domingo, 31 de outubro de 2010
ScreenFonts: Machete, The American, Going The Distance, Wall Street: Money N...
Say it ain't Sears
via Brand New by Christian Palino on 10/29/10
Sears, Roebuck and Co., known by its everyday name Sears, is a retailer of apparel, automotive and home products and related services in the the U.S. and Canada. Richard Sears began building his enterprise in 1886 when he took possession of a shipment of gold watches and resold them at profit. He soon after moved his newfound business to Chicago and partnered with Alvah C. Roebuck. Together they built a mail-order business that expanded from watches and jewelry to sell everything imaginable. At present, Sears is a broadline retailer with over 2,300 store locations and interestingly is the largest provider of home services in America (over 12 million service calls a year).
Over recent years, Sears has used a number of different variations of their primary wordmark. The current swooshed version is being used widely across Sears's brick-and-mortar stores and marketing materials. Technically, the logo with the swoosh took over in 2004 for the all-caps version of the Sears wordmark, which entered into use in 1984 (replacing a simple serifed face setting). However the '84 wordmark never went away entirely, as it is still possible to find it in use (I've recently seen a couple of applications across environmental store signage). Today we have yet another Sears wordmark to introduce to the mix. At present, the new wordmark is to be used across the web, digital marketing materials, and some TV spots, leaving the previous wordmark(s!) to exist in retail applications and on physical collateral.
Ads showing the new logo.
There is nothing particularly appealing or genius about the previous wordmarks — and we'll avoid any specific rants here as we're all aware of the perils of the "swoosh," However, there is equity in them as their widespread usage has made them recognizable. While different, these two previous marks shared a consistent approach to the typographic style present in the word "Sears." This new mark is a cliche of what not to rely on for visual distinction: a horrible gradient application, a gimmicky shadow, and poor kerning of a typeface with a tall x-height helping the word "sars" to emerge. All of this before even acknowledging the fact that we now have a third mark in the present-day Sears branding… and this one is definitely the milkman's child.
Say what you will about logos not being key anymore (can't say I agree with that rationale, perhaps a discussion for another time, like a Brand New conference maybe?), there is a vital purpose that they serve in the presentation of, and interaction with, a brand. Whether we're talking about visual consistency, recognition or brand association. Sears, seriously, what is going on over there!?
Thanks to Andy van Engen for first tip.
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Visualizing Data using Long-Time Exposure Photos
via information aesthetics on 10/27/10
"Data And The Longtime Exposures" [flickr.com] is an experiment in using a very steady hand and long-time exposure photos to visually depict data.
If you like this stuff and don't mind visuals that are not data, then be sure to view the documentary movie of an independent but similar project below, which experiments with drawing animated 3-dimensional typography and objects by moving an iPad around during long-time exposure photos.
Alternatively, read about Long War Games Exposures.
Thnkx Till.
Pensamento «territorial»
via ALI_SE by ali_se on 10/28/10
Díptico nº 67 – «territorial» | acrílico sobre tela | 81x130cm | 2010
«CORPOtraçoCORPO – a poesia e a pintura» | (cor) Traço:Verde
«CORPOtraçoCORPO – a poesia e a pintura» | (cor) Traço:Verde
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Pensamento «territorial»
Cresce-se e morre-se a pensar no território, a pensar num espaço onde se possa dominar, onde se possa parcelar a estar, e dizer, mesmo que temporariamente, quem manda aqui sou eu. Toda a parte prática da vida, ou de dita racional, é pensada ao nível do territorial, vive-se e trabalha-se para se ter coisas, coisas territoriais, terras, quintas, casas com criados, ou coisas onde mais ninguém possa intervir e usar a não ser quem as adquire e que é pois, seu dono, e em carros, casas, livros, computadores, telemóveis, roupas, objectos e em mais mais coisas, muitas coisas... E a Terra, sim a terra essa, que sempre foi sendo dividida em muitos territórios, embora de uma terra que é indivisa, e que daqui não se sai para lado nenhum, e que até nos come, e que ainda assim, lá se vai querendo que seja partida em mil pedaços, tidas de nações, países, estados, condados, reinados, impérios, colónias, províncias, quintas, herdades herdadas, e que por fim é tornada a divisa de uma divisão entre uns e outros. Pois, há um divisível que se quer indiviso por leis e ademais conceitos, e assim é, porque assim se pensa como tal. E invadidos e invasores, em vidas por dinheiro e trabalho, eis a guerra que se nos tem sido definida como viver.
