Hasta La Ideas

What Gatsby? From left, Kate Spade’s book clutch, a Mac decal inspired by the the eyes of Doctor T.J. Eckleburg, and a t-shirt from the 1925 first edition jacket by Francis Cugat.

Baz Luhrmann‘s adaptation of The Great Gatsby arrived in theaters today, old sport, and everyone from here to Montenegro–little Montenegro down on the Adriatic Sea!–is trying to get a piece of the action. Although we’ve yet to see Meyer Wolfshiem-style molar cufflinks hit stores or Goddard‘s The Rise of the Coloured Empires ascend the bestseller list, the merch is multiplying. Of course, there’s the movie tie-in version of the book, sporting a new cover that one bookseller characterized as “just God-awful.” Brooks Brothers is selling a Gatsby Collection, inspired by costume designer Catherine Martin‘s take on all those heartbreakingly beautiful shirts (Gatsby had his man in London send a fresh batch over each season), and Tiffany & Co. is promoting “jazz-age glamour” pieces, such as this diamond- and pearl-studded Great Gatsby Collection headpiece–yours for $200,000. Fans on a budget closer to that of Nick Carraway can opt for a selection of Gatsby t-shirts after trying their hand at The Great Gatsby video game, the brilliant, Nintendo-style creation of Charlie Hoey and Peter Malamud Smith. But as usual, everyone looks like beautiful little fools when compared to Stephen Colbert, who didn’t let his failure to read Fitzgerald‘s classic stop him from greenlighting a book club segment on it.

New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.

New York graphic designer Massimo Vignelli compares the grid used to lay out a publication as “the underwear of the book” in this movie by design consultancy Pentagram.

Vignelli explains how he begins a book design by laying paper over a simple grid for positioning images and text, which can’t be seen in the finished article. “The grid is the underwear of the book,” he says. “You wear it but it’s not to be exposed.”

He lists different layout options made possible by his grid system, including several pictures per page, one full page image and one smaller opposite, or double-page photos for the “wow” effect.

Vignelli sketches the images by hand when mocking up the layout as he believes it’s faster for him than using a computer.

He compares the design process to making a movie. “The scale and the pacing of the images makes the book, it’s just like a film,” he says. “The scriptwriter is the author of the book, and I’m the director and cinematographer.”

The film was designed by Michael Bierut of Pentagram for paper manufacturer Mohawk‘s What Will You Make Today? campaign. It features the publication Richard Meier, Architect: Vol. 3 released in 1999.

Earlier this year it was announced that Vignelli’s logo and livery designs for American Airlines were to be replaced by new graphics by FutureBrand.

See more graphic design »
See more architecture and design books »

The post “The grid is the underwear of the book”
– Massimo Vignelli appeared first on Dezeen.

“I just want to make beautiful things, even if nobody cares.” – Saul Bass Framed as a call-and-response between designers, “The Designer Says: Quotes, Quips,…

Continue Reading…

• “[S]tripped of most traditional linguistic elements, the short film has to move fast, but it must strive not to confuse the viewer with too many objects or jarring cuts,” writes Stephen Apkon in The Age of Image: Redefining Literacy in a World of Screens, new this month from Farrar, Straus and Giroux. The book inspired this short film (above) by Daniel Liss.

• And speaking of short films, the Tribeca Film Festival has selected the winners in its six-second film competition. Watch all of the jury’s top picks in under a minute here.

• It’s the end of an era for Cooper Union, which will begin charging undergraduates tuition beginning next fall.

• The design community and members of the general public are protesting MoMA’s decision to raze the building that Tod Williams Billie Tsien designed for the American Folk Art Museum. The Architectural League drafted this open letter requesting MoMA to provide “a compelling justification for the cultural and environmental waste of destroying this much-admired, highly distinctive twelve-year-old building.”

• All is fair (use) in love and appropriation? Artist Richard Prince emerged largely triumphant in yesterday’s appeals court ruling on the copyright case involving his 2008 “Canal Zone” series, which used portraits from Patrick Cariou‘s Yes, Rasta book.

New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.

Our May issue is the biggest CR ever, weighing in at over 230 pages. It’s our Annual special, with over 100 pages of the best work of the year in visual communications combined with a regular issue containing our usual mix of interviews, opinion and reviews

The CR Annual, in association with iStockphoto, is our round-up of the best work of the year, as chosen by our panel of judges. The judges also choose what they deem to be the best of the best in our Best in Book section.

We have also chosen our design studio, client and ad agency of the year – details in the issue.

Once you’ve finished perusing the Annual, turn over for a regular issue of the magazine where you will find a host of features relating to the work selected for the Annual this year. This includes a major profile piece on Morag Myerscough, whose Cathedral Café project features in The Annual and who also designed our cover this month

Here’s a film of Morag and her team making the cover:

We also interview Christian Borstlap from Part of a Biggler Plan in Amsterdam, whose work for Louis Vuitton has featured in several of our Annuals

One thing our graphics jury noticed about the work entered this year was how nostalgic much of it was. In particular, there was a trend for what we termed ‘Austerity Graphics’ – post-war British replete with sugary pastel colours. We explore the rise of this trend and look back at graphic design’s abiding addiction to referencing the past

Another trend discussed by our judges was the increasing importance of the ‘PR stunt’ in advertising: we explore what effect this is having on ad agency creative departments and the skills of those who work there

And, in our final profile piece, we met Human After All, the creative agency formed by the design team behind Little White Lies magazine

In our Crit section, Wayne Ford reviews Jo Metson Scott’s new book of photographs of soldiers who have opposed the Iraq war

James Pallister looks at how microsites have become a new platform for protest, Gordon Comstock discusses the tensionbetween branding’s desire for consistency and advertising’s search for originality, MIchale Evamy discusses brands which play with concealing their identity, Daniel Benneworth-Grey ruminates on the difficulties of working for that most demanding client (yourself) an Paul Belford applauds the risk-taking in a classic ad for Alexon produced by the combined talents of Richard Avedon, Paul Arden and Tim Mellors

And, if that wasn’t enough, our subscribers can also enjoy a fabulous collection of Cuban posters produced by the Organisation in Solidarity with the People of Africa, Asia, and Latin America, in this month’s Monograph

You can buy the May Annual issue direct from us here. Better yet, subscribe and you will not only save money but will be guaranteed to receive CR (and Monograph) every month. If you subscribe before May 3, you will get the Annual issue thrown in for free. The offer also applies to anyone renewing their subscription. Details here

Thanks to everyone who entered The Annual this year, our judges, and to all our sponsors: iStockphoto, Microsoft, Shadowplay, Cake Factory, Streamtime, Agency Rush and Fasthosts Internet