Richard Wilson's Rotating Building Facade.

Incredible.

Kristina Kozak Participates in openhousenewyork

5th ANNUAL openhousenewyork FEATURES BROOKLYN’S MINE METAL/ART STORE AND METAL-ARTIST KRISTINA KOZAK

Brooklyn, NY, September 28, 2007 – Featured in one of the premiere architectural and design public events of the year, Metalsmith artist Kristina Kozak will be included in the acclaimed 5th annual openhousenewyork () event being held the weekend of Oct. 6-7 when her Williamsburg, Brooklyn MINE Metal/Art studio and showroom will be open to the public with tours (www.minemetalart.com – Online art available to view).

“It is a great honor to be showcased as part of this cadre of talented artists all across our great city,” said metal artist Kristina Kozak. “I’m particularly glad to be able to attract people who’ve not yet been introduced to my very different style, both in terms of design, using steel in an organic way, and fabricating furniture in a less-than-expected material.”

Window grills, for example, are a fact of big city life, and Kozak has found a way to make them an attraction, as opposed to an eye-sore. Art can also provide security.

Kozak has a mind of her own…and a metal mine art studio-store of her own, as well… …she first discovered the artistic malleability of steel and its wonderful ability to be both functional and aesthetically pleasing in 1994 when she designed and made her first bed.

Now, her work which has graced buildings across this Brooklyn borough has caught the eye of some prominent architects and designers.

MINE Metal/Art is the signature store of 40-year-old Kozak who creates elaborately designed functional works of furniture and architecture to fit any theme.

Transforming hard metal into flowing works of art, her work has quietly crept onto buildings to beautify many homes, offices and restaurants in the Williamsburg section of Brooklyn, NY. With a tremendous range of styles from Modern to Victorian in design, Kozak’s creations are awe-inspiring, one-of-a-kind and limited edition metal work and furniture ranging from chairs and beds to ottomans and flatware. In addition to commissioned works, she also offers her signature trademark “swirl” in a keychain or pendant (priced at $120.00 in silver) $60.00 of proceeds going to Hospice Inc.

From beds to security window grills, Kozak creates distinctive pieces inspired by vintage textiles, nature, Art Nouveau, and the Victorian Arts and Crafts artists John Ruskin and William Morris.

Tour hours for MINE Metal/Art’s participation in openhousenewyork are:

MINE Metal/Art retail showroom - 177 Grand St. Brooklyn. Open Sat.-Sun., Oct. 6 -7, 10am – 8pm. Pick up a map and walk the neighborhood and see her outdoor public work.

Kristina Kozak's Studio at Barzel Iron Works - 61 Jefferson St., Sunday, Oct 7. Kristina opens her studio located in a working blacksmithing and industrial metal shop in Bushwick, Brooklyn. Tours at 10, 11:30, 1 and 2:30pm. reservations required. at kkozak@mindspring.com

MINE Metal/Art is at 177 Grand Street, Brooklyn, NY 11211 www.minemetalart.com.
718-963-1184…..regular store hours are Wednesday – Saturday 12 -7, Sunday 12 -6.

Semi Precious Weapons - "Magnetic Baby" Music Video

This Rocks. Check out this video for the Semi Precious Weapons directed by Pamela Romanowsky and co-directed/edited by David Becker (Director of the PBS Documentary Small Steps: Creating the Highschool of Contemporary Arts).



Follow Semi Precious Weapons on their rock 'n roll journey at www.magneticbaby.com.

Free Jake Barton Lecture at the Soho Apple Store

Jake Barton of Exhibition Design Firm Local Projects will appear in a free session at the New York Soho Apple Store on October 17. Co-organized by AIGA NY.

Jake Barton is principal of Local Projects, a studio that creates media installations for museums and public spaces. Local Projects is partnered with Thinc Design to design the World Trade Center Memorial Museum. Recent work includes Interaction Design for StoryCorps, “Timescapes” for the Museum of the City of New York, the Public Information Exchange for the Center for Architecture, a suite of films for the 2008 Beijing Olympics, and the new Museum of the Chinese in the Americas, with architecture by Maya Lin. He was a 2006 finalist for the National Design Award for Communications.

