I have at times lamented that I think that some of Shepard Fairey’s “Obey” designs—on posters, clothing, books, etc.—look kind of cool, but I can’t bring myself to pay for them. I have some kind of aversion to supporting that which is vaguely depoliticized and yet which claims to be highly political and irreverent. I used to think Shepard Fairey’s idea of mimicking ad messages in street art was kind of clever, and then I noticed that I see “Obey” logos and designs much more frequently on expensive designer clothing than on street corners. Generally I’m not inclined to accuse people of selling out because everybody’s got to make a buck, but if you strike the pose of a cultural revolutionary, I expect you to either hold it or find a new gig eventually.

This is a somewhat long-winded way of introducing an essay accusing Shepard Fairey of plagiarism and hackwork. I don’t necessarily agree with the essayist in all examples; “plagiarism” seems kind of a strong word for what plenty of artists consider “appropriation and recontextualization,” as the “Big Brother” example at the forefront of the essay seems to me. The writer acknowledges that “Despite some reservations I generally agree with that viewpoint—provided that such a process is completely transparent,” and yes, most of what follows is anything but. Most of these cases seem like Fairey just traced or copied artwork that he figured nobody would be likely to recognize.

Mostly, though, I wanted to link to this because I’m in agreement with the essay’s critique of Fairey’s depoliticized faux-critical stance, and the essayist makes the point more clearly and eloquently than I do. I’ll quote the final paragraph here because it ends on such a punchy (and, I believe, accurate) note, in case you can’t get read through something that’s almost entirely and inexplicably center-aligned:

If carefully examined, the rebellious patina and ersatz activism of Shepard Fairey’s art gives way to reveal little in the way of political imagination. Ultimately his work is the very embodiment of “radical chic”, bereft of historical memory and offering only feeble gestures, babbling incoherencies, and obscurantism as a challenge to the deplorable state of the world. Such an artist cannot provide us with a critical assessment of where we stand today.

Please, no Full House on the Brooklyn L train. (Link via Boing Boing.)

Collected months ago, mostly from Jacob and Boing Boing. (Click images or links for uncropped versions.)

Extracts from Survival in the City, This Magazine

“Thwock, Gulp, Kaching! Beer Pong Inspires Inventors,” Wall Street Journal

Unicorn Threat Level, originally from Discoballearring

There’s an interesting conversation going on now over at Speak Up about why there aren’t any “landmark” websites. Armin Vit writes:

Milton Glaser’s Dylan poster. Paul Rand’s IBM logo. Paula Scher’s Public Theater posters. Massimo Vignelli’s New York subway map. Kyle Cooper’s Seven opening titles. These are only a few landmark projects of our profession. Design solutions that, in their consistent use as exemplary cases of execution, concept and process, don’t even need to be shown anymore and that, for better or worse, (almost) everyone acknowledges as being seminal works that reflect the goals that graphic design strives for: A visual solution that not only enables, but also transcends, the message to become memorable in the eyes and minds of viewers. [...] But when it comes to web sites, I can’t think of a single www that could be comparable — in gravitas, praise, or memorability — as any of the few projects I just mentioned. Could this be?

Read More…

I once wrote here that, in addition to not being televised, “Nor will the revolution come through t-shirts that proclaim that ‘The Revolution Will Not Be Televised.’” It was a rambling, barely coherent post with links that no longer point to anything, so I’m not sure why I linked to it. I suppose it seemed worth acknowledging, anyway, because a new t-shirt company seems to disagree. Part of It (dot org) may not be angling for a revolution, but the plan is, at least, to address some of the world’s ills through t-shirts. I’d probably just mock them if they figured that a t-shirt that says “library” would actually do anything for libraries (despite that I think it’s a bomb shirt and I’d like to buy one). As it turns out, though, the proceeds from designs go to charities of the designers’ choices, so buying a “library” shirt might actually help libraries after all.

This is the same sort of strategy that GOOD Magazine used to wrangle twenty bucks from me: Get a magazine subscription (and entrance to a party I was too sick to attend) for twenty bucks, all of which goes to one of their partner charities. I don’t actually read the issues they send me because I’m apparently less interested in reading about people doing good stuff than in knowing, in the abstract sense, that they’re out there, so I probably won’t renew my subscription.

I really like the design sense of the magazine, though, so if they could leverage that to make some cool t-shirts, which I’d actually get some use out of, I might just buy those. You know, for charity.

