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Krochet Kids International
October 10th, 2008
My cousin, Stewart Ramsey, is a co-founder of a non-profit organization that hires African women to crochet hats that are then sold in American. From their site:
The crocheted products these women are making have a far reaching impact. They provide immediate stability for their families, share about the realities of poverty, and their sale promotes the development of their community.
- krochetkids.org
I designed the original logo (back-to-back K’s) way back when this was just Stew and some high school friends making the hats for some extra cash. I think Karli did the updated logo? Anyways, it’s a really nice upgrade and the site looks really nice too. The hats themselves are excellent (I own one from the old days) they fit well and look good.I’m really proud of Stewart and all that he’s accomplished. We need more people like him. Check out Krochet Kids and buy a hat.
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Otl Aicher 1972 Olympics
September 30th, 2008
Beautiful posters from Otl Aicher for the 1972 Munich Olympics. See the full catalog of design work.
Strange that the background these were shot on is very similar to the background on this blog!
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Tax Plans
September 19th, 2008
Really nice infograph from Chartjunk about our presidential candidates’ tax plans. Now, don’t get me wrong, I’m almost making over $600k a year (just shy), but until I am, I think I’ll go with Obama and his plan.
A .pdf version of the the chart is available on said site along with a comparison to the chart from The Washington Post (which this was based on). It’s interesting how the same data can be portrayed in dramatically different ways. This way is much clearer and easier to understand.
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Syd Mead Concept Art
September 15th, 2008
Concept art by Syd Mead. Found this after watching Blade Runner last night. He did visual design for Blade Runner, Tron, Aliens, and whole lot of other great films.
More available at Michael Heilemann’s photostream
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Polish Posters of American Films
September 14th, 2008
Steph found these great Polish posters of American films the other day. All the American promotional posters were essentially thrown away in Poland while under Communist rule. Now they’re collectors items and are worth a ton. I’m definitely going to be looking to these for inspiration in future design work.
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Helvetica
July 30th, 2008
Helvetica is a documentary about, well, Helvetica. That font that is all around us, utterly ubiquitous, completely invisible to the unknowing eye. Is it the mind-numbing tool of Big Brother, or Modernism’s weapon against disorder?
Some people like it and some people hate it, but one thing’s clear: everyone has an opinion.
I personally love using the font as a base for logo design. The letter forms are so geometric and consistent. It reminds me of the creative trance I would get into as a child when I would sit for hours stacking legos together, taking the small pieces and making more and more complex designs. It’s a very comforting feeling.
The director of Helvetica , Gary Hustwit, has another documentary in the works called Objectified about industrial design. I’m excited.
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A. G. Rizzoli: Architect of Magnificent Visions
July 30th, 2008
I received my A.G. Rizzoli book in the mail today. It’s an excellent book. It includes a history of Rizzoli and many hard to find drawings. Highly recommended.
I posted about Rizzoli last week with more pictures of his work.
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A. G. Rizzoli
July 24th, 2008
My sister introduced me to this artist several years ago, and my recently acquired interest in architecture reminded me of his work. Achilles Rizzoli is an excellent example of what the human mind can accomplish when creativity and imagination are given ample time. Although the most of his body of work was drafted between 1935 and 1944, Rizzoli went undiscovered until 1990!
Achilles worked as an architect for a firm in San Francisco where he was a sufficient, but otherwise normal draftsman. However, his own architectural work was far more than just sufficient, it was magnificent. He would, during his free time, construct an elaborate fantasy world of exquisite buildings. Many being architectural caricatures of his friends and family.
Rizzoli would occasionally make the front room of his home into museum called the “Achilles Techtonic Exhibit”. Visitors that gave compliments or befriended Achilles would often return to find that they too had been depicted as a mansion or castle.
I particularly like the building at left. Notice the how symetrical it appears overall, but up close (click for a larger version) it isn’t at all. And, in addition to the building itself, all the intricate notes and excellent typography really pull it together.
I’ve ordered a collection of his work called “A. G. Rizzoli: Architect of Magnificent Visions” and should receive it soon. I’ll post some pictures when it gets here.
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Scrapbook #1
July 18th, 2008
I’m going to start posting some of my favorite designers and designs in a series called “Scrapbook”. This post we’ll be looking at the work of two of my friends from Spokane. Karli Fairbanks and Nick Tibbetts.
Karli Fairbanks
Karli and I met in the graphic design program at Spokane Falls CC. She has a really beautiful hand-crafted look to her work. I particularly like her hand lettered type. Always unique and appropriate for the design. Many more pieces on her website and flickr.
