Hasta La Ideas

Image via  A Zillion Dollars Comics…(Read…)

La lampe « Ambio » a été pensée par la designer hollandaise Teresa van Dongen. La lumière devient bleue grâce à des bactéries bioluminescentes plongées dans l’eau de mer qui s’allument à chaque secousse due aux roulements des vagues et à la présence d’oxygène. Une rencontre technologique entre design et biologie, à découvrir.

News: Norway’s central bank has selected pixellated designs by Oslo design studio Snøhetta to feature on the back of the country’s new banknotes.

Norges Bank selected the Snøhetta graphics along with designs by Oslo studio The Metric System to form the back and front of its revamped kroner notes, giving “both a traditional and a modern look”.

The designs by the two studios beat six others in a competition launched earlier this year.

“The purpose of the contest was to come up with a proposal that can be the starting point for the artistic design of the new banknote series and conveys the theme The Sea in a good way,” said a translated statement from the bank.

Snøhetta’s theme for the designs was The Beauty of Boundaries, which celebrates landmarks along Norway’s vast coastline. These have been abstracted and pixellated to create patterns of coloured blocks in different shades.

“The beauty of boundaries is about the transition between sea and land, where something meaningful and interesting happens,” said Snøhetta.

A different colour dominates each note: from green used on the 50 kroner design through red, blue and orange, up to purple on the 1,000 kroner note.

In Snøhetta’s competition entry, the front design of the notes were largely covered by black-and-white photographs of nautical scenes, with subtle coloured strips overlaid.

These were dropped by the bank for The Metric System’s illustrations of traditional and contemporary sailing vessels.

“The front pages of The Metric System is very well adapted to incorporate the necessary safety items,” said the statement. “The expression is open, bright and typical Nordic.”

Norges Bank is now working with the designs to integrate the security elements required to make the notes machine-readable and to prevent counterfeiting, before they are released in 2017.

“The final papers will therefore deviate somewhat from the starting point as shown above,” the bank said.

Designs submitted to the competition are now on display at the Grafill offices in Oslo, Rosenkrantzgate 21, until 26 October.

Snøhetta also designed the graphics for Oslo’s bid to host the 2022 Winter Olympics, but the city withdrew its entry earlier this week.

The post Snøhetta graphics to feature
on Norwegian banknotes appeared first on Dezeen.

Created some two generations ago, in the heady pre-hyperlapse days, the Eames’ Powers of Ten remains as relevant today as ever before. While the short film makes for an unlikely (or at least hyperbolic) comparison to the work of snow artist Simon Beck, the very concept of scale is precisely why both the film and the large-scale drawings are compelling and accessible to a broad audience.

Having previously seen Beck’s work when it made rounds last year, I was interested to have the opportunity to interview him on the occasion of the launch of Icebreaker’s inaugural artist collaboration, for which a portion of the proceeds will be donated to Protect Our Winters (a non-profit organization for climate change awareness). Commissioned by the apparel company, Beck’s interpretation of a ram’s horn—a reference to merino wool—features prominently among the geometric artwork that has been printed on the pieces in the new collection.

Over the past decade, Beck has all but perfected his technique of ‘drawing’ on snow and has recently expanded his enterprise to include works on sand as well; he employs snowshoes to achieve a kind of stippling effect on the former surface and a rake to etch lines in the latter. His only other tools are an orienteering compass and a string-and-anchor to demarcate the ‘skeleton’ of the piece relative to the center point or vertices. As for the content itself—canonical fractals and patterns of his own design, but sometimes cartoons by request—Beck goes by a thumbnail sketch and gut instinct, rarely drawing out the entire piece beforehand, because (as he dryly notes) “it’s too time consuming.”

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Dear Reader,

The fall issue has arrived! Draped in its silver foil spine, and complemented by an understated but dramatic colour palette throughout, it is certainly a visual departure from the full spectrum approach of the summer issue. As curator of the magazine—and as art director / graphic designer—I felt like I needed a bit of a palate cleanser after the full-on exuberance of issue 22. So issue 23 offers something a bit darker, a bit simpler… but just as delicious! Like a crème brulé or a café au lait for dessert.

The reason I loved Seb Lester’s grocery list for the cover is that it demonstrates the commitment required to master penmanship—even composing a mundane list is an opportunity to practice. There’s the popular saying that “practice makes perfect”. Certainly as you view the amazing displays of calligraphic talent in this issue that adage might ring in your ears… there’s no way any of these letterers and calligraphers could have achieved their level of ability without countless hours of practice. But does it make them perfect? No. Not at all. No one is perfect and no one’s creative output is perfect. 

UPPERCASE content is selected and designed to be inspirational… there’s no doubt that after reading through this issue, you’ll want to pick up a calligraphy pen. But if you’re new or rusty, let me tell you want will happen… your first letters are going to be terrible! Your calligraphic aspirations will not flow effortlessly from the nib. Your hand will cramp and your letters will be awkward. Frustrated, you’ll inevitably compare your writing to what is displayed in this issue. But don’t despair! Come back to it the next day and try again. I guarantee that you’ll be a better calligrapher. And the day after that, you’ll be three times as good.

After creating 23 issues of UPPERCASE, it is still very far from perfect. There’s a big list of things I want to try, redesigns I want to initiate, column ideas waiting in the wings. Budgetary and time constraints that affect what I can do… And there’s probably a lurking typo or something that I missed. But each issue shows a lot of what I’ve learned over the years—and even things I’ve learned since the last issue came out in July. That’s what I like to focus on. Practice makes progress.

Everything takes practice. The goal isn’t perfection.

This message was originally published in my weekly newsletter. If you’d like content like this (plus more — see the full version here) please sign up.