Hasta La Ideas

Will 2011 be the year you write that novel? Illustrate the would-be children’s book that has been rattling around your brain? Conquer the stack of unread periodicals teetering on your nightstand? Monetize your obsession into a screenplay and/or line of collectible dolls? Get inspired to tackle creative projects with the annual inspiration issue of Poets & Writers magazine, which has just hit newsstands. Following in the footsteps of last year’s cover designer, Chip Kidd (no pressure!), is up and comer Jim Tierney, a junior designer at Penguin. When presented with the broad theme of inspiration, he looked to the stars—and then aligned them. “The stars and astronomy has inspired people forever,” said Tierney in an interview with the magazine’s Kevin Larimer. “At the beginning people had no idea what was going on and they made up fabulous stories and Greek myths and all of this originated in nothing but people drawing lines to connect stars.” There’s also a more personal inspiration behind the colorful cover. “It reminds me of being at home, because I grew up on a farm where you can just look out at the stars for hours over the cornfields and whatnot,” Tierney said. “So that really resonated with me.”

New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.

Moving on to our top five Dezeen stories from August this year, this house with a spiralling concrete slide by Indonesian architects Aboday was also our most popular story of the whole year.

Land of Giants by American studio Choi + Shine Architects, a series of conceptual electricity pylons shaped like human figures marching across the Icelandic landscape, came in second.

In third place was House in Showa-cho, Osaka, by Shintaro Fujiwara, featuring a central staircase that rises through split levels.

The House with Balls by Matharoo Associates in India, with shutters weighted by concrete balls, was fourth.

This month’s fifth most popular story was the monochrome headquarters of fashion brand Net-A-Porter in London, designed by UK practice Studiofibre.

See all our stories from August 2010 »

See also:

January 2010 review
February 2010 review
March 2010 review
April 2010 review
May 2010 review
June 2010 review
July 2010 review

See our review of 2009 »
See our review of 2008 »

If you happened to receive one of those Nook devices as a gift this holiday season and have been enjoying the little book-reading gadget, know that what you’re holding in your hand is at the center of a big, ongoing legal battle and now a continued headache for its retailer and owner, Barnes & Noble. Beginning earlier in the year, the book chain was taken to court by Spring Design, who claimed that the retailer had stolen their designs for an eReader after the two companies had been in talks to collaborate on a device. After that collaboration didn’t wind up working out, B&N released the Nook and Spring released the Alex. Though the latter was released after the former, Spring saw a number of design similarities from the original concepts they’d brought to B&N. After a summer of fighting off the suit, trying to have it dropped by arguing that the design copyrights are too vague in the already crowded eReader market, the retailer was dealt a blow this week when a federal judge ruled that the case can and will move forward. Here’s a bit of Judge James Ware‘s statement:

“The court finds that plaintiff has presented sufficient evidence to permit a jury to reasonably infer that defendant improperly used or disclosed at least some of plaintiff’s trade secrets information,” Ware wrote.

“There is significant factual dispute, however, as to whether plaintiff’s information had a substantial influence on the Nook’s design, or whether defendant independently developed all of the Nook’s features. Moreover, comparing the specific features of the Nook with plaintiff’s alleged trade secrets is a fact-intensive task best left to a jury.”

New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.

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Non scambiatela per un succo di frutta. Questa divertente lo-fi 35mm Juice Box Camera la trovate qui.
[Via]