New Apollo Program Website

Elliot Earls relaunched his TheApolloProgram website.

Earls:
As early as 1995 I began to understand my work as serving two primary functions. The first being intrinsic, while the second was extrinsic. Intrinsically, I see my work as a kind of test bed upon which I attempt to work out a form of interpersonal ethics. First and foremost I see myself as a contrarian and a social critic. And while I realize that my work appears highly formal, at it's core it is essentially Instrumentalist. Extrinsically, I see my work functioning as a form of cultural criticism dealing with issues of race, class and sexuality in America.

Marian Bantjes with Pentagram for Saks Fifth Avenue

Check out these lovely typographic stylings of Marian Bantjes under direction of Michael Bierut of Pentagram for Saks Fifth Avenue.

Shepard Fairey Speaks

At his Studio.

Cynthia Hathaway Designs, Educates, Writes...

Cynthia Hathaway, a Canadian design leader operating from Amsterdam inspires me. She is one of those rare folks who stick to their guns and forges ahead with her multiple talents in design. She writes, curates, educates, designs and that doesn't quite sum it all up. Check out what she is all about at hathawaydesigns.org

Kate Clark at Explosivo/Chashama in the East Village, NYC

META-MAJESTY
September 28-October 21
at Explosivo/chashama
169 Avenue C at 10th Street

Diane Barcelowsky, Dana Carlson, Kate Clark, Jennifer Coates, William Crump, Leslie Miller, Naomi Reis, Saviour Scraps, Jessie Rose Vala

Opening reception: Friday, September 28, 7-9pm
Special music performance: Forest Fire and Goodbye The Band | Friday, Oct 12, 8pm Explosivo/chashama hours: Thu-Sun, 1-7pm

Meta-Majesty, curated by Tracy Candido, presents work by 8 artists and 1 artists collective that suggests a curious channeling of all things magical as a very real response to our current earthly chaos. This form of escapism is proposing a spectral reflection towards a nation diseased with war, ignorance, and environmental disregard.


Meta-Majesty is supported by chashama, a NYC arts organization whose mission is to support artists of all genres. chashama adopts vacant properties that are donated by their owners and converts them into theaters, galleries, studios, and window performance sites; chashama then regrants this space for free or at heavily subsidized rates. Since 1995, chashama has transformed more than 20 vacant properties and has given more than 5,000 artists access to space.

Explosivo/chashama is a temporary platform for contemporary art which follows an interdisciplinary exhibition program curated by Tracy Candido in partnership with chashama. The Explosivo/ chashama art space is donated to chashama by the Urban Homesteading Assistance Board. UHAB supports self-help housing and community building in low-income neighborhoods by training, organizing, developing and assisting resident-controlled limited- equity housing cooperatives.


For more information about the exhibition or upcoming exhibitions at Explosivo/chashama, please visit www.explosivoartshow.com or call 516.510.3292
web: http://www.explosivoartshow.com



POCHRON STUDIOS

REFUSE/REFUSE
Part of the Dumbo Arts Festival


Opening Reception, September 28th from 6-11 pm
20 Jay Street, 11th Floor
Dumbo, Brooklyn

Gallery Hours September 29th and 30th from 12-5 pm



1. ri-'fyüz-1 : to express oneself as unwilling to accept
2 a : to show or express unwillingness to do or comply with b : deny
3 obsolete : give up, renounce

2. 're-"fyüs, -"fyüz- the worthless or useless part of something leavings
2 : trash, garbage, thrown aside or left as worthless


Featured Artists:
Jill Buckley, Garrett Rowland, Allyson Lubow, Flora Rocco, Galina Kurlat, Donnie + Travis, Lani Bouwer, Marietta Davis, Veronica Ibarra, Eric Cheevers, Joanne Burke, Ilya Monosov, Brigid Scruggs, Reid Spector, Matt Lewis, Julie Pochron, Tony Alvarez, Gemma Burgio, April Renae, Hank Mattice, Steven Baines, Leidy Churchman, Simen Johan, Priscilla Polley, Kate Clark, Carolyn and Erina from Pomade, Vincent Dilio, Heather Marie Vernon and Miss Julie Fabulous, Eva Aridjis, Greg Paxton, Dina Helal, Alexandra Morrill, Melissa Potter, Maria Yoon, Miriam Schaer, Emiliano Maggi, Jaiko Suzuki, Tora Lopez, Eileen Quinlan.


