December 2007
21 posts
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261
In a recent NYT interview with Steve Jobs, Jobs points out the way a multitouch display shifts software from a “point-verb” model to an “action” model: “There are no ‘verbs’ in the iPhone interface, he said, alluding to the way a standard mouse or stylus system works. In those systems, users select an object, like a photo, and then separately select an...
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260
A little L&UL news today: I’m very excited to announce I’ll part of the School of Visual Arts Design Criticism ongoing Readings series at KGB Bar in NYC on 23 January 2008. Get all the details at SVA D-Crit’s website here. Fellow readers include Slate’s music critic Jody Rosen, Dot Dot Dot editor Stuart Bailey, and the great New Yorker critic Sasha Frere-Jones. Gawker...
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259
This has been widely blogged by now, but Google has published their annual “Zeitgeist” report, detailing the most popular searches in a wide variety of categories. Most interesting among these (at least to me) were the “Top of Mind” searches, which take the form of “Who is,” “What is,” and “How to.” This year’s most popular?...
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258
Derek Stroup’s oddly abstract images of candy bars with the lettering removed (thanks, Kevin).
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257
As the writer’s strike marches on, I have been revisiting a favorite show from my youth, the groundbreaking Connections presented by James Burke. While his clothes are looking a bit dated now, his views about the world of networked ideas and technologies that we live in are just as fresh as ever. I love the series’ subtitle: “An Alternative View of Change.” Catch a sneak...
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256
One of the most fascinating scientific findings I’ve come upon in awhile relates to a group of cells in our brain known as mirror neurons. These neurons were discovered almost by accident in a lab in Parma, Italy when researchers studying neurons relating to motion noticed that a monkey’s neurons fired almost identically when either performing an action or watching an identical action...
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255
Stewart Smith’s rad (and I don’t use that word often) HistoFace is a histogram typeface designed for use in the Photoshop Levels window. Smart and fun.
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254
“Showy, media-savvy and an easily digestible expression of fashionable but often obscure postmodernist theories, Memphis was perfectly attuned to the early ’80s. It was design’s equivalent of Ronald Reagan’s photo-op presidency, not to mention all those gaucho-wearing New Romantics preening on MTV.” Alice Rawsthorn on the resurrection of Memphis for NYT.
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253
“[Fuel’s] Murray and Sorrell’s realization that they possessed the transferable skills and instincts to publish thought-provoking books with editorial depth has allowed them to create a publishing venture that offers a fresh take on visual culture. It’s a venture that their design background—especially their early explorations into graphic authorship—has equipped them well to...
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252
A “defictionalized” object is one that has been taken from the world of fiction and made real, sort of like Second Life in reverse. The phrase came to my attention by way of Kottke.org’s guest blogger Adam Lisagor’s post on the subject. A t-shirt company called Last Exit to Nowhere has “a collection of unique shirt designs which are inspired and pay homage to some of...
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251
A few selections from the history of color systems from the “eclectic bookart” blog BibliOdyssey. A particular favorite is this one by Tobias Mayer from 1758. (BibliOdyssey’s annotated archives are done entirely in del.icio.us and available here.) See more color systems at the online Color Museum and Prof. Hans Irtel’s “Color Systems” site. A great classical...
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250
The resurgence of Baby Teeth, and other fonts by Milton Glaser (including one for Bruegger’s Bagels!), on Typophile. More on the use of Baby Teeth in this great 1969 article from Design magazine.
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249
Via Everyone Forever, a lovely set of photos by William Huntley. Reminds me that “there’s this entire life behind things…”
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248
The great photo book blog 5B4 has a write-up and sampling of images from Kunsthaefte 1–14, a self-published handmade book series by Danish artist Jesper Fabricius. They’re a bargain at Printed Matter for $4, or order your favorite at Space Poetry.
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247
Some colorful, abstract animated shorts from Sesame Street set to the music of Philip Glass. (Best used with these colorful, abstract toys from Maria Montessori from Kid-O.)
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Bad-Boy Critic Takes on Vampire Economy
Above: The author Lewis Hyde at home.
No doubt familiar to L&UL readers by now, one of my favorite books is Lewis Hyde’s The Gift. (Here are at least five posts so far: [1] [2] [3] [4] [5]) Published in 1983, it is now being issued in a 25th anniversary edition by Vintage. This article by Jeffrey MacIntyre of the New York Observer, while it wanders a bit in the middle, does come to a...
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246
Hear me now. There is, and will continue to be, an Ed Emberley revival. Everyone hearts Ed.
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Blowback
From Eugene Jarecki’s informative documentary Why We Fight, ex-CIA agent Chalmers Johnson explains effortlessly in 3 minutes how “there is a direct connection between events that happened more than 50 years ago and the war in Iraq today.” Johnson is famous for his popularization of the term “blowback,” which describes the unintended consequences of covert...
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244
More on Tom Dixon, who was in NYT’s T Style Magazine recently. Three quotes from that article: 1) “’The Great Chair Grab was a think-through of how old-fashioned and lame the furniture business had become,’ Dixon says, unspooling his long frame over a chair in his central London studio. ‘What if furniture could be a modern business the way Google is?’” 2)...
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243
Two great links from Eye magazine editor John Walters’s moving small talk at the AIGA National Conference in Denver a few weeks ago. The first is Walters’s own magazine Unknown Public, a subscription-based music “magazine” of sorts. Walters’s comment on the name—”I felt there was an ‘unknown public’ out there that would respond to these...
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242
Kevin pointed me to Hardformat, a great blog about music packaging design. (This Audiolab boxed set is particularly lovely.) One of the things we both like about this is the way the credits are done in almost a museum format. Very helpful in tracking and sourcing the albums and CDs they post. More great blogs (and podcasts) on the Broadcasts page.
