a girl named fred

today i very much enjoyed reading this interview with pentragram’s dj stout. on the heels of paula scher telling pr*ttysh*tty she thinks graphic design is kind of going to hell in a hand basket (“Mostly, I feel like I am witnessing the total abandonment of graphic design. It’s as if the whole industry is yelling out we’re poor, we’re scared and we’re stupid.”), dj stout shares a similar view: “There’s still a lot of horrible design out there. I can’t believe how much bad design there is actually.”

is this just pentagram arrogance talking? i don’t think so. read a little further into the interviews and you’ll see both ms. scher and mr. stout are concerned about trendiness and surface design. you know, people making design decisions based solely on what they see others doing.

here is mr. stout on the whole grunge/crazy type/visual cacophony design style originated by david carson.

… when [Carson] came up with that original look that he came up with the solution to a problem… he was working at a magazine where he didn’t have a very good art budget, so he was given all these crummy photographs. He was like, well I’m not going to sit here and do bad design, I’m going to sit here and do something with my intelligence and come up with something more interesting. He’d take a photo and crop it in an interesting way. And then he started doing stuff with typography because those were the tools that he had.

… There’s this whole period where there were all these David Carson imitators, but they were all these young kids going after a particular look. They had no idea why they were doing it. They were just copying what everyone was doing at the time. There was some really bad design around that period because there were all these young designers that were just imitating, but they weren’t doing it in an intelligent way.

i agree. design without intelligence, without forethought, without purpose… that’s just bad design. i simply don’t see the point of being on trend if it doesn’t suit the challenge at hand. graphic design is not art; it’s not fashion. it’s a communication tool.

if you can relate to someone telling you “this lower case g looks like a puppy” then please, for the love of typography, get yourself over to penguin’s screening room and watch the series on typography. it’s fun… and informative… and inspiring!

have you seen the bobble? a refillable, re-usable water bottle with a built-in filter (in case you’re not keen on the taste of your tap water – because it’s not a purity thing… the vast majority of North American tap water is clean as a whistle!). and designed by karim rashid to boot. at $9.95 it’s a bargain at twice the price.

a great example of sustainable design in practice.

on wednesday, pantone released its fall 2010 colour forecast, inspired, as always, by the corresponding runway shows in new york. apparently the upcoming season’s (although really, it’s not even the end of february yet, so it’s hard to think of fall already!) palette is based on the ideas of practicality and embellishment. so lots of solid neutrals with few lively splashes thrown in for some fantasy.

the colours are accompanied by designers’ interpretations. i was most taken with the golden glow…

lela rose (love the leopard & floral combo!)

elie tahari

and thuy

you can get the report for yourself, here.

creative review has a nice little feature today on a series of jd salinger book covers designed by seb lester.

It turns out that JD Salinger had some very basic (and strict) rules about how he wanted his book covers to look. He was adamant that the only copy that should appear on his books was his name and the title of the book. No quotes or plot summary, no author biography. And definitely no images. Just the title and his name. “Working with John Hamilton at Hamish Hamilton I developed two possible directions for the covers,” explains Lester of his approach to the commission. “One was relatively conservative and classical in nature [see the version on the left in the rough workings below]. The other [on the right, below] was more specifically American in feel, a mid-twentieth century style script.”

here are two concept-in-progress sketches…

and here are the finished comps…

oh my goodness, just think of the hours and hours of work that went into that hand lettering. turns out four book covers in total were designed, and the hand-drawn type is now known as “the salinger.”

you can see the finished book covers here.

artwork from welivenow.org.

the working proof is an initiative of sub-studio founders anna corpron and sean auyeung. their goal is to build a collection of great, limited-edition, affordable artwork from some of the best artists out there. but there’s a catch (and it’s a good one!). 15% of the proceeds from the sale of each print goes to the artist’s charity of choice.

for example, 15% of the $45 purchase price of this print by amy ruppel (love her! well, not literally. i mean, i’ve never met her. but i do love her work.) will benefit american forests.

similarly, 15% of the $30 purchase price of this print by karolin schnoor will benefit transportation alternatives.

and this fancy dress print by yasmine surovec? 15% of its $35 purchase price benefits kids in need foundation.

i’m always on the lookout for new colour palette inspiration, and i found some goodies at january’s couture shows. using css drive’s image palette tool, this look from christian dior

turns into this super fresh-looking set of colours.

similarly, this look from jean paul gaultier

translates into this set of moody blues:

now that’s a tool i can use every day!

in about two weeks my city will be hosting this little event called the olympics. excitement is starting to build and it is pretty much impossible to travel round town without seeing some visual reminder of the games. there are buildings wrapped in snowboarders, giant canadian flags draped on office towers, and banners and signs galore.

most countries have chosen a location to host dignitaries, athletes and broadcasters – their “house.” switzerland has chosen bridges, a restaurant on granville island. here is what greeted my eyes on saturday afternoon after i visited granville market.

i love switzerland, i really do (i lived there for several years and would move back in a flash) but i do not love its house. ack! my eyes. this house is a dog’s breakfast of gigantic red sport-type figures with swiss flag graphics, a post-card type wrap of a scene from the matterhorn, and some type of odd-looking broadcast centre sticking out the back. i know they can’t do anything about the bright yellow colour of the restaurant, but you’d think they’d learn from their own design experts. we’re talking about a country that invented an entire style of graphic design characterized by order, cleanliness and readability.

well. i took my picture and then headed right back into the market to buy some raclette cheese. dinner that night thankfully restored my faith in all that is swiss.

like many graphic designers, i have become a total type geek. i walk the down the street and rather than look in the shop windows, i look at the shop windows. you know. to check out what kind of typography they’re using in their logos and signage. i get positively giddy when i can spot the use of a rare typeface, or see one of my favourites in an unexpected place (i once saw feel script being used for the logo of a cafe in zurich and i swear i giggled like a little girl!).

but as much as i get choked up over beautifully-rendered digital type, i get even more excited (is that possible?) when i see beautifully-rendered-by-hand type. that’s why today i’m loving this sign i saw at the ridge movie theatre yesterday.

isn’t it lovely? i know, i’m a lost cause.