Thinking for
a Living™

Bastardised

Finally it’s here! Bastardised, is the culmination of the global identity project created by Bunch. Bunch decided that it was time to rework our corporate identity and base it around the overarching theme of Made in Bunch.

The book showcases the wealth of creativity, beauty and humor found within 289 of the Bunchisms specially selected from 750 contributions. The hardback, 208 page book was printed in Croatia by Kratis, with paper by Igepa and was self-published by Bunch.

Letters & Ligatures

House Industries presents Letters & Ligatures, a new exhibition of prints, patterns, installations and sculptures based on their 15-year excursion into the alphabetical world, at Shepard Fairey’s Subliminal Projects. The show opens on November 8th and runs until December 5, 2008.

Wonder Years

Published by ROMA Publications and ArtEZ Press on the occasion of the 10th anniversary of the Werkplaats Typografie, Wonder Years: Werkplaats Typografie 1998-2008 is a record of work made by over fifty participants to the Werkplaats Typografie program. Beyond an anthology, the archive represented here is an interpretation of a design school history, compiling its items according to a rather subjective, incomplete and inimitable set of entries. The 10 years story of the Werkplaats Typografie is narrated by a group of current participants, intersected by annotations, voice over and parallel readings from Stuart Bailey, Uta Eisenreich, Paul Elliman, Raimundas Malasauskas, Karel Martens, Armand Mevis and Willem Oorebeek.

Wonder Years can be purchased directly from the Werkplaats Typografie or pre-ordered from Stand Up Comedy in the US.

Light Blubs

Light blubs is a series of unique crystal lamps by Pieke Bergmans with Royal Leerdam Crystal and Solid Lighting. A ‘light blub’ is a light bulb that has gone way out of line. Infected by the dreaded design virus, these blubs have taken on all kinds of forms and sizes you wouldn’t expect from such well behaving and reliable little products. Nevertheless, they seem to be enjoying their new free existences.

Light blubs were found shining across Milan during the Salone Del Mobile 2008. The lamps are all unique handcrafted crystal pieces, equipped with LEDs by Solid Lighting.

Lou Dorfsman (1918-2008)

Lou Dorfsman, who for more than 40 years designed every aspect of the Columbia Broadcasting Company’s advertising and corporate identity, including the set of Walter Cronkite’s newsroom and the typographically elegant sign system for CBS’s New York headquarters, known as Black Rock, died on Wednesday in Roslyn, New York at the age of 90.

Guidelines for Online Success

Have you ever wondered why your websites didn’t quite match up to the success of your competitors or peers? Have you ever looked at other sites and thought: Why didn’t I think of that? Have you ever spent too much time trying to find basic information that was buried deep in a needlessly complex website? You are certainly not alone and Guidelines for Online Success aims to change that by bringing together some of the world s most highly acclaimed designers and developers, spanning every continent, all of whom share their knowledge and experience.

With chapters arranged by subject (interface and design, marketing and communication, technology and programming, technical advice, content/content management, and commerce), a clear do/don t structure, and plenty of real world examples of successful and award-winning websites, this book has all the advice and examples you will need to give your personal or business website an edge on its competitors and also win industry acclaim as well as respect from your peers. Your visitors will thank you.

Christopher Doyle Identity Guidelines

Christopher Doyle is a genius – and a very funny guy. It seems that this Sydney-based designer has done a few too many identity projects with his current employer, the Moon Group, and as result he decided to create a set of guidelines for himself. He began to wonder how his personal identity would be documented if it were considered in graphic design terms. The results are hilarious and quite well-crafted.

Adhering to Colour and Graphic Device guides will ensure consistency while allowing for the evolution and variation of my identity. Incorrect use of these elements will confuse not only myself, but those I interact with.

Incorrect uses of my identity include Tucking and Tying. These examples show how even the smallest alteration can dilute and confuse my identity, affecting overall perception.

My identity can appear in either full colour or black and white (mono). In both formats the core colour palette, consisting of 100% black, must be present at all times. When appearing in colour, the secondary palette should consist of a number of variations and combinations, all of which must complement the core palette.

Download the Christopher Doyle Identity Guidelines in PDF format and enjoy them for yourself.

A Timely Debate

In 1972, graphic designers Wim Crouwel and Jan van Toorn debated their ideas and beliefs before an audience at Amsterdam’s Museum Fodor. On November 2, in commemoration of that now-historic night, the pair will converse before an audience once more at Felix Meritis in Amsterdam. Register by October 25, 2008 at Premsela.

