Jun 29
Jun 29
Museum Moves: Paul Schimmel Out at LA MOCA; New Hires at Japan Society, UT’s Ransom Center
Posted in: Uncategorized
Footage of Cai Guo-Qiang’s “Mystery Circle: Explosion Event for The Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles.” An exhibition of Cai’s work is on view through July 30 at MOCA.
• The divorce of Tom Cruise and Katie Holmes is not the only L.A. break-up making headlines and raising eyebrows this summer Friday. Paul Schimmel, chief curator at the Los Angeles Museum of Contemporary Art, has left the institution after 22 years. It’s not clear whether he resigned or was ousted, but according to a statement issued this evening by MOCA announcing Schimmel’s departure, the exhibition space at the Geffen Contemporary will be named in his honor.
• Back in New York, Miwako Tezuka will take over directorship of Japan Society’s gallery from Joe Earle, whose retirement is effective September 30. Formerly an associate curator at Asia Society, Tezuka will be the first Japanese director of Japan Society Gallery. She begins her new position on Monday.
• The University of Texas at Austin’s Harry Ransom Center has named Jessica S. McDonald, a curator of photography at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, as its new chief curator of photography. She starts in September.
continued…
New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.
Jun 29
KiBiSi on AIAIAI’s New Capital Headphones
Posted in: Uncategorized
The Danish architect Bjarke Ingels, founder and one-third of KiBiSi, now lives for much of the year in New York City and has an observation of his home-away-from-home: “It is the most insanely noisy city.”
Ingels has likely had sound on his mind a lot lately, as KiBiSi’s new Capital headphones for AIAIAI have just hit the market. Designed for the on-the-go urbanite, the Capital headphones are durable, foldable, flexible, and even weatherproof, “tested to withstand rain, snow and hail,” the way the U.S. Postal Service used to be. Check out the features in this video animation:
Coinciding with the debut of the product, KiBiSi has also released this video of Ingels and co-KiBiSi’er Lars Larsen chewing the design fat. The vid’s got the best of both worlds—Ingels discussing design philosophy in a relatable way that doesn’t veer too far into abstraction, followed by Larsen discussing the nuts-and-bolts design of the product:
Jun 29
Umami Flavors Fly High
Posted in: dining, tastebuds, umami British Airways menus powered with the fifth taste serve food high in flavor and lower in salt and sugar
With the goal of making bland airline meals a thing of the past, the culinary team at British Airways Height Cuisine turned to Chef Heston Blumenthal to help them tackle the challenge of serving great-tasting food at 35,000 feet. In his show “Heston’s Mission Impossible” Blumentahl explored why so many foods loose flavor at altitude. He then set about developing techniques to solve the problem. Blumenthal suggests that the key to creating flavorful airline menus can be found in the ability to harness the powers of umami-rich ingredients.
The word umami may seem to have popped up recently, but according to Tim Hanni of the Napa Seasoning Company, this particular taste “was dubbed umami, a vernacular word for ‘good’ in Japanese, by Dr. Ikeda in the early 20th century, who formally presented research in 1908 that umami was a separate, primary taste.” Hanni, also known as the Swami of Umami explains, “The umami taste sensation is triggered by natural glutamate that is found in a vast array of foods: meats, poultry, seafood, dairy/cheeses, vegetables and fruits. Umami is amplified significantly when compounds called nucleotides, associated with fermentation and ripening, are added to the mix.” After much research and exploration of the power of umami, Hanni created his own product, Vignon, an all-natural, all-purpose seasoning made with sea salt and over 20 ‘micro ingredients’ that makes everything taste more flavorful and rich.
Umami flavors now power British Airways’ Height Cuisine menus. Mushrooms, shellfish, truffles, tomatoes and other umami-rich foods can be found in the Gate Gourmet kitchen. These techniques add power to the overall flavor profile of the food without needing to increase the amounts of salt and sugar. They are carefully prepared and sent up in the air to help make the experience of flying more enjoyable and delicious.
Sitting in Club World or World Traveler Plus class, looking down at a colorful plate of Caledonia blue shrimp with grilled artichoke, tomato petals and sherry truffle vinaigrette, or a Provencale vegetable lasagna with basil ricotta and creamy yellow tomato sauce, passengers now have a much better chance to taste the intended flavor of the food that has been carefully prepared and served with pride by the British Airways’ cabin crew.
