Celebrity Letterhead
Web Urbanist selected the letterhead of seventeen celebrities from a larger catalog at Letterheady. This is Leonard Cohen’s. Make sure you compare it to Richard Simmons’.
(via @gary_hustwit)
Vizio laptops and all-in-ones
Vizio plans to enter the laptop and all-in-one market and undercut competitors’ prices while they’re at it. While the design certainly falls within the current Apple aesthetic, if I were looking for a non-Apple PC, I’d definitely consider one.
Frank Chimero, The Shape of Design
I’ve become slightly obsessed with Frank Chimero’s talk on the purpose and philosophy of design:
To really think about design, you need to learn and think about everything other than it. Design is a vessel: the most important part is what it holds.
The first comment on the Vimeo landing is a single word: Nourishing. Such a perfect way to sum it all up.
Via: Swiss-Miss
Charles & Ray Eames: The Architect and the Painter
The American Masters documentary on Charles & Ray Eames is now streaming on the PBS web site.
From 1941 to 1978, this husband-and-wife team brought unique talents to their partnership. He was an architect by training, she was a painter and sculptor. Together they are considered America’s most important and influential designers, whose work helped, literally, shape the second half of the 20th century and remains culturally vital and commercially popular today. They are, perhaps, best remembered for their mid-century modern furniture, built from novel materials like molded plywood, fiberglass-reinforced plastic, bent metal wire and aluminum — offering consumers beautiful, functional, yet inexpensive products. Revered for their designs and fascinating as individuals, Charles and Ray have risen to iconic status in American culture. But their influence on significant events and movements in American life – from the development of modernism, to the rise of the computer age — has been less widely understood.
Previously, on clusterflock.
Daddy’s Plane
My daddy went to work at the aircraft firm of Chance Vought in 1935, I think, when he was nineteen or so. Jobs were hard to come by, but he was smart and mechanically inclined and he had a high school degree.
When the US entered WWII, my daddy was exempted from the draft on account of his working in a ‘critical industry’. Vought’s biggest customer was the US Navy.
After the war, Vought’s military contracts must have dwindled. Or maybe moving operations inland seemed like a good idea. Anyway, the company transferred 1300 key personnel from Connecticut to the right-to-work state of Texas. It was the biggest-ever US corporate move at that time. A Hollywood film inspired by the move even went into pre-production, and Spencer Tracy was said to have been cast. I imagine my mother in a Katharine Hepburn role.
The F4U Corsair (1940-1952) was Vought’s triumph.
The Japanese are said to have called the plane Whistling Death.
Eva Zeisel dies, age 105
Eva Zeisel, known for her playful and graceful ceramics, has died at the age of 105.
“She’s a conduit to pure things,” Mr. Klein said in 2007. He recalled that Ms. Zeisel, who had a strong appreciation of the history of decorative arts and a personal acquaintance with most of the modern design movements of the 20th century, told him never to try to create anything new. Asked how to make something beautiful, he said, she replied, “You just have to get out of the way.”
We have four or five of her pieces and they please me every time I see them.
12 Indicted On Hate Crimes Charges For Hair Cutting Assaults Led By Break-Off Amish Group
I think this is my favorite story of 2011.
Compleat — the paper cup with an integrated lid
Massachusetts architect Peter Herman spent two years designing a paper cup that eliminates the plastic lid.
The construction is simple: The body and two integrated flaps are composed of a single piece of paper; the body is glued to the circular base. Like similar cups on the market, the paper would be waterproofed, though ideally with cellulose-based plastic, so that it could be composted.
(thanks, Sarah)
Ice Cube Celebrates Charles and Ray Eames (and Los Angeles)
In a world full of McMansions where the structure takes up all the land, the Eames made structure and nature one.
(via @gary_hustwit)
good advice out of context
I like to urge designers to always ask themselves: “Does this logo look like a penis?” The answer has to be a resounding “No”. If there is just a slight hesitation, then it probably does look like a penis.
via Paul Kafasis
The Art of Not Drowning
We see a beautiful woman, with lush red hair, floating effortlessly, gazing ahead in an attitude of easeful melancholy. The airline artist has recruited Dante Rossetti’s 1877 Mary Magdalene, with perhaps an ironic nod to Botticelli’s Venus, as the heroine of our worst-case scenario. Thus the “fallen woman” motif is reimagined in the most urgent terms: this airline Magdalene is a woman who has quite literally fallen. And this is where we find her, floating in limbo, clutching a lily-white life preserver to her breast (instead of a vase, as in the 1877 portrait). Like Rossetti’s romantic Pre-Raphaelite Magdalene, this woman’s lowly state serves only to magnify her elemental beauty. Here she is, Our Lady of the Plane Crash. “I will make you fishers of men,” says the Christ. “We will rescue you in any corner of the globe,” says a Pan Am safety card. The fallen woman will not remain cast away forever—and, if we follow her lead, the artist assures us, neither will we. It is a pretty vision of earthly salvation.
