April 7th, 2009 ethereal
i have a million things i want to post … but by the time i get home i am too tired of sitting in front of the computer to do so. but, i have been collecting some images of fun packaging and tonight i thought … i will just post one, and start to form a little blogging habit again.
here is a fabulous popcorn package from the local low-budget grocery. seriously, this place is zero frills. but, it has cheap food. and snacks that bring jolly happy fun yum times for everyone!
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February 22nd, 2009 ethereal
this one is for you valentina … today at goodwill gioia and i found an “ingrid party ball” picnic set. in one word, fabulous. i have very little information about when it was made or who ingrid was, but as an object and a picnic set its super!
Posted in life, art, design | 4 Comments »
February 4th, 2009 ethereal
I am not sure how well this works, but I love the idea (thanks joshua for the link!) I especially like the idea in the write-up of a device that scorches the paint off of the cars parked in the bike lane. Can it also incinerate yard waste that people love to leave in the lane too, like tree branches.
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February 4th, 2009 ethereal
I am not sure how well this works, but I love the idea (thanks joshua for the link!) I especially like the idea in the write-up of a device that scorches the paint off of the cars parked in the bike lane. Can it also incinerate yard waste that people love to leave in the lane too, like tree branches.
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January 16th, 2009 ethereal
Surgical checklist ’saves lives’
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/7825780.stm
I read through this article today on the BBC and was intrigued by the following quote:
“The beauty of the surgical safety checklist is its simplicity.”
Is this an example of a graphic design object (although not named as such) that has the kind of impact that visual communicators hope for their socially-minded work? This simple idea started somewhere in the WHO: a field office, a job site, or a mention in a meeting. Now, a humble one page 8.5 x 11 digital file is making global headlines. This could very well be more of an inspiration to what we do as designers than any Addy, mention in a Print annual or other insider manufactured accolade.
I would like to interview the person who hit “export” to PDF on this job. I would like to ask them about the path this job took through the design pipeline at WHO, or in a contracted organization. I wonder if it was laborious and lengthy, or if it just “happened” and was recognized by someone with some PR clout as being an effective tool. Perhaps I will never know, but then again … maybe I should track them down and ask.
In terms of the final form that this one-pager takes—the spatial organization, color scheme and typography—it would make a great exercise for a typography class. Has it reached the pinnacle of what it could be or could it be improved? For an interaction class I might look at it from another angle: what other forms could it take? Could this be transmitted to a PDA or a version made for battlefield triage?
How interesting this humble display of pixels is, how elegant in its concept and how thoroughly commonplace in its form. Standing on the shoulders of all the more notable products of the digital layout era in the empire of the PDF, this too, is high design.
25_06_08_checklist.pdf
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December 26th, 2008 ethereal
i love double entendres, double meanings and deeper reading. this post made me smile.
economix blog
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October 29th, 2008 ethereal
i was enchanted by this folded paper type that i found today. i was looking for images for my riveting lecture on commercial folding, scoring and perforation. woo hoo! i decided i would pair the stimulating content with images in the background that were handmade. you know, for contrast. (insert sarcasm here) but, technical failure prevented the enhancement of my lecture in a timely fashion so my students got text on a screen, old school. i have this nice collection of folded paper images though. and the google search revealed a world of folded paper beyond cranes and origami (not that it isn’t lovely). the paper type and architectural models were the ones closest to the pulp of my paper soul.
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October 28th, 2008 ethereal
My fellow designer friend passed this link along to me:
http://www.visual-literacy.org/periodic_table/periodic_table.html
An interesting study! I think this could be the result of a thesis, or expanded into one …
I think it is a nice stopping place when I am thinking, “Hmmmm, how do I organize my thoughts on this topic.” Diagramming in many of these ways seems to only help the diagrammer or the visual thinkers in the group, but then again that seems to be a key part of the goal in distilling and understanding the idea you are visualizing. The translator must grasp the language, right?
Addendum: I was looking through the credits on the site and found this line in the intended audience summary for the visual literacy project:
“online leveling course as well as a blended skill-building course for students of fourteen different university courses in four universities”
I am not sure what they meant by leveling, but it smacks a little of “dumbing down” or bringing to a neutral and common level. Hmmmm … wonder what Valentina, my go-to modernist, would say about that.
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October 14th, 2008 ethereal
when i am talking to my design classes about stock photography buying i always tell the story about my friend noah and his attempt to explain to a supervisor why they should purchase a rights managed image to have some control over who else had access to use that particular image. the supervisor was incredulous that such an expense would be necessary but later was annoyed with my friend after seeing the same image that was spec’d for their job, on a bus for a totally unrelated product. noah shrugged, he had warned them of the possibility but they value just didn’t seem relevant until hindsight kicked in.
since the dawn of istockphoto, i have seen several images used over and over that i have seen for sale on istock. this one in particular has a weird way of coming up:
a few summers ago i was working on a wireless/cell client ad campaign at a local ad firm. the client had a mini-budget and was the local wireless company looking to compete with “the big guys.” they did not allocate much for photo purchasing—not enough for a shoot and not enough for rights managed. they selected an image of a smiling blonde with a backpack. (the same one as above) issue: they wanted it for a large buss stop poster. istock certainly has its limitations. i contacted the photographer looking for outtakes or maybe he could arrange a shoot for a reasonable price. he was just starting out and had taken the photos of his sister and published them on istock. i wasn’t able to hire him in the tight time frame that we had and ended up just using the downloaded image. since then, i see this girl everywhere! is she the girl next door prototype? the quintessential american bright-eyed college student? what is her allure?
meanwhile, the coincidence continues. for my hypothetical client for production and design management this semester, i used the fake url “marintrails.org.” just for fun i loaded the URL to see if anything had popped up there since the last time i used the client description when i tauight in the fall of 2006. there she was, smiling.
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October 14th, 2008 ethereal
this seminar caught my eye while looking through the NEMA site at work (work related search). i wondered if design history were worked into the stats and research for this lecture … i wondered what the bibliography was and what the presenter’s take on subject was … i acknowledge that i was skeptical, but i want to give this the benefit of the doubt. it could be fascinating … maybe. definitely caught my eye being it was so close to something that might be worked on in grad school.
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