Roma Publications is an independent publishing project, founded by artist Mark Manders and graphic designer Roger Willems. It is used as a platform to produce autonomous publications in close collaboration with a growing number of artists, institutions, writers and designers. Related to the content, every issue has its own rule of appearance and distribution, varying from house to house papers to exclusive books. Until now the publications have editions between 2 and 150,000.

In 2000, I had the extreme good fortune to hear architect Samuel Mockbee lecture. Samuel co-founded The Rural Studio for architecture in Alabama and won the MacArthur Prize for his work, inspiring young architects to design and build homes and community buildings in Hale County Alabama. As I sat watching Samuel’s presentation, I thought “why isn’t there anything like this for graphic design?”

In English, the word design is both a noun and a verb (which tells one a lot about the nature of the English language). As a noun, it means – among other things – ‘intention’, ‘plan’, ‘intent’, ‘aim’, ‘scheme’, ‘plot’, ‘motif’, ‘basic structure’, all these (and other meanings) being connected with ‘cunning’ and ‘deception’.As a verb (‘to design’), meanings include ‘to concoct something’, ‘to simulate’, ‘to draft’, ‘to sketch’, ‘to fashion’, ‘to have designs on something’.

a really good blog about interesting projects.

Great example of how a process translate to a final product. I like.

“…The scarf was created when Moving Brands set up a screen of fairy lights in their window and passersby were asked to send messages and drawings via a web interface. The sequence of contributions was then applied to the scarf’s design.”-mocoloco

http://www.typotheque.com/site/article.php?id=68

Ugliness is valid, even refreshing, when it is key to an indigenous language representing alternative ideas and cultures. The problem with the cult of ugly graphic design emanating from the major design academies and their alumni is that it has so quickly become a style that appeals to anyone without the intelligence, discipline or good sense to make something more interesting out of it. While the proponents are following their various muses, their followers are misusing their signature designs and typography as style without substance. Ugliness as a tool, a weapon, even as a code is not a problem when it is a result of form following function. But ugliness as its own virtue – or as a knee-jerk reaction to the status quo – diminishes all design.

 Aren’t we one of these fellows?

http://uncyclopedia.org

excerpt from http://uncyclopedia.org/wiki/Hong_Kong:
“Hong Kong, or SARS Kong , so called as it used to be overrun by SARS, is a dystopian world in which George Orwell’s novel nineteen-eighty-four is the ultimate reality. Hong Kong is home to too many overly arrogant and pretentious expat workers who failed to find prom dates back home — this is the reason why many of them are married to Filipino domestic helpers, and why every kid now born in Hong Kong is Eurasian. Typically, members of this laughable migrant labour ‘force’, claim to hold traditional academic degrees in Mickey Mouse subjects from the prestigious University of Disneyland. They are usually seen roaming the streets with their jazzy haircuts, their ridiculous sense of self importance and belief that the local women are impressed by the unsightly ‘bulge’ in their trousers and on their heads.

Hong Kong is also home to the main inhabitants of the land, known as Hongkongers, Hongkies or Hongkongese, who are a special race of proletariats with no known national identity. They were used and despised by two political powers and is now nothing more than slaves and beasts of burden for the rich.”

http://www.typotheque.com/type_utilities/volt_interpolation/

click in the “font tester”, it’s a fun way to play out with different fonts.

more ideas for that pile of corrupted CD/DVDs at ready made. 

Check out more of Derren Brown’s video on youtube.

Alison Jackson creates films, photographic images and sculptures about our fixation with fame and celebrity culture.   These Mimeses use look-a-likes of celebrities and public figures to create a photographic or filmic image, which challenges the observers’ perception of reality by creating a false reality.   Only on second or third glance does the viewer question the truth of what they are seeing.   Jackson describes her work as an exploration of what we see and what we imagine, the interplay of our voyeuristic needs and our urge to believe, challenging the photographs’ claim to tell the truth.   Jackson is an astute observer of the contemporary cult of celebrity.   Her reinterpretations of familiar media images have shocked, provoked, amused, and most importantly caused an entire generation to re-assess its perceptions and expectations of modern-day Icons.

aww..I always wanted to do this, but with only the card swiping beeps.
Movie Link
And check out more of Ken’s work: responsible for Yale flyers seen in earlier post.

really really cool project dude and dudess’s…D+A brought it into my thesis class once, planning on ordering it from Amazon.

This is how the industry comes together and have fun. Many famous designers…even Dresscode competes!

Nice website, and some interesting work.

Join (RED) viral

Dialogue with Public Spaces

Year of the Puma

More work

She: I’m thirsty. Do you think that water is free?
He: I dunno. There are lots of people in there, you better hurry.

Well, she had to go thirsty. There was no water in the bottles and the empty bottles were not free. Yet the punters were buying. One of the most eye-catching and most talked-about installations at Art Basel was the ShanghART Gallery exhibition, the ShanghART Supermarket by Xu Zhen. A typical Chinese convenience store was carefully set up in the gallery space at the Miami Convention Center, complete with freezer section, grooming products, cashier and register. The only problem was that each and every piece of packaging was exactly that: nothing but the package. The installation began as a fully stocked store, but the shelves were almost depleted by the last day of the show. Consumers and collectors were paying Shanghai prices for:

a) nothing
b) authentic Chinese packaging
c) part of an installation
d) Art Basel souvenirs
e) all of the above
f) none of the above
g) there are no correct answers

The beauty of collectors, consumption and conceptual art.