By subway
Take the A/C Train to High Street (first stop in Brooklyn).
Exit at the Cadman Plaza West stairwell towards the rear of the train.
Cross Cadman Plaza Park to Cadman Plaza East.
Left on Cadman Plaza East, which turns into Washington Street and continue walking under the Brooklyn Bridge overpass, towards the river.
Right on Front Street.
Left onto Jay Street.

Take F Train to York Street (first stop in Brooklyn).
Make right out of station onto Jay Street.

OurType Arnhem, The Netherlands

From the person who taught me all the essential fundamentals of typography at Arnhem College of Art & Design, the incredible typeface crafter Fred Smeijers comes OurType Foundry of Arnhem, The Netherlands.

The website design is [expectedly] beautiful, original yet very user friendly. I could not locate a credited designer of the site through Google, but I suspect Fred himself was involved.

Check out his books: Counterpunch and Type Now: a Manifesto.

Alphabet: An Exhibition of Hand-Drawn Lettering and Experimental Typography

Opening at the Cooper Union.
Thursday, October 11, 6-8 p.m. (Opening reception)
The Herb Lubalin Center, Houghton Gallery
7 East 7th Street b/w 3rd and 4th Aves
Free





From the PostTypography website:

Alphabet: An Exhibition of Hand-Drawn Lettering and Experimental Typography



EXHIBITION INFORMATION
October 11 - 27, 2007 / The Cooper Union / New York, NY
Hosted by The Herb Lubalin Study Center of Design and Typography
Houghton Gallery, 2nd Floor / School of Art
7 East 7th Street at 3rd Avenue / New York, NY / www.cooper.edu

Opening reception:
Thursday, October 11 / 6:00 - 8:00


ALPHABET TRAVEL SCHEDULE
Alphabet will be traveling through 2008. Upcoming and past shows include:
October-November 2008 / Southern Illinois University / Edwardsville, IL
February 2008 / University of Akron / Akron, OH
December 2007 / Ohio Northern University / Ada, OH
October 2007 / Cooper Union / New York, NY
July 2007 / AIGA Orlando / Orlando, FL
February-March 2007 / Minneapolis College of Art & Design / Minneapolis, MN
January 2007 / Pennsylvania College of Art & Design / Lancaster, PA
November 2006 / Northern Illinois University / DeKalb, IL
March 2006 / Workhorse Gallery / Los Angeles, CA
January-February 2006 / M-80 / Milwaukee, WI
November 2005 / Heaven Gallery / Chicago, IL
August 2005 / Lump Gallery / Raleigh, NC
July 2005 / Maryland Institute College of Art / Baltimore, MD

Alphabet: An Exhibition of Hand-Drawn Lettering and Experimental Typography at Cooper Union in New York City

Check out Alphabet: An Exhibition of Hand-Drawn Lettering and Experimental Typography at Cooper Union in New York City at the Lubalin Center at the Cooper Union in new York.

October 11-27, 2007. Weekdays 11 a.m.- 7 p.m., Saturday, 12 p.m.-5 p.m., closed on Sundays.

CSS for the rest of us

Check it out.

Die, Speech Bubble, Die! Via Eachday.com

For a while, I worked for a company that had various speech bubbles in their corporate identity, as well as in their main logo. For the longest time I didn't think anything of it, in fact thought they were somewhat engaging... until I came across this page. And I realized that I was rather culturally insensitive not to have noticed sooner.

Designboom's Handled With Care at Designersblock, London, UK

Check out the exhibit organized by Designboom called "Handled with Care" at Designersblock in London.

Featuring Christie Wright's conceptual ceramic cellphones and the Glide Toaster by George Watson.



