Bespoken Art

Thanks StumbleUpon for your wonderful recommendations.
As I was lazily sitting on my couch Christmas morning utilizing my SU app--- with two cookies in my hand--- I came across this amazing product.


Bespoken Art records your voice or takes an audible recording, blows up the produced sound waves, stretches them out on canvas, and allows you to hang the result up in your home. 
They also write the spoken word in various fonts on canvas-- just in case you forget how to read the sound of your voice.
... lessons in typography and otolaryngology. What more could we want?
As if this idea couldn't get any better: they also donate 5% of all proceeds to Smile Train.

IKEA World

IKEA URBANISM?

The "Design Accessible for All" logo will become a literal slogan for IKEA and London-ites. Now not only will we be able to stock our interiors with IKEA furniture (and our bellies with their inexpensive food!), but we can also embrace IKEA's modern, simple, affordable designs everywhere we do-- at least in a small city in London. Located near Olympic Park in Stratford (East London), IKEA made a proposition for a new city design based on a Scandinavian city precedent. 


The final design concept is water-based: city harbors and waterways accessible and usable by the locals. It has been called a "mini-Venice"; the city will have two waterways using mooring, water taxi service, and even contain a floating cocktail bar. It consists of 1,200 houses, shops cafe's and a 350-room hotel. 

“The aim is to create a friendly neighbourhood idyll, with courtyards and a public square to encourage interaction, and the unsightly aspects of life will be kept to a minimum. Cars will be parked underground and rubbish will be discreetly disposed of through underground tunnels. A school, health surgery and nursery will be built to minimise inconvenient travel.”


Will this perfect town come automatically furnished with IKEA furniture?-- I wonder. ;)
I find this project to be a great experience. However, I cannot but recall a Sullivan (Kindergarten Chats) critique of the common mistake of architects and designers applying theories that sound good on paper into large scale designs. Will these liberal ideas work? Are they too ideal? I guess we'll have to wait and see when these circumstances are actually "lived in". Personally, I have always put a lot of faith into Scandinavian designs--- as far as them being practical, functional, and beautiful. However, I cannot seem to get past the fact that my IKEA furniture never seems to last too long.... hmmm

via Architecture Lab

Tree, Line

‘This is an ongoing series of constructed photographs rooted in the forest. These works, carried out in Surrey, Hampshire and Wales,involve site specific interventions in the landscape, ‘wrapping’ trees with white material to construct a visual relationship between tree, not-tree and the line of horizon according to the camera’s viewpoint.’ - Zander Olsen

I always appreciate art influenced by its surroundings. In this case, the end-product is formed from the symbiotic relationship between the environment, human (eye) and machine (camera). What is interesting with these pieces is that the art doesn't work without the three working in harmony.

 

via Triangulation Blog

One That Note...

Another shout out to design documentaries--- more specifically Design Trilogies!
Gary Hustwit discusses with wonderful insight the world of design from micro to macro scale.
The end result is wonderful because everything is designed with purposeful detail-- from movie, to trailer, to posters. 

The well-articulated verse and optimistic diction of the documentaries got me very motivated and excited about the design realm.
I hope you find them equally as inspiring...

In Hustwit's words, "I like the idea of taking a closer look at the things we take for granted and changing the way people think about them, whether it’s type or objects or whatever" - Interview with Dwell Magazine

(The caption titles are all linked to trailers.) 

Helvetica- typography design ( and my blog font, of course!)

Objectified - Product Design

Urbanized - Urban Design

I Wish This Place Was Livable

By the year 2050, 75% of the world's population will be living in cities.
... a fascinating fact, isn't it? 

It's amazing how we all interact and are emotionally affected by the surroundings we live in, especially BIG cities-- whether our reactions are subconscious or not. 
As a resident of arguably the biggest metropolitan in the world, the problems with large urban dwelling is no stranger to me: too many taxis, population congestion, noise, lack of greenery....
But as urban citizens, it is our duty to take care of our environments and promote progress of city dwelling.
The best part is: our changes and progression can be experienced in our own lifetimes as oppose to just the distant future.
My previous supervisor and Chief Director of Urban Design at the NYC Dept. of City Planning, Alex Washburn always said, "how would the pedestrian view it?" He would have us build large city-scape models and actually kneel down to view the surroundings on a ground pedestrian level to absorb the "human experience".
(I also had a great workout (physical and mental) from all the site-visit missions and documentations of such visits.)


