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MAY 20, 1999
> ICFF runs in New York
May 15 - 18 the International Contemporary Furniture Fair took place in New York. Every year, while this fair persists in not being Milan, it does get more and more professional. This year, predictably, the Wallpaper/Jetsons-Eames look was in force. Many designers were using bent plywood laminates, and an especially beautiful version was a smart storage drum that was also a cushion-top stool, and which, with the addition of a sort of flat halo, became a side table. Blu Dot also made a good appearance. They are the firm aiming for a mid-century modern look at a low price. This admirable goal is achieved through manufacturing-based design; they work to make their products so efficient to make and ship that the cost comes down from these economies but not through materials.
> Ingo Maurer opens showroom in New York
Maurer, whose work has long been known to those who follow Italian design, has been exposed to the admiration of thousands through a recent exhibition at MoMA. Wisely capitalizing on this, perhaps, he has just opened a showroom in New York, on Grand Street at #89. He was open to receive the wandering masses during the furniture fair, though the room was not yet in its final form. The new location, in Soho, is next to Gallery 91, a New York/Japan design institution, and in a neighborhood that has just yielded the art world for the commercial interests of design and shopping. After New York's disastrous attempts in recent years to accommodate the design industry, the best real estate solution may have occurred naturally through this appropriation of Soho. Maurer certainly makes it better.
> P. Scott Makela, graphic designer and head of Cranbrook's graphics program died May 7th.
Scott Makela contracted an extremely rare throat infection which acted quickly to take his life May 7th. He and his wife Laurie Haycock Makela have been chairs of the 2-d design department at the Cranbrook Academy of Art in Bloomfield Hills, Michigan since 1996. He was 39, and had been an influential designer for many years before heading the department. His clients included Sony Music, Warner Brothers Records, Propaganda Films, Amnesty International and Nike. He pioneered new ways of looking at design and new ideas about textual immersion. It is a loss to the design community and to Cranbrook.
MAY 11
> American Academy in Rome Design Prizes Announced
The American Academy in Rome recently announced the winners of the 1999-2000 Rome Prize. Twenty-seven winners overall, in the categories of Architecture, Design, Historic Preservation, Landscape Architecture, Literature, Music, Visual Arts, Archaeology, Art History, and Italian Studies, will be in residence in the Academy in Rome in the next year. The design winners were Michael Rock, a frequent contributor to ID magazine, awarded the Rolland Fellowship in Design Arts, and Wendy Kaplan, who received the American Academy in Rome Fellowship in Design Arts. To learn more see the Academy's site, www.aarome.org.
> The Design Resource Institute in Seattle announced a new Sustainable Materials Research and Education Initiative
This organization, planned for a 38,000 square foot space at a former Naval Facility in Seattle, is a joint project between the Design Resource Institute and the University of Washington's Department of Construction Management. The Initiative will include a hands-on teaching and research laboratory for mocking-up building assemblies, evaluating sustainable materials, and rapid prototyping of materials and products. The new center is now in the fundraising stage, following on the recently announced commitment of the University and the Institute.
> The IDSA and Business Week have announced that they are sponsoring a "Designs of the Decade" competition.
The program will "recognize the most compelling design/business success stories of the 1990s," said IDSA president Mark Dziersk. Winners will be featured in a guide to best practices in Business Week's November 29, 1999 issue, as well as in the IDSA's Innovation. The deadline for entries is July 1, 1999, and it is open to anyone who has designed a product introduced for sale anywhere in the world between January 1, 1990 and July 1, 1999. To get an entry kit contact the IDSA by phone, 703 759 0100, or on the web at www.idsa.org.
> Tibor Kalman died Sunday
It's hard to know what to say about the news that Tibor Kalman has died. He was a hero of mine, and I take his death personally. In the early 90s, when my classmates and I had come out of design school, he was brazen and brilliant. He lectured to Americans in his native Hungarian, because design lectures are gibberish; he identified the striped corporate logo (IBM, or AT&T) as the thoughtless formula it was, and extolled Mr. Softee, from ice-cream trucks, instead. He produced watches with mixed up numbers. This last design was so simple that it is now difficult to convey the originality of 4, 9, 6, 1, 10, 5, 11, 7, 2, 3, 8, and 12. Here was Fluxus art in product design. Here was a pointed demonstration of how much less information we need than we think. And here, in the lovely graphics and the beautiful forms, was rude subversion.
It was sometimes said that he did not do the designing himself; that he hired designers and acted as a creative director. In fact, what marked him was his drive to transcend design. He may have managed others' talent, but it is undeniable that his creative direction and vision was itself his brilliance. His work pushed the outer limits of what graphic design could be. Can the watch face work if the numbers are mixed? Can the word be read if the letters are upside down? Can the Talking Heads album sell if the band members' faces are violently obliterated? Can a radically benign graphic, like Mr. Softee, represent a serious company? Can graphic design address homelessness? Is there meaning to design? It turned out all to be yes.
He promoted an appreciation of vernacular design, in a time in which corporate identities were suffocatingly formal. Now, what is appealing to the market is friendly, even in insurance and communication companies. The revolution of the internet is one reason for that, but Tibor Kalman has a place in that shift as well. His message of humanism was heard by those who have been creating the nations images since the mid-80s.
On the steel back of the original M&Co. watches, hidden against one's wrist, is the message "Waste not a Moment." That urgency was a gift and a guide.
