– Tomorrow night, Nov. 20, Bill Moggridge moderates a discussion with Yves Behar and others, to open the “Art & Design in a Global World” Design Preis Schweiz (Swiss Design Award) exhibit in San Francisco
– US television premiere of Helvetica on PBS moved from January 13 to January 6
I feel like I’ve been out of the graphic design news loop lately, and I just discovered that UK design kings Blanka issued a print by one of my graphic design heroes, Amsterdam’s own Wim Crouwel. It’s a meticulously restored edition of Crouwel’s 1968 “Vormgevers” poster. The reprint was overseen by Crouwel himself, and he’s signed the first 50 copies. Get one while they’re still around.
It’s funny, but there’s been almost as much written about the Objectified logo, created by British graphic designer Michael C. Place of Build, as has been written about the film itself. Michael has just posted a piece about the design on his smart new blog, and included dozens of images of the different variations of the logo as it evolved (click the images to magnify).
We happened to be in the Bouroullec’s Paris studio while the brothers were working with the book’s graphic designers, ericandmarie, and we filmed the meeting, so you might see some of it in the film. And check out ericandmarie’s site for a nice video they produced for the Bouroullecs’ 2004 show at MOCA Los Angeles.
The always incisive Design Observer will celebrate its five year anniversary this week with a party in New York City, Wednesday, November 5. The party will take place at Element (the beautiful 19th century bank building that became the Jasper Johns studio), located at 225 East Houston Street. It’s open and free with the password (that would be: Design Observer).
7pm-9pm: Cocktail hour. Meet Design Observer authors and contributors.
9pm-2am: DJs Kevin Smith, Debbie Millman, and myself… spinning whatever the hell we think will sound good through a 36,000 watt sound system. I am not kidding. I may have to break out the Mister Rogers record again…
It’s the night after Election Day… so I hope we’re celebrating. VOTE!
What happens when you put a hot dog, a pole-dancing doll, a Philippe Starck juicer, a Gaussian gun, a Tickle-Me Elmo, lots of marbles, and a mechanical Chinese duck together in eight locations around the world? IDEO’s global Rube Goldberg machine:
– Helvetica is still in the running for the People’s Design Award, please take a minute and vote!
– The Chicago Sun-Times profiles Charles A. Harrison, who will receive a Lifetime Achievement Award from the Smithsonian’s Cooper-Hewitt National Design Museum this week.
It’s not enough to make a well-designed product. The product also has to make well-designed sounds. Science Daily looks at industrial designer Elif Özcan Vieira’s PhD thesis on the subject:
The auditory experience of product users is not just “a sensory response to an acoustical stimulus.” In fact, users contribute characteristics, such as trustworthiness or a high standard of quality, to products on the basis of the sounds they produce.
I’m a huge believer in this theory; there’s not enough thought put into how we interact with objects sonically. When we were filming Chris Bangle and got to drive around the new BMW X6, I actually commented on how beautiful its fasten-your-seatbelt alarm chime was. Yes, I know those alarm chimes are supposed to be annoying in order to force you to buckle up. But can’t they be pleasantly annoying?
Speaking of sound design, I’m obsessing over Bloom, Brian Eno’s new iPhone application. [Available in the iTunes App Store.] “Part instrument, part composition and part artwork,” Bloom is a generative ambient music synthesizer (you can make pretty sounds with it). It’s addictive, and it’s especially amazing when you plug your iPhone into your stereo system and crank it up. Best four bucks I’ve spent in a while.
There was plenty of chatter today surrounding Apple’s announcement of new MacBook and MacBook Pro laptops, which feature a one-piece body carved from a single block of solid aluminum and sport multi-touch trackpads (sort of like the iPhone). John Gruber has several items on Daring Fireball, Engadget got one dirty, and Gizmodo did a side-by-side comparison with the previous incarnations.
Apple also released a video featuring design director and Objectified cast member Jonathan Ive explaining the new design, along with some nice footage of metal gettin’ cut up. And if you chug a beer every time someone says “fit and finish”, you’ll be slightly drunk.
New name, new building, new identity. New York’s Museum of Arts and Design (formerly the American Craft Museum) opened its doors this week, in Brad Cloepfil’s much talked about redesign of 2 Columbus Circle. Michael Bierut of Pentagram designed the museum’s new graphic identity, above. Check out his creative process.
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