Meyer, Miller, Smith.

Talk about the Weather, Tuesday, August 3rd

Tue, 27 Jul 2010 19:47:58 +0200

The architect-artists Trinh Buscher will be talking about The Urban Topography Collection, an ongoing effort and the first stage to the Metropolitan Cityscapes platform.

The series explores the concept of space re-imagined through spatial memory and comparison.

www.metropolitan-cityscapes.com

Further speakers will be announced soon.

Intelligent Mobile Phone Manual

Tue, 6 Jul 2010 10:11:25 +0200

Out of the box - book from adrian333 on Vimeo.

Helvetica Rant

Thu, 1 Jul 2010 13:08:26 +0200

I just received an e-mail from Daniel Nacamuli with a transcript of a type forum conversation about Helvetica. And it needed some kind of illustration.... Enjoy!

Some of you might like to read this, it’s taken from a conversation we having on a forum. (Robin this is the guy who was my typography mentor back when we were in whitechapel).

Oh OK THEN.

--more--

Comic Sans is the non-typographer’s type rant. It’s like starting a conversation about how “Arsenal always try to walk it into the net, don’t they”, or whatever. It’s banal. It just crops up all the time because the layman can easily distinguish between Comic Sans and a “normal” typeface.

The Helvetica thing is really funny because it’s so very Emperor’s new clothes.

Pete is quite right to note that designers who read - and all genuinely good designers read, which is about 1% of them - dislike Helvetica for body copy. It’s a staggeringly poor text font, especially Helvetica Neue and the other digital versions. The reason it’s so popular is that it looks great when you look at it close-up, or very large.

It’s tremendously rationalised in its form (again, especially Neue), and designers like that because they see it as an incarnation of what they consider their job to be; never mind that all good body typefaces reveal their quirks, quirks that are there to aid readability, when you examine the details.

Helvetica was based very closely on the Grotesks of the 1880s - it’s nowhere near as new as people think it is - but it systematically eradicated any and all of the details that made those typefaces hang together. There’s a very subtle, cumulative quality in a typeface that makes letters form word shapes (which is what people read) that just isn’t there in Helvetica.

The digitisation of Helvetica, when that happened, only made matters worse, as did Neue. Neue really eradicated pretty much any individual detail that didn’t rigidly fit a narrow set of rules. (There are some old Italian copies of Helvetica that you used to be able to find that are near-identical to the untrained eye, but so much better to read.)

The modern obsession with Helvetica is partly due to the po-mo revivalists, many of whom studied under the Swiss post-war modernists. You could include 8vo, Brody, David James and others in that. 8vo in particular were protégés of Wolfgang Weingart. If you check out Weingart’s posters from the period when photo-typography was the contemporary technical revolution, you can see where that lot got it all from. Especially the Designers Republic, who are responsible for a lot of the current late 20s /early 30s designers’ obsession with Helvetica.

Essentially what happened was type started to be used decoratively, as part of an image-making process. And Helvetica is GREAT for that, because it looks really good when it’s blown up really large.

The best Helvetica I ever saw was 3-metre high orange numerals on the side of a set of warehouses. The numerals are superb, I’ll give it that.

With Helvy, bigger is better. For body type it’s a stupid, ignorant choice. The oblique weights - in fact, anything other than Regular and Bold (55 and 75 in Neue code) - are terrible.

If you want a modernist sans-serif typeface that’s expertly designed and digitised and suitable for a wide range of applications, choose Univers.

The End.

Thank to David Nacamuli for the dialogue.

A cool time for start-ups!

Wed, 30 Jun 2010 20:05:22 +0200

MDC Partners, the Toronto based holding company which owns agencies like Crispin Porter & Bogusky and Kirshenbaum Bond Senecal & Partners just announced in a New York Times interview that its about to launch a business plan competition for entrepreneurs in the marketing arena.

At least one team entering a business idea will be chosen until the end of october 2010 and rewarded with a 1$ investment in exchange for 51% of their shares.