We should all make it a point to educate ourselves and the future of our urban surroundings. 

What better way to learn than by watching a movie? (-- like back in highschool when we didn't want to read the assigned novels.) !

Actually, in my opinion, there aren't enough documentaries concerning architectural and urban livability and sustainability.
After all, design is a visual discipline-- it always benefits to support one's philosophies with beautiful images!

 

  Urbanized is a feature-length documentary about the design of cities, which looks at the issues and strategies behind urban design and features some of the world’s foremost architects, planners, policymakers, builders, and thinkers

"Urbanized"

http://www.filmannex.com/movie/27-denmark-bjarke-ingels/28389

“27” is a joint venture between a filmmaker, two architects and a designer. They travel together to meet people engaging in the process of making the Europe of tomorrow. “27” is a journey into the heart of contemporary European architecture, under a permanent state of mutation. 27countries, 27 cultures, 27 architects build according to their own rules, and their own history while giving contribution for the construction of a common space : Europe

"Project 27 // Denmark // Bjarke Ingels Exerpt

Literary Typography

Recent gem discovered in the AM NY:
Now, I usually don't take the AM NY in the morning for any other reason besides the (easier than The NYTimes) crossword-- which boosts my self-esteem every morning on my way to work. But as I was flipping through the holiday "Gifts for Her" advertisements to get to my morning subway ride past-time, my eyes caught a glimpse of this Pride and Prejudice Poster from PosterText. (http://postertext.com/)

The poster background consists of text from different chapters throughout the book creating cut-out silhouette shapes of the protagonists in each novel. The white detailed silhouettes are carefully chosen to portray either pivotal moments within the literature or depict the ambiance of the novel.
A simple idea-- beautiful design.

Pride and Prejudice- Jane Austen

Alice in Wonderland- Charles Lutwidge Dodgson

Moby Dick- Herman Melville

... and my personal favorite novel:

Jane Eyre- Charlotte Bronte

Happy 125th Birthday Diego!

Happy 125th Birthday Diego Rivera!

Self Portrait to Irene Rich- Diego Rivera. Smith College Museum of Art, Northampton, MA (1941)

A blog tribute to one of the most eccentric, stubborn, and influential painters in the world! 
I understand my bold use of a subjective hyperbole and in this case, we can overlook his womanizing and communist influence.
If Frida loved him, so can we!

Everyone should go see his muralist exhibition at the MoMA (53rd St. btwn. Fifth and Sixth Avenues), which is apparently featuring his sketches and designs for the Rockefeller Center commission-- which was eventually destroyed by Nelson Rockefeller due to the obvious glorification of Lenin and Trotsky. (Now a portrait of Abraham Lincoln hangs.)

Man Controller of the Universe (El Hombre Controlador del Universo)- Diego Rivera. Palacio de Bellas Artes (1934)

 This mural was a recreation of the Rockefeller Center commission, which Rivera mockingly decided to display at the leading art school in Mexico during the 1930s. (A good way to show evil capitalist Americans that Mr. Rivera can and should do whatever he wants simply just because he's Diego Rivera!) 

It's a depiction of the rapid contunuing rise of the Industrial Revolution as well as the glorification of the working class--as portrayed by the Bolsheviks in the upper right corner-- whom, according to Rivera, uphold and will eventually control society: economically and politically, simply through number. 

It's an interesting delineation a possible future. Man centered as God within the structured triptych-- holding the "controls of the universe" in the palm of his hand. Machinery, undiscovered planets, and amoebas immediately surround him; ancient Greek philosophy and communism act as his immediate support system...

What if this prophecy came true?

Did I mention this hangs at the schools main entrance staircase? Imagine being greeted by this every morning on your way to class.

http://www.moma.org/visit/calendar/exhibitions/1168
Open until May 14th, 2012.