Cold War Modern

Cold War Modern at the V&A is the first exhibition to explore international developments in modern art, design, architecture and film in the context of the Cold War, as the Soviet Union and America engaged in an aggressive contest to build their own spheres of influence. The exhibition features a wide array of artists and designers of the period including Dieter Rams, Otl Aicher, Charles Eames, Le Corbusier and Stanley Kubrick.

The exhibition and guide were both designed by one of my long time favorite studios, Bibliothèque, a creatively-led graphic design consultancy that is based in Shoreditch, London.

12 in 12

12 in 12 is an accompaniment to a lecture given by Craig Oldham to the students of University College Falmouth. When Craig was invited to give a talk he didn’t want to resort to the usual ‘show and tell’ approach as he felt there are more suitable people to tell the story of The Chase, his place of employment. He decided that it would be more useful to the students to speak of the things that they would really like to hear about the industry they’re entering. Thus, he gave his account of 12 things that he had learned in his first 12 months as a designer.

1. Understand what graphic design means to you.
2. Be honest with yourself about your strengths and weaknesses.
3. A portfolio is for life, not just for an interview.
4. Placements matter. Do them.
5. The design industry is small, everyone knows everybugger else.
6. Participate with other people and share your ideas.
7. Graphic design is just a job, but being a designer is different.
8. Fall off your bike. If you don’t fail then you are not trying.
9. Life and work exist outside of London.
10. Designing is only about 20% of your job.
11. Have a life outside of design.
12. Work hard and be nice to people.

Grid Systems

YouWorkForThem is proud to bring you the release of our Fall 2008 Men’s and Women’s tees and sweatshirts, including this beauty which plays off the classic book of the same name. Grid Systems is a limited edition T-Shirt designed and produced by YouWorkForThem. Nab it while you can.

Container Color Systems

Loving these container color systems posters by Antrepo Design Industry. The graphic simplicity and saturated colors hit the sweet spot for me. I’ve got to get my hands on these!

All Images Copyright © 2008 Antrepo. All rights reserved.

TypeNeu

TypeNeu introduced a nice update today. TypeNeu is an odyssey in typography and reports on the past, present and the future of typographic culture. Typophile is a common diagnosis, and yes this is the cure. TypeNeu is a suprb collaboration between Emil Olsson and Andreas Pihlstrom.

Chances With Wolves

Recommended listening via the always watchful Jauretsi of Starworks fame. Chances With Wolves Radio Show: A Good Reason To Stay in on Thursday Nights.

Thoughts on Context Switching

Designers like being productive. Context switching is a productivity killer.

Context switching is not multi-tasking. Multi-tasking is eating a burrito while walking down the street and thinking big all at the same time. This is possible only because walking and eating are relatively mindless tasks. It’s the mindful tasks that we have trouble with.

For designers (and knowledge workers in general) the job is all focus — focusing on one thing, then another. Let’s call this task switching.

Task switching isn’t a bad thing. How could it be? But context switching? Yes.

Context switching is changing focus between unique problem sets, each involving different circumstances and details. For the designer this means switching projects.

Computers can do this sort of switching very quickly; Command+Tab whips between worlds of complexity. Context switching for humans? Very expensive. Significant time is required to focus on a subject, recall all of the assorted details, and hold the sum in your brain.

However, once “in the zone,” work happens, hours fly by. The designer is happy.

It’s getting to this highly productive state that remains an inescapable challenge. Being inescapable, the only solution is to say: Today I’ll do this… and that’s it.

Illustration: Matt Owens

Dawdle & Gape

Dawdle & Gape is the traveling 2008 Yale Graphic Design MFA Thesis Book show. The upcoming exhibition is at the Central Academy of Fine Arts in Beijing, China from October 24–30, 2008. Future venues to be announced.

Raking Leaves in the Wind

CREATE BERLIN will host the exhibition Raking Leaves in the Wind, an exhibition by Berlin-based Canadians Julien Vallée, Eve Duhamel and Brent Wadden, featuring playful graphics, drawings, paintings, animations, and paper installations. The show will be up from October 29th through November 28th.

High5

If you are in Japan in November, make sure to check out HIGH5², a design conference organized by HITSPAPER™. The theme of this years event is the “Black Box.” Our brain is constantly processing input and information, artwork, language, and sometimes emotion and sentiment. Currently only economic and social success is emphasized, neglecting emotion.

