Hasta La Ideas

“The words graphic designer, architect, or industrial designer stick in my throat, giving me a sense of limitation, of specialization within the specialty, of a relationship to society and form itself that is unsatisfactory and incomplete. This inadequate set of terms to describe an active life reveals only partially the still undefined nature of the designer.”

–Alvin Lustig (1915-55) in The Designer Says: Quotes, Quips, and Words of Wisdom, compiled and edited by Sara Bader, new this month from Princeton Architectural Press

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From left, Walker Evans, “Saint Martin, West Indies” (1974) and a 2007 photo from John Divola’s Abandoned Paintings series.

“What interested me about Walker Evans is probably not what interests other people about Walker Evans. What interests me is that he had a way of looking at things that people made and built, and then appropriating the subjectivity of whoever constructed it. Late in his life he actually collected handpainted signs…he’s photographing buildings that small-scale contractors are making, where they have to make certain kinds of judgments, and he photographs other things as well but there are an awful lot of handpainted signs. That’s something in the work that I’m really interested in—this identifying and appropriating and contextualizing the aesthetic or the literal choices that people make. And in terms of my own work, I’m doing that, except that I’m one of the subjective actors, in a certain sense. I’m taking something that has an inherent set of attributes to it—somebody has either kicked a hole in the wall or chosen to build a kitchen that looks that way or put that kind of wallpaper up. And then my own activity, in relationship to it and in the photograph, simply contextualizes these kinds of actions and choices that are made prior to the capturing of the photograph.”

–John Divola last Friday at Paris Photo Los Angeles, in an on-stage conversation with Richard Misrach and curator Douglas Fogle.

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“The Riedel stemless wine goblet is foul to look at and fouler to drink wine from. Calling it a ‘goblet’ is an insult to me as a good Catholic altar-boy who is used to gleaming silver grails at Mass. If you are so antsy about wine glasses having stems, you should get some old ones without stems–especially those with a square crystal base. The idea that you should worry endlessly about glasses of red wine being knocked over is typically one of those irritating middle-class anxieties best consigned to oblivion. If a glass of red wine is knocked over, then it’s knocked over. We will just have to clean it up. Blotches on tablecloths and carpets are the marks of stylish nonchalance and confidence.”

–Sir David Tang, responding to a reader question concerning Riedel wine tumblers, in his most recent “Agony Uncle” column for the Financial Times

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“This is one of the strangest items I’ve ever seen entered into a typography competition….It’s a beautiful book with a blue cover. The title of the book has a blank space for you to fill in. The only typography inside the entire book is some standard text in small print on the copyright page. That’s it. Instead, every page has a grid in light non-photo blue lines. Every few pages the grid changes to another pattern. This goes on for a hundred or more pages. What is going on here?

This is a book about the hidden structure of typography. The blue lines are collected from available empty notebook pages from all over the world–fully 47 different ruling styles, from traditional grade-school line-spacing to music staves and mathematical grid styles. These represent the underpinning structure of all writing and typography, a structure too often ignored today by fashionable high-flying digital designers (who can do literally anything–and constantly do). This little book is a comfortable reminder of the bedrock rules underlying all typography. It’s waiting for you to add the text along the guidelines required. It’s a essentially a typographic ‘Book of Rules.’ (Duh!)”

–Art Chantry on Rimini Berlin‘s Notebook, designed by Till Beckmann, Jenny Hasselbach, and Franziska Morlok. The book, published by Revolver, was Chantry’s Judge’s Choice pick for the 57th annual Type Director’s Club competition. Check out this year’s TDC winners in communication design and typeface design.

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“Advanced fashion usually makes me feel like turning around. I see a neon jumpsuit or a button-down shirt with sentences written on it, and I start thinking about fracking, Fukushima, voting machines, the Bilbao Guggenheim. But, reassuringly, a lot of people seem to agree with me. The future is iffy. I guess that explains the boom is what is referred to as ‘retro,’ which is manifest lately in a return to tailored clothing, beards, gray flannel, tweeds, and waxed-cotton outerwear.

Years ago, I couldn’t find a three-piece suit, so I had one made. I couldn’t find a three-button seersucker suit, so I had one made. I guess I am a fashion leader, but in reverse. Sorry, but I just like reading silver fork novels by candlelight in my smoking jacket.”

-Renegade traditionalist Glenn O’Brien, in an essay that appears in the spring 2013 issue of Bergdorf Goodman Magazine

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