Christie Wright.


George Watson.

THURSDAY 25 OCTOBER 2007 6:30–9:00PM: Crouwel/Vignelli

Wim Crouwel.



Massimo Vignelli.

A rare opportunity to see and hear these godfathers of modernist graphic design and corporate identity.

From Aiga.org:
Wim Crouwel, Dutch graphic designer, exhibition designer, museum director and educator, established his first freelance design practice in Amsterdam in 1954. In 1963 he became one of the five founding partners of Total Design, so called because it was the first multidisciplinary design studios in the Netherlands. During the sixties and the seventies he was responsible for many of the posters, catalogues, and exhibitions at the Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam. From 1985-1993, Wim was director of the Boijmans Van Beuningen Museum in Rotterdam. In 1967 he launched his New Alphabet within the Quadrat-Print series of journals published by Pieter Brattinga and his printing firm Steendrukkerij De Jong. This radical typographic experiment proposed new letterforms as a response to new technology. It was commissioned by Olivetti for a new typewriter font and although completed it was not released at the time due to changes in technology. The basis of all Wim's work is a strong underlying grid system, his typefaces being a logical extension of this grid. Within the last two years The Foundry in London has digitalized and marketed four of Wim's typefaces.

Massimo Vignelli, Italian designer of graphic and corporate identity programs, publications, architectural graphics, exhibitions, furniture and products of all kinds, has lived and worked in New York for the past four decades. Massimo studied architecture at the Politecnico di Milano from 1950 to 1953 and later trained at the Universita di Architetttura in Venice. His first professional position was as a designer of glassware for Venini, and from 1958 to 1960 he taught design at the Institute of Design, Chicago, while his wife, Lella Vignelli worked for architects, Skidmore, Owings and Merrill. In 1960, the couple returned to Milan and founded the Lella and Massimo Vignelli Office for Design and Architecture. Four years later, Massimo began creating graphics for the Container Corporation of America, and designed its new logo. In 1965, with Bob Noorda and Jay Doblin he founded Unimark International, a design consultancy originally based in Milan. Soon after, The Vignellis moved to the U.S. and in 1966 Unimark established a New York office, specializing in corporate identity. In 1971, Vignelli Associates was established and subsequently designed corporate identity programs for Knoll, American Airlines, Bloomingdales, Xerox, Lancia, Cinzano, and Ford Motors. Massimo also turned his attention to designing furniture for Sunar, Rosenthal, Morphos and Knoll, including the Handkerchief Chair and Paper Clip table for Knoll. Some of the most well-known work of the Vignellis includes directional signage for the New York and Washington, D.C. subway systems.

Alice Twemlow is the chair of a new MFA program in Design Criticism at the School of Visual Arts, which launches in the fall of 2008. Alice writes about design for publications including Design Issues, Design Observer, Good, Eye, I.D., New York Magazine, Paper, Print, The Architect’s Newspaper, and Varoom. She is the author of What is Graphic Design For? (Rotovision, 2006), StyleCity New York (Thames & Hudson, 2005) and has contributed essays to Jonathan Barnbrook’s monograph, Barnbrook Bible (Booth Clibborn, 2007), Looking Closer 5: Critical Writings on Graphic Design (Allworth Press, 2007), ELSE/WHERE: MAPPING (Design Institute, 2006), and Why Not Associates 2 (Thames & Husdon, 2004). She has directed several design conferences, including “Voice: AIGA National Design Conference 2002," and “Being Here: Craft and Locality in Graphic Design,” held in Berlin in 2004, and co-directed “Looking Closer: AIGA Conference on Design History and Criticism.” Alice has an MA in Design History from the program run by the Royal College of Art and the V&A Museum in London, where she is currently a PhD candidate.

