Category: Design

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Mental Health Day

I don’t really believe in the term, “Mental Health Day,” but this qualifies. It’s a gorgeous day, so I decided to take a vacation day, run some errands, hang out with Rufus, and otherwise not do any job-related stuff.

One of the errand-class activities was upgrading this site to WordPress 2.5. The new administrator interface is different enough that it made me averse to writing anything this morning, but I figure I oughtta post something on it before the dog & I head out to Ringwood Manor for a little meander (with cameras, of course).

Here’s a little double-whammy I’ve been waiting to post. I’m not getting anywhere in my ruminations on them, so I offer them up to you, dear readers. I hope they coalesce into a little something that you can share with me.

First, Ron Rosenbaum offers up some ruminations on Hiroshima in the 21st century. (Of course, Ron being Ron, it’s “what we talk about when we talk about Hiroshima.”)

Then, Steven Heller examines the history of the CND symbol, and how it may stretch back a lot further than its official 50 years.

I’m gonna head out with my dog; don’t work too hard.

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What it is: 3/3/08

What I’m reading: Love & Sleep, by John Crowley

What I’m listening to: Pubic Fruit, by Curve

What I’m watching: Blazing Saddles, in honor of Black History Mumf, and American Pie, because two of my buddies goofed on me for never having seen it, and threatened to beat my ass if I don’t watch it before we meet up at a conference in Philadelphia at the end of this month

What I’m drinking: Flying Dog’s Gonzo Imperial Porter, because it has Ralph Steadman’s illustration on its packaging

Where I’m going: Providence next weekend, to visit friends and get away for an overnight that doesn’t involve air-travel

What I’m happy about: Today’s my wife’s birthday! Visit her site and wish her a happy birthday!

What I’m sad about: That Thai Essence in Nutley, NJ destroyed my belief that there’s no such thing as a bad dish of pad thai

What I’m pondering: How long it took J.R. Smith to get this much ink

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Scenes from a weekend

Sorry for the lack of a post on Sunday; I did resolve to post something every day, although I didn’t make any resolutions about the quality of those posts.

Anyway, it was a pretty relaxed weekend. Amy & I drove down to Manalapan on Sunday for her friend Naomi’s wedding. It was a traditional Jewish wedding, with various celebrations that I sorta figure were traditional to Russian Jews. I’m sure Amy’ll write about it this week.

Me, I’m gonna send you over to a small set of pix from the weekend, including Santa In Chains:

Santa in Chains

And, for your edification — or your imagination — the secret and partially fictive history of the revolving door.

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Maps and Legends

One of my favorite recent essays was about a subway map. The original version of it was published at Design Observer in 2004, but the author expanded it for that book I keep mentioning all the goddamn time, which I read last year. The great thing about the online version is that it has reader comments, including a neat exchange between the author and one of the 2Blowhards about visual poetry and the utility of design.

Bierut’s essay was the first exposure I had to the work of Massimo Vignelli. That is, it was the first time I’d read his name; it turns out I’ve seen his work all my life, in various corporate logos and other pieces of design: Bloomingdale’s, American Airlines, Bennetton, and others.

This morning, taking a break from playing around with the iPhone (a.k.a. one of the finest pieces of design I’ve ever seen), I caught up with New York Magazine‘s issue on Design Revolutionaries, which I’ve been saving for a while (for some reason, the website refers to it as “Home Design”). It turned out that its feature on Vignelli and his wife Lella was minuscule — Martha Stewart received a much longer piece — but it did include a large replica of the (in)famous subway map, so that was nice to see.

More importantly, its splash-photo shows that the Vignellis’ home on the upper east side is the greatest apartment I’ve ever seen in my life:

Vignellis apt., photo by Dean Kaufman

(Photo by Dean Kaufman)

Seriously: those windows are TWENTY FEET HIGH.

So, even though it’s not like he needs my money, I ordered a copy of Vignelli From A to Z off Amazon today.

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Unrequired Reading: Jan. 11, 2008

It’s my birthday, dear readers! So I’m taking today off to celebrate!

Still, you deserve some Unrequired Reading, so here’s a neat article detailing the history of the development of the iPhone, because

a) it’s a really neat story about how the wireless industry works and how Apple has tried to shake it up with this device, and

b) my wife just got me one for my birthday!

Thanks for enabling my geekiness, darling! (more Unrequired Reading after the break)

Continue reading “Unrequired Reading: Jan. 11, 2008”

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Hero with a Thousand Typefaces

A book that didn’t make my “best/worst/weirdest” list from 2007 was Michael Bierut’s 79 Short Essays on Design. I adored it but couldn’t come up with a decent joke award for it. Looking back, I should’ve gone with “Most fonts used in a good cause,” since every essay is set in a different font, to great effect.

Virginia Postrel writes about the profusion of fonts and includes a neat 8-minute video interview with Mr. Bierut.

Now if you’ll excuse me, I need to get back to laying out my magazine. Which uses Palatino for body copy, Helvetica Black for headlines, Gill Sans for author/contributor copy, and Univers 55 for sidebars.

(Oh, and Mr. Bierut has a new essay up on Design Observer, but I haven’t read it yet.)