(Taken from comment on Design Observer)
The idea that art is somehow not valid anymore is just ridiculous. Art has changed considerably since the 30s, but isn't that a major part of the definition of art. Maybe we should go back to the pre-Ren era when the only things that could be created were for the church or the wealthy. The fact is that art changes and just because people don't understand everything that is going on in the art world, doesn't make it out-dated. It's influence may not be on billboards or in 30 second segments in prime-time, but it is still there. The impact of a sub-culture can sometimes be more effective than any mass media campaign. Malcolm Gladwell makes some very convincing arguments concerning this in The Tipping Point.

Second of all, if we don't like where art has gone in the last 50 years, why would we want to display our work in its grand temple, the MoMA. It seems hypocritical to criticize art and then want to be in the very institution that has helped put it where it is today.

Will this renewed vigor of the Art Museums to beef up their design collection result in yet another distraction for designers trying to advance there careers or make an impact on history? Design periodicals, which I must admit I drool over, are already a distraction for designers. Will this be yet another venue that designers put before their intended audience or client?

Art has its place and so does design. They both affect culture in different ways. Design feeds off the art world and vice versa. They have completely different goals and ideals and I think it can only be dangerous to keep comparing our separate worlds. I may be repeating what Armin wrote, but I'll say it anyway. Saying design is the new art is like saying carpentry is the new plumbing. They are different and will keep on growing and changing regardless of your predictions of the future. Lets focus on elevating design to a new level while supporting our visual cousin, the Artist.

Here is an amazing illusion. Thanks to Kyle H for showing it to us. Color sure is an amazing thing.

I heard a story on NPR today about Paul Curtis who goes by the name "Moose." He is a Brittish street artist who makes his graffiti (if you can call it that) by cleaning his images out of the dirt and grime of the walls, streets, tile, and anything dirty. You can see some of the stunning work he has done at symbolix.com

There are two really interesting angles to this story. First, he has gotten in trouble with the police for vandalizing property. The thing is, his graffiti usually only lasts a couple of days. The only marks he makes leave the surface cleaner than before he was there. Can you convict a person for cleaning a public place? Better yet, would you convict a child for writing their name in the steamed up windows on a public bus?

The second interesting angle is that Moose has been using his graffiti as advertisements for high profile companies like Big Brother and X-box. The Big Brother work is especially cool. It is just a huge logo of an eye looking out from walls, windows, pillars, and roads. It says Big Brother perfectly.

Moose's work is fascinating becuase it adds a new dimension to the art vs. vandalism issue that makes graffiti so controversial and intriguing. When you add corporate sposorship and subtract the damage to property, this takes graffiti to a new level. I love this concept, and I wish I would have thought of it first.

I can't pass up stories about PacMan. I made a post a while back about Pac-Manhattan, and today I saw that a new game combines the art of Mondrian with the classic Atari game. Its called Pac-Mondrian. It's not the most playable game in the world, but it is a fun idea. If you are interested in reading the history of the best-selling coin-operated game in history, here is a link to some Pac-Man trivia. I think I will go home and dig out my Atari 2600...

In an act of promotional prowess that would make the king of Pop Art proud, the Warhol Foundation has teamed up with the Stock Photo company, Corbis. The partnership’s goal is to make “it incredibly easy to obtain all necessary clearances for commercial use of Andy Warhol artwork and images, and even his famous quotations.”

Normally I would object to a corporation making a profit off a dead celebrity, but Warhol is a unique situation. His insight into popular culture, the concept of being a celebrity, his business sense, and his corporate commentary make it a perfect match. I wrote about Campbell’s Soup’s Warhol promotion last April, and thanks to continued corporate sponsorship, Andy lives on in modern pop culture. Would he have wanted it any other way? I doubt it.

You would think that a fairly prominent graphic design magazine would try its hardest to be original and not imitate other designs in general. It is even more surprising when one design magazine copies another. The Print Magazine cover on the left is the 1999 European Design Annual. Considering their unique approach and use of symbolism, I thought it was a well-designed cover.

The spread and enlarged detail on the right are from the September issue of Graphic Design USA. If you can’t tell at this low resolution, both magazines converted the overused Mona Lisa into a close up of halftone color separations. I do not hold GD USA to very high standards, but this seems too hard to miss. I find it surprising that no one on staff at GD USA had seen this issue of Print. I wonder if Steven Heller will point this out in Print’s column Separated at Birth.

After the New York Times linked to our site in their article about Pac-Mondrian, I came across an angle to the story that might be interesting to graphic designers.

If you just can’t get enough of the kitchy game, the creators of the pop art video game are selling fine art. They are selling sets of four postcards that document the concept, model, production, and product of Pac-Mondrian. For only $200 you get a set of postcards presented in a navy binder complete with “Avery’s high quality acid-free heavyweight polypropylene sleeves that meet the exacting archival standards of any serious Deltiologist.” Unfortunately, the eBay auction for the proofs is already over with an ending bid of $12,100. A closer look at the auction shows signs of being fake, but who knows. More Pac-Mondrian merchandise is in production with plans for cashing in on stamps, screenprints, and a can’t miss Pac-Mondrian vacuum cleaner.

While the creation of Pac-Mondrian was mildly entertaining, this stunt doesn’t do much for me. After the game made its viral spread accross the net, and after a New York Times review that took the game way too seriously, it seems that Pac-Mondrian has jumped the shark. We could discuss the implications for art and design that this story raises, but to do so might give the game more credit than it deserves.

