Hasta La Ideas

You’d think that with UN no-fly sanctions, doing battle with rebel forces trying to oust his command, and generally being one of the more unpopular people of the day, Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi would have more pressing matters than his wardrobe. But you’d be absolutely wrong. The NY Times features and online director of the paper’s T Magazine, Horacio Silva, recently received this utterly bizarre letter, supposedly from a member of Libya’s Minister for Culture and Ethnic Affairs office, asking if he would like to come visit Tripoli to see Gaddafi’s stockpile of clothing. According to the letter, the “dear leader” is worried that his famously-colorful clothes will be damaged by bombs and that, were Mr. Silva to come, he might then be able to convince the Metropolitan Museum of Art to curate “a stylish retrospective of his fashion highlights” in their Costume Institute. No, not a lot of it makes sense, so of course we’re inclined to believe it’s true (even after we were so badly hoaxed with that clever Home Depot prank). Either way, it’s a wonderfully bizarre letter, which Silva has posted in full. Here’s a bit:

Indeed many of his clothes have featured in global magazines from the hundreds of state visits and functions he has hosted over the years fro world leaders. All of whom are in agreement, ahumdullillah, that our President is one of the very best dressed men of the last half century. It is not only African and Arab leaders who have been influenced by his style and substance but many western rock stars and celebrities have also been won over by the Gaddafi look: most notably Michael Jackson in the 1980′s copied the signature motif military style of our leader to great chart success on his own terms.

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Cerco di riunire in un solo articolo i migliori progetti che ho visto nell’edizione 2011 del Salone Satellite. E’ una selezione perfettibile, il tempo non era molto e le cose da vedere tantissime perciò può essermi sfuggito qualcosa di buono nonostante di solito mi basti una veloce occhiata per capire quando vale la pena approfondire la conoscenza.
Il Salone Satellite è sempre una bella vetrina per scoprire talenti di ogni parte del mondo perché molti designer emersi nell’ultimo decennio si sono fatti conoscere al pubblico di professionisti con questo evento, che da spazio solo agli under 35.
Ricordo bene il senso di meraviglia la prima volta che visitai questi stand nel 2001 … ora invece sono molto più selettivo e cerco di tenermi lontano da due tendenze che dilagano tra i giovani, e meno giovani, designer in cerca di facili consensi: l’estrema estetizzazione, oppure la sostenibilità a tutti i costi.
Per quanto mi riguarda progettare avendo come obbiettivo assoluto la bella forma per affascinare o stupire non basta, serve avere dietro un ragionamento che ha portato a questo risultato senza invece partire da questo per cercare a ritroso una qualche giustificazione. Anche la sostenibilità del progetto è una cosa bella, giusta e necessaria al giorno d’oggi, ma non per questo tutto quello che si crea con il legno o con materiali di recupero merita il plauso: un oggetto brutto resta brutto anche se mi spiegano che è stato fatto assemblando degli scarti.

Ad ogni modo ho trovato molte novità interessanti, ed è probabile che dedichi ad alcuni di questi designer un vero articolo invece di una sola immagine.

Il legno tessuto di Elisa Strozyk

Gli sgabelli Sisman

Un bell’accessorio per il laptop di Arkimera

Gli anelli da parete di Holm

Un sistema di vasi componibile da appendere. Non conosco l’autore.

I norvegesi di Awaa

L’originale mosaico luminoso a led di Modern Times.

Lo stand dei giapponesi Tani Matsumura era certamente uno dei migliori.

L’affascinante oggettistica Here&(T)here di Fabrica per Secondome

There hasn’t been a quality debate in Major League Baseball over who designed an iconic logo in what seems like forever. At least since a couple of years back when designer Jerry Dior claimed he was solely responsible for the creation of the MLB logo itself, and remarkably, shortly after a very brief controversy, was ultimately recognized for it. We have a feeling this latest issue won’t go over at swiftly, nor as cleanly. This week, a woman named Tanit Buday has filed suit against the New York Yankees, claiming that her uncle was the original designer behind the team’s logo and that he was never properly compensated. Before you laugh it off, as the team apparently has for the last sixty years, it’s worth reading Bundy’s claim, which involves the team owners, the in the mid-1930s, getting advice from a beautician on who they should hire to design their logo. Here’s some of the story from Adweek:

…Kenneth Timur, who also drew cartoons and specialized in calligraphy in Denmark, was commissioned by [team owner Jacob Ruppert] to create a design — the bat in the top hat logo, Buday claims. It was not until 10 years later, when Timur moved to the United States, that he found out that the Yankees had adopted his work, without paying him a cent, according to the court papers.

Timur was asked again by Ruppert to redesign the logo in 1952 for the 50-year anniversary of the team’s moving to New York from Baltimore. This time Timur left his mark in the commemorative logo, replacing the 9 in 1903 — the year the franchise moved to the Big Apple — with a ‘P,’ the way Buday often signed his art, according to the suit.

The artist apparently sought compensation for years but was always pushed aside. Now Ms. Buday is continuing the fight, hiring a lawyer and even a marketing expert to help prove that her uncle deserves recognition. And while she faces “a long uphill battle,” it works to her favor that “sports historians have acknowledged that the origins of the logo are not definitively known, since there were few efforts to track the intellectual property owners of such designs prior to the 1960s.” On the opposite side, it works in the Yankee’s favor that they have stadiums full of wheelbarrows full of cash.

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