May 15, 2007

Apocalypse, memory, and redemption

• In Dr. Strangelove Dr. Strangelove, Canadian Kristan Horton recreates shots from the film using everyday objects: "Silverware become an airplane, plastic and coffee grounds become the sky." Fantastic. [Via]
• In a slightly related vein, Edward Zwakman produces large-scale photographs by painstakingly reconstructing objects and landscapes from memory. A bit more info is in his Tales from the Grid, but I’d like to know more.
• Chris Jordan attempts to make staggering numbers comprehensible in his Running the Numbers: An American Self-Portrait.  By assembling thousands of photographs into large, intricately detailed prints, he depicts "a slow-motion apocalypse in progress."  See also the fascinating images of his earlier Intolerable Beauty. [Via]
• Artist Amanda Vandermeer and photographer Paul O’Grady have collaborated to create Sustainable Jewellery, using flora & fauna to decorate the human form.  (Weirdly, there’s no permalink on the blog where the images appear, so you’ll need to scroll down to the relevant section.)  It might be interesting to see this work juxtaposed with Chrisopher Conte’s sculptures, such as this biomech arm or this stainless steel spider.
  

Web type that doesn’t suck, Historic typography, & more

• Beautiful type specimen books from the 1920’s appear in this Flickr photo set. [Via]
• Tiny type–from cuneiform tablets to spies’ microdots–is on display in Cabinet Magazine’s A Minor History of Miniature Writing [Via]
• Michael Bierut offers Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Typeface, naming various ways to choose the right font. [Via]
• Aiming to make Web typography suck less, Jon Hicks (designer of the Firefox logo, among other things) has created a quick, useful primer on Web type. He’s provided related links as well.

Photoshop, meet JPod

We’ve often heard Photoshop namechecked in pop culture, from The Daily Show to CSI, Desperate Housewives to Casino Royale.  Until now, however, I hadn’t seen it appear in a novel. Photoshop staffer Zorana Gee reports,

I was reading Douglas Coupland‘s new book (JPod) on my flight home from
Michigan and was pleasantly surprised to find that on page 258 is a
reference to most of Photoshop 7.0 engineers and managers (taken from the
splash screen).

His book is filled with random and often gratuitous references to many
mundane things we often face/see/are bombarded with in this ‘internet-era’ –
so our splash screen names have managed to infiltrate into the subconscious
minds of our customers…cool. :)

Say it with me: Seetharaman Narayanan, Seetharaman Narayanan… ;-)