One Plus One Equals Three

Developments in Norwegian Uphill Cycling (Not Exactly)

For (Norwegian) cyclists too lazy to ride up hills (psst: riding up hills makes you a fitter cyclist... oh well).
Via Bikehugger.

Daimaru: Then and Later and... 'Kimono'

Many Melburnians will be familiar with the Japanese department store chain of Daimaru. We had a Daimaru store in this city for quite a few years, located in the Melbourne Central development that was designed by famed 'Nakajin Capsule' architect Kisho Kurokawa (who, incidentally, died last year). At left is an image of some kimono being sold at one of the original Daimaru stores. This one's in Shinsaibashi, Osaka, which was founded in 1726.

The image at left is part of a new exhibition in town: Kimono: Osaka's Golden Age at the Immigration Museum. Many types of stunningly beautiful kimono are on display in an exhibition designed by, well, yours truly, in conjunction with the museum. We designed the 2D aspects within the show and a souvenir book.

Children's kimono, women's and men's kimono, accessories, drawings, paintings, and the star of the show for me, firemen's kimono, are on show (in Melbourne only) until September 14. The exhibition "highlights the wealth and prosperity enjoyed by the Japanese during the Edo and Meiji periods (1850-1900)". 'Kimono' celebrates the 30th anniversary of the Melbourne-Osaka Sister City relationship and the 10th anniversary of the museum. The kimono are so delicate and of such an age that the display has to be swapped round in two months time to avoid wear-and-tear and possible risk of fading (but they still look great after 150+ years to me).

Stand by for more on this exhibition. The kimono are quite breathtaking and the show really is a knock-out (even if I say so myself).

A couple of quick pics from the opening in the continuation...

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+ History of the colour wheel
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+ The Hindu gods Flickr pool
+ DoCoMo promo is 'loco'
+ Tombstones with QR barcodes
+ The one room hotel
+ Filipinos SMS most

Melbourne: a Renaissance City (on a Grid)

A flattering (and quite accurate, yet ever-so-slightly promotional) report on the re-birth of Melbourne-town by Streetsblog.

"Melbourne is a new world city, it has a modern grid much like a typical American metropolis. Naysayers who do not believe a city can be radically transformed say that the already narrow streets of many European cities make it easier to have good pedestrian environments there. Melbourne proves that isn’t necessarily so."

More (which is well-worth a read) on recent developments in Melbourne, Professor Jan Gehl's planning vision for the city and on how we're a "pedestrian's paradise". Reports on other Australian cities to follow soon at Streetsblog. Our laneways have proved to be such a huge success that they're about to build more... new ones that is... (stay tuned... details were announced on the weekend, but unable to find links so far). Via Treehugger.

Daegu-licious Identity

I'm normally very reluctant to simply post an interesting image and say: 'nice work' (as many blogs do).

The above identity is for Icograda's Design Week in Daegu (in South Korea) and I'm going to break my rules and say: 'nice work' – because it is.

OK, a little bit more of an explanation (and here I draw upon my knowledge of Korean culture): it's a stylised D (or two) for Daegu and design and it cleverly references the Korean patchwork quilt-style handcraft of pojagi. The mark communicates: Daegu, Korea, design, craft-skills, colour (the theme of the event) and it's visually stunning and quite memorable. Nice work.

Here's some pojagi at Flickr. Beautiful objects and... nice work too.

Recent Highlights 93

+ Penguin's retro-styled Bond reissues
+ Sabadabada: Brazilian album covers
+ 'Paper bombs' of Korea's cold war
+ Danny Yount, title designer of Six Feet Under at By Design
+ SBS rebrands/relaunches and gets skewed
+ New Zealand type designer Kris Sowersby
+ Ancient mythical Japanese illness 'creatures'
+ The Traffic Cone Preservation Society
+ Large carbon footprint spotted in London
+ STOP HERE: Pedestrians crossing
+ Information Design Patterns

Recent Highlights 92

+ An extra-virgin map of Australia
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+ Award-winning Australian architecture on Google Maps
+ What the world really doesn't need... with sauce...
+ Developments in smoking tourism
+ The Indigo Design Network is launched
+ An endless field of garbage in the Pacific Ocean
+ Guerilla gardening.org

Design by Potato

"One of the tricks she used to create this sort of natural woodland was to throw a bucket of spuds in the air. Everywhere a potato landed she'd plant a birch. Even if there were three together, she'd plant three birches in one hole."

I grew up in Melbourne's leafy outer-eastern suburbs in the shadow of the Dandenong Ranges (that area is now rampant brick-veneered suburbia) and my parents were inveterate gardeners. (My father still is). Every weekend would see mum and dad planting, pruning, trimming, fertilising and tending to our quite substantial suburban garden. We even had a larger than average block so more garden could be accommodated. Like many of the gardens planted at the time (the 60s) the plants were largely English, sometimes perhaps North American. Silver birches were a favourite at the time. Gums, wattles or banksias would sometimes be planted as a tacit acknowledgement of the original native surroundings.

