Illustration Friday - The Blues

Picasso pretty much knew what to do with the blues.

This one is for Willie!

Daft Punk* Money!

Safer, Smarter, More Secure!

They are at it again! Tinkering with our money! This time we get purple with our $5 bill. Many of the same security features are being worked into the new fives, holograms, watermarks, soft color and all.

See all the features of the soon to be released notes at the Money Factory

* Daft Punk's latest song is Harder, Better, Faster, Stronger sampled liberally by Kanye West in his recent release Stronger

A hill of beans

When something amounts to a hill of beans, it usually has little or no meaning.

This past Saturday, a hill of beans counted for everything! I have judged several design shows using all sorts of voting methods including: open discussion, grading, post it tabs, thumbs up/thumbs down, points, etc. But this past weekend while judging the STA Chicago's Design Archive, we used beans.

An upside down cup with a flap cut into the bottom was placed be each entry. If you wanted to vote it in, you dropped a bean. If not, you walked on by (Just walk on by, thank you Dionne Warwick). There was this whole thing about recusing yourself and dropping in a different bean, but that is neither here nor there.

I was surprised that in the end, the old fashion, no frills method selected a solid body of work from all the submissions.

Mmm? The elections are coming up! Imagine the ease and simplicity of beans!

Billboards that move. . .literally!

The Dodge Challenger, which had a four-year run in the waning years of muscle car madness in the early '70s, and starred in the cult classic Vanishing Point, is about to reach its reappearance point with a 2008 comeback. Teasers include this double-your-fun complementary road tandem, which cruises metro muscle zones like Detroit's Woodward Avenue.

Client: Dodge
Agency: BBDO, Detroit
Executive Creative Director: Rick Dennis
Group Creative Director: Gary Pascoe, Sam Sefton
Copywriter: Tim Thomas
Art Director: Steve Glinski, Don DeFilippo
Photographer: Steve Glinski, Brad Stanley
Chief Creative Officer: David Lubars

Olympic Design #2

original logo on left, redesigned on the right; design by VSA Partners

Almost a year ago, the city of Chicago unveiled its Olypmic applicant city identity. It was welcomed with rare fanfare from the design community. Smart, surprising and sophisticated were all regular compliments. In May of 2007, the International Olympic Committee (IOC) changed the rules of the bidding process for cities, with one clause stating that city logos "shall not contain the Olympic symbol, the Olympic motto, the Olympic flag, any other Olympic-related imagery [such as] flame, torch, medal, etc." Back to the drawing board.

VSA Partners, who had designed the identity pro-bono originally, and would do it again for version 2.0. And finding a replacement for the torch would be no easy task. The logo needed to feel the same, convey the same ides, and capture the same elements of the previous one. It's one of the worst positions to be in as a designer due to the expectations that were already succesfuly met. The resulting logo, unveiled this week, proved lightning can strike twice!

The new logo retains the basic construct of the old icon — a blue-to-green gradient on the bottom, representing the lakes and the parks, and a red-to-yellow gradient on the top, representing the skyline of the city — and integrates one of the few victory- and hope-related elements that the IOC has not deemed inappropriate or off-limits, a star.

See a further explanation of the logo and its elements here.

Just another Manic Monday!

Kit is the word for Manic Monday. And when I hear Kit, I think KITT (Knight Industries Two Thousand) and see a daring man, Michael Knight played by David Hasselhoff, talking into his wrist when from out of nowhere appears a black Pontiac Firebird Trans Am with a glowing red light in the grill swooshing back and forth!

Nimbus

2002, polystyrene balls and plastic

When I came across this, it reminded me of the work of Paul Cocksedge. I posted about him on September 11, 2005.

Maybe it was the same way the light looks. Or maybe the materials. But Dominic Wilcox' pendant light is awesome. In his words, here is how it came about:
"'I had a bag of polystyrene balls under my desk for a year. I liked to look and feel of them, they seemed to have potential but I wasn't sure what direction that potential could lead. One day I put a light bulb in the bag, it looked interesting. While experimenting with polystyrene balls and mixing them with different glues and resins I created some ball objects. I noticed that light passed through the balls in a similar way to light passing through a cloud. One of my experiments lead to a ceiling light called Nimbus."

Then upon seeing more of his work at his website, I discover he is also the guy that created the War Bowl, No. 7 of Murray Moss' favorite things, which I also posted about on December 6, 2005.