Jun 29
Bath School of Art & Design Graphic Communication
Posted in: Uncategorized
Bath School of Art & Design’s final year graphic communication students created various fund-raising events to enable them to hire a decent venue for their degree show. Their efforts have paid off because their show, entitled Assembly and currently showing at the Rochelle School in Shoreditch, is well worth a visit…
There’s a huge amount of great work on show at Assembly but here are some highlights:
Tess Redburn illustration work included this laser cut cross section of a tree. Redburn then photographed the illustration to form the artwork for a submission to a Puffin design competition:
Redburn also exhibited a number of brightly coloured illustrations:
See more of Redburn’s work at tessredburn.co.uk
Lydia Burgess‘s illustrations of matchboxes.
Rupert Dunk created this typeface, The Mule, and also this rather nice engraving style face, carved into a slab of chipboard:
See more at rupertdunk.com
More type, this time by Will Harvey and created out of layers of cut wood.
And John Chapman‘s Pinko typeface was inspired by Art Deco London.
The above llustration is by Eliot Wyatt – who also exhibited a totem pole with a British theme (note the bulldog):
Wyatt also created a nice screenprinted concertina book featuring a host of illustrated characters:
See more at cargocollective.com/eliotwyatt
Cecilia Redondon-Zaratiegui created a plastic stencil tool to showcase her stencil typeface…
I also liked her design for an M&S biscuit tin that features a hand drawn image based on a cross-section of a thistle:
See more at ceciliarz.co.uk
Ed Seymour showcased his work on a series of wall mounted clipboards. I particularly liked his rendering of this Marina Willer quote:
Tom Sydenham‘s Shit My Friends Post (SMFP) book is a collection of Facebook status posts by friends posted in January 2012, each rendered in a different style.
See more of Sydenham’s work at cargocollective.com/antlaclad
Above is Callum Robey‘s sampler for his brush and ink rendered typeface, Les Crobag (named after “a wonderful place, which is like a foreign Greggs”. Love the dingbats:
See more of Robey’s work at callumrobey.blogspot.co.uk
Upstairs, a number of group projects were showcased. Punk & Posters was a fundraising event which featured a host of live bands . A group of 20 students created posters to promote the event which were exhibited on the evening. They were all published as a newsprint publication sold to raise funds for the degree show:
By Steph Winton
And Sports Day too was another group show arranged by the year group on the course. Below are four of 16 posters created for the project. Each artist was allocated an Olympic event and a colour with which to produce their print design. Shown here are posters by (clockwise from top left) Caitlin Ashton, Will Harvey, Thomas Wells and Seb Ingham.
Another group project saw different students create posters for their lectures:
This post really only scratches the surface of a great degree show. Assembly runs until July 1 at Rochelle School, Arnold Circus, London E2 7ES.
CR for the iPad
Read in-depth features and analysis plus exclusive iPad-only content in the Creative Review iPad App. Longer, more in-depth features than we run on the blog, portfolios of great, full-screen images and hi-res video. If the blog is about news, comment and debate, the iPad is about inspiration, viewing and reading. As well as providing exclusive, iPad-only content, the app will also update with new content throughout each month. Try a free sample issue here
CR in Print
The July issue of Creative Review features a piece exploring the past and future of the dingbat. Plus a look at the potential of paper electronics and printed apps, how a new generation of documentary filmmakers is making use of the web, current logo trends, a review of MoMA New York’s group show on art and type, thoughts on how design may help save Greece and much more. Also, in Monograph this month we showcase a host of rejected design work put together by two Kingston students.
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Jun 29
TED Books App
Posted in: ipadapps, publishers, userinterface Curator Chris Anderson on the media company’s new publishing platform
In a recent sit-down with TED Curator Chris Anderson, I had the chance to try out the TED Books app, a dedicated platform to hold the company’s publishing endeavor. Focused on short books, TED Books hopes to continue TED’s method of viral ideation by tailoring to today’s attention spans. This addition to the TED family has fascinating implications for the company, which has clearly moved from an annual meeting-of-the-minds to a global media phenomena. As Anderson, a publishing veteran, explains, “TED is a media organization devoted to ideas worth spreading.”
