Coming Soon...

... to a parking lot near you: Carspaze! This company recently installed a large scale ad campaign inside the garage of a mall here in LA, thanks to its development of fire retardant materials which meet strict fire code standards. This one, for Jet Blue, features actual televisions to promote the airline's in-flight viewing options. Carspaze only uses sustainable and recycled materials, so at least no trees are being harmed for this latest advertising invasion.


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(Before and after shots courtesy of http://carspaze.4elbows.com)

And speaking of invasions, you can now count baggage claim conveyer belts as another fallen surface. The ad in this demo photo from DoubleTake Marketing (www.doubletakemarketing.com) doesn't inspire, but there has to be a clever designer out there who will figure out a way to take graphic advantage of the way conveyer belt panels overlap and (subsequently stretch back out) while looping around the carousel.

Root

 

Arco-graphy

While at a red light recently, my passenger and I got in a heated discussion about whether this billboard

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was put up crooked or whether it was designed that way. I was arguing for the former, but after seeing these other versions of the same campaign...

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...I'll admit I was wrong. I still standby my initial argument that if you're going to tilt type, go big or go home. On the other hand, the fact that I now am obsessed with documenting Arco billboards makes it a successful campaign to some degree.

Sneak Peak: Martin Venezky mugs for SFMOMA

San Francisco designer Martin Venezky and his Appetite Engineers designed a set of 4 mugs (3 pictured below) for the SFMOMA store. The mugs willl be available for purchase through the store website later this week. Since the designs have already created a ruckus amongst Venezky's friends on Facebook, I imagine they'll sell out quick!

 

UPDATE: Mugs available!

http://sfmoma.stores.yahoo.net/sfmomamugs.html

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For more Appetite Engineers: http://www.appetiteengineers.com

Droog short a founder

Gijs Bakker, of Droog Design has resigned as board member of the Droog Design Foundation, citing irreconcilable differences with his co-founder Renny Ramakers. Apparently Bakker feels his focus on the "creativity and originality of Droog Design products" has become second fiddle to the "commercial element" after the opening of the NYC Droog store in February.

 Here's a picture of the Tree Trunk Bench, an iconic Droog product:

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And here's Bakker's full statement, courtesy of Design Boom:
 
"the original ambition of droog was to identify and showcase talented dutch, and later foreign,
designers, and to stimulate discussion about the real content of the profession. millions of euros
were invested in opening a large, expensive shop in new york - an initiative of renny ramakers -
while the philosophy of droog was pushed to the background. the shop in new york implies,
almost inevitably, that from now on profitability will depend on the development of only large,
expensive products.
 
the creativity and originality of droog design products have always been a first condition for me.
the new york shop means the commercial element is now the main goal. unfortunately,
I have been forced to conclude that this has driven a wedge between renny and my fifteen-year relationship.
regrettably, lengthy negotiations over our difference of opinion have yielded no result,
my role with droog design, and also as a teacher at the design academy, in eindhoven,
has always been about content. I am proud of the fascinating projects that we have realize
worldwide with droog design. many now-famous designers, including hella jongerius
marcel wanders, tejo remy, richard hutten and jurgen bey, got their big break thanks to droog design
in my opinion, we have contributed significantly to a change of mindset in this profession.”

Head to Toe

via designmuseum.org

The interactive installation "Head to Toe" is part of the current exhibition Super Contemporary, up now at London's Design Museum, one of my favorites. The artist, Ross Phillips, installed four pods around London that take clips of the heads, bodies or legs of the people standing in front of them.

You can flip through the head, torso and toe options to create your own awesome monster/person. FYI the sections default to the silhouette while the next clip loads. 

On-going: Visualizing Information

via alexandercheek.com

This is information designer Alexander Cheek's thesis project, "No Roads," which I discovered on the web a few years back. He stripped a map of New England of the usual suspects, such as roads, parks, etc, and overlaid other significant—yet less commonly mapped—points of navigation like Dunkin' Donuts, covered bridges and porn shops. Cheek screen printed the final atlas on sheets of acetate, and when all the maps are stacked one top of another, the result produces a surprisingly accurate picture of the urban centers of New England.

NYT Magazine Shrinks and Gets a Makeover

via nytimes.com

The New York Times Magazine revealed a size reduction and subsequent redesign this weekend. Basic rundown:

* Cropped by 9%.

* The Times commissioned a new typeface, Lyon Text, by typographers Kai Bernau and Christian Schwartz to maintain the same copy per-page ratio.

* 2 new display typefaces: Knockout and Nyte (by Hoefler & Frere-Jones and Dino dos Santos, respectively)

* New formats for front-of-book columns.

* Food column no longer banished to the back amidst jump pages and weird advertisements.

* KenKen (?), which I gather is like Suduko, added to crossword page.

To be honest, I didn't notice the magazine was smaller until I read the letter from the editor discussing the redesign and size cut. Now I can't stop noticing it. The typographic and layout changes make the magazine feel more cozy/chummy to me; the formidable, "This is the New York Times Magazine, sit up straight!" feeling is gone. How this plays out in the long run—or whether it even matters—remains to be seen. At least the Times has chosen to cut costs by cutting the page size rather than scraping the magazine all together.

As a graphic designer, I am disappointed by the size change but I like the new typography. I need more time to evaluate my experience as a reader. Success to me depends on whether in a month I am still mentally nitpicking the changes or can't even remember there were any.

Poladroid

Polaroid Puritans will probably shake their developing Polaroids in disgust at Poladroid, but as an amateur digital photographer, I think it's pretty cool. After a quick download and install, drag and drop your photos onto the application's camera icon, which will then spit out a "Poladroid." It sits on your desktop "developing" (virtual shaking optional, but not required) until a bell sounds indicating your pic is ready. The result has nice Polaroid-like details and coloring which provide more nuance than you'd get from just dropping a digital pic into a Polaroid frame in Photoshop. One of my drop-down menus is in French, which is odd, but otherwise, an exciting find!
 
Download for yourself here: http://www.poladroid.net

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