A tax form for the marginally employed

Designer Sam Potts creates a tax form for freelancers for the NYT, including deductions for "Your food blog", "Your other food blog", and the "David Foster Wallace Memorial Deduction for Writers Who Use Footnotes."

Link

[Via Kottke]

Guerilla graphic design: Cardon Copy

via Chris Jobs at Curbly

Graphic designer Cardon Webb takes flyers posted in the neighborhood. Re-designs them. Not just re-designs: admittedly, he hijacks the flyer and overwhelms the essential content with design.

Then he puts it back where he found it.

Essential content is lost in the translation.

But, oh, what fun for fans of design.

Cardon Copy

Economic Recovery by Design

This week Barack Obama unveiled two new executive branch logos, one for recovery.gov, and one for the DOT's TIGER project (Transportation Investment Generating Economic Recovery).

Of course branding is no substitute for results, but what's notable about the Obama administration's efforts (in contrast to the Bush administration's) are that they 1) look crisply modern, and 2) don't come off as baldface lies.

The former was accomplished by hiring Mode Project, the design studio that helped develop Barack Obama's campaign logo. They in turn enlisted the help of designers Aaron Draplin and Chris Glass, two surprising hip choices for government work.

The question of lying is not entirely a political assumption I am making; Bush routinely appeared in front of backdrops that made actual claims ("Helping Small Business", "Strengthening America's Economy", "Mission Accomplished"). Had there been a functioning Office of Legal Counsel under Bush they might have insisted on adding an asterisk to each of these "logos".

Bold visual design can evoke emotions and create implications, but doesn't make such claims.

Of course over the coming years we'll see if the product actually matches the implied brand promise...

Link

(Via Communicatrix, @gruber, et al.)

Six minutes of letterpress

Brief documentary by filmmaker Chuck Kraemer about John Kristensen and Firefly Press in Someset, MA. Shot and paced like a classic CBS Sunday Morning segment. And I mean that in all the best ways.

Link, via Jessica Bigarel

Typographic City Posters

Chicago designer Jenny Beorkrem at Ork Posters creates boldly graphic maps breaking cities up into their component neighborhoods using only boundary lines and all-caps typography (DIN 1451, for those who care about these kinds of things). Each map is available in either poster or screen print editions, in a variety of colors.

Right now the choices are limited to Boston, Brooklyn, Chicago, Manhattan, and San Francisco, but apparently Beorkrem's initial run was successful enough that she's quit her day job to focus on this full time.

Of course in musing about what an Ork-style Oakland might look like, I found this map (commissioned by the city in 1982) that the Oakland Museum uses to catalog its collection.

Link

Via Brooklyn Based.

Cutwater: "Pouring In"

Saturday.
Army/Navy game.
Commerical break.
Jeep commercial. Laugh out loud funny.
Checked YouTube: yup, it's a popular (146,000 views and counting). Getting buzz on AdWeek.

The commercial features Andy Kim's 1973 pop single "Rock Me Gently," a crop of CGI animals, and spot on comic timing.

I laugh every time I see it.

R has asked me not to laugh.

L keeps asking me why it's funny. And thanks to YouTube, I can pause, and go cut by cut to point out the visuals that take what could have been a cheese fest into brilliant comedy.

Spot produced by Cutwater, a brand new boutique creative firm in San Francisco (started by Chuck McBride (former Executive Creative Director at TBWA/Chiat/Day) which, thanks to McBride's credentials, stole the Jeep account away from some Detroit firm).

High res version available at Cutwater's website, if you can navigate through its ubercool interface. (Why do design firms always want to hide their work behind pages of flash animation?)

We now have (to Deirdre's dismay) added "Rock Me Gently" to the iPod to the kids' favorites playlist.

Porter Airlines

Up and coming Canadian airline featuring teh fnky frsh design. Why don't we have airlines like this? Or rail? Or bus?



Link [Via NOTCOT]

Slick Surge Protectors

Belkin, maker of accessories for iPods and computers, spins a few new twists on the power strip.

Link, via NOTCOT

Helvetica at 50

BBC News Magazine profile of the Helvetica font on the occasion of its 50th birthday.

Also, birthday cake, courtesy of YouTube.

method: omop

The crazy, cool folks at method have introduced their response to the swiffer: the omop

Ergonomic curved pole, non-toxic floor cleaners, washable microfiber mop pads, and biodegradeable/compostable sweeping cloths. Like all their products, Target-demographicked design.

They know exactly how to get me to want one.*



*Or two, since they sell a different model specifically for wood floors.

iPhone Phunnies

(via Presentation Zen)
The comedy world reacted to Apple's new iPhone swiftly, and thanks to YouTube, now accessible all in one place.

Saturday Night Live: link

Stephen Colbert: link

MadTV: link

Conan O'Brien: link

Dissecting Trends in Package Design

A New York design consulting firm shares its grocery shelf research on patterns found in package design for related products.

Their January report, "Crunch", analyzes color, form, typography, illustration, and visual texturing found on packages for chips, crackers, cereal, and other things that crunch.



You can also check out earlier reports on Energy Drinks, Children's Cold Medicine and Sliced Bread.

Shelter mag for the downwardly mobile

From "Breed Em and Weep", an amusing post plus comments:

There is no Old, Small, Leave-It-As-Is-For-Now House movement that I can find. And there should be. It’s so disheartening to pick up a “shelter” magazine that promises fabulous low-budget renovations inside, only to find out that their version of low-budget differs from our version of low-budget by at least $15,000.

I want to know how other people live anachronistic lives in their old houses, i.e., how they can bear to look at their yucky, buckling Ikea furniture in the same space as old pine floors that deserve to be refinished and loved for another 100 years.