Such a wonderful thing to draw aimlessly on a torn paper, randomly picked among the piles of books and papers on your desk, never knowing what you’ll eventually get to — and not even suspecting that it’ll be related in any way to future events. If Mr. Glaser says ‘drawing is thinking‘, could it be that drawing is also a small peek into the future? I wonder…

(also on flickr)

Jay Jay Johanson sang tonight.
A voice out of this world.
An immense joy for the soul.

•••

If only had I had the pleasure of listening to him somewhere else. I can’t yet describe in words the anger and the desperation that overwhelmed me while watching the people around me. Jay Jay’s music may have trip-hop and electro elements, but in its essence, it’s very close to blues, or old school jazz — a melancholic man singing from the bottom of his heart. How can one trample underfoot such sincere music?

More than half of the ‘audience’ was talking loudly, chitchatting like grocery sellers in the market, backs turned from the scene, smoking their fetid cigarettes and drinking their beer. No respect whatsoever for the few that were all-ears, no respect for the few that felt shivers down their spines whenever Jay Jay’s voice sighed or trembled. No respect for themselves, the ones that are the ‘educated’ young hope for the romanian future. We all know each other more or less — advertisers, journalists, so called modern artists, musicians, entertainers, djs, vjs and so on. Small world. Crème de la crème. The ones present at every hip, cool, trendy, ‘indie’, ‘underground’, ‘alternative’ music event. Muse? They were there. Massive Attack? Of course. Placebo? Cohen? Goldfrapp? IAMX? You bet. All there. Sitting around, chatting and drinking. Like they just got there by mistake. Like it didn’t matter whether the singer was singing about his lost love or the last three burgers he just wolfed down while watching the game. Too bad Jay Jay didn’t have the strong enough sound system to cover up the truth: there is no real cultural demand in Romania. It’s all a façade.

Fuck you very much, hipsters and yuppies. You just proved once more that Romania doesn’t deserve to be european. Not now and not in the next ten years. And that’s being optimistic.

— iancu

I made an iPhone wallpaper out of it, to keep it in mind as much as possible—maybe, just maybe I’ll be able to actually take this advice myself. Feel free to use it. Let me know if you like it. Thanks :)

Browse less & draw more

And yes, nothing beats Futura. Ever.
(small hint to IKEA :P)

After Robert Brunner left Pentagram’s San Francisco office to start his own firm, Ammunition, this time is Kit Hinrichs‘ turn. You can read the press release here, on @Issue (where Kit Hinrichs is the Design Director). Kit’s profile on Pentagram Partners has already been taken down.

Pentagram in 1986

While Robert Brunner’s departure seemed to make a little more sense, as his studio seems to be focused more on industrial design than on communication and corporate design, Kit’s departure is not so clear. The press release doesn’t give any hints, and, as always in such cases, nobody involved will—we can only speculate what could possibly make you leave one of the most acclaimed (if not the most) companies in the world—and after 24 years, mind you. Has this been triggered by the recession? Is it a personal dispute? Is Mr. Colin Forbes‘ business model not working so well anymore? Or is it just the right time for a change for Mr. Hinrichs? We’ll never know for sure.

One thing I know, it makes me feel sad to learn about Mr. Kit’s departure—I don’t know why, maybe because Pentagram loses one of its own—but I also feel glad for him. I know very well how good it feels to try something new, especially after such a long time. It feels like being born again. Good luck to Mr. Hinrichs.

(second photo taken from Pentagram: The Compendium)

An instructor aligns the formation of the Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA) Airborne Corps during a training session at the 60th National Day Parade Village on the outskirts of Beijing, September 15, 2009. (REUTERS/Joe Chan).

Don’t say you haven’t been warned!

(via Boston)

[...] we need to study ourselves.

To find out what side of the brain we are dominant in.

(Left brain being the rational side, right brain being the emotional.)

Then we need to spend as much time as we can exposing ourself to influences from the other side.

