Out With The Old...

I'm not the most avid of people when it comes to politics, so it might be a surprise for my two readers to see these little Downing Street time capsules below. A friend had spiked my interest in these videos when commenting on the lack of foresight Gordon Brown had to prepare a speech for his arrival at No.10. After watching said moment I felt his speech was in fact solid in content and delivery. In his now tame Scottish brogue he demensrated the perfect excution of public speaking; rhythm, repartition, timing, clean elocution, knowledge and understanding of his speech (G.W.B.) and not a single "ummm..." in ear shot. He does not have the charisma that has been associated with Tony Blair, but is'nt that the point. What did disturb me however was the frenzy of the paparazzi. Now I'm not naive, England is definitley known for pushy celebrity photographers, but the yelping from beyond our vantage point seemed more than exaggerated. As a photographer you have a vision or even opinion you are trying to visualize, whether you are aware or not. However as a journalist your job is the opposite, to observe and circulate events without a personal agenda and that you must be conscious of. This seemed closer to a pack of wolves trying to get the first bite!



P.S. for some reason this video runs twice the length of it's captured footage. Stop watching after the screen turns black.

Neue Haas Grotesk

You may or not be aware that the typeface Helvetica is celebrating it's 50th birthday and Gary Hustwit made a little documentary film for the occasion. I got the opportunity to see it last night in a full house at the Gene Siskel film center. This film isn't simply about typography, however it is about simply the most overtly used typeface in the western world. Hustwit undoubtly includes all the great graphic designers who were there at the birth and have contributed to the world of type communication to this day. He leads us gentley on this excursion through the history of the infamous typeface which is referred to here as being neutral and air, modern in a off-white middle gray manner and responsible for the Vietnam War. Impressive! In today's world of accessible design technology coupled with an incredible majority of the population consciously deciding how they wish to be portaited in a completely visual forum through networking websites, whether social or otherwise, the right font can say everything. In this film it is argued that typeface can depict an emotion and insight a reaction and that it should be invisible and only the content aloud to speak to the reader. Whatever your standing going in, you will leave this film with one opinion, just to change your mind a thousand times before the day is over. The individuals interviewed are all passionate in a way that seems obscene when you know they're talking about the asethetic design of text. They are some unbeliveble analogies that will have you laughing out loud...pay attention to David Carson's story about a Bryan Ferry article he worked on. One thing's for sure, you will walk the streets averting your eyes from the blinding light that is Neue Haas Grotesk for some time.

Leopard...One Hot Kitty!

It's been a full week since I watched Steve Jobs Keynote at WWDC07 and I can't get it out of my head. For a little under 90 minutes I sat with pupils dilated in awe of the tinnest of morsel's being offered by the Mac team. A preview of 10 of the 300+ hot features on the not yet released new OS Leopard, left me wanting for more. I'm a sucker for organization and speed and Leopard definately appears to have those down to a T with new desktop 3D graphic organization with Stacks, Spaces, Dashboard and a new Finder that makes file sharing between computers in an instant. Browsing files is even easier with Quick Look allowing you to preview without launching the application and Cover View giving you the same preview of a file that iTunes Album View offers. Couple this with a system that can run both 32 and 64 bit next to each other and I'm going to need my own personal server. The hottest element for me though is Time Machine. As the name suggests if you lose a file you can simply activate the application and using the search box, step back through time and find the file that was lost and restore it. Goodbye RAID 5. This is amazing technology, but it also makes me wonder where we are heading as we become more reliant on technology to do the things we are just too busy to remember. Below is a beautiful little demo of some of the new features Leopard has to offer. Click on Keynote to see Steve Jobs do his thing.

Share & Share Alike

I recently came across two websites that work purely by having the general public provide the content. Nothing New. Both are photographic based looking at content readily available in the public domain, but where one is looking for mulitples of the same the other is searching for the unique. I Have That Same Picture opens with a simple yet effective page showing twelve polaroid style photographs, each at a different tourist attraction around the world. Selecting a location and clicking through all the photos submitted of that very same locale, it is immediately apparent that as tourists there is but one place to stand for said location. While some people are just filling in air, others try to have a little fun with their poses. Pictures of Walls however is a catalogue of mainly urban graffiti, encompassing everything from the drunken marker pen scrawl on a bathroom wall to political statements of unavoidable vistas to inventive use of peeling paint revealling hidden faces. As you move through the images of whispered feelings and projectile notions, a pattern between the locations and their inner thoughts emerge. Everyone has an agenda from social awareness to marketing their art to telling the ex you still love them. Whatever your reason, I'm glad your all doing it. I expect to see book versions of both these websites in an Urban Outfitters very soon.

Logo Fiasco

I heard about the up roar over the official logo for the London 2012 Olympic Games a number of days before I saw the design itself. By choice I decided to read, listen and observe the reactions to this unveiling and attempt not to see for myself until some dust had settled. Five days later I was ready for what some members of the British public were calling "nothing better than graffitti!" I was therefore more than surprised when I laid my eyes upon said logo. Edgey, youthful and urban may be, but graffitti, I think not. Tame and even uninspiring came to my mind. This design lacked energy, a reflection of the host city and more importantly the 5 Olympic rings or at least their colours. I'm sure the whole process was a very long and hard one for the London committee...with a little politics thrown in to boot. Another design however was very clever and striking incorporating the Union Jack and Big Ben's Tower with the Olympic rings included below. May be a little pretentious considering the games are a time for different nations to come together, but you knew exactly what the image was communicating. My personal favorite was the candidate city logo. A more simple and classic design which directly named the city, year and Olympic rings, but then illustrated the host city by using the colors of the 5 rings and drawing the River Thames weaving in and out of the letters. Sometimes the best idea is the most obvious.

Melting Ice – A Hot Topic?

Today was World Environment Day, thought up by the United Nations as a way to increase global awareness and political action. Every year one issue is chosen from the plethora to be the focus, along with it's very own slogan (see title of entry and cringe). While Coke promises to replenish the water it uses to produce it's sweet beverage...about 2.5 times the finished product and The Vatican plan to have solar panels installed by 2008, I wondered what I was doing to help the cause. Last year I slowed down on my consumption of my favorite British bottled water, Hildon and started to drink Brita filtered from my own kitchen tap...now I carry a bottle of Chicago with me at all times. I walk a minmum of 4 miles a day and take public transportation when necessary. A bad yet effective habit I have acquired is to write notes on my forearm, thus saving pages upon pages of ink script I will never reference. This has a bonus as I must attend to the note within an almost immediate time frame. I'm vegetarian...that's an easy one. I try to purchase only second hand clothes. I do have one major downfall...I waste energy by not turning my computer off! I remember my dad used to tell us that the TV needed to be turned off at the main switch and not just put to sleep. He quoted some silly fact that the TV uses 40% of it's full energy needed when in sleep mode. I doubt that was ever true or tested, but regardless I will turn the computer off tonight and all subsequent times when not in use.