Visual Perception

I have learned more in the past few minutes from Jayme's wonderblog Visual Perception than I have all year. Check it out!

Watch Out for Rof! (Unless it's for sale)

It's nice to see when professionals mess up. But it really messes with my mind, man. Case and point...

I visited a news site (whose name I will not say other than it starts with a 'C' and ends with an 'N' and has another 'N' somewhere in the middle) and went to find out more about the earthquake in Japan.

This is what I found:



I had never heard of 'rof' before so I did what any concerned citizen would do I googled it. I mean, if rof is so dangerous could it possibly kill me? Does rof attack only during earthquakes? Or could it happen, say, during a tense barbeque or mildly foggy day perhaps? I want to know.

The search results yielded little unless, of course, it was the Registre des Ostéopathes de France that fell and injured people in Japan. But more clues were uncovered. Look:



Apparently, you can buy rof (or used rof anyway) on Ebay.

To solve this once and for all, I did an image search and this is what I believe fell on those poor Japanese:

Don't Pretend Lunacy

Here is some interesting Japanese propaganda from WWII.

The views of Asia pre- and postwar are informative. The additional pamplet directed at US soldiers, less so (but no less entertaining).

The Light at the End of the Tunnel

In an earlier post I talked about Jules Verne and Paris in the Twentieth Century. One thing I failed to mention as being off in Verne's prediction is that transportation in his vision is primarily through elevated pneumatic tube trains.

Well, although this may not quite be pneumatic it got me thinking about PITTC again. Looking at the concept more closely, I wonder if it'd really work? It's wacky but if someone told me that you could propel a car with an machine that, when fed dead dinosaur juice, makes little explosions a number of times every second...

I'd be curious to see a critique of the system. I, for one, don't really get excited by travelling in an airless tube at 4000 mph. But, hey, New York to LA in less than hour without having to eject myself from atmosphere, hmmmmm, I may have to think about it.

(photo credit: Carole N., image found at stockXchng (sxc.hu) a free stock photo community website)

Keeping up Appearances

An interesting little tidbit about website appearances highlights how certain designs are more "masculine" than others. Glean from it what you will.

Friday Lovin': Earth from Space

Why not spend quality time at work watching the earth from one of the many satellites circling the planet?

Thought: Remember the iconic image of Earth from the moon? It seemed for a while that the image spoke loads about how we are stuck on this planet together and that we desperately need to take care it. Then the Hummer was created. Sigh.

Design in a small town part 6: Bad Design/Liability

On a cold and blustery day last fall I was driving to work when I noticed something odd downtown. Every 3 feet or so there was a traffic cone placed in the middle of the sidewalk. On my way home I made sure to stop and see what this was all about.

Well, simply put, the town's walk of fame sidewalk plaques were, when sprinkled with frost and snow that had melted, extremely slippery. I had seen these little squares and had always thought of them as embarrassing bad design but it never crossed my mind that the design was so bad that it could hurt you!

Let's break it down. First, the aesthetics:

- The original design had two fonts (the rounded sans and a serif) that did not work well together (the serif - part of a logotype I believe, is now covered)
- The mark at the top is difficult to decipher (I think it is a representation of an artesian well. Either that or a picture of It from the Addams Family)
- The black granite is reflective often making it difficult to read the sandblasted lettering

Secondly, one should consider these other factors:

- The granite is extremely slippery when wet
- The walk of fame is a block away from a retirement home and the sidewalks are used often by people who have a difficult time walking especially in icy weather
- The solutions, so far, have rendered the original concept moot. The cones sit on top of the plaques and the no-slip safety tape obscure much of the writing

It seems that this is either something done by committee or by an individual who didn't think about these factors. The result is dangerous.

Design in a small town part 5: OTT

As usual I left renewing my car tabs until the last possible minute which meant I had to visit the local licensing office. Oddly enough, in this town, it means a visit to an old train station.

With a name like 'Pullman' you can imagine there'd be a number of train stations laying about and that some (if not all) would be repurposed. Anyhow, I walked into the station to get my new tabs when, lo and behold, the place was decked out with pictures of old trains, the original schedule board and seating area, a huge clock, and even a mannequin dressed as a conductor. The windows for the DOL are the same ticket windows used for fifty years at the beginning of the last century.

I was standing there when the little wooden window shot up and the gentleman asked how he could help me. I responded, "I'd like a ticket for the 12:30 to Chattanooga." Then I proceed to laugh at myself while the bloke stared at me completely straightfaced. To save face I said, "oh, that's right. I am 60 years too late." He still didn't crack a smile.

Come to find out the gentleman owns the place. As you can see from the picture above he must have a love affair with trains. In front of the station you can see an actual passenger car and in front of that you can see a wooden engine that was built recently. Wait! A wooden train engine?

As with previous entries, design in a small town often mean lack of restraint (and building codes apparently). It is one thing to have the interior of place dressed to one's fetishes but to impose a large and awkward wooden structure that has little use is another.

But, as usual, the deeper significance is that little strange things like this structure are oddly what give small towns quirky charm. The best thing to do, then, is to sit back, wait, and see what other craziness pops up.

Why I love Banksy

Me thinks these are strange times in the art world. Works that shock, works that don't, and old favorites such as ab ex and pop, while ever present, have transmogrified but don't seem to be cutting it. Whitney's biennial a few years ago questioned what could be considered art and found a chaotic breadth of work as an answer.

So, what is new? What is *ack* 'fresh'?

Take a bit of humor, a dash of bravado, a pinch of activism and you get...Banksy.

This link (thanks to Robert for sending it along) has some of Banksy's latest work in Palestine on Israel's 'security barrier'. It is very much a comment on the wall. The NEWS section of his website has more images of the project and Banksy is not afraid to add little transcripts of his discussions next to the images. Those discussions speak loads. An example:

Old man: You paint the wall, you
make it look beautiful.

Me:Thanks

Old man:We don't want it to be beautiful, we hate this
wall, go home.

His other work includes hanging his own pieces (of a stuffy 18th century royal who has just finished spraypainting graffiti, no less) in the National Gallery in London. His graffiti is so well designed that it'll make you laugh.

For more Banksy check out Banksy's homepage.

NASSA - The other space program

The Old Negro Space Program is a very funny mockumentary that simultaneously takes the piss out NASA, academia, the formulaic nature of the contemporary documentary, and American bigotry.

It sometimes treads lightly on uncomfortable ground but that is what makes it smart. Watch the whole thing - especially the part with the letter home.

Simple Messages

Dennis sends this one along. Funny and, oh, so perfect.

Forest Grove Estates: New Media Storytelling

Simple yet very compelling story