Hasta La Ideas

From October 22 through October 30 2011, the tenth edition of Dutch
Design Week takes place in Eindhoven. DDW presents unpa..

The dustjacket of the illustrated catalogue produced for “Graphic Design: Now in Production,” which opens tomorrow at the Walker Art Center. (Photo: Walker Art Center)

Beginning tomorrow, the Walker Art Center welcomes visitors to “Graphic Design: Now in Production.” Curated by a team led by Andrew Blauvelt and Ellen Lupton, the highly anticipated exhibition (bound for New York’s Governor Island in June) showcases graphic design highlights of the last ten years, from magazines and posters to film titles and typography. Plus, it’s a perfect opportunity to show off Walker Extended, the Minneapolis institution’s own boundary-pushing graphic identity. Designed by Eric Olson, it functions as a typeface but instead of bold and italic fonts is grouped into related words, or vocabularies, and repeating patterns. “The identity is always a line that contains words and is applied across a surface,” said Chad Kloepfer, senior designer at the Walker, in an interview. “The elements that vary are the actual words, the scale, patterns, colors, and placement. You see different colors and layouts resulting in variations of usage, but the identity is so distinctive that it is always recognizable as the Walker.” The below video, produced by Blauvelt and graphic designer Emmet Byrne, offers a peek inside the identity-cum-design toolkit.

New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.

For the first time in history, the majority of the earth’s approximately 7 billion inhabitants live in cities. Close to one billion people live in informal settlements, commonly known as slums or squatter settlements, and that number is projected to swell to two billion by 2030.

This incredible set of facts opens the newest Cooper-Hewitt exhibition, Design with the Other 90%: CITIES , featuring 60 projects, proposals and design solutions that address the multi-layered and complex issues facing residents who inhabit these informal settlements. An interesting cross-section of civic and private entites are represented in CITIES; architects, governments, NGOs, community leaders and industrial designers lead the way with innovatie products across the fields of architecture, materials, transportation, entrepreneurship, education, public health and civic life.

Digital Drum, Kampala, Uganda. Devised by the UNICEF Innovation Team. Solar-powered computer kiosk includes information like education curriculum, school-safety guidelines and public health information. The first prototype was made in a car-repair shop using oil drums, basic grinders and a metal arc welder.

A followup to Cooper-Hewitt’s 2007 exhibition Design for the Other 90%, this second installation in an ongoing series is most notably mounted at the United Nations headquarters in New York City where visitors and dignitaries from around the world can interact and be inspired by the works. “The United Nations offers an ideal setting to examine these complex issues and connect with stakeholders who can impart real change.”

One of the most striking things about the exhibit is the transformative effect many of the tools, systems and services we might take for granted can have when introduced to informal settlement communities. For example, a lo-fi mapping project in Lima, Peru using an inflated trash bag, plastic bottles, duct tape, a rubberband and a digital camera can give a resident of an informal settlement a sense of place in the context of the larger city. Medellin’s Metrocable public transportation cable car system physically connects remote informal settlements to the central metro system giving residents a line into centers of commerce and outside opportunity. A recent profile in the New Yorker documents the work of Indian software billionaire, Nandan Nilekani, to build the world’s largest biometric database. This national database would give formerly undocumented individuals access to government programs and in a more informal way, a sense of true identity.

Designers are using a human-centered approach coupled with local leaders and resources to empower communities from within. A great example of this is the work of Design Without Borders in Kampala, Uganda. With 75% of hospital-reported injuries in Kampala linked with motorcycle taxi-related accidents, there has been multiple attempts to get the boda boda drivers to don helmets. Using Design Without Borders‘ human-centered research approach, designers worked with boda boda drivers and local manufacturers to develop the bePRO Motor-taxi Helmet, a lightweight helmet suitable for hot climates using readily available fiberglass composite. The final design is affordable, includes integrated ventilation, holes for hearing passengers, durable closures and graphics from the young Kampala artist, Ivan Bargiye. As Kristoffer Leivestad Olsen, designer with DWB explained, “The shift from export to local production and manufacturing for a potential market of millions is powerful.”

Design with the Other 90%: CITIES
United Nations Headquarters, Visitors Center
First Avenue at 46th Street, New York City
Through January 9, 2012

Vertical Gym, Caracas, Venezuela. Urban Think Tank with Architects Alfredo Brillembourg and Hubert Klumpner. Limited land and high crime rates often make it unsafe for children living in informal settlements to play and participate in sports. This four-story facility’s flexible design allows for stacked volumes to be reassembled and adjusted for different locations. The prototype structures are conceived as a kit of parts and the latest design incorporates recycled materials, wind towers, solar panels and rainwater collection to reduce operational costs and environmental impact.