Mas o ser humano não precisa desse territorial pensado, precisa sim e primeiro que tudo, pensar em viver por totalidade enquanto pensamento que se articula harmoniosamente com o global, e existe efectivamente uma totalidade intemporal que não precisa de espaço territorial, e que por 'sentires' é por si e em si mesmo, distante de qualquer parcelar ideia do que é territorial. É que o ser pensante que se articula com a vida através da dimensão artística, da ética e da estética ou da poética da vida, e que se 'transporta' por esses meios através da criação, da música, da pintura, do desenho... ou de um entendimento com o enriquecimento interior, não carece de território para se completar.
Somos o que somos nesta realidade de um viver por territorialidade, mas e a outra realidade, porque é que ainda não é possível pensar-se em vivenciá-la por inteiro?
O traço da imagem inscrita A não sublinhar que desejo traçado Risca-se a força do traço De que traço ali se ...
Exhibition tip: 'Not For Nothing' in Milan
via we make money not art by Regine on 10/31/10
The one gallery i never fail to visit when i'm in Milan is Galleria Patricia Armocida. Opened 3 years ago, right in front of a car repair shop, the gallery valiantly promotes young underground artists on the otherwise traditional Milan art scene.
The current exhibition, Not For Nothing , presents three artists from Philadelphia: Ben Woodward, Kris Chau, AJ Fosik .
Ben Woodward is one of the founders of Space 1026, an independent gallery and printing facility run by artists. Woodward's prints and paintings are inhabited by anthropomorphic animals engaged in situations that oscillate between comedy and drama.
The young girls of Kris Chau are delicate and dainty. Their behaviour, however, is far too emancipated and bold to qualify for the 'ladylike' adjective.
K. Chau, I Like Boys, 2010
AJ Fosik pieces together hundreds of bits of wood to build colourful animal heads mounted on walls as if they were hunting trophies.
Aj Fosik, Simulacra of Spirit, 2010
"Not for Nothing" is a typical expression in Philadelphia. It is not by chance that the three artists exhibiting represent the various facets of the human mind: Ben Woodward expresses an existentialism diluted with irony, Kris Chau expresses a pungent and cutting femininity, AJ Fosik represents an atavistic and purely masculine force; eccentric visions of individual contemporary intimacy.
Not For Nothing is open until November 6, 2010 at Galleria Patricia Armocida in Milan.
Ericailcane at Galleria Patricia Armocida in Milan and Os Gemeos in Milan.
Typographica, Paulo Ferreira e a Ordem
via The Ressabiator by Mário Moura on 10/28/10
via
Tenho andado a trabalhar na tese, que já está quase paginada e em fase de revisões. Não tenho tido muito tempo e tornou-se comum andar pela rua com um maço de impressões na mão a ler e a corrigir. Apesar de tudo, algumas notas mais ou menos rápidas, às quais espero poder voltar com mais vagar.
Comprei duas revistas Typographica de Herbert Spencer, que me desiludiram um pouco, uma da segunda série e outra da primeira – esta entusiasmou-me um pouco mais, com um formato maior e com mais variedade gráfica. Estava à espera de mais experiências com papéis e impressões exóticas, mais cor directa, como me habituei a ver nos Penrose Annual editados por Spencer, bastante mais baratos, volumosos e sumarentos. Provavelmente, não são tão valorizados como as Typographica por serem um formato que Spencer apenas herdou, ou porque são menos raros – não faço ideia. No entanto, ele passou uma década a editar estes volumes e vale a pena dar-lhes uma olhadela.
Para quem quiser um cheirinho da Typographica, outra opção relativamente barata, embora ainda mais contida em termos de cores e materiais, pode ser a antologia The Liberated Page [1], que Spencer publicou em 1987. Mais uma vez, acabo por preferir este livro à própria revista.
Cada vez gosto mais do trabalho de Spencer e da maneira como baralhava as hierarquias habituais de uma publicação. Em The Liberated Page, por exemplo, texto e imagens tipográficas confundiam-se sobre as páginas, sendo preciso um primeiro momento de atenção para distinguir entre uma composição dadaísta e o artigo que as acompanha. É uma estratégia arriscada, muito criticada na época, que elimina a distância simbólica entre o escritor e o seu assunto, representada no livro clássico através de uma separação bem visível entre texto e imagem (através de margens brancas, imagens com um contorno marcado ou com sombreado). Porém, esta ideia de uma história viva, com a qual se podia brincar à vontade também estimulava a apropriação: toda uma geração do design inglês encontrou a sua identidade pilhando alegremente a história tornada acessível pelos livros de Spencer.
