News
Anonymous Tips: Because Sharing Is Caring
If we’ve heard it once, we’ve heard it a thousand times: “I could tell you this Big Design News, but then I’d have to kill you.” Now you can give us the scoop and skip the messy murder plot, thanks to our “Anonymous Tips” box, which the Mediabistro tech wizards have placed at the top right of this page. Your mission, should you choose to accept it: Type in your news—design happenings, gossip, movements of the Revolving Door, a designer’s hidden talent, or any newsy, design-y morsel—and click “send.” We’ll get the news, you’ll retain your air of mystery.
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In Brief: Armory Week Arrives, Buy Bob Hope’s Lautner House, Condé Nast Backs Farfetch
• Another Armory Week Arts Week is upon NYC, which will play host to a whopping ten art fairs. Unable to resist a good centennial, a Friday afternoon panel at the Armory Show on Pier 94 considers the 1913 original (commemorated in a fetching set of postage stamps), “bringing new facts and controversies to light and dispelling popular myths and misconceptions around the show’s reception by the public and critics alike.” Robert Storr will moderate the discussion among Marilyn Kushner, Francis Naumann, and Gail Stavitsky.
• Once you’ve loaded up on art, you’ll need more walls. May we suggest the Palm Springs home that John Lautner designed for Bob Hope and his wife, Dolores? It’s on the market for for $50 million. Your Kapoor would look divine in the shadow of the curved copper roof.
• Condé Nast has led a $20 million funding round for indie fashion marketplace farfetch. “This investment underlines our commitment to extend the scope of our activities and back great entrepreneurs,” said James Bilefield, president of Condé Nast International Digital, in a statement issued Monday. “It follows the recent news of our involvement with the e-commerce businesses Monoqi and Renesim in Germany.” Also participating in the fundraising were existing investors Advent Venture Partners, Index Ventures, and e.ventures.
• Ever wonder about that tiny text at the bottom of a movie poster? Ben Schott recently took to The New York Times op-ed page to breaks down the billing block.
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Brighton's D and F: Anything but Fail
Font Heresy! Vatican’s Comic Sans Sendoff to Pope Benedict XVI
An e-book issued by the Vatican to commemorate the papacy of Benedict XVI (who Barry Blitt has depicted relaxing on a hammock on the cover of this week’s New Yorker) reminds readers that the “the Pope’s ministry is a guarantee of obedience to Christ and to his Word,” even if that Word is set in…Comic Sans. That’s right, design fans, the 265th pope is going out not with a bang but a typographic whimper. Benedictus XVI, which now greets all visitors to the parchment-look homepage of the Vatican as it muddles through the virtual side of Seda Vacante, is a collection of 60 photos of the pope on the job–palling around with John Paul II in the pre-Twitter era, consulting scripture, kissing babies, walking along bucolic lanes, and brandishing a variety of weighty golden objects–all annotated in godless Comic Sans. Adding to the typographic heresy is the prominent digital watermark of the Vatican newspaper, L’Osservatore Romano, that appears on most of the photos: it is set in Papyrus.
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Last Chance to Enter Core77 Design Awards
Core77 is back with the third edition of its dazzlingly ambitious Design Awards program, with progressive categories (social impact, speculative), professional and student entry fields, globally distributed juries, in-depth video testimonials, and live-webcast jury announcements. Among the international design luminaries tapped as jury captains are Matali Crasset, Eddie Opara, and the dynamic duo of Anthony Dunne and Fiona Raby.
So what’s in it for you, provided that you submit your entry by the March 15 deadline? Fame and fortune, or at least the former: honorees will be published in the 2013 awards gallery, across the Core77 online network, and in the awards publication. Then there’s that swell trophy (pictured), created by Rich Brilliant Willing with an eye to the team-based nature of design. “In our discussions with Core77, we came to realize that an inherent pitfall of the iconic trophy is that it is shared by a group, yet not literally divisible among that group,” said the designers, who seized on the image and symbol of a mold. “Our solution for the Core77 Design Awards trophy has a functional value: winning teams can create ingots from the trophy, and provide these cast facsimiles to their collaborators, clients, and staff.”
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ArtRage Updated for Natural Media Creation
The Graphics.com March Sweepstakes Features SymmetryShop
Mickey Mouse Makes Mark on Moleskine
At 85, Mickey Mouse is spry as ever and fronting a Moleskine notebook that debuts today in stores worldwide. The notebooks, available in two sizes, feature Moleskine’s signature black covers debossed with Mickey being seized by creative inspiration (lihtbulb hovering over ears, gloved finger raised). Inside, there’s a booklet with instructions on how to draw the beloved mouse, Disney-style. Milan-based studio SVPERBE Creative Visionaries got into the spirit with this video that takes Mickey from sketch to screen.
