It seems somewhat silly to publish a book filled with pictures of nothing but trademarks; after all, how useful can a book be that deliberately shows pictures of the things that already permeate everyday life? There are trademarks on the clothes I wear, on my coffee cup, and on nearly every product I see on store shelves. One would be hard-pressed to find a more ubiquitous subject matter.

You wouldn’t be wrong to ask such questions, however, Marks of Excellence is much more than a catalog of brand logos. Revised and expanded for its latest edition, the book is filled with over 1,000 color illustrations, each one carefully selected to be an object lesson on some aspect of trademarks the purpose they serve. Used as a launching pad, this collection of trademarks is able to draw connections and bring insight to almost every aspect of their use. Read more…

Winning an award should be in and of itself good enough, but the satisfaction of the win inevitably deflates when you’re stuck with a plastic trophy to put on your desk. That was not the case when our Game Changers received their Corian, laser-engraved, geometric trophies by Tietz-Baccon at this year’s Game Changers awards ceremony.

The awards presented at the ceremony were custom designed, assembled, and graciously donated by the digital fabricators, based out of Long Island City. They were laser-carved out of Corian, with the seven sides of each award carved simultaneously. Their heptadronal shape allows for each model to sit on any side. Put together, they create an entirely different symphony of shapes and capture the spirit of our Game Changers.

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I have mixed feelings about the sea of mail that inundates us around the holidays. Having worked with architecture firms for many years, I’ve had the card versus email greeting debate time and again (and, admittedly, landed on both sides over the years). But once in a while, I receive a card that reminds me what thought and intentionality can do for the “hard copy” format.

KieranTimberlake’s annual message of good wishes is a five panel, fold out card. On the one side there are elegant, muted-hue diagrams from five of the firm’s green roof projects, illustrating how the vegetation has evolved over time. The Middlebury College Atwater Commons project, for instance, is shown in 2003 and 2012; the other depictions vary in duration. All prompt careful study.

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In Las Vegas, on February 26, at the Digital Signage Expo (through February 28) everyone will be talking about “New Design Directions: Dynamic Digital Environments.” In a session called “Transforming Architecture & Interiors Into Media-rich Environments,” Jeff Kovel, AIA, principal at Skylab Architecture in Portland, Oregon, will discuss, in some detail, his firm’s experience in building Camp Victory for Nike. From the conversation that follows, it seems that the ways and means of sustainable design are similar to integrating digital media into architecture. Both types of projects are organized around research oriented, multi-skilled teams. In my previous interview with Paul R. Levy, president and CEO of Philadelphia’s Center City, we explored the use of digital media in the large-scale urban environment. Here we dig down into one, very particular building and its media-rich message.

Susan S. Szenasy: As architects working in the physical world of tangible materials and expressions, did you need to make a mind-shift when you took on the Nike Camp Victory project? That project, from where sit, has a sophisticated digital component, way beyond what you’re used in architectural software programs. To begin with, please describe what the assignment was, and what you had to learn immediately upon accepting the commission.

Jeff Kovel: Camp Victory began in research and collaboration; there was no predetermined outcome. This approach of creating a vision, prior to defining a project’s limitations, is a testament to Nike’s commitment to innovation. The project began by meeting Hush, our digital partner, for the first time. Jointly we were briefed on the history of Nike, Eugene (Oregon), and the US Olympic trials. A full day insight into Nike’s upcoming innovations, to be launched at the Olympics, followed. We were some of the first people outside of Nike to see the Olympic Speed Suit and track spike, the Knit footwear, and the efforts being developed around Nike+ (digital). The task at hand was to create a temporary interactive exhibition around these innovations, immersing the viewer in Nike innovation. The limitation was that we could not penetrate or damage the newly laid artificial turf field that was out site.

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Before his graphic commentary on the urban environment and its quirky denizens began to occupy the last page of Metropolis in 1998, we asked Ben Katchor to contribute to the magazine. His provocative visual-verbal narratives on urban manufacturing and sustainability grounded our preoccupation with these topics, still in the headlines. (Note President Obama’s second-term inauguration speech, in which the economy and climate change play important roles.)

On our May 1995 cover, Ben brought to life our story, Made in New York: The Art of Urban Manufacturing. He envisioned the look and feel of a many-layered city occupied by ordinary people, who are never quite so ordinary, making everything from Chinese food products to plywood shiva benches. When, in September 1996, we took a deep deep-dive into the subject of sustainability and the built environment, Ben showed what the city might look and feel like in 2030, if sustainable practices prevailed or if they didn’t. He saw a lively green city with bustling street life versus an abandoned pile of skyscrapers seen in the distance,  “From her concrete porch in her [subterranean] suburban home, Mrs. Levitt [wearing a gas mask] watches the sun set over a forsaken city.”

