the device. There are a bunch of magazines that have made the transition including Sports Illustrated, Wire...
Arcade Fire & The Wilderness Downtown
WOW. This interactive film by Chris Milk, set to the Arcade Fire song "We Used to Wait," (from the band's latest album "The Suburbs," which is excellent, btw) hit me straight in the gut with the emotion of the music through a considered use of Goo...
Pencil Art
Craftsman and master miniature carver Dalton Ghetti has been sculpting the graphite in pencils for years, sans magnifying glass. This practice seems to be a true labor of love as he has never shown or sold his work but gifts it to friends. Full st...
Time Flies While Watching "The Secret Powers of Time"
Krank Press & Yellow Owl Workshop Salute the California Quail
Northern and Southern Californians may have their differences, but making lovely paper goods inspired by our state is not one of them. Every day I am greeted by the 2010 Odd Birds of LA monthly calendar by Krank Press, located here in LA and yeste...
Snapshot : MoCA's New Leader
Jeffrey Deitch, NYC gallerist extraordinaire, will be leaving the East Coast (and closing Deitch Projects) in June to take over the Museum of Contemporary Art here in LA. He was interviewed last week as part of the show "Don't Piss on Me and Tell ...
Sustained! Litigation Roundup
* Further developments in the on-going Shepard Fairey vs the Associated Press battle over the visual origins of Fairey's Obama "Hope" poster: On Monday, a judge ruled in favor of the AP, and said that Fairey's lawyers "must disclose the identities...