What a great opportunity for both sides!

read the whole article here

Talk about the Weather , Tuesday, July 13th

Tue, 29 Jun 2010 16:00:23 +0200

Roger Ibars will be presenting his new project titled "HWD corporation", a new collection of hard-wired devices, featuring 100 different joysticks from the last 30 years of computer and video games culture.

www.rogeribars.com

Susanna Hertrich, artist and designer living in Berlin will be presenting a selection of her works dealing with »poetics of the uncanny«.

www.susannahertrich.com

Jump back in time with HTML5

Fri, 11 Jun 2010 11:19:07 +0200

Soapbox Racer is the Checkers of 2010, in this HTML5 vs Flash Showcase.

We are presenting the "Table Berlin" on DMY 2010

Tue, 8 Jun 2010 13:37:18 +0200

Why not visit our stand in Tempelhof airport /Hangar 5 between the 9th and 13th this month?! Public opening is on wednesday, the 9th at 20.00pm. We are looking forward to meeting you in one of the greatest airports in this world.

Further information about DMY here: DMY Website

All information about our "Table Berlin" here:

Mee-Mail identity

Fri, 21 May 2010 12:55:19 +0200

Logo Design and icons for new, personal e-mail service, combining the elegance of the classic stationary with the look of contemporary Apple aesthetics.

The Logo is designed to work in different media and various materials. The basic form resembles the well knowm @-sign, synonym for e-mail communication and combines it with the m of Mee-Mail.

We are currently talking to all major computer manufacturers about adding this new M@ on their future keyboards.

The business card comes in a mini envelope, sealed with sealing wax. To give the card an extra personal touch and to keep it flexible, the blank front of the card can be manually filled out with the appropriate information.

Please do it like before.

Thu, 20 May 2010 18:45:43 +0200

The hugely popular Tokyo Metro manner posters by illustrator Bunpei Yorifuji got a make-over. Unforunately the sometimes unintentionally funny slogan "Please do it at home" has been replaced. Like:

--more--

Need more followers...

Thu, 20 May 2010 18:31:10 +0200

Let's parade with Twitter people

(via @hawkenking)

The future of publishing

Mon, 17 May 2010 20:07:58 +0200

Awesome Book Tour from Dallas Clayton on Vimeo.

The future of publishing, at least for the "media friendly" people amongst us.

British pavilion at Expo 2010

Fri, 14 May 2010 16:55:22 +0200

Called Seed Cathedral, the wooden structure is pierced by 60,000 fibre-optic rods that each contain plant seeds at their tips.

Design by thomas heatherwick. Read more on dezeen.

Déjà Vu

Fri, 14 May 2010 11:10:40 +0200

Qualcomm's Dream Device, looking somewhat familiar.

Podium finish for the Red Bull Soapbox Racer.

Thu, 6 May 2010 16:16:25 +0200

This year Less Rain is the only German agency to win a coveted Webby Award, aka "The Internet Oscar". Nominated from almost 10.000 entries, our Red Bull Soapbox Racer won the People's Voice Award in the Game or Application category. Thanks again to everyone who voted!

Andreas Lutz wins the only other Webby going to Germany, in the Student category for his portfolio "Because clicking is so 90s!". Congratulations!

June 1st

Wed, 5 May 2010 18:03:29 +0200

Gerüst

German artist Philipp Hennevogl talks about his linocut prints, that baffle with their insanely intricate details.

Tokyo Clash

Tokyo is famous for its apparently chaotic mix of old and new, tradition and trash, stillness and shrillness. An exciting and inspirational place for any designer, that Ralf Bähren walks you through in his brand new book, Tokyo Clash. The book will be on sale on the evening, and is available on Amazon.

Hirschblüte

German-Japanese designer Akari Luig tells the story of her Deer Vase, developed from initial sketches to finished product in 6 month, together with porcellaine artist Maria Volokhova. The Deer Vase is available on CharlesAndMarie.com.