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Friday Likes 36
2012 Brand New Awards: Deadline Extended
Barry Bergdoll to Deliver Mellon Lectures
Barry Bergdoll, come on down! You’re the next Andrew W. Mellon Lecturer in the Fine Arts! This spring, MoMA’s chief curator of architecture and design will present a series of six lectures entitled “Out of Site in Plain View: A History of Exhibiting Architecture since 1750.” Over a series of Sunday afternoons (see full schedule below) at the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C., Bergdoll will delve into topics such as “Architecture in Public from the Salon to the French Revolution,” “Exhibitions between Reform and Avant-Garde,” and the big finish, “Architecture and the Rise of the Event Economy,” with each lecture introducing “a new capacity for architecture itself, made possible through the culture of architectural exhibition.” Bergdoll is the 62nd scholar to deliver the Mellon Lectures in the Fine Arts, established in 1949 and named for the founder of the National Gallery. Past lecturers include T. J. Clark, Helen Vendler, and Kirk Varnedoe, whose lectures are available as podcasts.
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‘Paper-Punk-a-Thon’ Unfolds at TEDActive
(Photo courtesy Grace Hawthorne)
It’s TED time, and among the attractions at TEDActive, the parallel event taking place this week in Palm Springs, is “Paper-Punk-a-thon” (pictured), a 25-foot-long installation by Paper Punk founder Grace Hawthorne. We asked the ReadyMade veteran–an entrepreneur, artist, author, and educator who heads up the Creative Gym course at Stanford’s d.school–to tell us more about the interactive project as it unfolds.
What is a “Paper-Punk-a-Thon”?
An all-you-can-fold buffet of Paper Punk shapes. Attendees feast on a limitless assortment of shapes, patterns, and colors, and fold to their heart’s content.
What did you create for the installation?
I made three large anchor panels out of hollow paper blocks to kick things off. Attendees are populating the other nine smaller provided panels with paper block creation that expresses an assigned word.
How have TEDActive attendees responded to your installation?
Enthusiastically! They get to make something with their hands and share it with each other by putting it up on this progressive/collaborative wall. Some of their creations have blown me away.
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Concentric Philanthropy
In Brief: Warhol Web Sale, Paste Goes Digital, Architecture on Screen, Puffier Play-Doh
Warhol’s “I Love Your Kiss Forever Forever,” a trial proof lithograph made in 1964
• Bidding has begun in the inaugural Andy Warhol @ Christie’s online auction, a week-long affair. Estimates range from $600 to $70,000 for the 125 Warhol works being sold to benefit The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts. Among the lots up for grabs in the week-long sale is “Jam (Raspberry),” a Smuckers-smudged canvas from the early 1980s that is expected to fetch between $20,000 and $30,000.
• Paste magazine is going digital with Paste.com, a “members-only digital weekly” that will cater to those looking for longer reads, new music, and video-based amusement. Parks and Recreation‘s Nick Offerman covers the first issue, which also includes a feature on Hans Zimmer and the ubiquitous Pharrell, who have joined forces on an app that promises to “bring the power of Hollywood studio music-scoring to mobile users.”
• In NYC? Don’t miss the fourth annual Architecture on Screen, a series of international productions on architecture selected from the 2012 Montreal International Festival of Films on Art. The cinematic fun begins Friday afternoon at the Center for Architecture.
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Getting Lucky with CMYK
Despite every precaution and the expertise of those involved, there's always a certain amount of chance involved when full-color publications hit the press. And there's nothing quite like that sickening feeling when you realize that the beige you so carefully chose was rendered with pink overtones. But now you can try your luck with process color without risking your client's money or your reputation, thanks to CMYK playing cards from the Hundred Million site.
Studio Makkink & Bey Gets Down to Business in ‘Progressive Office’
Rotterdam-based Studio Makkink & Bey, led by architect Rianne Makkink and designer Jurgen Bey, has long envisioned a progressive office where the multitasking extends to the furnishings: a chair that is also a self-contained desk and cupboard, a flexible “WorkSofa,” a cozy chair that can be coupled up to create instant meeting space (the “EarChair,” pictured above). The studio is showcasing these designs and more as part of “Fantasy Room for Working,” an exhibition on view through Sunday within the Creative Lounge MOV, a huge shared office space in Tokyo. Earlier this week, among the KadE Chair, Vacuum Cleaner Chair, stools, and aprons, was Jurgen Bey himself–he put his designs to the test by working from the flexible fantasy office for eight days. Studio Makkink & Bey Prooff (Progressive Office) “working and living landscape” interior was also recently acquired by Utrecht’s Centraal Museum, where parts of it are on view through May 25. Marissa Meyer should check this out.
New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.
AKVIS Refocus Adobe Photoshop Plugin/app Updated for Photo Sharpening
Mark Your Calendar: SVA/BBC Design Documentary Film Festival
Do you yearn to watch a documentary about the Chelsea Hotel (once home to the likes of William Burroughs, Dennis Hopper, and Patti Smith) in the shadow of the Chelsea Hotel? Learn about the history behind design classics such as the Harley Davidson and the London Underground map? Or just watch a strung-out David Bowie (circa 1974) discuss mime, costumes, and the invention of characters such as Ziggy Stardust? Well, you’re in luck, because all of that and more is on the agenda for the SVA BBC Design Documentary Film Festival on Sunday, March 17. Now in its second year, the day-long event offers up a slate of groundbreaking BBC films that have seen scant screen time in the United States. Curated by the all-seeing Steven Heller along with D-Crit faculty member Adam Harrison Levy, the festival includes post-film chats with veteran BBC creative director Alan Yentob. The $15 run-of-the-festival tickets are going fast, so grab one here.
New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.