This years speakers are Artless, Kouki Tange, Nam, Qubibi, Stefan Sagmeister, and Wieden + Kennedy Tokyo / +CRUZ. The conference begins on November 24, 2008 at the Yokohama Osanbashi Hall.

Art on the Underground

In recognition of the 100th anniversary of the symbol of London Underground and London’s transport system, the Roundel, which was refined by Edward Johnston in 1917, Art on the Underground have commissioned 100 artists to make brand new works of art that are inspired by the Roundel. The artworks are currently on show at the Rochelle School in Shoreditch, London, until October 30 and a selection of works will be exhibited on the Underground during September and October as posters and leaflets.

Pictured above is a poster design created by James Ireland.

The Boombox Project

Photographer Lyle Owerko has created a visual timeline of the era of the boombox. Exactly when the term ‘boombox’ hit the streets is not known for sure. In the United States, department stores apparently began using the term in marketing and advertising as early as 1983. Street slang linguists pin the term down at 1981, and define the boombox as “a large portable radio and tape player with two attached speakers.”

Initially, it became identified with certain segments of urban society, hence adopting epithetic nicknames like ‘ghetto blaster’ and ‘jam box.’ But as the masses began to embrace these gargantuan conglomerations of electronics, lights and plated gadgetry an inherent form of portable entertainment and expression was born.

The boombox as it has evolved is now an icon of popular culture, it has been referenced by rockers, poppers, hip-hoppers and graffers alike. It is a symbol of rebellion and a way to shout your message at the system. Turn up the volume on your boombox, whatever the size, and let the capstan wheels of the tape deck drive a favorite mix-tape to life. As the defiant voice of punk rock legend, Joe Strummer sang, “This is radio clash using audio ammunition…”

Bad Babysitter

Mikael Alacoque’s ‘Bad Babysitter’ is part of a series of sculptures that are concerned with a playfully sinister bastardization of familiar objects. The pieces have an initial feeling of innocence and irreverence but on closer inspection seem more bizarre and unsettling.

Much Broke

A succinct thought by Depression Press spotted at my daily haunt, the Reference Library.

This Year 2009

David Bennett of This Studio has produced an A0 promotional poster in the form of a calendar for 2009. This Year 2009 is the second in the series of these minimalist calendar designs. Check This Studio’s Flickr for more pictures of this beautiful piece.

The Story of YWFT

To mark the launch of a new and improved YouWorkForThem, here’s an account of how the site began. The beginning never really starts on the first day, so let me backtrack a little and give my account on how the site was created. I had just left my job to go freelance. At the time, I had been selling typefaces with Test Pilot Collective, an old type foundry that I created with some of my friends. When I quit my job, I also changed a lot of things in my life and decided that I was going to start reselling my typefaces on my own.

At the time (early 2000) I was talking with Michael Young online a lot. He was living in DC and working for the internet company, Vir2l. Mike had just developed a typeface himself and we had also just started working together on personal projects. We quickly began working on client projects together and started WeWorkForThem (our design studio based on our personal work) while we watched huge start-ups crashing all around us. There were next to no jobs available in the field of design and starting up a company like this was suicide. Another crazy factor is that we never have worked from the same location. For the most part, Mike worked out of Baltimore after moving from DC and I was in Minneapolis/St. Paul.

Almost immediately, we started saving money to create a website where we could sell fonts on the side. By the end of 2000 we had contracted a friend who began coding the site. We concepted the site and had it ready to go by the middle of 2001. Everything was made from scratch. No pre-existing software was used.

At first, the site was going to be a conceptual shop with different divisions, much like Franklin D. Roosevelt’s New Deal. We had developed two shirts that coincided with the concept but towards the end, evolved our concept to be a regular shop. When we went live, we had one poster, two cd’s, three shirts, and around 30 typefaces.

I had been importing books from over seas at the time for friends – mainly books like Grid Systems in Graphic Design and Typographie. I still remember the buzz of getting 10 copies of Grid Systems for my friends. At the time, it was impossible to find a used copy for much under $200 dollars, as it was out of print for a number of years. I imported some books for the store to resell but they came a couple of months after we had been open. I remember posting the books online and watching them sell out in a couple of hours. Funny enough, when I ordered them I remember talking to Mike Young about how I hoped they would all sell within 2 months. After that, I knew we should start to sell books.

We also were the first to sell “modern-ish design” as stock art. We had tons of extra icons that we had built for client work laying around and we drew more to create larger sets of icons. It’s funny to think that we are selling work that we had billed out for tons of money being sold for such a small amount on the site. It was a total rush to see work that you had just developed go live on the site and be so well received from your peers.