Nick Tibbetts
I met Nick through Karli and we instantly hit it off. He and I share a love for flat-colors whether it be for screen printing or poster art. This is one of my absolute favorite illustrations. I don’t think I’ll ever get over it. Nick’s myspace has more of his work. TeeVee is the former name of Nick’s band, now called Oil of Angels .
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The Architecture of Happiness
July 17th, 2008
I was revisiting this excellent introduction to architecture today to compare it with F.L. Wright’s essays . One of my favorite things about architecture is how it marries mathematics and logic with art and humanity. But it wasn’t always this way. Botton writes:
“The principles of engineering may have brutally contradicted those of architecture, but a vocal minority of nineteenth-century architects nevertheless perceived that the engineers were capable of providing them with a critical key to their salvation — for what these men had, and they so sorely lacked, was certainty. The engineers had landed on an apparently impregnable method of evaluating the wisdom of a design: they felt confidently able to declare that a structure was correct and honest in so far as it performed its mechanical functions efficiently; and false and immoral in so far as it was burdened with non-supporting pillars, decorative statues, frescos or carvings.”
-Alain de Botton, The Architecture of Happiness
This idea of simplification by reducing beauty and utility into the same structures is fascinating to me. In my last post I quoted Wright speaking about “useful things” and I think this is what he was talking about.
I often times find myself considering the similarities between architecture and web design. Both mediums are interactive, permeable, and require the marriage of style and function. I wonder who I am, the architect or the engineer? The graphic artist or the developer? Great designers are both.
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Frank Lloyd Wright - On Architecture
July 15th, 2008
Yesterday I picked up this book at a used book store downtown. I’ve never read Wright before so when I saw this beautiful cover looking out at me I knew that I needed to. It’s a chronological selection of his writing broken up into several sections with regards to his changing environment, philosophy, and style. So far I’ve only read his earliest works from his early 20s to early 30s, around the turn of the century.
Nearly every paragraph is quotable. Wright’s pen spews forth insight even when the subject may not be exclusively architectural in nature. Take this for example:
“Useful Things. Avoid all things which have no real use or meaning, and make those which have especially significant, for there is no one part of your building that may not be made a thing of beauty in itself as related to the whole.”
and this:
“Decoration. Decoration can tell your friends lots of things that you do not know and would not like if you did. It is of no use to you unless you do understand and appreciate it. It would not be sufficient justification for you to have it just because it looks rich or because somebody else had it.”
-Frank Lloyd Wright, Architecture and the Machine 1894
Incedently, my great great grandfather William Gates lived in Chicago and became good friends with Wright and even commissioned him to create original pottery for his Terra Cotta Company better known as TECO . I haven’t had a chance to visit Chicago yet, but my sister has recently relocated there so I am planning to go.
I hope this can be an ongoing theme of discussion here as I continue to learn about architecture and share my findings. Please feel free to send in related information.
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The Ghost and the Grace
July 14th, 2008
I’ve been doing web design for my friend Daniel Anderson for a while now. Daniel is half of the duo Idiot Pilot , and with his help I was lucky enough to be able to design their website. His newest project, The Ghost and the Grace , is quite a departure from Idiot Pilot, but nonetheless reflects Daniel’s intense knowledge of music.
I designed the site pictured above and the album art for his 4 upcoming EPs below. There’s a mash-up that Dan recently posted on his excellent blog at the very bottom.
You need the Adobe Flash Player to hear this.It Takes Time to Videotape (Daniel Anderson Mix)
Almost forgot. Dan and my friend David Drori and I also made a promotional video for The Ghost and the Grace. Here it is:
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The Myriad - With Arrows, With Poise
July 13th, 2008
My brother-in-law is the bass player for The Myriad . They’ve had some success recently, but I’ll leave that story for another day (or to their myspace). What I’d really like to talk about is the design for their new album art. It was illustrated / designed by artist Dave Gorum who has an excellent portfolio that I would highly recommend checking out. The image above is the final album art and the image below is an early draft. I really love the final product but I’m left wanting that beautiful rock texture from the earlier version. It brings to mind the underground dungeons filled with monsters from the Zelda franchise. The orbiting moons are a stroke of genius as they subtley suggest that this mythology is taking place on a very distant world.
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About
My name is Karl Peterson and I'm a designer living in Bellingham, WA. This is my life.
You can reach me at kbpeterson(at)gmail.com
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