Swept up in the rise of nationalism that accompanied Gough Whitlam's arrival as our (Labor) Prime Minister in the 1970s (amongst other things), Australian native plants began to populate our gardens – much moreso than before. Ellis Stones released his two seminal books on garden design that for many weekend gardeners revolutionised the Aussie garden. I clearly remember the weekends when my parents uprooted quite a few of the foreign plants in our garden and planted natives. Camellias, hydrangeas, rhododendrons and the like gave way to grevilleas, melaleucas, correas, hakeas and tufty grasses. Native plants, many of which were indigenous to our area, became the mainstay of our garden. These plants attracted honeyeaters, rosellas, spinebills, wattlebirds, lizards, orb-weaving spiders and possums aplenty. The garden became more than just a place for plants, it became a living, breathing entity, moreso than it's previous incarnation.

Quote for the Month: May 2008

"All design relies on heuristic thinking more than algorithmic thinking – meaning there is no set path, no mathematical formula, for reaching your goal. But you still need rigor and process, otherwise you'll drift from one thought to the next with no hope of it making sense than the proverbial thousand monkeys with their thousand typewriters."

Marty Neumeier, Zag: The Number One Strategy of High Performance Brands, 2007, p47.

The Stefan Sagmeister Book For Designers Who Can Design OK But Who Wanna Learn To Do Other Good, Helpful Stuff Too

The latest issue of ID Magazine features an hilarious – yet very incisive – review by Douglas Coupland of Stefan Sagmeister's latest book Things I Have Learnt in My Life So Far.

Here's a few choice quotes (but you really must read Coupland's ascerbic and very witty review):

"While the art direction is flawless, the sentiments behind the words feel a bit like Forrest Gump goes to RISD." (RISD being a high-profile east coast US design school).  

On Sagmeister's year away from design: "Sagmeister emerged from his walkabout year indoctrinated by American-style therapeutic pepspeak". (Coupland is Canadian). Outsiders to American culture find 'pepspeak', well, pretty silly really. Besides, Sagmeister is Austrian. You know... (Northern) European where they're not usually known for their fondness for 'pepspeaking'. It's quite often the opposite actually and Coupland thinks that the book suffers for it's lack of 'darkness': "it’s [discussing] the scary shit in life that helps other human souls".

There's an insight into the fishbowl that is the New York design world: "As well, seeing a list of hundreds and hundreds of people being thanked was chilling for me because it really made me wonder if Sagmeister is some sort of superconnected hub-monster – one of those beloved sacred Manhattan people like Chip Kidd or Laurie Anderson of whom nothing bad can be said – and should you not pay proper homage, you will be crushed like a bug. I’m kidding and I’m not kidding."

And Coupland's critique of the feel-good bromides that punctuate the book is best summed up by:

"Kittens are fluffy and cute.
Helping people makes you a better citizen.
Recycling makes me pure."

Actually, Coupland made that last one up – but you get the idea.

I have to confess to being a fan of Sagmeister's work. But he has gone a little Zoolander here methinks.

................................

Douglas Coupland is a meteorite-collecting Canadian novelist and artist.

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+ Spacejunk: a visualisation
+ A creative resolution from 2020?
+ A clock with 150 analogue hands that spells the time
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+ A break from the blogosphere

Computerised Multi-storey Bike Parking in Tokyo

Respect. For the bike. From Japan. Of course.
Via Treehugger.

IPL: A Logo-based Appeal

The somewhat controversial, yet undoubtedly colourful Indian Premier Cricket League has commenced playing its shorter, highly marketable and multicultural brand of Twenty20 cricket. Much money has been bandied about to attract top players from around the cricketing world, with player salaries featuring lots (and lots) of zeros. If you're into cricket you probably know whom is playing where. I like the multicultural makeup of the teams, but first and foremost (being a very casual fan of the game myself) I must admit I was more concerned with the graphic identities of the teams. What sort and style of logo would the IPL teams use? This is cricket after all, with a distinctive Indian feel and flavour to it.

Would the team graphics be Indian in style?, or more universal and middle-of-the-road (to cater for a large audience)? As we're on the subcontinent, I was hoping for a technicolour explosion of Indian colours, a dash of Bollywood – something distinctively Indian to drive home the fact that this is the Indian Premier League of cricket.

What we got is not exactly that. The new IPL logos are, well, pretty ordinary and sometimes even quite 'American'* in style. And that's just not cricket!

I Love a Radioactive Country

I found this whilst looking for some stock shots: "Uranium Street in Broken Hill, New South Wales, Australia, is a mining town where most streets are named after chemical elements".

I've actually met some of the locals – the Isotopes, lovely people, positively glowing with hospitality...