New Vintage Digital Vernacular Letters

The show will run from February 1st – March 31st. The opening party is Friday February 3rd
The free drinks will begin promptly at 18:00.

From the gallery website: “Thanks to digital cameras, smart phones, nearly unlimited storage space, and online social sharing it is easier than ever to capture, collect, and share images. Particularly exciting is the now relatively mainstream pursuit of photographing interesting found type and lettering. Whether it is encountered in one’s neighborhood or stumbled upon while traveling, there is seemingly no end to unique letters to be collected. This phenomenon is illustrated through dozens of blogs dedicated to found letters, to Flickr’s countless tagged images of type, and by sites like we love typography – currently with 12,000+ curated images.”

More information

The website provides a better look inside the space by showing off its physical environs, profiling the people who are or have been involved since the beginning, providing specifics on how any designer can get involved, and listing a catalog of member-initiated projects.

The website also launches several projects and initiatives:

• Open Office Hours: Bring your coffee and your laptop and work at the conference table. Any Friday morning from 9:30am until noon.
• Work in Progress Critiques: Monthly discussions of work. Open to all.
• Modern Pictograms: Typeface for interface designers developed originally for Flatfile … available now as a free download in OpenType and @fontface for Web.
• Contact Sheet: Image gallery plug-in for WordPress. Developed for our new site by John and Sarah Bostwick, we’re making it available as a free download soon.
• Heirloom Seed Kit: Sarah Rainwater’s holiday garden kit and calendar is documented and available for sale.
• Pictures of Type: Online archive of found typography. Stay tuned to contribute. Hundreds of photos from John’s typography 1 class already online.

I was one of ten photographers asked by The Providence Preservation Society to photograph a building they deemed vulnerable to demolition. I chose the Teste Block building around the corner from The Design Office at Weybosset and Dorrance Streets. Taken with my Linhof 4×5 camera, this 20×25″ print shows the ultra-thin building from the 4th story of the Dorrance building nearby.

The opening is Thursday, November 17 from 6pm until 8pm at the RISD architecture department at 231 South Main Street.

The show runs until December 3rd. Do try to make it. The hours are listed on the PPS website.

The course was also taught with some alterations once-a-week over four weeks at the University of Connecticut. For example, the students were asked to visualize the average price of college tuition using the materials and space in the art building.

W See course materials

This is a paid event. More information on the tour from Docomomo.

B More on Ira Rakatansky

Below is the itinerary for the October 9th tour:

View Docomomo Ira Rakatansky Tour in a larger map

Jobs’ passion and drive was enough to attract followers, but with blockbuster product after product coming out, he had everyone listening. What makes a new Apple product great is that it’s unimaginable before it’s released, but once it is, we can’t think of a better solution. This happened again and again, always with Jobs on stage grinning enthusiastically as he revealed world-changing designs. You can relive these moments in the now legendary videos of the release of the Macintosh and the iMac and the iPod Nano. In his Facetime chat with Jonathan Ive during the iPhone 4 release, he said that he grew up with the Jetsons and that the day had come to make video calls. We all smiled with him. It was as if he had landed on the moon. But unlike space travel, he was going to take us there with him.

The emotional void from Jobs’ death makes me ask questions of those who remain on top — the elected politicians, heads of universities, corporations and non-profits. Do they skate — as Jobs and hockey player Wayne Gretzky once did — “to where the puck is going to be, and not to where it has been”? What visions do our leaders have? Where do their passions lie? Will they learn from Steve Jobs to not conduct polls, or cut corners, or make excuses, or settle for less? If they do, I will support them as a voter, as a customer or as an admirer.

Rest in peace, Steve, and thank you for your leadership and inspiration.

We’ll be at Brown’s Granoff Center, Studio 1, on Sunday October 2 from 9:30am to 10:45am.

You must register in Salomon Hall (Brown University green) to attend — starting at 8:30 am on Sunday or from 8am to 6pm on Saturday.

W More information at abetterworldbydesign.com

Lessons learned from the panel

Updated Oct. 4

Design process

Design process is not a conveyer belt, but a group that works together from beginning

Julia Vakser couldn’t remember the last time one person took a project from start to finish. I wonder how collaboration works as equals? Subcontracting is one thing, but “co” laboring is another.

When you start out, don’t just take work to pay the bills. You might find yourself doing that 15 years later. Scott Stowell

Do what you’re passionate about says Lindsay Kinkade

End forms

Design is a conversation not an end form. Lindsay is wrestling with how to show the work she’s doing because it involves facilitation and culture change.

Design is about systems/modules/parts that can be put to work. Gone is the perfect end form. Scott spoke of making posters like churning butter — not so common.

Concept (Scott) and content (Steve Duenes) are way more important than the end form. If the client is talking about color, then the concept is home free. (Scott)

Scott showed a big green dot as a solution to a logo for “the big green planet.” He said there were many proposals just like it, but they liked his the most. I wonder was it the presentation? The people? The portfolio backing it up?

“Not all films need to be documentaries”

Work that ends up not as you want can simply not be promoted … except if you’re The New York Times, then you have to wait a day to disown it.

Designs that made a difference

Workers after Sept. 11 cut out New York Times maps and used them onsite to do their work

Lindsay’s work on health communication that reduces errors in hospitals

If you want to change the world, you need to know what’s going on in the world said Lindsay. She and Scott praised the New York Times’ work.

Support the AS220 darkroom and walk home with one of the 150 photographic prints donated. I submitted an unpublished photograph from the Ira Rakatansky monograph. Works from Jack Pierson, Nan Goldin, and the sea of local Providence talent are also available and on view from now until the September 24th lottery.

More information on the AS220 site