DesignDiscussion

People I Know/Have Met

• 1. Alison Popp: Discovering Design for Herman Miller. Used to promote Herman Miller at Home collection and to inform the public of the heritage of the company and of modern design. It’s a very well done piece and seemed to be a step ahead of it’s time. It has outlived the campaign (although it has had a couple minor adjustments) by a couple years (it was created in 2004) and has no signs of leaving the Herman Miller site; it’s still featured on the company’s front page. Also, I have to feature Alison because she is a very dedicated designer that really does love what she does.
• 2. Thomas Geismar: NBC Logo. Do I really need to explain this logo? At all? It’s a living legend, an icon; it’s just like the man who’s name is attached to it. I had the pleasure of meeting this legend in late 2007 and it was one of the defining moments my college career.
• 3. Steve Liska: Brand Book/Identity System for Hotel71. Hotel71 “was developed to fill the gap between trendy boutique hotels and dull chain lodging.” Liska helped design the identity for a hotel that welcomed guests with a dynamic and chipper logo. I met Liska on a tour of Liska & Associates, Inc. in 2006. His company may be small and relatively unknown (in comparison to the Chicago powerhouse SomataMason), but his company has created great work for big-name clients.

• 4. Tibor Kalman: Posters for the restaurant Florent. My love for Tibor Kalman comes mostly from this quirky advertising for a small restaurant in New York that couldn’t really label themselves (this was partly because of how unique the advertising got under Kalman’s control. He liked to push the owner). RIP to my favorite graphic designer ever.
• 5. Turner Duckworth: Superdrug Bath Supplies. Lately, this company seems to have been cranking out logos and packaging for supermarkets or department stores, but it’s always of good quality and always winning awards and spotlight. Okay, not a person, but I can’t not talk about the whole company. Right now they are pumping out some amazing work, including the little-mentioned-on-AIGA-Archives Coca-Cola rebrand…I really wanted to feature that. Sadly, I didn’t see it on the Archives.
• 6. Herbert Matter: Knoll Index of Designs. I realize that this is OLD stuff (it’s more than 50 years old), but the look that one of my favorite designers created is coming back in popularity—vintage, simpleness, use of white space, and just showing off the product and nothing else. I couldn’t find much on the project, but I’m assuming it’s for a catalog of types.

• 7. Abbie Planas Gong: Peek identity system. I love that some people don’t like to use bright colors for a children’s store; brown and blue are fantastic. Everything about this identity is fantastic, what am I saying? I found this days ago and knew i was going to feature it; ironically, Jessie must have thought the same thing. This is the same designer that designed the Passing Notes card that Jessie featured earlier.
• 8. Jennifer Cast: Nickelodeon Brand Book. It’s mainly a kid’s television network, and that really needs to show. Fortunately, it does in the brand book. It’s quirkly, it’s clever, it’s bright, it’s bold. Exactly what is needed. I hope Cast had some experience in it; I do believe she’s one of the corporate designers. She’s worked on other award-winning Nickelodeon designs.
• 9. Patricia Evangelista: Pottery Barn Kids identity system. We all know how Pottery Barn is…but what is the kid’s division like? The company wanted sophistication and whimsy. Wish is granted. (a form of brown and blue for kids again, really?). I really liked how clean this is and even though it looks nothing like the current logo, we can still tell they’re the same company…somehow. It’s magic, I guess.
• 10. Juan Monasterio: Target “Symbol” ad. I originally looked at the opening credits for the movie “23”, which were beautifully done and set the tone for the movie but I stumbled across this. Leave it to Target’s workers to use something so overused and make it fresh. Plus, as Linda has mentioned before, they use red, white, and unique imagery in every commercial and it never gets old…that’s enough in itself.

1. the new museum must be built with architectural quality
2. it must include an area where children can get into the arts
3. had to be LEED certified.

First of all, it’s important to know that LEED stands for Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design. In the ten years that this has been implemented by the US Green Building Council, over 14,000 buildings in many countries have been built with their guidelines.

LEED was created to accomplish some great feats. First off, it defined what a green building was and set up terms for a global definition. It promotes strong building practices and “green” competition. It shows who are environmental leaders in the architectural world and even transforms the world building market. What I think it does most of all: it inspires the public to think greenly as well.

There is a rating system with LEED, which sounds kinda like bragging points to me. You get points designated to different “green” aspects and how many points you get gives you a rating. These ratings are “certified,” “silver,” “gold,” and “platinium.”

• Alternative Transportation: Public Transportation Access (be located 1/2 mile from commuter rail or subway or within 1/4 of two or more public or campus bus lines)
• Water Efficient Landscaping: No Potable Water Use or No Irrigation (use only captured rainwater, recycled wastewater, etc. or install landscaping that does not require a permanent irrigation system).
• Enhanced Refrigerant Management (do not use or select refrigerants that minimize or eliminate emission that leads to ozone depletion and global warming).
• Materials Reuse: 5% (use salvaged or reused materials such that the sum of the materials is at least 5%)

Follow the rules, check off some credits and voila! Rated LEED building!

Of course, they planned LEED into the new building and started in 2004 after more money had been raised. It was finished in 2007 and had it’s debut on October 5, 2007. National coverage followed, including reviews and recognition in big-name newspapers like the New York Times, interviews in Architecture Magazine, and even was named one of the six best buildings of the year by Newsweek.

To top this tasty cake, icing came in early 2008 when the GRAM was named the first LEED gold certified art museum in the world.

What a beautiful building with beautifully sound practices…also, what beautiful works inside! I didn’t imagine I’d get to see works by Motherwell, Degas, Lichenstein, Rauschemburg, Gaugin and Picasso on my trip to Grand Rapids of all places! (Had to throw that in)

On the left: a Richard Avedon portrait (circa 1975). On the right: a Ross Haflin portrait (circa early 2000s).

Some could say that anyone could do this, but from what I get, Haflin only does this when he’s doing some serious portrait work. He does a lot of concert photography, which is in color and has a lot of movement, but when he takes a calm pic, they often look like this.

Someone has been influenced….but there’s nothing wrong with that. :)

Now it’s easy to see why I like Avedon so much…I already liked calm portraits in high contrast black and white.

I recently went down to Grand Rapids to see the Avedon exhibit. After realizing that he was the OBVIOUS inspiration to my then favorite portrait photographer Ross Haflin, I had to look at a few of his pieces. I looked at a couple—I was intrigued. I couldn’t see all of them, though, as I wanted to feel so in awe of the photos that I had to get up close…

Fast forward from the computer screen to the exhibit. I was doing exactly what I thought I had done, especially on the two pieces of Vietnam victims—Napalm Victim #3 and #4. You can see every wrinkle on their foreheads, every blackhead on their noses, every line in their hoping eyes…

This, my friends, is photography.

It’s a good thing the first pictures I saw were covered because my breath left a small moisture spot after standing too close for so long with my mouth open. I quickly learned my lesson and stayed back.

At least a couple inches.

I couldn’t help it. Even photographs of names I didn’t recognize that didn’t strike raw emotions caught my every attention.

There was fashion, there was journalism, there were portraits. Even though many can say his pieces were all fairly similar (I have only found one series and one other photo of his in color and most are very simple backgrounds with a black gelatin print edge), his different genres of exploration stroke different chords.

His journalism made me want to cry, his portraits made me think, and his fashion portraits—such as the one displayed above—made me wonder WHY more fashion photographers don’t use motion in such a simple form.

All in all, I am extremely glad that I didn’t look up his work too much online. However, I would still have had the same reaction I had most of the time; wonderment and enjoyment.