NYC Grid

Ratings

2 of 5 stars
What’s this?

Not actually a resource for typographic grids in New York City, but rather “a photo blog dedicated to exploring and discovering the City of New York block by block and corner by corner. Updated every weekday, each post covers a new block with a focus on the mundane and ephemeral.” I got a little nostalgic looking at today’s pictures for 7th Street between Avenue A and 1st Avenue, where I lived for several years. Sniff.

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Tuesday at Galapagos

Just a quick appearance note: next Tuesday evening, 28 Jul, I’ll be speaking at Galapagos Art Space in Brooklyn’s DUMBO neighborhood. The event is part of Galapagos’ Career Camp, a five-part series running through mid-September that brings together New York City-area professionals (employed or otherwise) for networking, discussion, and brief lectures (conveniently, drinks will be available at the cash bar, too). Also onstage will be my frequent partner-in-crime Liz Danzico, up-and-coming design technologist extraordinaire Erin Sparling and — last minute addition! — the amazing designer Jason Santa Maria. It’s going to be fun! Tickets are just US$5 and are sure to go quickly, so register right away here at this link.

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Metropolis Magazine: Review of the New Yankee Stadium and the Mets’ Citi Field

Ratings

3 of 5 stars
What’s this?

Excellent and thoughtful look by writer Mark Lamster at the experiences offered at New York’s two new cathedrals of baseball. “Both buildings ply the kind of nostalgic aesthetics that reinforce fans’ bonds with their chosen team… In each case, the feel-good design is the lipstick on the pig of a massive commercial project, financed in large measure by the public and unabashedly aimed at liberating fans from the contents of their wallets.”

I haven’t yet been to the Mets’ Citi Field, but I’ve watched one game at the new Yankee Stadium (Yankees beat the Tigers, 5 to 4). It’s certainly a pleasant upgrade from the creaky grandeur of its predecessor, and I could hardly complain when I saw that lots of problems from the old ballpark had been corrected (having lines of sight from the concessions to the field is fantastic). But in its museum-like — almost mausoleum-like — devotion to nostalgia, the new architecture and the experience it provides just feels to me like a huge missed opportunity. It could have been something new and marvelous created specifically for 21st Century baseball fans; instead, it preoccupies itself and its fans with thinking about the last century. That’s a waste.

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The New NPR.org on You Tube

Ratings

3 of 5 stars
What’s this?

This is a completely genius promotional video for the coming relaunch of NPR.org featuring the voice — and face! — of their marquee broadcaster Scott Simon experiencing the redesigned site for the first time. There’s nothing revolutionary in these three minutes and six seconds, but the simple, elegant use of their core storytelling strengths combined with the demonstrative power of the screencast format is just really, really smart. It’s a rare example of an ‘old media brand’ doing something genuinely surprising in a new medium.

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Funny Pages

Last gasps for a dying medium: as the printed newspaper’s future looks increasingly precarious, some noble — but not necessarily game-changing — attempts are being made to revisit its former glory. This summer two different projects have ambitions to resurrect the long suffering funny pages, i.e., newspaper comic strips printed in a broadsheet (or broadsheet-esque) format. Even as newspapers seem to be continually shrinking, whether in page count or in the actual dimension of their pages, these comics are making efforts to look big.

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Wes Anderson’s Mixtape

Ratings

2 of 5 stars
What’s this?

At least I think that’s what this is. It’s posted on a site, This Recording, that has no shortage of interesting content covering the pop cultural landscape, but is sorely lacking for just a little bit of explanation about what it is they’re trying to do with it — and they could use a little bit of design help making each bit of content more readable, too. I had a good time clicking through the site, but I have no idea what it is.

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