Because whatever side is dominant is our comfort zone.

We’ll naturally gravitate to that.

But anything we learn in our comfort zone won’t give us any new combinations.

Whereas whatever we learn on the other side of the brain gives us a completely new set of possible links to our existing side.

So we should force ourselves to experience whatever we’re not comfortable with.

If you’re a numeric person, force yourself to experience art and music.

If you’re a visual person, force yourself to read more books.

If you like fiction, make yourself to read non-fiction.

If you like rock music make yourself listen to Classic FM.

Explore.

While we’re in our comfort zone we’re on auto pilot.

We’re relaxing and letting it wash over us.

But when we move out of our comfort zone our mind is forced to think.

Forced to try to find something good in what we don’t like.

Staying in our comfort zone just means staying with what we already know.

There’s no growth there.

No possibilities for new combinations.

Paul Arden used to say, “It’s good to feel uncomfortable.”

We shouldn’t be frightened to feel uncomfortable.

We don’t need to live in either of the two big comfortable, predictable circles.

Thanks again Sebi for the tip ;)

Louis Farrakhan is an American black militant. He said something I found very interesting. He said the world was divided into two kinds of people. Sun people and Ice people. Now by that he meant black (for sun) and white (for ice).

I don’t agree with that part. But if we take the racism out of it, and just look at the way climate and racial memory affect personality traits I think it’s very interesting.

Just look within one race, take white Europeans. Now look where they’ve lived for generations and generations. Contrast the Nordic types (ice people) with the Mediterranean types (sun people). See how the climate affects their characters.

In southern Europe the climate is warm and welcoming. There is plentiful food just growing outdoors. You could sleep outdoors all year round if you wanted.

So there’s nothing to do except enjoy the finer things in life, the added value items. The things that, in themselves, aren’t necessary for survival, but make life nicer. Painting, sculpture, music, fashion, the decorative arts, good food, lovemaking, all the right brain sensory activities.

Now take the Northern Europeans. The climate doesn’t want you there. It’s cold and miserable. You need to be protected from the very environment you’re living in. If you don’t spend all summer preparing for the winter, you won’t get through it.

So there’s no time for the finer things in life. Everything has to be functional. Gathering food, shelter, and fuel for the long cold months ahead. Concentrating on protection from the hostile climate.

That’s why northern European cars work in conditions that would kill a southern European car. Ferrari and Lamborghini are beautiful, sensuous, delicate pieces of automotive art. Volkswagen, Mercedes, Volvo aren’t.

Those cars don’t look beautiful, they’re not exhilarating. Because when they’re covered in snow and you turn the key, they have to start. The Italian cars don’t.

German food fills a function, Italian food is delicious. German architecture is strong and powerful. Italian architecture is delicate and beautiful. Scandinavian design is clean and minimal. Italian design is playful and over-elaborate.

You can always find exceptions to any rule of course. But, by and large, northern Europeans are better at war,
Southern Europeans are better at art. Northern Europeans are better at function. Southern Europeans are better at form.

Sun people can enjoy life today, they know the future’s safe, the climate isn’t trying to kill them, let’s have fun.
Ice people have to concentrate on logic, and making sure all the bases are covered, because they know mistakes will be punished.

Ice people are left brain. Sun people are right brain. Which is why most art directors are more like sun-people.
And most copywriters are more like ice-people.

And why Northern Europeans are better at product. And Southern Europeans are better at brand.

I guess I’m lucky to be of mixed blood: hot, passional oltenian blood mixed with cold, rational german blood—the hungarian blood is on the hot side too, I guess, while the transylvanian one is on the cold side :) I wonder where we’d place chineese blood, as it seems everybody’s going to have traces of it in the future :))

(thanks Sebi for the link)

Here’s why he took it:

I don’t usually shoot homeless people. I don’t find it romantic or appealing like a lot of street photographers, and if you asked homeless people they are probably not to happy about their situation either. That’s why I was surprised to be so drawn to taking a picture of this gentleman.