Tibor Kalman was 49, and died in Puerto Rico on Sunday the 2nd. His firm, M&Co, was based in New York from 1980 on. In 1992 he and writer Karrie Jacobs began Colors magazine for the Benneton Company. In 1994 he became editor in chief and moved to Rome with his family. He returned to New York in 1997 to fight cancer. He had many clients, designed many products, and was art director of several magazines. And he had fun and he was brave.
MAY 4
> ID Magazine Wins Top Award
The 1999 National Magazine Award for general excellence, in the under 100,000 circulation category, went to ID magazine last week. The awards are sponsored by the American Society of Magazine Editors and are administered by the Graduate School of Journalism at Columbia University. This is a special honor because it is the second time that ID has received the award. ID was also shortlisted for the design award, which went to ESPN Magazine instead. The magazines shortlisted in ID's winning category were The American Scholar, Lingua Franca, The Oxford American, and The Sciences.
> Cool Design Hotels Someplace Besides Los Angeles and New York
The Ace Hotel opened in Seattle in April to provide a stylish stay for the economical cognoscenti on the road. While you may compromise with bathrooms down the hall, you will not compromise in taste. Walls are shiny white, lamps and tables glow, and all for $65. Unless you want your own bathroom, which you can have for a tad more. The Ace Hotel, 2423 1st Ave, Seattle, 98121, 206 448 4721.
> Library of Congress Prepares for Eames Exhibition
On May 20th "The Work of Charles and Ray Eames: A Legacy of Invention" will open at the Library of Congress, where it will be on view until September 14th. In October the exhibition will travel to the Cooper-Hewitt National Design Museum in New York. This show is receiving a lot of advance notice, which may in part be due to the current popularity of mid-century modern design. We can hope that it's also a culture-wide acknowledgement of the importance and fun of good design. But that may be hoping a little too much. Do plan to enjoy the show.
IN THE MAGAZINES
MAY 25
If you're worried about catching junior with more than a dime bag, you'll need to know what they look like: pics of popular antidepressants—from Prozac to Celexa. | Time, May 31 '99, p. 46.
A beautiful matrix of summer sundries (glasses, cutlery, playing cards, lamps, and more!) in the oh-so-beautiful magazine prop we can't live without. | Wallpaper, May/June '99, p. 101.
We know we're a bit late on this one, but we love the cover of Graphis 320. The contents are pretty darn great too. (Peak at pp. 68-69.) | Graphis, March/April '99.
Logo designer? Check out over 75 popular logos on one convenient tear out sheet for a quick graphic reference of modern corporate identities. (It's really just GQ's internet directory.) | GQ, June '99, p. 89.
A neat sidebar on the contents of a real life search-and-rescue guy's backpack. Also, flip ahead two pages for a cool spread on Monster Packs. | Backpacker, June '99, p. 70.
MAY 20
For all you John Glenn superfans--and we know you're out there--here's a behind-the-scenes look at the return flight with some nice pics. | National Geographic, June '99, p. 60.
Lots of us who are plenty intrigued but still a little bit foggy about online auctions, and James Gleick's piece lays out the land in masterful style. | The New Yorker, May 24 '99, p. 42.
A quick and dirty look at Sony's new Vaio Slimtop, aimed at consumers with high-end appetites and desire to get digital camera images into the box. | BusinessWeek, May 24 '99, p. 14.
Regarding AIBO, the new Sony cyberdog (sorry, Apple), take your pick of magazines to learn more about it--just about everyone is covering this story. Anyways, congrats to the PR folks at Sony. (For AIBO on the web, check out http://www.world.sony.com/robot/index.html
MAY 11
Vogue chimes in with their kudos on the iMac and takes a look at how fashion and industrial design can play off each other. | Vogue, May '99, p. 143
The near future of drug delivery technologies with discussions of transdermal patches, deep-lung inhalers, and other non-hypodermic strategies. | BusinessWeek, May 17 '99, p. 92.
Big projects for New York City, from the new Penn Station to a proposed Second Avenue line, are batted about this week. Any bets out there? | New York, May 17 '99, p. 40.
An entertaining end paper by David Pogue on the slippery nature of computer statistics--from megahertz to sales figures (all predictably pro-Apple, but hey, we like that.) | Macworld, June '99, p. 180
-> Thanks for the tip! to Kelly Gravis
MAY 4
Lots of talk about Tucker going off to Razorfish, so find out more about who they are and what they do. | Communication Arts, May/June '99, p. 142
A run-down of portable digital audio studios from $600 to $3200. (We remember coveting that Tascam 4-track reel-to-reel.) | Electronic Musician, May '99, p. 32
On the same note, here's a peak at the vanguard in music creation software. A couple of the screen shots will justify your trip to the magazine rack. | Frieze, May '99, p. 68
Universal design gets a further push with a discussion of one-handed design, with some of the current products, techniques, and thinking going on. | ID, May '99, p. 76
This probably doesn't belong here, but an amusing video still array of the Clinton Handshake appears in George, complete with his famous "two-handed grasp" to his "shoulder-to-elbow hand-slide." We think we might want this for a wall poster. | George, May '99, p. 32
Also a bit of a push here is an ad currently running in magazines featuring microscopic photography of sandpaper vs. 3M's Trizact Abrasives. It's just an ad, of course, but the shot of sandpaper at 120X might give you renewed vigor when you're going at it with the body filler. | Forbes, May 17, '99, p. 241, or BusinessWeek, May 10. '99, p. 41
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