Kathleen Lolley grew up split between Louisville, KY and Pittsburgh, PA. She started painting during those formidable years of farm life and life as a surgeon﨎 daughter. Her work depicts characters and stories that are playfully unusual. Two-dimensional figures painted on old parchment paper appear to be a part of a complex story- as if the characters escaped the pages that bound them. She moved to Los Angeles five years ago to attend CalArts for animation, where she experimented with handcrafted stop motion characters. In addition to working on various commercial animations, including Nickelodeon﨎 Sponge Bob Squarepants and titles for the movie Willard, Kathleen has created a handful of short films. Her influences are Leanora Carrington, Remidios Varo, Max Ernst, folk tales, poetry, comics and old books.

Kathleen Lolley’s Lolleyland

EVERY DAY ART will feature 24 randomly selected pieces of work submitted to the site that day. Each piece will be shown for one hour and feature the artist﨎 name, location and web address.

Anyone can submit work in any media, such as painting, sculpture, drawing, photography, digital media, or found objects.

Every Day Art

NCC has been around for some time now. I have always liked their work. I admire them because they create design that is art…art that is design. Experiments in color and typography and get paid to do it somehow. They just opened a new online store but be sure to check out their project section too.

NCC-Shop

Contest2005: Postcards from the Good Life is this Thursday from 7-11p.m.

AIGA Nebraska is having a gallery exhibition of all 25 postcards that made it into the competition - similar to the 2004 exhibition for Design the Hand Your Dealt, where all 54 playing cards were enlarged, and on display for an evening.

There is a last minute surprise however, and that’s that the Fluxion Gallery (where the exhibition is held) will also have a handful of original Andy Warhol artwork on display at the same time.

The following is an unedited email I received from my brother, who studied design at the University of Nebraska:

“Have you ever just felt a need, nay, an urge- to purchase an item the very second you see it. Well let me tell you about the last time I felt this strange power come over me.

I was at the gas station at 84th and O, I had walked over to get a snack during work. I have selected my diet mountain dew and was perusing the aisles for a tasty snack. Little did I know that my life was about to change, and that I would soon be face to face with the greatest food product that has, or will ever be, produced for the mass market.

I give to you… RAP SNACKS”

I can’t wait for printers like PixelRoller to hopefully reach the consumer market in the near future.

PixelRoller is a paint roller that paints pixels, designed as a rapid response printing tool specifically to print digital information such as imagery or text onto a great range of surfaces.

Just imagine painting your studio walls with giant typography murals or some badass illustrations. Of course if printers like PixelRoller do hit the mainstream, I expect there will be a slight rise in grafitti spottings.

(via futurefeeder)

Almost perfectly timed with the units on Renaissance and Pre-Renaissance document design that I’ve been studying with my students in Meggs’ History of Graphic Design lately, the Joslyn Art Museum in Omaha is currently exhibiting multiple pages from the continuing St. John’s Bible Project commissioned by St. John’s University / Abbey. I won’t take up an extensive amount of space describing here what the Joslyn describes in detail on their own site, but I will briefly comment on what a wonder this project is to behold in person.

Those interested should also visit the principle site for the St. John’s Bible.

I recently came across Daniel Rozin’s website which has videos of his four stunning “mechanical mirrors.”

“The 4 mechanical mirrors are made of various materials but share the same behavior and interaction; any person standing in front of one of these pieces is instantly reflected on its surface. The mechanical mirrors all have video cameras, motors and computers on board and produce a soothing sound as the viewer interacts with them.”

My favorite is the “Trash Mirror.” I hope you enjoy them as much as I did … now if I can only figure out where I can see myself on one of these in person.

The trend-a-day email newsletter DailyCandy has received even more buzz than usual lately, due to a recent Wall Street Journal report that it was up for sale—for more than $100 million. According to an article in next week’s New York magazine, DailyCandy’s purchase (by “a big-time buyer”) is pending.

But there are those who, having sampled a morsel or two of DailyCandy, say they just don’t get it—what’s the big deal? So how did DailyCandy amass over one million subscribers and leave all of the other “Hey, look, buy this/go here!”-style newsletters in the dust? One word: branding.

Left: David Kelly, 2001. Right: Todd Goldman

This is my favorite story making the rounds this week: Todd Goldman is a plagiarist. Summarizing from about 100,000 different websites, I can tell you that Goldman (of David and Goliath Tees) hung a painting in a gallery, and that painting was a recreation of a single panel webcomic called Purple Pussy, created in 2001 by an artist named Dave Kelly. In a very Vanilla Ice move, Kelly is purportedly claiming that the work is wholly and completely his own from thought through execution, though that may only be wild internet speculation as I have yet to find an official response from Goldman or his people.

I suppose it is worth mentioning that I stole the image above this story from Dave Kelly’s post on SomethingAwful.com. As did about 10,000 other websites proclaiming Goldman’s theft as The End of Days. The idea circulating the blog-and-forum-o-sphere is to simply “get the word out” and expose Goldman as a fraud. The internet being what it is, mostly this amounts to thousands of name-calling posts looking to garner me-too replies and social consensus. Forum posts and blogs rarely change the world, however, so I’m hoping people vote in the way that seems to affect the most reliable change in the world: with their wallets. Stop buying Todd Goldman stuff if you think this is reprehensible.

I’ve recently come to the conclusion of how to make it okay to steal work, however. There’s two boxes to check, and if you have both, you are generally in the clear.