I was being interviewed for an article in British Vogue; and while we walked down Bowery back in April I barely stopped walking when I took the shot. Fiona Golfar, the writer, asked why I took the photo. At that moment I couldn’t really explain – but I just had a feeling about the power and grace of how he was sitting there. It wasn’t until later that night when I was working on the image that I realized why I had noticed this man.

Usually people in this man’s position have given up hope. Maybe this gentleman has too, I don’t know, but he hasn’t given up his sense of self or his sense of expressing something about himself to the world. In my quick shot I had noticed his pale blue boots, what I hadn’t noticed at first were the matching blue socks, blue trimmed gloves, and blue framed glasses. This shot isn’t about fashion – but about someone who, while down on his luck, hasn’t lost his need to communicate and express himself through style.

Looking at him dressed like this makes me feel that in some way he hasn’t given in or given up.

Reminds me of Siddhartha. Or Narcissus. For all we know, he might be living his last life cycle. Who knows. But my guess is he’s free. Unlike most of us.

“They went cheap, in other words,” counters Bucharest designer Iancu Barbarasa, who blogged about the font change on his website. If he sounds somewhat bitter, there’s a reason. With its attention to the curve of even a $9 lampshade, Ikea has become renowned for its understanding of good design. “Designers have always thought of Ikea as one of their own,” Barbarasa notes. “So now, in a way, the design community feels betrayed.”

I can’t express what joy it brings me to be cited next to London, Tokyo and Melbourne designers. Thank you, Lisa.

Here’s the whole interview:

1. How did you first learn about Ikea’s switch to Verdana?
I first heard of it from a fellow designer on Yahoo messenger, then read about it on twitter which linked to Typophile and Please Copy Me (used Google Translate).

2. What’s you’re opinion of the new font? And why do you think Ikea adopted it?
Verdana is a typeface specifically-designed for screen use. It is efficient in small sizes, but bland in display sizes, especially in print. Seeing the new catalogue, Verdana seems to be working a lot better than I expected, but that is because it has been carefully typeset (through extensive use of negative tracking and leading). In outdoor communication however, which is done locally, things are not so good, since most advertising agencies do not have good type-trained designers or art directors (I’m not talking about UK, Netherlands or the few countries with strong design-conscient population). All in all, IKEA’s brand recognition will be affected by this. How much remains to be seen—after all, most people can’t tell the difference between sans and serif typefaces. Maybe it will be all forgotten in a few months.

Most probably, IKEA chose Verdana because its wide world availability, having support for nearly all languages (they have to thank Microsoft for that). Otherwise they would have had to pay for the design of additional language support. They went cheap, in other words.

3. A lot of design-related people are unhappy with Ikea using Verdana. Do you have a sense of why the change would provoke such outrage?
IKEA has always been a very loved and respected brand, especially among designers, who thought of IKEA as one of their own, one that understands good design. Any change would’ve upset people. Since the change is not for the better, at least not in an obvious, unarguably way, the buzz is even bigger, giving instant birth to petitions and blogs-twitter-forums bashing. In a way, the design community feels as if betrayed.

Eventually, a solution came up: to give myself a “non-comercial” theme to think and design, every two weeks or so. Worried as I was that I wouldn’t be serious enough to keep doing it on a regular basis, I managed to convince some of my friends to join in, hoping that if I wouldn’t design for my eyes only, at least for them I would :) (I still remember very fondly my college years when I’d work and wait unpatiently for the end of the semester when everybody would show their projects—competing with them was the true school).

So, this is it: Design Challenge.
A flickr account where every two weeks all the members post their work on the previously given theme. Working only for the sheer pleasure of challenging wits and talent.

Here’s a glimpse of how the set with the works looks:

Since all the members are romanian, comments are not in english. But you’ll get the general idea, trust me. Enjoy :)