All the little connections!

Inflection

Today I learned something new in ASL class. . .inflection. You would think a sign is a sign, I did. But the sharpness it is delivered, gives the word inflection just like in typography you can change the meaning of a word by the choices you make, give it visual meaning.

One of the words above would best express the word "need" in this statement. I need a pen.
One of the words above would be best used in the this statement. My foot is stuck in a bear trap! I need help!

Pretty cool.

Across The Universe

Another piece of brilliance from the mind of Julie Taymor!

Now, I am not, NOT a fan of the Beatles. I just aint. But the arrangements of the music in Across The Universe made me download the album! The story weaves the music into narrative dialogue, while showing us stories here and there; London and Ohio, New York and Viet Nam, Detroit and Ohio. All the while the lyrics act as the dialogue and give new meaning to the words that are brought to life.

As with most of Taymor's projects, this one too is a visual and inventive delight. There are a couple scenes which appear to be gratuitous or too long and more of a showcase for what Taymor can do. And what is Bono doing there? But I can look past the extra eye candy.

Across The Universe opens wide this Friday.

Back to Fallingwater

Sharing is good! Craig passed this along since I recently visited Fallingwater, and he received it from Nichelle.

A real nice animation from the river up and even a brief tour inside of Fallingwater

Thanks all!

Children See. Children Do.

Thursday already and I have not posted a thing since Monday! Well, it has been a busy week.

Craig shared this way cool spot with me that he saw during a screening of the One Club reel.

Sign of the apocalypse?

Recently, every pack of peanut M&Ms I get has at least three or four PEANUT-less candies! In the past there has been the occassional missing peanut, odd, but not enough to cause concern. Well, now I am concerned! Dominicks had them on sale, buy 3 get 3 free, so I did. And each bag had more than a few of these peanut orphans, no offense to orphans intended. I have noticed this before too when I have just bought a single pack. And it is not just here in the Chicagoland area. I noticed this over the summer in Syracuse, NY!

The candies look as thought there is a peanut inside, but when you bite it, nope, all chocolate. Is M&M trying to save some money? Is someone asleep at the peanut x-ray quality control station at M&M?

Somebody please tell Bush!

We can end the war! We found the WMD's and they have been here the whole time flying over our very own backyards!

Read on!

Nuclear Bombs Mistakenly Fly Over U.S.
By PAULINE JELINEK,


WASHINGTON (Sept. 5) -- A B-52 bomber was mistakenly armed with six nuclear warheads and flown for more than three hours across several states last week, prompting an Air Force investigation and the firing of one commander, Pentagon officials said Wednesday.

The six nuclear warheads were mounted onto pylons on the B-52 bomber's wings and it is unclear why the warheads had not been removed beforehand. The mistake was so serious that President Bush and Defense Secretary Robert Gates were quickly informed and Gates has asked for daily briefings on the Air Force inquiry, said Defense Department press secretary Geoff Morrell.

He said Gates was assured that "the munitions were part of a routine transfer between the two bases and at all times they were in the custody and control of Air Force personnel and at no time was the public in danger."

Rep. Ike Skelton, chairman of the House Armed Services Committee, called the mishandling of the weapons "deeply disturbing" and said the committee would press the military for details. Rep. Edward J. Markey, a senior member of the Homeland Security Committee, said it was "absolutely inexcusable."

"Nothing like this has ever been reported before and we have been assured for decades that it was impossible," said Markey, D-Mass., co-chair of the House task force on nonproliferation.

The letter R

Today was my first day of ASL (American Sign Language) II class. I quickly realized I did not practice enough over the summer as I felt like I knew nothing during the hour and twenty minutes of class!

During class we received name signs. Essentially it is a sign that represents your name, a shortcut to lengthy finger spellings. The teacher asked us what we liked. All that came to mind was the sign for soda and then when asked what else I came up with Thai food! I only wish I was kidding! The teacher thought that was unique enough, the thai food aspect. My name sign is the finger spelling of the letter "R" making the sign for Thai which is the index finger touching the nose and then pointing down.

Of course driving home from class I realized a better name sign would be the letter "R" making the sign for graphic or design. And fortunately when I go to class on Monday, I can ask to change my name sign, and I know how to sign " I do not like my name sign. Please change it to. . .the letter "R" signing graphic."