Links published in July 2009 — Most recent at top.
Projet Le Tour: Brett Humphreys’s clinical photography of the Tour de France and its fandom. I’m guessing he’s none of the less using a few assistants with reflectors because the lighting is simply far too balanced overall. Or it’s just a flash? Photographers out there, what’s your take on it? •
Eat Real, Eat local: a awareness campaign on the change of the canadian foodscape. The fact that it’s a marketing tool for Hellman’s mayo doesn’t weaken the core of the message, nor the pedagogical quality of the animation. •
Umair Haque’s Generation M manifesto is dead on. It starts out with:
Dear Old People Who Run the World,
My generation would like to break up with you.
The ideological differences are so blatant, its no wonder so many well-established institutions with their 20th century mentality are struggling to keep afloat. With great power comes great responsibilities, they should be the ones leading the way.
•Weekly round up of music vids: Gedda Headz’ Spaced Out lives to its lyrics; Imogen Heap is back with less vocal tuning and gorgeous cinematography in Canvas; Jul & Mat’s unoffical music painting video for Metronomy’s On the Motorway is visually quite addictive. Enjoy. •
Yay! Winners of the oversized stubby yellow pencil: D&AD (Design & Art Direction) winners 2009. The yearly british roundup of the best creatives in [pretty much all thinkable forms of] design and other fashionable suppliers of creative content. Browse the winners by category or hop to my favorites: music videos (seen most of them over the past year, but they’re all worth a re-watch), product design (the electrical outlet is brilliantly sexy) and environmental design (which seems to be growing with interactive installations). •
This one slipped by me last month and might interest any of you with rich daddy’s who can help out with the $40,000+ year tuition: Tord Boontje was appointed professor and head of design products at the Royal College of Arts in London. Goodbye [arrogant] Arad. RCA is like Harvard Law for design. •
Pour mes sincous français: Papi répare son cabanon, Christine apporte les courses à la maison. Je sais tout ça grâce à google maps street view. (Faut faire un demi-tour avec la caméra). Et faudrait pas le dire à Papi, il s’en prendrait au fait qu’il n’a pas Internet. •
Si t’espérais dévouer ton énergie créative à quelque chose de plus noble que des emballages de savon à vaisselle ou des logos de restos quétaines du quartier Dix30, y a Obama qui se monte une équipe de designers graphiques. (via Observed) •
Gorgeous cinematography and color palette in Kid Cuti’s fairly simple Make Her Say music video, featuring sir ‘Ye West and Common. The horizontal split screen works marvelously well. (merci Laurence) •
The single best architecture photographer: Iwan Baan. He works closely with many large contemporary architecture firms—OMA, Herzog & de Meuron, Diller Scofidio + Renfro to name a few—and seems like he spends most of his time between the Netherlands, Japan and China.
Je m’emballe rarement pour la photographie d’architecture, elle reste trop souvent définie par les formes et les compositions du sujet (la photo d’une voute dit-elle plus que la voute seule?). Mais là avec Baan, c’est frais, c’est vivant, c’est exactement ce que devrait être la photographie d’architecture.
•iQ font: when branding becomes clever once again. When car manufacturers realize times have changed and their latest model on a scenic background won’t even sell to the least demanding baby-boomer. All in all, the font is cool too. But mostly: yay for design process! (via le facebook de quelqu’un d’autre. Duhamel, je pense.) •
The shark has jumped, pole vaulting style: custom single speed bikes are now sold by Urban Outfitters. Urgh.
Now, truth be told, it’s only a distribution partnership with the great and already well established online bike shop Republic, Urban Outfitters are not building or designing bikes, nor selling them in stores. I loathe the day I’ll see single speeds in the alleys at Sears or Canadian Tire. (Merci Laurence)
•Amateurs de typographie et d’interfaces web bien ajustées, allez jeter un coup d’oeil à l’excellent site de la Fondation Cartier. L’exposition en cours — intitulée « Né dans la rue – Graffiti » — se consacre au graffiti et à l’art urbain, et s’expose sur la page d’entrée du site, proposant d’emblée au visiteur de parcourir sa bibliothèque de tags répertoriés. La classification n’est pas claire à mes yeux incultes de calligraphie canne-de-spray (par lettre?), mais elle ne nuit nullement à l’exploration et à la découverte d’expressions graphiques cachées. (merci xéroux) •
While at design school, I once took apart a toaster to understand how it worked, how each component was related to the other, toasting almost magically to perfection every time. Thomas Thwaites approached it the other way around: what does it take to make a toaster? Exactly what complex industrial process is behind the making of a 7$ toaster? What are we — the user — missing in the story of the object? How much and what kind of matter needs to be transformed? How? He ends up smelting iron ore in a microwave. More pictures here.
I love that he quotes Douglas Adams:
•“Left to his own devices he couldn’t build a toaster. He could just about make a sandwich and that was it.”
Mostly Harmless , Douglas Adams, 1992
Gorgeously simple and elegant music video for Dirty Projectors’s Stillness is in the move. With a double topping of wide screen. Love the llama. •
IFC takes a hit to list the 50 greatest trailers. Like they say, trailers are some kind of art in themselves, a balanced blend of cinematic intrigue and well adjusted marketing. Though behold the power of brevity for they often tend to surpass in interestingness the movies they are announcing. (via kottke) •