Is it truly so hard to keep sidewalks open and walkable? Recent problems in Toronto [via funkaoshi] remind me of my local gripes last year. That spot in my ‘hood recently patched up those threadbare spots with new paving stones. Need to get a photo.
Urban Spectacles makes handmade eyeglasses from exotic woods and other materials. I’m due for a new pair. Though I hate to get all fetishy about fashion, if I don’t go the $40 eyeglasses route, I might give this guy a look. I’ve had my current pair for about 8-9 years now.
The History of Visual Communication. Plenty of good stuff here. I like the care taken in the further readings & references at the bottom of each section.
Nigel Holmes and Good magazine partnered to make It’s the Economy, Stupid!, an infodesigny look at the American economy of the past 90-ish years.
It’s been really wonderful to keep an eye on A House by the Park, “a first-hand chronology of the design, planning, and construction of a modern home in Seattle.” I’m not in the market now, nor do I plan to be in the near future, but it’s cool to watch and learn from a safe [...]
An archive of record covers from Blue Note Records. [via dial "m" for musicology]
Rob Giampietro started a collection of imagery from the New Yorker fiction pages, 48 so far. Lots of good stuff there.
Austin Kleon found the Gerd Arntz Web Archive, dedicated to the work of the German designer:
Otto Neurath had developed a method to communicate complex information on society, economy and politics in simple images. For his ‘Vienna method of visual statistics’, he needed a designer who could make elementary signs, pictograms that could summarize a subject [...]
How We’re Wrecking Our Feet. It’s the shoes. Old news, but worth hearing again and again.
Foot freedom is a movement in the ultralight hiking community as well. Once you realize that you don’t need to carry 50lbs for a weekend trip, you realize that you can ditch the leather boots and hike with shoes. And [...]
Stefanie Posavec made a diagram of every sentence in On the Road organized by words per sentence. Here are more literary diagrams.
Pecha Kucha Night is an informal gathering of presenters who are limited to 20 slides of 20 seconds each. So, theoretically, it’s a forum with less rambling and more variety in the course of an evening. Lots of cities are having them now. Could be cool. The next Atlanta Pecha Kucha will be next Sunday [...]
Probably a parallel here with the birth of Athena:
[update: photo of a really awesome woodcut removed due to copyright complaint from Verwertungsgesellschaft Bild-Kunst]
From L’Idee by Frans Masereel.
An interview with Dan Roam, author of The Back of the Napkin: Solving Problems and Selling Ideas with Pictures, which I need to remember to buy:
Today there are great drawing tools in a lot of software packages, and many business people, bless their hearts, are getting better at using them. The problem is the pictures [...]
In a New York Times article about the death of encyclopedias, a Britannica guy talks about well-designed books as a luxury item. Content might be everywhere, but good design can still expect an appreciative audience:
He envisioned the print volumes living on as a niche, luxury item, with high-quality paper and glossy photographs—similar to the way [...]
Customizable graph paper—modify the pattern to your liking, and then it makes a PDF for you to print.
A tour of a 100-square-foot house owned by Jay of the Tumbleweed Tiny House Company.
The offices of bldgs, a pair of Atlanta architects, was featured in a New York Times slideshow and article. It’s a pretty cool space, even though it looks like a bit of a disaster from the outside.
Every season, more paint falls off the walls and more rust develops. It‚Äôs like an art installation in there—a [...]
I like these clothes hangers, simple leather balls tethered to the wall. They couldn’t be that hard to make on my own.
“It is important to use your hands, this is what distinguishes you from a cow or a computer operator.” -Paul Rand
Photos of stuffed animals turned inside out. I think these inverted bears have more personality than the ones you see on the shelf. They should sell them like this. [via michael surtees]
I like this bit from an interview with Ellen Lupton, talking about common design pitfalls: “My students avoid printing out their work, to save time and money, but then they are disappointed that it doesn‚Äôt look good. I explain to them that everything looks good on the screen, because of the glowing light and the [...]
Chip Kidd interviews Milton Glaser: “My father was a kind of a metaphor for the world, because if you can‚Äôt overcome a father‚Äôs resistance you‚Äôre never going to be able to overcome the world‚Äôs resistance.”
How to create an extreme overhang with toy bricks [$]. Via BLDGBLOG, where you’ll find some great images of the crazy stacking and some architectural speculation. I’d love to see some crazy buildings tilting over like that.
Oboiler has a little picket fence for your baseboards to hide wires and cords. A picket fence isn’t really in my aesthetic, but I like the concept. I might go for something that looked like a bridge or an aqueduct or something. [via unclutterer]
Just got back from the local Helvetica screening (presented by AIGA-Atlanta, sponsored by the Art Institute of Atlanta). It was good, but not great. Pretty cool for a relative noob like myself to see Helvetica’s role in design over the past half-century. But I wish there was a little more nitty-gritty talk about how it [...]
Most of the online designeurotic t-shirt selling craze gives me nausea, but I like this one.
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