A small personal design firm
I have noticed recently that a new street artist has been around New York stencilling aircraft silhouettes (P-47 Thunderbolts more or less) on mailboxes. This one photographed near the Apple store in Soho.
One of the great perks of being a designer, particularly of identity and branding programs, is that you become closely involved with some wonderfully interesting people you might otherwise never get to meet. A case in point is with an identity program we are just starting for Brooklyn Friends School. Last week, Ben, Saki, DK Holland and I spent a sweltering but fabulous day visiting the School, and were amazed that the entire building was packed with art projects of a level that was difficult to believe came from lower/middle/upper school students. It was no easy task to choose the three pieces shown here, a puppet, a mosaic, and a mural, from literally hundreds of equally accomplished examples. This work is done by kids just like any others, who, with the proper encouragement and nurturing were capable of achieving extraordinary results. The sad thing is that this is extraordinary where in fact it should be ordinary. All high schools could demonstrate the same achievement and vision if they wished. Art programs, including both the visual and performing arts, cut from one curriculum after another, are an essential element in the development of fully balanced and fulfilled individuals. It is a tragedy that so few other schools in New York or elsewhere aren’t following this remarkable example.
Spotted this on the face of a building (on 30th between 5th & Broadway) on my way to a tai chi class. The silver hand lettering transforms what was once a gas station sign into a message of peace… an advertisement for oil turned into a protest against the fight over oil. The message is outdated but I think it generally matches the sentiment of our current troubled times.
Central Park, eight o-clock this morning. The haze already building for a steamy ninety-plus day.
The cultural differences between the UK and the US still astound. On recently visiting London, I noticed that Charles Jencks’ new book, Iconic Architecture, was bedecked not with mouse architecture as in the US (Frank Gehry’s Disney thing in LA), but with a highly amusing and pyrotechnic rendition of Norman Foster’s St. Mary Axe building in London, (known as the erotic gherkin to Brits) about to go into orbit. Are we in America taking ourselves too seriously? As a book designer among other things, I am sad that Rizzoli could not entertain such an entertaining (and Iconic) cover here. (On the subject of two cultures divided by a common language, gherkin in English translates to Pickle, like the thing you put in sandwiches, in American.)
Having given up on the possibility of a timely replacement for my old G4 Titanium Powerbook, I decided to order a Mac Mini as a stopgap. Of course, sods law had it that two days after the order went through, Apple dropped their prices. Imagine my delight on getting an email from Apple (via MacMall) telling me that as the special configuration unit had not yet been put in the pipeline, they had cancelled my order for me and re-ordered it under the new pricing structure. A saving of one hundred bucks. Yeah Apple. Thank you Uncle Steve.
This refurbishment and addition to an old lockkeeper’s cottage by Surface Architects, overlooking Regents Canal in Mile End (in the East End of London), houses a graduate centre for Queen Mary University of London. As the new structure wraps around the old rectangular brick building, both elevation and plan eschew at the same time either the horizontal, axis, or any reference to the prevailing geometry of the environment. I think it was Steve Martin who said writing about music was like dancing about architecture. However, dancing was never my forte, so words, absurd as they may be, will have to do. Despite my raised eyebrows at the cursory dismissal of gravity or the horizon as an orienting influence, I cannot help loving this building (seen to date only in photographs). But as far back as the discussion now goes, (way into the Eighties, I think) I still find it difficult to unreservedly admire the perversity of the geometry.
After several hours mouse-wrestling on the web with increasing frustration, attempting to book a flight to the UK, hire a car, and order some Epson inks and paper, I was lacking in faith as I began a search for some cardboard packing boxes. Then I ended up on the Uline site. This is not a site to win trendy design awards, which is a pity, because functionally it is one of the best designed, everything-is-where-you-might-expect-to-find-it, exactly-the-information-you-are-looking-for, most intuitive sites I have ever had the pleasure to visit.
201 West 92nd Street
Suite 4A
New York, NY 10025
212.206.1080