Também arranjei finalmente a Vida e Arte do Povo Português com design e ilustrações de Paulo Ferreira e fotografias de Mário Novais, que já conhecia de nome e de ter folheado o exemplar que José Bártolo apresentou no ciclo de conferências Impossuível, realizado no espaço Navio Vazio, da Braço de Ferro. É um dos livros mais sumptuosos editado pelo S.P.N. de António Ferro, que escreveu a introdução: capa em relevo a imitar renda, texto composto em motivos elegantes, mais ou menos geométricos, terminando em cul-de-lampe, etc. Infelizmente, não tenho possibilidade de o fotografar decentemente, mas fica aqui um apontamento tirado com a webcam.
Nos assuntos correntes, a ideia de fazer uma Ordem do Design volta a dar sinal de vida. A AND e a APD uniram os seus esforços para criá-la até 2012. Já escrevi uma vez ou duas sobre o assunto no passado e continuo a ser um dos designers que, de acordo com a notícia do Público, acreditam que é prematuro. Por um lado, ainda tenho dificuldade a perceber como uma Ordem vai proteger os interesses do público (a sua finalidade legal), sobretudo quando a maioria dos designers acredita que vai servir para proteger os seus interesses profissionais. Não acredito que o design (ou a arquitectura, que já tem a sua ordem) sejam actividades que precisem do mesmo género de regulação que a saúde, a economia, a lei ou a engenharia. Pode-se cair facilmente no absurdo de fixar legalmente uma questão de gosto ou pelo menos de uma classe profissional ser a única a ditar esse gosto. Ainda assim, se a Arquitectura conseguiu a sua Ordem foi porque conseguiu reclamar a posse de um discurso público sobre um conjunto de objectos e situações que ultrapassa o que os arquitectos formados fazem – a arquitectura popular e vernacular, por exemplo – através de inquéritos, levantamentos e estudos teóricos. No caso do design, este trabalho está cada vez mais longe de ser feito e a teorização apressada e inconsequente que Bolonha promove vai impedir que se produzam a nível académico estudos de fundo que o sustentem. Se os novos doutoramentos se reduzem cada vez mais aos antigos mestrados, e os novos mestrados a meros papers, quem quiser investigar mais do que isso tem que o fazer com o seu próprio dinheiro, nos tempos livres e nas férias. Ou seja, ao procurar limitar o exercício do design aos profissionais formados nas escolas, uma possível Ordem está a basear a sua autoridade numa academia cada vez esvaziada, fragmentada e sem rumo.
(Lá se foram as notas mais ou menos rápidas).
[1] Escolhi este link pela imagem. É possível encontrar exemplares bastante mais baratos à venda na Amazon.
Creative Review Typography Annual
via The FontShop FontFeed by Yves Peters on 10/28/10
Creative Review extends the deadline for submissions to their first Typography Annual until Friday, November 5th, 2010.
Research: Lev Manovich Coins the Term 'Media Visualization'
via information aesthetics on 10/27/10
New media theorist Lev Manovich just released a new text, titled What is Visualization? [manovich.net]. One might first wonder if such a question is not too... obvious, but in the light of the contentious discussion about the tension between artistic and scientific representations of data, and whether data art should be called visualization at all, it is always worth covering the basics.
The text is quite substantial, so you might want to wait for some quiet time to dive into it. The main arguments in the text focus around distinguishing information visualization, scientific visualization and information design. In addition, Lev proposes a new term, "media visualization", for those visual representations that do not reduce data into topology and geometry, but instead uses techniques to reorganize data into a new visual representation that preserves its original form. In other words, if the data consists of text, images or video, the resulting (media) visualization also shows the text, images and video, or samples of it, in some way or form.
Examples of media visualization include tag clouds, Ben Rubin and Mark Hansen's Listening Post, Brendan Dawes' Cinema Redux, and Ben Fry's Preservation of Selected Traces. These projects highlight patterns in the data without reducing it by mapping data values into abstract graphical elements, or summarizing it through statistics and statistical graphics. Instead, such visualizations preserve the original visual form of the data, or sample it when it is too large or numerous.
In addition, Lev Manovich describes 3 visualization projects developed in his lab: ImagePlot, VisualSense and HiperView.
For those with little time, I took out following bits:
"For some researchers, information visualization is distinct from scientific visualization in that the latter uses numerical data while the former uses non-numeric data such as text and networks of relations."
I originally thought the conceptual difference was that data/information visualization deals with 'abstract' data, that is data that has no physical presence in reality and requires a visual metaphor to be perceived, let alone understood. Scientific visualization, in turn, deals with physical reality and its visual simulation.
Well, let's skip this misunderstanding, and continue to the real bits...