Each month for 15 years now, I look forward to reading Ben’s column as the magazine is being produced. And each month I chuckle at the foibles of teeming humanity negotiating the complex, friendly, awful, graceful urban environment where the new dukes it out with remnants of an ever-present past.  This is where we meet the architect who over-designs a light switch only to have a contractor install a cheap, noisy mechanism behind it, scaring the kids; or a man inside a Miesian skyscraper desperately trying to meet up with a woman on the windswept plaza below but she will have none of it. Modern architecture, it seems, can stifle romance.

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The Argentinean blog Ombu Architecture recently posted a wonderful animation that shows off, in alphabetical order, some of the world’s most influential architects and their greatest works. “The ABC of Architects” begins with Alvar Aalto and runs all the way to Zaha Hadid, bouncing through the list in a playfully minimal style.

The ABC of Architects from fedelpeye on Vimeo.

In the animation, each building disappears almost as quickly as it appears, but by reducing them to their most basic elements, the buildings become instantly familiar. When the video ends, don’t be surprised if you find yourself starting all over again.

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The Book of Books: 500 Years of Graphic Innovation
Edited by Mathieu Lommen
Thames & Hudson, 464 pages, $65.00
Image courtesy of Thames & Hudson

Matthieu Lommen, curator at the Special Collections department of the Amsterdam University Library has compiled an excellent collection of books, illustrating more than 500 years of Western book design. Starting with Nicolas Jenson’s 1471 edition of Lorenzo Valla’s Elegantiae Linguae Latinae the collection ends with Irma Boom’s 2010 James, Jennifer, Georgina are the Butlers—-a 1,198-page sculptural book that traces the history of one family.

The Book of Books is a massive survey, weighing in at 6½ pounds, and is rich with examples. Short essays are devoted to such topics as the invention and spread of printing, nineteenth-century graphic techniques, the avant-garde and New Typography, and design in the Postmodern era. References to the great printers and engravers of the past—Aldus Manutius, Albert Durer, and Christoffel Plantin—are all included as well as to the designers of modern times (with shout outs to avant-guardians like El Lissitzky, Jan Tschichold, and Stefan Sagmeister).

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So just what does an illustrator do at the Mayo Clinic?

In the seven weeks since I started my Maharam STEAM Fellowship at the Mayo Clinic Center for Innovation. I’ve been asked that question by a lot of people. The good news is, I’m finding new answers to it every day. I’m a little more than half way done with my time here and already I’ve shadowed midwives and doctors, acted as a graphic facilitator for patients, taught med students about the importance of visual communication, and made comics illustrating brand new methods of care. That’s not even mentioning the things I’ve done outside the walls of Mayo where I’ve single-handedly eaten my first batch of fried cheese curds, admired tons of massive farm equipment proudly parading down main street, and been pelted by pounds of overripe tomatoes the at Midwest Tomato Fest. Given the nature of my outside-of-work activities, it’s impressive that my work within the clinic has been the most exciting part of these seven weeks.

I began my fellowship with a more traditional illustration job. Working with the Practice Redesign team, I completed a series of images that were embedded in customized education videos intended to communicate surgical procedures to patients. These videos are part of a larger experiment that aims to rethink the outpatient experience, reduce healthcare costs by 30%, and simultaneously improve patient satisfaction. While the idea of an illustrator doing medical illustration is not surprising, I was surprised by the way my team immediately treated me as a professional illustrator. I wasn’t told what to draw and then sent off to a dark corner to crank it out. Instead, I read through video scripts, decided for myself where and if a visual was needed, defined what that visual should be, and then created it. I’d never felt so valued in a professional setting as an illustrator. You can see a screenshot from my project here.

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I never thought that a place like the Mayo Clinic Center for Innovation (CFI) could exist in the real world. Yet, as I found out, radical collaborations happen every day here.

Though everyone talks about how great cross-disciplinary collaboration is, in reality, the difficulties of getting two completely different sets of people to speak the same language, much less to collaborate fruitfully, often keeps such visions from being realized.  At the CFI, Monday through Friday, a team of designers—graphic, industrial, and service—come together with doctors, nurses, and healthcare providers to ask difficult questions and to bring a new vision of the future to life.  And now, thanks to the Maharam STEAM fellowship, one illustrator has joined their ranks.

The Maharam STEAM fellowship supports students like myself from the Rhode Island School of Design (RISD) who have proposed a unique internship with a government agency or nonprofit organization to explore the ways in which art and design can improve public policy. The fellowship comes out of the STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Math) to STEAM initiative (STEM+ Art = STEAM), which advocates for federal and societal support for the arts along side the sciences.

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Photo courtesy of Potter Style

The wonderful world of cocktails has become even more fanciful thanks to Mrs. Lilien’s Cocktail Swatchbook, published by Potter Style. Blogger/stylist/designer extraordinaire, Kelley Lilien, has combined her repertoire of talent and taste to create the ultimate visual guide to the art of cocktails in the form of a swatch book. Recipes are organized into four different sections: blended cocktails, mixed cocktails, and punch-bowl cocktails. Patterns help visually classify the sections and make for a lovely display when fanned out. It’s quite a unique approach to recipe organization and nods to the connection between design and mixology.

Photo courtesy of Potter Style

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