Bicycle Phone Charger, Arusha Tanzania. Developed by MIT D-Lab’s and Global Cycle Solutions. In Tanzania, the majority of the people live without electricity, yet a third of the country uses mobile phones. The bicycle phone charger generates power when its roller comes in contact with a bike’s spinning wheel and is designed using scrap bike and radio parts. GCS has plans to distribute the phone globally.

(more…)

The New York School of Interior Design recreates the seminal show “What Modern Was” in a new exhibit and discussion

When the traveling exhibition “Design 1935-1965: What Modern Was” opened in 1991, the accompanying 424-page catalog startled the industry with its declaration that the Modern period was over, and should, from that point, be spoken about in the past tense. Subsequently revered as the bible for mid-century decorative arts, the heavy tome’s distinct perspective came from four years of scholarly research of the thirty-year period, led by Rutgers University art history professor Martin Eidelberg and acclaimed curator David A. Hanks.

In celebration of the volume’s 20th anniversary, the New York School of Interior Design is recreating the landmark show in an exhibition dubbed “Modern in the Past Tense.” While the original selection showcased designs solely from the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts’ Liliane and David M. Stewart Collection, the updated display will echo the time period with chronologically-arranged photographs of interiors and architectural milestones, as well as furniture from various other private collectors.

Another groundbreaking moment for the exhibition, in addition to the catalog’s bold claim, came when the team of 16 scholars separated the Modern period into five subdivisions. Designs were broken up into International Style Modernism, Biomorphic Modernism, Streamlined Modernism, Postwar Modernism, and Postmodernism. The timeline accompanying “Modern in the Past Tense” will add even more context to these categories, showing the cultural moments that helped to define each one.

The exhibition opens with a panel discussion with “What Modern Was” curators Hanks and Eidelberg, legendary collector Mark McDonald and modernist interior designer Ali Tayar. “Modern in the Past Tense” opens 26 October 2011 and runs through 12 January 2012 at NYSID.

Literal highlights from the Pavilion of Art & Design during London’s Art Week

Now in its fifth year, the Pavilion of Art & Design gathers the most exclusive European galleries under one large, pink tent in Berkeley Square to show their beautiful objets d’art and design as part of the ever-growing London art week—with PAD serving as a more boutique-like alternative to the nearby behemoth Frieze Art Fair.

This year, we went on a quest to pick out the most striking contemporary works from the 20th-century art and furniture collections. Five very different works grabbed our attention, united by their minimal white expression.

Sandra Davolio‘s beautifully-delicate white porcelain vessels were the standout at the Modernity Gallery. Created by an Italian ceramicist living in Denmark, the pieces combine typically-Scandinavian aesthetic restraint with the floral Italian character of spiraling petals.

Another Italian adopting new cultural roots is Paola Petrobelli, a former molecular biologist who now works as a glass artist in London. Her 2011 Centrotavola collection of small white Murano glass vessels with brightly-colored rims was created for the Perimeter’s “What’s on The Table” project. Paula explains that for these minimal creations she wanted to “strip both the idea of centerpiece, and that of Murano glass of their connotation of frills, but retain at the same time their playfulness.”

Also distinctly playful is Beth Katleman‘s dramatic “Folly” (2010) at Todd Merrill Studio. Fifty suspended white porcelain sculptures throwing shadows across a turquoise backdrop come together as a kind of 3D wallpaper installation, which Katleman describes as a contemporary interpretation of traditional 18th-century Toile de Jouy fabrics.

At once refined in appearance and kitsch in subject, this work plays with notions of valuable antiques and knock-off trinkets. Katleman says, “Porcelain suggests luxury refinement and royal provenance. While one flea market treasure seems a little sad, a florid profusion of them is cause for celebration.” Folly will be on show this Fall at the Museum of Art and Design in New York.

Rolf Sachs’ pleasantly clinical “Light Chemistry” (2011), on show at Dutch gallery Priveekollektie, serves as a direct contrast to Katleman’s Folly. Sachs’ work stood out for being both practical and beautiful, using ready-made objects in an intriguingly-sculptural way. The designer’s use of typical laboratory equipment in a surprising skeletal contraption—a retort stand becomes the spinal cord, flasks are used as organs and electrical wires as veins—gives the appearance of an illuminated 3D biological drawing.

Finally, we were treated to Random International’s annual showing of their new work at the Carpenters Workshop Gallery. “A Study of Time #1” is as beguiling as any of this cutting-edge studio’s previous works. At first, the wall installation appears to be a digital dancing-light sculpture, until you become aware of the shadows cast by the LED lights, arranged on a grid of protruding rods. The shadows are created by an autonomous algorithm that illuminates the LEDs in sequence, so that numbers telling the time are briefly thrown across the white Corian base, before being absorbed back into a recurring light show. This ephemeral take on the clock as light and shadow was inspired by rAndom International’s recent scenography for the contemporary dance piece, “Far,” by Wayne McGregor at Random Dance.