TIME AND PLACE

Thursday 25 October 2007 6:30–9:00PM
Tishman Auditorium
The New School
66 West 12th Street
Between Fifth and Sixth Avenues

6:30—7:00PM Check-in & admission
7:00—8:30PM Presentation
8:30—9:00PM Reception

Ed Fella Online

I remember that only recently, esteemed designer and design educator Ed Fella could not be reached via email. Now he has a wonderful website that you simply must check out. Thanks to Barry Deck's site, where I found the link. I have no idea if this is new or has been around for a while, but I'm glad it exists. His work is actually touching. I don't think that I can say that about a lot of graphic design. There is a high level of personal identity and emotion in his work that would not work for most designers or projects, but it works for Mr. Fella. Now if I could only get me a piece of his on my wall.

Also check out this book by Mr Fella, that I've happily owned for a few years now.

Barry Deck Studio

Time to check out the new venture by "kid-design-star", template gothic creator and branding expert Barry Deck. After being a Creative Director for such industry giants as Ogilvy and Red Rockwell, he is now heading his own company again.

Check.

Braille Graffiti

This is one of those ideas that is so obvious and makes so much sense, but has never been discovered or used by anyone. Genius, because it not only opens the concept of graffiti up to the blind, but that they are such beautifully designed public art installations for the seeing. And I bet noone will question its installation by day, because it looks formally official.

Kanye's Good Life Video, puts lyrics on screen

So, this is the so-manieth video I've seen that uses blue screen footage of an artist doing nothing particularly conceptual, just mouth lyrics waive hands and walk around. Then we couple that with some beautifully executed animated lyrics and some see-and-say animations. i.e. lyric says "waive hands", cue animation of waiving hands.

Now, don't get me wrong, I like watching this video plenty. The animation is well executed and I am a total typophile, so I can look at well drawn and animated words all day long... But I just can't seem to help thinking... isn't there something a littlebit smarter that can be done with this?

The Shock Doctrine, Film by Naomi Klein and Alfonso Cuarón

From Naomi Klein's Website:
A Film by Alfonso Cuarón and Naomi Klein, directed by Jonás Cuarón.
"When I finished The Shock Doctrine, I sent it to Alfonso Cuarón because I adore his films and felt that the future he created for Children of Men was very close to the present I was seeing in disaster zones. I was hoping he would send me a quote for the book jacket and instead he pulled together this amazing team of artists -- including Jonás Cuarón who directed and edited -- to make The Shock Doctrine short film. It was one of those blessed projects where everything felt fated." - Naomi Klein

Amazing Graffiti by Indianapolis Artists

Check out this year's results from Indy's Graffiti event "SubSurface", and Indy's own "SACRED"'s photostream.

Lo-Tek's Container Architecture

I need to go run out and buy a piece of land to put my Lo-tek house on. Now.

Found this video on Inhabitat.

Christopher Lee

His illustrative and motion graphics stylings are very inspiring. Go check him out if you haven't already. I know I've already seen him featured on motionographer and somewhere else. But even if you have visited before, he's worth another look.

Neelu Made, Graphic Designers

Give the site of graphic designers Nazanin Arandi and Ryan Ward a look, why dontcha.

From their site:
Nazanin Arandi and Ryan Ward have worked as
senior graphic designers and art directors for five
years in the area of print, web, motion graphics and sound design. They are the award winning creative team behind Neelu Made.

They hold MFA degrees from Cranbrook Academy
of Art, home of Charles & Ray Eames' design,
in 2d design and printmaking.

Their work ranges from web and identity to multi-media visual campaigns to apparel and jewelry design.They are passionate about art and design and apply both to their daily activities and studio's aesthetic.

They collect late 19th c. shadow drawings, old photographs, design books, and guitars.

If you are looking for a unique and a personal identity for your product, Neelu Made will provide just that.

Motion Graphics by Adolescent of NYC

Check out some tight motion graphics by New York based design & production house Adolescent. I noticed their "Whudufuxup" animations on the big screen across the street on Times Square today and was pleased to learn that it was created by the same house responsible for a lot of the Nickelodeon advertising produced by my colleagues.

Retro Animated Logos

Funny, I was just talking about one of these the other day when at home watching trailers... then ran across this amazing compilation of Retro Animated Logos on Motionographer.com.

Designer Spotlight: Danielle Foushee

Check out design with flair by L.A. / Salt Lake City based Art Director Danielle Foushee.