Originally, we had viewed the site as being a platform for our friends to sell their design work, so we hit up all the artists and designers we knew and asked if they had any work to sell via the store. Everyone said they had something to sell, but they never finished it. A couple of our friends came through, but we had really expected YWFT to be a much larger platform. Over time we have moved towards this goal, but it has taken a lot longer than I had expected.

The site kept slowly growing and growing, so much so that I had to get interns to help me out with the shipping. Keep in mind that we were doing this out of a small three bedroom townhouse. One of the rooms was my office, another room was bookshelves and my bedroom was sleeping and shipping. What can I say? I came out of a generation that had the mentality of doing everything yourself. Eventually I could not do it anymore from that location and had to ship the book portion of our business to Michael Young, which he managed for the next two years before he moved out of the country. We now have a small warehouse where we work and ship from that is located in Minneapolis, MN. I have one employee and the other Mike has some employees as well.

When starting the site, we set our goals to surpass anything that had been done before in the field of design. We treated every designer with a lot of respect and generosity. This is very important for us, as we are designers ourselves and we see what’s happening around us. We understand the design community is small and we want to help it grow in terms of both quality and education.

YouWorkForThem is still a small site and I run into designers all the time that have no idea who we are. I believe the store really has made a positive impact on the field of graphic design and hope that it will continue to do so for years to come with the support of our fellow designers.

WeWorkForThem is the creative duo of Mike Cina and Michael Young, the founders of YouWorkForThem, a store and award-winning group of artists that produce some of the most groundbreaking design work available today.

Radio Silence

Radio Silence documents the ignored space between the Ramones and Nirvana through the words and images of the pre-Internet era where this community built on do-it-yourself ethics thrived. Authors Nathan Nedorostek and Anthony Pappalardo have cataloged private collections of unseen images, personal letters, original artwork, and various ephemera from the hardcore scene circa 1978-1993. Unseen photos lay next to hand-made t-shirts and original artwork brought to life by the words of their creators and fans. Radio Silence includes over 500 images of unseen photographs, illustrations, rare records, t-shirts, and fanzines presented in a manner that abandons the aesthetic clichés normally employed to depict the genre and lets the subject matter speak for itself.

There is an opening tonight at the Riviera Gallery in Brooklyn, New York of a show featuring original black-and-white prints from the forthcoming book, published by MTV Press. The show runs from October 4th-31st, 2008.

Sizes May Vary

Sizes May Vary references the varying standardized formats and systems used within graphic design. Part sketchbook, part reference book and part notebook – it is a space for composing and visualizing layouts, sketching and developing ideas, taking reference and making note. Designed by Mark Boyce and published by Laurence King Publishing Ltd.

Do You Matter?

More and more companies are coming to understand the competitive advantage offered by outstanding design. With this, you can create products, services, and experiences that truly matter to your customers’ lives and thereby drive powerful, sustainable improvements in business performance. But delivering great designs is not easy. Many companies accomplish it once, or twice; few do it consistently. The secret: building a truly design-driven business, in which design is central to everything you do. Do You Matter? shows how to do precisely that. Legendary industrial designer Robert Brunner (who laid the groundwork for Apple’s brilliant design language) and Stewart Emery (Success Built to Last) begin by making an incontrovertible case for the power of design in making emotional connections, deepening relationships, and strengthening brands.

Read a review by Robert Blinn at Core 77.

Making Cents

In September 2008 Sagmeister Inc. participated in Droog Event 2: Urban Play. The public art installation consisted of 250.000 eurocents placed on the floor, covering more than 300sqm on a square in Amsterdam. The coins spelled out the sentence “Obsessions make my life worse and my work better”. The piece is part of the series Things I have learned in my life so far by Stefan Sagmeister.

Illustrative Zurich

From October 17th to October 26th Illustrative’s 4th forum of graphic arts will take place in the Zurich Messehallen. Conceived in 2006 by Pascal Johanssen and Katja Kleiss in Berlin, Illustrative is an annual forum, and the only one of it’s kind worldwide to present the latest inclinations which run the gamut of illustrative and graphic art in one exhibition.

The main exhibition features over 400 works by 35 artists and gives an international overview which represents the various facets of illustrative art. The exhibit features well-known artists such as German illustrators Olaf Hajek and Martin Haake, Spanish comic-artist Jorge Fabian Gonzalez Varela, American illustrators Eric Sandberg, Vincent Hui and Edwin Ushiro, as well as Japanese Artist Yoh Nagao.