(via The Hairpin)
photo out of context
All We Ever Wanted Was Everything
(via It’s Nice That)
Megaphones
italian designers isabella lovero and enrico bosa of en&is studio have updated ‘megaphone’, a ceramic passive amplifier created for the iphone and ipod touch. using no electricity, the sound waves are reverberated and distributed throughout the space. originally only available in white, the polished black and hand-painted gold versions further accentuate the contours of the form.
both the ceramic body and the solid wooden stand is developed and hand-made in italy.
although the black finish is applied in the same manner as the white, the gold version requires skilled decorators to paint the surface in the 24kt precious metal, after which it is fired in 720°C (1328°F). the high temperature assures the glazing is cohesive and the material is long lasting. the high gloss finish found on all three options are to help the sound resonate while the stand lifts the frame off any surface, increasing the vibrations emitted from the object.
Icon4x4Design’s Ford Bronco
How do I feel about this car?
biblically inspired design
I am not a fan of all of it, but I love the concept.
The Vespa Quarantasei
It’s a concept vehicle, so it’s hard to tell how much of the design will make it to production, but the Vespa Quarantasei is lovely in its potential.
Legendary Cities
I absolutely love these. Atelier Olschinsky’s Legendary Cities.
Khoi Vinh on Grids
If you remove all the subjectivity then you get some essential truth.
An interview with Khoi Vinh at The Color Machine:
We sat down with Khoi Vinh, former Design Director of NYTimes.com to discuss the subject that has made his work most noteworthy: the grid. The result is an illuminating conversation about Khoi’s plans for the future, first interest in the field of design, and even the grid’s complex relationship with emotion.
Previously on clusterflock.
(via daring fireball)
EAMES: The Architect and The Painter
Finally, a documentary on Charles and Ray Eames.
The husband-and-wife team of Charles and Ray Eames are widely regarded as America’s most important designers. Perhaps best remembered for their mid-century plywood and fiberglass furniture, the Eames Office also created a mind-bending variety of other products, from splints for wounded military during World War II, to photography, interiors, multi-media exhibits, graphics, games, films and toys. But their personal lives and influence on significant events in American life — from the development of modernism, to the rise of the computer age — has been less widely understood. Narrated by James Franco, Eames: The Architect and the Painter is the first film dedicated to these creative geniuses and their work.
Oh, boy!
(via stellar)
A Sexy Little Halloween
Grace and I have been discussing tentative Halloween plans the last few days and the concept of “sexy” Halloween costumes inevitably came up – not the plan to wear them per se, but their origins. Has this always been a thing?
That illustration is by Jillian Tamaki.
Book Cover Out of Context
Full disclosure: I haven’t read the book, but I have been on a bit of a bear kick lately.
(via)
The torch gives enough light to see a couple feet in front of you
Frank Chimero posted the talk he gave at the AIGA National Conference in Phoenix:
There is a reach to knowledge and skill. You know what you know, and through time and effort and diligent focus, you’ve also come to realize a few of the things that you don’t know. You begin to understand that those unknowns are within reach if you stretch a bit. That’s learning. And then the thought occurs to you that puts the fear of God in your bones: there are things out of your reach, (Important things! Crucial things!) that you will never know that you don’t know. It’s a darkness too dark to pierce.
Don’t worry, it’s hopeful too.
Unknowingly, I was probably always a designer, I just didn’t know what that was
A lovely interview at The Great Discontent with good friend of clusterflock, Chris Glass:
I completed the 4 year program at Ohio State and studied in Switzerland along the way. That time abroad really started to inform my minimalism. I’m a clean, simple designer. Some may see this as laziness. It goes back to that whole, what’s the least amount of work I can do? But ultimately, that’s the work I don’t hate. There’s a joke among friends that know me. When asked if I like something, I say it doesn’t displease me. So much of design displeases me, but if it’s clean, functional, and does its job, I’m happy.
You can find his site here, and Wire & Twine here.
Where we are today.
