Feeding Desire, Boneville, the phantom print museum, calculating in InDesign and the only cardinal design sin. While I cannot find a common thread amongst all of these topics, they seem to get along just fine in Be Aware 23.

Paul Berkbigler: Design Education

As the educational community continues to take a collective deep breath and recuperate from the end of the semester while beginning to gear up for the Fall semester, it’s nice to look forward to some research excursions to buttress the reading, writing, and design practice that will help shape things still to come.

I wanted to share an exhibition that I’m pretty excited to see within the coming weeks:

Feeding Desire is open now at the Cooper-Hewitt National Design Museum in NYC and will remain open through October of this coming Fall. It’s an intriguing chance to see design utilized both in its most utilitarian manner as well as in its more decorative manners as applied to the tools that helped generate table manners to begin with: tableware.

I’ve seen a few smaller / more isolated shows of contemporary tableware design (generally about 1920 - present day), but am very intrigued to see the transition from the 1500’s through present designs. It’s a rare chance to watch design’s presence in something so familiar and intimate and to scout out the echoes of larger design movements throughout history as played out at the dinner table.

If you can’t make it in person, the site gives a very nice “taste” of what’s on display currently and the history surrounding it.

Nate Voss: Fun With Design

Get on Over to Boneville! I have been trying since forever to find a way to work my love of Jeff Smith’s BONE into this site. A newly redesigned website will have to suffice as reason enough. If you’re not familiar with BONE its a series of award-winning graphic novels about three cousins who are run out of their hometown and find their way into a mysterious valley, filled with mysterious creatures and mysterious goings-on. It blends actual humor (you will laugh out loud) with thrilling drama without skipping a beat, often switching between the two from panel to panel.

The story, originally published as a monthly comic book, was then reprinted in graphic novel form (including a bible-sized, 1,300-page edition), and is now being published for the first time ever in full color by Scholastic. For purists and adults I highly recommend the original black and white versions to really showcase what Smith’s breathtaking illustrations can achieve with only black line and white paper.

From TIME: “Bone by Jeff Smith (Cartoon Books; 2004) A series of black-and-white comics about three odd-looking creatures lost in a valley of dragons, talking bugs and rat creatures published over twelve years are collected here as a 1,300-page soft cover. Bone combines the humor and look of early Disney movies with the scope of the Lord of the Rings cycle. Smith draws characters that are both cute and scary, infusing every panel with dynamic energy. The best all-ages novel yet published in this medium, while children will read Bone for its breathless adventure and sight gags, older kids and adults will appreciate the themes of blind fanaticism and corrupting power.”

Bennett Holzworth: Letterpress

While visiting my brother who is living in Mexico City, my wife and I wanted to do something aside from the normal touristy stuff. After a quick google search (here and here), I apparently found Mexico’s National Printing Museum. I figured the largest city in the world would have an amazing collection of letterpress equipment. At least that was the thought.

One day I convinced my wife and brother to let me visit this National Printing Museum. We called up my brother’s new trusted taxi driver and we were on our way. Our experienced cab driver of over twenty years had never had a request for this museum and had never even heard of the street. After driving a good amount of time and stopping several times to ask for directions, it appeared that we wouldn’t find the museum. With the help of a few more locals, we found our street, Ararufa, and pulled up to #8. We approached the gate and there was no printing museum to be found. After buzzing a resident down, she confirmed that there was indeed no Printing Museum in this specific building, just an empty warehouse. With a few more questions we surmised that there had been a print museum in this location … TWENTY YEARS AGO!

Just to clarify. There is no National Printing Museum at No. 8 Mar Ararufa St., Tacuba area in Mexico City.

So if you happen to be in Mexico City … just take the Turibus and enjoy the ride.

Kyle Heinemann: InDesign Tip

Put away your calculator InDesign can crunch the numbers for you! You can use practically any measurement box (like Transform palette or Document Setup window) as an in-line calculator. For example, enter “8.5*3” to get 25.5. Or enter “11/4” to get 2.75. Have you ever needed to nudge everything an exact 1/8th inch? Just select all the items, and type “+.125” in the “X:” box in the Transform palette. This works great for adjusting a book cover layout to accommodate a change in spine size. If you’re working in picas, but still want to use an 1/8th inch, just type “+.125 in. Using this feature will increase accuracy and save you time.

Clinton Carlson: Design Quotes

Once again I’d like to share a quote that is part of a theme that tends to run through these and some of my other posts: human/user-centered design. It comes from industrial designer Dieter Rams by way of a presentation of Robert Peters, past President of ICOGRADA.

“Indifference toward people and the reality in which they live is the one and only cardinal sin in design.”