Hasta La Ideas

As the art season slows down for the summer months and galleries take a breather from the rush of global art fairs, many gallerists take this time to identify and unify themes that reflect some of the concepts being expressed by contemporary artists, and put together group shows. Here are…

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Tonight’s Curiosity Club is “8 Days A Week” with the prolific Kate Bingaman-Burt, illustrator, educator and all-round creative badass. As she puts it: Kate will involve colorful visuals, excitement about personal projects (both hers and others), her path from wanting to be a morning TV personality (watch out Kathie Lee) to teaching (it was an accident, I swear) to drawing every day (my hand is cramping as I type this). Also, she has a problem with slipping from third person to first person while writing (I am so sorry). Also, she usually gives away stuff at her talks (Will the TSA confiscate a t-shirt cannon? What if it shot confetti? Hmmm…how about hot dogs? I love hot dogs). Bring your own ketchup and mustard. I look forward to seeing you all.

Come by Hand-Eye Supply at 6pm PT, or tune in as we stream live.

About Kate Bingaman-Burt

Kate makes piles of work about the things that we BUY (and want) and the emotions attached to our STUFF. She also happily think and draw for good people and companies. She has been making work about consumption since 2002, teaching since 2004 and drawing until her hand cramps since 2006 (ouch).Along with being an educator and illustrator, she organize events, installations, workshops and she probably talks a bit too much.

Her first book, Obsessive Consumption: What Did You Buy Today? was published by Princeton Architectural Press in 2010. Since then, she has collaborated with them to produce two more titles about documentation and consumption in 2012 and 2014. Her design clients include Chipotle, Hallmark, IDEO, VH1, Girl Scouts of America, Madewell and the Gap as well as locally loved institutions like the Museum of Contemporary Craft, Reading Frenzy and Know Your City. She am also actively involved in the organization of Design Week Portland.

Kate is an Associate Professor of Graphic Design at Portland State University. In 2013, she was the recipient of the 2013 College of the Arts Kamelia Massih Outstanding Faculty Prize as well as a TEDXPortland Speaker. She is the faculty advisor for the PSU.GD student design group Friends of Graphic Design (FoGD) and the in-house student design studio A+D Projects. She also coordinates the weekly Show & Tell Lecture Series. For her, teaching and making go hand in hand. Without one, the other wouldn’t exist.

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This weekend saw the unveiling of the collaborative bicycle designs that are going head to head in the third edition of the Oregon Manifest, in which five teams in as many cities set out to create and craft the best urban utility bike. As of Monday morning, the public is invited to vote on their favorite one, which may well be produced by Fuji Bikes in the near future. We are pleased to present exclusive Q&As with each team so they have a chance to explain why their bicycle is the best before the voting period closes this Sunday, August 3.

Yesterday, we heard from NYC’s Pensa × Horse Cycles. Here’s the story behind Industry × Ti Cycles‘s “SOLID,” representing Portland, Ore.

Core77: Did you and Ti Cycles know (or know of) each other before the collaboration? What was the matchmaking process like?

Garett Stenson (Industry): We knew of Ti Cycles’ reputation, their 25 years of experience, and expertise in bike craftsmanship. They are experts in metal, most notably, pushing the boundaries of titanium. The matchmaking and selection process for us was about close collaboration—is our builder willing to change the game, redefine the category, and truly make things better?

By its nature, the design/fabrication relationship for this collaboration is far more intimate than your average designer’s relationship with a contractor or manufacturer. To what degree did you educate each other on your respective areas of expertise?

To disrupt any category you need friction. Innovation hurts—tension is an important part of the process. We believe the best idea needs to be stress tested and the process, iterative. Bringing together Ti Cycles’ craftsman mentality with INDUSTRY’s modern and agile approach was the perfect marriage. We aligned on pushing the boundaries early on, yet respected each other’s expertise. At the end of the day, it was about creating a meaningful (and winning) result—together.

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This is the latest installment of our Core77 Questionnaire. Previously, we talked to IKEA creative director Mia Lundström.

Name: Todd St. John

Occupation: Designer/illustrator/animator. Founder of HunterGatherer.

Location: Brooklyn

Current projects: We are doing some ongoing work with Pilgrim, which is a surf shop in Brooklyn run by a friend. We just finished up some animation for AM Labs, which is a cleaning-product company based in Denmark. And we’re working on our own product designs.

Mission: Striving to make designs that seem inevitable

From Photo-Graphics, an ongoing series of cameras rendered in wood

Cover images for a Money Mark LP and the New York Times Magazine

When did you decide that you wanted to be a designer? When I was younger I was interested in too many things. At some point in school, when I understood what design could encompass, it really appealed to me. Since it was so expansive, you could do quite a number of things and still call them “design.”

Education: My degree is in graphic design, from the University of Arizona. Later I taught a design class for 10 years in Yale’s graduate program, and I feel like I learned quite a bit from the faculty and students there. I also absorbed a lot about woodworking and engineering from my father.

First design job: In school, my first “design” internship was in Hawaii, where I grew up. I worked for a small agency, doing illustrations for a local ice cream shop and coffee packaging and things like that. Out of school, it was for a small firm in San Diego, doing identities and packaging.

Who is your design hero? The answer to that question changes. But I recently read a Jim Henson biography, and I’ve always thought really highly of him and how he combined communication and fun and visual innovation in ways that do great things for the world.

Inside HunterGatherer’s studio in Brooklyn

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The clouds sit very low atop rugged mountains, each rising in a dramatic curve directly from the sea. Birds circle overhead while music seems to infuse with the mysticism of the landscape and oscillates over the sea. From 17 to 19 July 2014,…

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