Dropp

via imprint
“Finally, a social application worth looking into: Dropp untethers you from the website-as social-destination concept. This little app does something neat: lets you leave messages in real-world places, wherever you go, for others to find. You can leave your messages for everyone, or for specific people, and when their iPhones, also running Dropp, come near, they’ll get an an alert. You can leave behind little messages, pictures, prizes for a surprise contest, treasure hunt clues, the possibilities are pretty cool to consider. The app is brand new, and as such still feels kinda 1.0, but I would expect updates and additional functions to happen rapidly. It’s free for iPhone, iPod touch, and iPad from the App Store.”
Find out more here.

Arem Bartholl’s Google Map Installations

Map at ‘Gateways,’ KUMU, Tallinn, Estonia, May 2011

via designobserver
“…Bartholl’s Map installations involved setting up a large physical version of the pin in several locales, at the exact spot where Google Maps assumes to be the center of the city.”
Find out more about the installations here.

Paul Rand: A Designer’s Words

via Steven Heller’s imprint
“On April 3, 1998 the School of Visual Arts held a Paul Rand Symposium in New York City. To commemorate the event Nathan Garland, Georgette Ballance and [Steven Heller] edited a keepsake titled Paul Rand: A Designer’s Words, a collection of many Rand quotes from various sources. It was printed by Rand’s favorite printer, Mossberg & Co., typeset by his favorite typesetters, PDR (A Division of AGT), and produced with his favorite paper, Mohawk Superfine. Nathan Garland’s design was true to Rand’s typographic aesthetic. Only 500 copies of the keepsake were printed, given free to the symposium participants and sold through Emigre, among other limited venues (only a few rarities remain)...”
Now, Steven Heller has made it available to all via PDF. If you would like to download go here or here.

Make the Logo Smaller Mugs

via how
Typography Shop has just released their first mug: Make the Logo Smaller.
Find out more and order it here. This makes me smile. 

Keep calm and read on

via idsgn
“There are multiple Tumblr blogs dedicated to its multitude of variants: “Keep Calm and Use the Force,” “Keep Calm and Carry On My Wayward Son,” “Keep Calm and Beam Me Up Scotty.” As a designer I am visually assaulted and overwhelmed by the enormous amount of adaptations the “Keep Calm and Carry On” print has seen. However, upon searching deeper into the mystery of this culturally iconic print, there’s a history filled with war, panic, and invasion.”
Read the rest here.

The Unsung Heroes of Biscuit Embossing

The evolution of the Oreo emboss, from 1912, to 1924, to today

via ediblegeography
“…despite the iconic status of the Oreo emboss today, the identity of its designer remains murky. Many Internet resources have credited William Turnier as the man behind the four-leaf clover and serrated-edge design, but Nabisco could confirm only that a man by that name worked for the company during that time as a ‘design engineer.’ ”
Read the rest here.

Pantone Graduate Procession

spotted by my son on neatorama
“…Graphic Design Majors of the CalPoly Pomona graduating class of 2011, who received their diplomas last night, decorated their mortarboards with an oversized Pantone chip.”
See another image here.

“Inspiration is for amateurs; the rest of us just show up and get to work.”

via quotevadis
— Chuck Close, an American painter and photographer who achieved fame as a photorealist, through his massive-scale portraits. Though a catastrophic spinal artery collapse in 1988 left him severely paralyzed, he has continued to paint and produce work that remains sought after by museums and collectors.

Angry crows dive-bomb officers in Everett, Wash.

The Twa Corbies (c.1919)
by Arthur Rackham

via boingboing
“An Everett, Washington police department is under attack by a flock of crows. According to the Associated Press, the birds have been ‘swooping down and dive-bombing the officers as they walk to and from their cars’ in the police station parking lot…”
Read the rest here.

Smithsonian: Cooper-Hewitt National Design Museum

I recently spent a few morning hours exploring the Cooper-Hewitt National Design Museum with my daughter-in-law and wife. We took our time wandering through the two current exhibitions “Set in Style: The Jewelry of Van Cleef & Arpels” and “Color Moves: Art and Fashion by Sonia Delaunay” as well as the gift shop. It was interesting to see the many influences of the world on the designers in the exhibitions, and then back again as their designs influenced the world. I was particularly impressed by the Chinese Magician pocket watch, the transforming zipper jewelry, and the Bronx Cocktail bracelet. The old ledgers documenting the design process were a very nice addition as well.


I hope someday to visit the the Museum’s Drue Heinz Study Center for Drawings and Prints which is currently closed. It houses more than 160,000 works of art dating from the Renaissance to the present related to the history of European and American art and design. The collection includes designs for architecture, decorative arts, gardens, interiors, ornament, jewelry, theater, textiles, graphic and industrial design, as well as the fine arts. You can browse through their holdings here.

The gift shop is a visual feast as well, with such wonders as the Hazelnut Box with Miniature Knife and Yoshida The Crow Model Airplane. “The Crow design was the first such model plane to ever be built and flown in Japan. It dates from 1889, when its inventor based his model on the crow’s wing span after studying them in flight.”

The Ampersand, Pt. 1

Graffiti from Pompeii, circa 79 AD.

via Shady Characters The secret life of punctuation
…the ampersand is an orphan: its creator is not known, and the closest it comes to a parent is the anonymous first century graffiti artist who scrawled it hastily across a Pompeiian wall.”
Read the rest here.

How To Disable Facebook’s Automatic Facial Recognition Service

via maclife
“Facebook recently introduced a new facial recognition service that allows for easier photo tagging. However, the problem is that many users may not appreciate this feature, and consider it a privacy concern. Fortunately, Facebook did enable the ability to turn off this feature…”
Find out how, here.

Synesthesia’s role in creativity: Pt. 3

via imprint
“…the premise of synesthesia offers a jumping-off point mainly for those creatives who don’t have it…”
Read the rest here.

Business Card of the Day

Picked up in Corning, NY. The front and back are indeed two different colors, though I am not sure why.

Business Card of the Day

Found posted on a bulletin board at Tractor Supply Company. I’m not entirely sure what a wildlife service person does . . . 

Business Cards: Page XXXIX

First off, a giganormous Thank You to the love of my life for taking the time to scan these pages for me! And so this post wraps up the page scans of business cards. In the future, if I come across any I find interesting—the good, the bad, and the ugly—I'll post them individually. I hope you enjoyed looking through these as much I have.

Section 2 of The Highline Opens

via designboom
“Featuring a number of new design features, section 2 of the one mile long urban park is open to the public. The one mile long urban park is recycled from the former elevated freight railroad spur and runs from Gansevvort Street in the Meatpacking District to west 34th street, between 10th and 11th avenues.”
See more images here.

Business Cards: Page XXXVIII

Pantone desktop wallpapers

via how about orange
Download PANTONE iPhone, iPad, and desktop wallpapers in your choice of six hues, here.

Business Cards: Page XXXVII