is a blog about design, technology and culture written by Khoi Vinh, and has been more or less continuously published since December 2000 in New York City. Khoi is currently Principal Designer at Adobe. Previously, Khoi was co-founder and CEO of Mixel (acquired in 2013), Design Director of The New York Times Online, and co-founder of the design studio Behavior, LLC. He is the author of “How They Got There: Interviews with Digital Designers About Their Careers”and “Ordering Disorder: Grid Principles for Web Design,” and was named one of Fast Company’s “fifty most influential designers in America.” Khoi lives in Crown Heights, Brooklyn with his wife and three children.
Two decades ago, U-Haul moving vans and trailers started sporting surprisingly engaging illustrations on their sides. Granted, they weren’t high art, but they were tasteful, at least, and they were a commendably restrained use of what amounts to thousands of highly mobile, highly visible billboard spaces. According to the company:
“The space each graphic occupies on our trucks is priceless. It’s not for sale. We could sell this space to corporate America, but U-Haul believes we must give something back to the communities we serve…Over 250 different images have been created since the Super Graphics program began, each one honoring individual states and provinces, and saluting North America’s public.”
Now someone clever over at U-Haul has finally compiled all the graphics into one place on U-Haul’s Web site. Go spot the ones you know well, and/or the ones from your home state.
“The ‘International Review of graphic design and related subjects,’ was initiated by designer Josef Müller-Brockmann and published in eighteen issues between 1958 and 1965 by an editorial collective consisting of him, Richard Paul Lohse, Hans Neuburg und Carlo Vivarelli. The complete volumes are now available in an excellent facsimile reprint from Lars Müller Publishers.”
The reprints come case-bound, obviously intended to be displayed prominently on your bookshelf so that visitors can see how hardcore Modernist you are.
Now, in the past I’ve been guilty of a certain, design-centric flavor of conspicuous consumption-oriented blogging in which an artifact of mid-Century Modernism like this one is presented along with a declaration of purchasing intent. The tone is usually flagrantly concise, as in “Must have!,” or “Sold!” or, “Just bought it,” as if to imply that the object is so essential, so unimpeachably critical to the worldview of any designer that it simply must be owned, and if you didn’t know that already, you’re not a real designer.
But this reprint goes for US$300, and to be frank, most of these things are incredibly boring, not particularly relevant any longer, and highly overrated. Don’t get me wrong; I’d be very keen to get my hands on one of these sets to peruse it, and maybe spend a few hours reading through its pages. But after indulging in many of these sorts of things over the years, I feel now that I understand that they are really more about showing off than studying up.
Don’t let that stop you from buying a set, though, if you are so inclined. Read more here.
This new, seven-minute short film from director Wes Anderson is “presented by Prada” and is an homage to the work of Federico Fellini. Imagine the set of a Fellini film as a backdrop for Andersonisms, and you get the idea.
By the way, I find it fascinating how ostensibly indie directors are free to make obviously commercial contract work like this with no loss to their credibility. Imagine Lorde, say, writing a song “presented by Prada.” We hold different kinds of artists accountable to different kinds of standards, apparently without a unifying logic.
“Apple’s maps have turned out to be a hit with iPhone and iPad users in the US — despite the roasting that they were given when they first appeared in September 2012. But Google — which was kicked off the iPhone after it refused to give Apple access to its voice-driven turn-by-turn map navigation — has lost nearly 23 million mobile users in the U.S. as a result.”
The article argues that the power of incumbency is apparently difficult to resist. Google’s offering is superior in accuracy and, arguably, in user experience, but “all roads lead to Apple’s maps” throughout the operating system, which is a tremendous advantage.
For my part, I’m incredibly frustrated by the whole maps ecosystem on my phone. I’m one of those tortured souls who would prefer to avoid giving Google more of my information if I can, though my efforts to do so are not exactly thorough. But using Apple Maps is not a realistic option, in my view, because it’s so frequently wrong. Worse, Apple missed a terrific opportunity when Google acquired Waze last summer. That’s my favorite maps app by far and would have injected a much needed sense of populism into Apple’s ivory tower approach to mapping data.
The Toronto studio, who have rightly received a lot of acclaim for crafting and maintaining Photoshop templates of the iOS graphical user interface, just released a version of their work for Sketch. This new pack, which was prepared largely by designer Tyler Howarth, is an invaluable resource for those of us who have moved to Sketch for the majority of our design work.
As always, Teehan + Lax are releasing it entirely free. Accordin to Geoff Teehan, an iPad version is forthcoming.
London designer Sinem Erkas designed the covers for new editions of Fitzgerald’s books from Orion Publishing Group. Contemporary cover designs for historical books often leave me somewhat cold, but these seem really appropriate.
More information on the books at Orion. See all of the coers at Erkas’ site.
Nikon’s new hotness is a full-frame digital camera styled in a flagrantly retro fashion. It looks fantastic, if you ask me, a welcome break from the Nike sneaker-esque styling of digital SLRs from the past decade-plus.
On the other hand, DP Review, in its first impressions of the camera, has some thoughtful comments about the practicality of this nostalgic sensibility.
“As far as I can see there are no unequivocally good reasons, either from an engineering or ergonomic point of view, for the Nikon Df to look like an over-sized [Nikon] F3… My worry about the Df is that Nikon might have gone too far backwards for the sake of cosmetic appeal, without really adding any practical benefit to the shooting experience… from a cold, hard practical point of view, I can’t shake the feeling that the Df is a little bit… silly.”
“For me there’s no question that cinematically ‘On Her Majesty’s Secret Service’ is the best Bond film and the only one worth watching repeatedly for reasons other than pure entertainment (certainly it’’s the only Bond film I look at and think: I’m stealing that shit). It’s like [director] Peter Hunt (who cut the first five Bond films) took all the ideas of the French new wave and blended them with Eisenstein in a Cuisinart to create a grammar that still tops today’s how-fast-can-you-cut aesthetic.”
I agree, it’s a terrific film, though I’m not sure it would edge out “From Russia, with Love,” for me as the most interesting installment in the franchise. Read full article here.
“The U.S. Department of Transportation’s Federal Aviation Administration Administrator Michael Huerta today announced that the FAA has determined that airlines can safely expand passenger use of Portable Electronic Devices (PEDs) during all phases of flight, and is immediately providing the airlines with implementation guidance. ”
It shows you how established the agency’s obstinacy had become that the introduction of this completely obvious bit of common sense had to be accompanied by a press release. Practically speaking, what this means is that airlines must first prove that they can “safely handle radio interference from portable electronics” before passengers can start openly admitting that they’re not turning off their tablets, phones and laptops when they’re told to. Read the frequently asked questions here.
