Two or Three Things You Know About Me

With apologies to Jean-Luc Godard.

What is it about podcasters that allows them to make what looks like such a difficult medium seem so effortless? Brian Oberkirch is a great example: he’s the brains and voice behind the consistently fascinating and highly professional Edgework podcast, in which he hosts terrific dialogues with some of the best creative minds on the Internet. Last night he interviewed me via Skype at 10:00p EST, and he had the completed podcast episode up and available for download by 10:00a this morning. Wow, how do they do it? Anyway, it was a blast to talk to such a pro; Brian really knows how to run an interview. Have a listen and let me know how badly I stammered.

In other news, please vote for Subtraction.com in the 2007 Bloggies competition, where I’ve been very, very generously nominated for the “Best-Designed Weblog” category. That’s a huge honor, and I’m totally touched. I’m up against some formidable competition — not the least of whom is Veerle. I couldn’t possibly be saddened to lose to someone of that stature, because her blog is so clearly awesome. Still, it would be really nice to win, so if you can spare the time to vote for me, I’d greatly appreciate it.

Finally, you have two opportunities to come hear me ramble on about design: First, in just a few weeks I’ll be appearing in London at The Future of Web Apps conference (one of Ryan Carson’s many influential Carson Systems projects), where I’ll be talking about everything I know (and some things I don’t) about the topic of “Managing User Interfaces.” I’m pretty excited for that. I’ll also be doing a so-called ‘power session’ at South by Southwest Interactive in March, which will offer up for public appropriation everything I’ve ever appropriated myself about designing with grids. Mark Boulton will be sharing the stage with me, too, to provide the real substance. And of course, I’ll be available for hanging out afterwards, which after all is the real point behind the conference, right? Hope to see you there, or somewhere…

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Illustrate Me for December

Illustrate Me for December 2006I haven’t forgotten our deal: once a month, I ask a designer or illustrator to create artwork to accompany the prior month’s archives, cutting loose in any fashion he or she desires to add a little bit of life to these pages. And in turn you, dear reader, take it in wholly and enthusiastically, even if each piece’s overall awesomeness leaves you too speechless to leave a comment on this blog. For a refresher on this arrangement, you can start at the November 2006 or October 2006 archives and work your way back to see all the wonderful work produced over the past year.

It may be nearly an entire month late, but I’m finally living up to my end of that for my December 2006 archives. (The fault for this truancy is mine entirely, not the artist’s.) This month, I was able to convince my good friend Mike Essl, who is the Assistant Professor in Graphic Design at the Cooper Union for the Advancement of Science and Art, to contribute what’s turned out to be the most aggro entry yet. It’s a shake ’em up, in-your-face change of pace from what we’ve seen before, and I dig it loads. You can see it here.

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The Helvetica Hegemony

A quick update on matters Helvetica.

First, Gary Hustwit’s “Helvetica” documentary is real, or at least about ten minutes of it are, anyway. That’s how much I saw in a private screening of a handful of clips that was held last night at Pentagram here in New York. Hustwit invited about fifty or so of us to a “reception celebrating the release of three limited-edition letterpress prints” commemorating the film (beautiful work from Experimental Jetset in Amsterdam, Build in London and Norm in Zürich), but the real star of the show was the sneak peeks.

It’s very hard to judge an entire movie on the basis of a handful of snippets, but let me just say that I’m really excited for its release after this little taste. To see graphic design writ large on the silver screen (well, it was projected on a big wall last night, but that’s close enough) was really invigorating, and the interviews he showed, especially with Michael Bierut and Wim Crouwel, were riotous. Fingers crossed, the final product is going to be a film we’ll all treasure for a long time.

In other news, a resounding “Yes!” to those of you who have emailed in to ask — I will indeed be doing another run of my Hel-Fucking-Vetica tee shirts soon. I have a lot of traveling to do in the next few months, but I’ll try and squeeze in the time to actually put another order through. This round, the shirts will be run in a different color entirely, so as to preserve the ‘limited edition-ality’ of the first batch, perhaps in a shade of black or gray for increased bad ass-ness. And, in all likelihood, I’ll be running that second batch alongside a first edition run of my Fear of a Cooper Black Planet tee shirt, too. Stay tuned, type fans.

Finally, take note of “Helvetica Memory,” an alphabet designed by Mike Essl for Rick Valicenti’s Playground. It’s a fun reinterpretation of the typeface, as filtered through the lens of Helvetica’s contemporary ubiquity. And it’s also a good lead-in to something else Essl-related, for which you’ll need to come back to this blog next week. How about that? A weekend cliff-hanger!

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