Maira Kalman

Maira Kalman currently has two exhibitions on display, one in Philadelphia and one at the Julie Saul Gallery in New York. After watching some of the videos featured on the exhibition page at the Institute of Contemporary Art (including a video narrated by Michael Bierut on Maira Kalman’s portrait of Tibor Kalman featured at the end of his monograph, Tibor Kalman, Perverse Optimist), I was slightly side-tracked and began searching for videos on her work. I found the ones featured below, all of which convey some of the quirkiness I experienced on hearing her lecture at the Beinecke library last month.

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Mark Weaver

Mark Weaver’s portfolio has this oddly appealing Cold War aesthetic. His refined command of both collage and color emerges in each piece, and when he combines these intricate collages with one word (maybe two), he reestablishes this ominous and ironic sense of doom.

Though his website exhibits a fair amount of work, his flickr set is his attempt to “Make Something Cool Every Day.” I’ve included a small sampling below, but this set is hands down the best flickr set I’ve encountered, so you should really just go directly there and see for yourself.

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Shopping Lists

Debbie Hill collects shopping lists. She then illustrates one item on the list, transforming a throw-away object into something beautiful.

The “I Collect Shopping Lists” project reminds me of the exclusive edition of Kate Spade Contents, a book that features all of the contents held inside the designer’s handbags. “Each spread features a photograph of ephemera and an accompanying list of the items, as well as a brief description of the bag owner’s occupation.” As you peek into their handbag, you start to recreate a person’s lifestyle and character based on the contents of their handbag. The owner is only identified at the end of the book.

With these scribbled shopping lists, you start to reassemble either their meal or their basic food needs; then, you begin to imagine the person who wrote such a list (and if they were in such a hurry that they had to use the back of an envelope).

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Endless To Do

Excuse the profanity, but this is how I have felt for the past week, and how I will feel for an indefinite number of weeks. I fear even opening my inbox, knowing that each new email contains another request.

These To Do index cards are available from Mohawk’s Felt & Wire Shop.

Studio K Maps

The intricacy and delicacy of these hand cut maps, by Studio K, are almost frighteningly beautiful.

I’m immediately concerned and curious about the person who spends months crafting these gorgeous and accurate maps. But I’m also perplexed as to how one would display such a piece. It couldn’t possibly be framed, for then it would lose its allure as a silhouetted cutout. But with the alternative of hanging unprotected, I’d be endlessly worried about tearing one of those minuscule lines, and thereby ripping out an entire block.

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Sweet Petula Soap

Even though I am devoted to my farmer’s market soap (the handmade and long-lasting Goatboy Soaps), I am certainly tempted by Sweet Petula’s soap, partly for the unique scents (like “early gray tea” above) but mostly by the packaging. Each soap is wrapped with designed sheets that mimic a French dictionary or encyclopedia. With a simple scale shift to highlight the details of each drawing, the packaging makes the soap look both natural and scientific.

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Looking into the past

The project, “Looking into the Past,” trumps any “Then and Now” book I’ve seen. Taking photographs from the Library of Congress, Jason Powell goes to Washington D.C. sites and matches the photograph to the standing architecture. The incredible results effectively capture two historical moments in one frame.

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Unhappy Hipsters

For those of you who, for some incomprehensible reason, are not daily readers of Unhappy Hipsters, I’ve re-posted some more of my recent favorites here. They always solicit a laugh.

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Yeju Choi

I first encountered Yeju Choi’s work at the Yale School of Art Graphic Design Thesis exhibition last spring, and I was particularly struck by the project “Only Time Will Tell.” The video above and his description below, aptly explains this beautiful and interactive project.

A pair of posters responding to The New York Times article series “Invention for 900 Hands” by James Barron, which is about the making of a Steinway piano. The articles focus on the idea that a piano is made through an intricate process of many hands collaborating over a long period; hence the final result is always unpredictable.

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Digital print design

This past Christmas season, I was extremely resistant to the growing popularity of kindles, nooks, and any other type of digital reading device. As an English major, I was repulsed by the idea of reading an e-book on a screen, instead of gripping a hardcover novel, rapidly turning pages with increased captivation. As a designer, I was horrified by the standardized typography (the limited options are even more limited than the web’s Verdana, Georgia, and Helvetica).

When the iPad was released last month, I was initially skeptical: a combination of the iPhone and a laptop, but without calling capabilites? 9.7 inches? Still no Flash?

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