Irma Boom Lecture
• Irma Boom, book designer / rockstar
Just a week after the Swiss Style Forever? panel discussion, IB gave a lecture at the Museum of Design Zürich on the 13th of May.
It was an insightful presentation of her work and the stories behind the making of her books. Sometimes even stories about single pages.
IB uses a camera and a projector to display the pages she flips through while she talks about them. I can’t think of a better or more intimate way to show book projects to a large audience. Currently, she is working on her own monograph. She might find a great way to show books in books, as well.
Swiss Style Forever?
• Lars Müller, Agnès Laube (host), Richard Hollis and Manuel Krebs
On the evening of May 5th in the Museum of Design Zürich, LM, RH and MK argued about the Swiss Style in graphic design. There was no answer concerning its future, of course. But there were many notions about its origins and history.
The panel offered lots of insights into this huge complex. If you want to delve further into this topic, there is a comprehensive book by RH about Swiss Graphic Design.
Jakob Bill, Max Bill’s son, and Johanna Lohse James, Richard Paul Lohse’s daughter, were among the audience. This evening had a particular smell of graphic design history attached to it, which was hard to deny.
Music for the 8bit Generation
• From Mega Man 3 on the NES
Nerd Music is a growing collection of, well, music for nerds and nostalgists. Some of my personal favorites so far: NES-style Drum’n’Base and 8bit Nine Inch Nails.
Boing Boom Tschak
• Kraftwerk live in Wolfsburg
I’ve already seen Kraftwerk live three years ago at a festival. Their setlist didn’t change much, but they played the songs differently this time. Not like a Jazz combo that does an improvisation. It was more about fine-tuning the samples and experimenting with parameters. The songs were perfectly recognizable and still it was fun to discover all the tiny variations.
For the second half of the show, the security passed out 3D glasses and the visuals advanced into the third dimension. It was an amazing experience.
Kraftwerk managed to surprise and impress me again — even though I thought I knew exactly what to expect.
More photos on my Flickr.
For the Love of Vinyl
• Barry 7’s Connectors, designed by Non-Format
Lately, I developed an interest in vinyl records. I’m not sure about a possibly higher audio quality, but the artwork just shines. Apart from the obvious visual obsessions, I actually love the inconvenience you have to go through before you can listen to a song. It makes the whole music experience much more deliberate than iTunes.
Which reminds me of my childhood, when I used to consume music sans computer. Those were the glory days of the Compact Disc, for those who remember.
Like a Rolling Stone
• Bob Dylan at Messehalle Erfurt, April 2nd 2009
I had the great opportunity to experience BD in concert two days ago. It was an amazing gig and I was deeply moved long after I left.
What’s it going to be then, eh?
• By David Pelham for the Penguin edition of “A Clockwork Orange”
It’s a new beginning and a fresh start for this blog. Being a designer, there is going to be a certain focus on that métier.
The content is all about design, the design is all about the content. The branding is almost anonymous. Where’s the logo? Would you even miss it?
This site is supposed to be an ongoing experiment, a discovery trip. I have no idea what’s going to happen next — so I invite you to stick around and find that out as we go. And I’m curious. Aren’t you?