"Information design starts with the data that already has a clear structure, and its goal is to express this structure visually. ... A different way to express this is to say that information design works with information, while information visualization works with data. "
"In my view, the practice of information visualization .... relied on two key principles. The first principle is reduction. Infovis uses graphical primitives such as points, strait lines, curves, and simple geometric shapes to stand in for objects and relations between them - regardless of whether these are people, their social relations, stock prices, income of nations, unemployment statistics, or anything else. ... (The second principle is the use of...) spatial variables (position, size, shape, and more recently curvature of lines and movement) to represent key differences in the data and reveal most important patterns and relations."
"However, it seems to longer adequately describe certain new visualization techniques and projects developed since the middle of the 1990s. ... Tag cloud exemplifies a broad method that can be called media visualization: creating new visual representations from the actual visual media objects, or their parts. Rather than representing text, images, video or other media though new visual signs such as points or rectangles, media visualizations build new representations out of the original media. Images remain images; text remains text. ... we can also call this method direct visualization, or visualization without reduction. In direct visualization, the data is reorganized into a new visual representation that preserves its original form. Usually, this does involve some data transformation such as changing data size. "
Myspace Goes Blank
via Brand New by Armin on 10/28/10
Launched in 2003, Myspace — capitalized as MySpace at the time — became the de facto social networking platform for youngsters attracting 1 million users in its first year, 5 million a few months later, and over 100 million users amassed to this day. With the ability to customize their profile pages, users unleashed a fury of apocalyptic, senses-attacking, browser-crashing designs laden with unicorns and party pictures that eventually became a user interface punchline. No Myspace story is complete without the mention of Facebook which took on the reigns of the social network kingdom and became the Myspace Killer. More than killed, it wounded. And it has taken Myspace three or four years to recover, or at least attempt a recovery. And it starts this week. Myspace announced a complete redesign of its platform with new features, interactivity, and bells and whistles for its users along with a new identity.
Wrong, crooked version first shown by TechCrunch.
The Myspace logo was first seen earlier this month when their VP of User Experience, Mike Macadaan, showed the logo at the Warm Gun Design conference in San Francisco. The image of the logo, photographed at a weird angle and cleaned up, quickly circulated the internet to much dismay. This was right after the Gap incident so bloggers were out for blood and the Myspace logo received a premature kicking in the ass. I tried to get some actual files from Myspace at the time, but they told me they preferred to wait until the identity was rolled out. It has. And they still didn't send me anything, but at least they have a decent page with media assets.
I contacted the media person listed to find out if this was an inside job or if the identity was given to an outside firm. Unfortunately there was no answer. (Note to corporations: Don't list media contacts if they are going to be useless. They have one duty when an identity rolls out — or with any kind of news — and that is to answer questions from the media.)
Myspace has also introduced a new logo that captures its revamped brand identity and values. The bracket in the logo represents a space where people can express themselves, enabling users to personalize the logo and make it their own — just as they can throughout Myspace.
— Press Release
A couple of variations presented by Myspace.
The unveiling officially proves that the Myspace logo is not crooked nor its letters oddly squished. When seen in detail, however, it does prove that something weird was done to Helvetica, where the outside edges of the characters were given rounded corners. A very, very strange thing to do. Especially for a logo that is typically rendered small, it's a detail that gets lost and only adds a weird fuzziness to the characters. The logo comes in two versions, one with the full name and the bracket, and another with just "my" and the bracket. The former probably a safe net for those that just don't get it. The latter is where I think the concept is quite bold and actually pretty fantastic. Myspace has enough history and equity as well as the ability to present the new logo in front of its users that the leap from verbally saying Myspace to visually reading the new logo as the same is not far-fetched. It's very commendable that Myspace went with this approach as it's a risk. Risk of being misunderstood. Of being misread. Of being mocked. But they still did it. And that's not an easy thing to do these days.
Logo animation. If you can't see the animation or would like to view bigger, click here.
Sample Myspace profile page.
The real challenge of this identity is whether its users will take advantage of its open bracket and actually trick it out with unicorns and other apocalyptic designs. From the user profile sample above, it seems as the Myspace logo at the top will always be the official "corporate" logo. I would love to see that space being user generated and letting each profile add to the visual language of the new identity. There should be a logo generator in Myspace that allows users to easily customize it and implement into their profile, otherwise they are just relying on the users that know how to use Photoshop.
Myspace needed something drastic to signal change. This does the trick. And it does it conceptually well. The execution is not perfect but it's not terrible either and in being a little less slick it might feel more accessible and like something you can tamper with.
Thanks to Christian Guidetti for first tip.
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