I was chatting with someone the other day about how we both read an essay (probably on some design site) about how looking “undesigned” can be a potentially effective and desirable aesthetic in itself. The examples used in the article included Google, eBay, Craigslist, and, by way of analogy, an orthodontist’s (dentist’s? oral surgeon’s?) office run out of a house sporting a wholly unnecessary coat of arms. The general point was that lacking a professional-looking design signals to the common folk—you know, the ones who aren’t design snobs—that this is a business that’s more concerned with working well than looking pretty. Unfortunately, neither of us discussing this article could remember who wrote it or where we read it, though we would like to refer back to someone who makes this point (besides us).

Thank goodness for the prolific Steven Heller, who basically makes the same argument, though with a bonus mention of Topanga from Boy Meets World. And heck, Steve is so prolific that I wouldn’t be surprised if he wrote the article mentioned above, too, and then just forgot about it for a couple years. If you happen to know what I’m talking about, though, please feel free to link to that article in the Comments.

If your life is at all like mine, perhaps you too came to your office one day to find that the word processor you pretty much had the hang of had been replaced by a godforsaken abomination. I’m not saying I was a huge fan of what Microsoft passed off as “user interface” before, but the new UI for Office 2007 seems actively abusive.

First of all, I can’t seem to find a damn thing because commands are just sort of shoved into non-intuitive categories. Word Count, for example, has been moved under the “Review” tab—which isn’t so bad when you stop to think about it, but it runs against how Microsoft has conceptualized the entire category of tools related to reviewing things. It’s like they came up with their own idea of what “Review” had to mean, and I decided, okay, when dealing with Microsoft, remember that they mean it in a specific sort of way. Fine. And now they mean it in another sort of way. Damn.

I’d be okay with this shift if it meant that I had to unlearn years of bad design to deal with a greatly improved approach. It does not mean this. Rather, an unsightly and absurdly visually crowded “Ribbon” stretches across the top of the screen. The thing is impossible to briefly scan through like a simple freaking list in a menu. I generally keep it minimized to avoid seizures.

Tonight, at least, I discovered that you can customize the only “Toolbar” they left in the UI: the Quick Access Toolbar, which sits above the ribbon. One piece at a time, I made it look like the customized toolbar I used to have. Calm feelings are returning to me. I actually kind of like it now. It pushes the title of my documents off to the right unless you specifically tell it to sit below the Ribbon, but I’m nervous about doing that. That makes it look far too normal, too like the old Office. I fear I will be tempted to click on the ribbon someday, expecting a menu, but rewarded with a punch in the face.

Today I’m just ganking some quick links from Design Observer I thought might be of interest to many of you.

First, Bruce Nussbaum of Business Week writes that the MIT Media Lab’s “One Laptop Per Child” project is a failure—and then he says it again (oh snap). Wade into the debate yourself, but the long and the short of it, Bruce says, is this: Rather than trying to figure out how to make a super cheap laptop, designers and engineers should’ve gone to other countries to figure out what technology might be useful to school children if only it were more usable and accessible. India seems more invested in using cell phones to connect to the internet, so is this just an example of disconnected Americans asserting that everything would be better if only the rest of the world did it our way?

And speaking of potentially unwelcome top-down design: Folks (somehow) associated with the University of Kansas are pissed at the integrated branding effort that changed all the fonts—including the ones on sport uniforms—to Trajan. Enter: Trajan Sucks, the best typographic activist movement since Ban Comic Sans. I really don’t care about sports or Kansas, but I am seriously tempted to pick me up a “Trajan Sucks” t-shirt. It looks pretty likely to be mistaken for a Red Sox reference (especially the red-white-navy version), but whatever. Sometimes “branding” is a great idea, and this is not one of those times, if you ask me.

I bought The Elements of Typography and Thinking With Type for personal use. I went to a screening of Helvetica and a Q&A with the filmmaker. I nearly wet myself when I received a CD of Adobe fonts as a gift. And when Dan needed to figure out what the font was on Danny Ocean’s business card, I took a glance and responded confidently that it was Copperplate.

But I was not yet a type nerd. Not officially.

No, the confirmation came as I read of Armin Vit’s struggle with Copperplate. One sentence took me back to a moment in the car with Gen and Tony during our recent trip in Seattle, the moment when I looked at a store’s sign and said, as if uttering a prophecy, “Papyrus is the new Comic Sans.”

The sentence that took me back to this moment was this:

Copperplate Gothic’s default ubiquity and, by consequence, broad misuse, has procured it a place among The Designers’ Holy Hatred Font pantheon reigned by Papyrus and Comic Sans

When you are led to the Holy Hatred Font pantheon as if by a sneering angel, then, my friends, you are an official type nerd.

Given my mild obsession with breakfast cereal mascots, it should come as no surprise that I can’t help but link to this Something Awful “Photoshop Phriday” featuring Grindhouse Breakfasts. (Also check out movie posters redone grindhouse-style; both links via Boing Boing.)