“Arguably, a lot of the reason why books are the length they are is because the physical form demands it. If you were to print a short book, it just feels cheap, so things have to be 80,000 words regardless of whether or not the content demands it,” says Anderson. “A book that fit the length of the idea that it’s trying to express became interesting to us.” Long enough to communicate the idea and short enough to feel unimposing, TED settled on 20,000 words—an ideal length for a single sitting.
“In a magazine, the mode of behavior is bit like a playground in that you browse—a page here, a page there. With a book, you’re on a train journey. You start and you work your way through, and there’s something very satisfying about that,” explains Anderson. “So what do you do on an iPad where you have lots of reasons to play and lots of opportunities to play?” After searching through available platforms, they settled on Atavist. The platform gave TED the level of interaction they were seeking, with narrative linearity and optional browsing of multimedia tangents.
Launched last January, TED Books is now moving away from Kindle singles to their dedicated app. The new platform accommodates browsing through in-line items that can link to images, maps, audio and video. Best of all, the interaction is optional—users choose the way in which they read by toggling the additional elements on or off. There is also social element that allows for a kind of user-generated marginalia. While books come in at $2.99 on the free app, TED encourages the subscription model for $14.99, which delivers two monthly books for three months. Founding subscribers (people who sign up in the first 90 days) will also receive free access to the entire back catalog of TED Books. Because users know what to expect from TED, the company can get away with this subscription model.
“I think one of the biggest problems in the book publishing world as it goes online is just the problem of discovery—so what’s the equivalent of walking into a bookstore and browsing to find the thing you want? The subscription model is an interesting alternative. You just say ‘Look, trust us.'”
The TED Books app is now available on iTunes. Check out the app in action by watching TED’s video.
Portrait by Josh Rubin
Jun 29
After working his way through the South, Dave talks with innovators of the automotive industry in Phoenix and Los Angeles. Keep up-to-date with all of the adventures on Route 77 by following @DaveSeliger on Twitter!
Day 13
The newest generation of the Rally Fighter
I was very excited to find out that Local Motors, a crowd-sourced car company, was based out of Phoenix, AZ—right in the middle of my four days driving through the desert. Local Motors released the first generation of the Rally Fighter in 2010 and is now rolling out the second generation. The company has also hosted design competitions for a variety of clients, including DARPA and Peterbilt. However, Local Motors faces stiff criticism that the company is effectively lowering the value of designers through their design competitions. I sat down with Local Motors’ Adam Keiser and Alex Fiechter to learn how the company is attempting to disrupt the auto manufacturing industry through crowd-sourced design, as well as increase the value of designers along the way.
Local Motors’ Adam Keiser
Local Motors’ microfactory
Local Motors CEO Jay Rogers initially came up with the concept for a community-driven (no pun intended) car design company while a student at the Harvard Business School. The point behind having a community—called the Forge—design a car is to have them design the car they would want to buy and then make that car a reality. In this way, Local Motors has an established niche market before the car is even produced. This is in stark contrast to the current paradigm of auto manufacturing. “You can’t walk into Ford or GM and say, ‘I want a car exactly how I want it designed,'” said Keiser. Moreover, Local Motors is set-up to have an extremely quick turnaround from initial sketches to a working prototype; in the case of the Rally Fighter, this timeline was only 18 months.
The first generation of the Rally Fighter
The prototype Rally Fighter
At the very foundation of this business model, though, is having a dedicated community of designers and engineers that will design whatever this car is. Fiechter argued that the compensation for the winning designer is more than fair. In the case of the Rally Fighter, winner Sangho Kim received $10,000 when Local Motors started to develop the car. The implicit understanding is that the prize money is representative of Local Motors purchasing the designer’s IP. Given that each competition only lasts for 3 to 4 weeks, and that a majority of competitors are students or recent graduates, “that’s pretty significant compensation for that amount of time,” said Feichter.
Ride along after the jump…
Jun 29
Cicli BigChief – La Divisa
Posted in: ciclibigchief, Eroica, maglia lanaLo so, sotto sotto siamo dei bambinoni ma a noi piace così. Questa sarà la nostra storica divisa. Ci vediamo domenica alla Mitica o su qualche altra eroica salita .
Who's in charge here?
This is site is run by Sascha Endlicher, M.A., during ungodly late night hours. Wanna know more about him? Connect via Social Media by jumping to about.me/sascha.endlicher.