during a recent visit to amsterdam, stefan sagmeister showed a brief glimpse of his latest project which has now officially been released this week: a radio-controlled car/book on culture for BMW, in true sagmeister hype-style the book has a limited edition of 1488 copies, each with a unique cover that when laid out together combine to make a 7 x 7 meter visualisation of BMW’s famous offices…
the book is of course not for sale and therefore already much in demand…
i’m not generally very enthusiastic about lifestyle magazines published by fashion brands but the latest issue of the ‘acne papers’ (number eleven) is an exception, although it can be browsed in it’s entirety online, the physical version is worth getting hold of
well made, genuinely interesting articles, strong photo editing and a generous format make all the difference for this one… i really love the candid image of reclusive painter ‘lucien freud’ shown at the top…
three final-year design students from the art school in constance, germany: ‘marco mauber’, ‘tobias suppan’ and my good mate mate/ex-intern ‘uwe steffen’ have just completed this fascinating project entitled sechs ‘f’ plus, the site is in german only but the comprehensive colelction images are enough to give you an idea what it’s all about…
they have basically deconstructed the medium photography, choosing to disassemble and then rebuild a whole series of cameras using various techniques such as panoramic, stereo, single lens reflex, the mysterious sounding ‘schwarze otto’ and solargraphy, the gaffer tape style cameras which resulted from their experiment were all functional and used to shoot a series of images, later compiled into a neat book and even an exhibition to collect the whole process into a coherent story, worth a look, nice work ‘uwe’… makes me proud :)
my copy of unit editions’ excellent book supergraphics arrived in the post a few days ago… and it does what it says on the box, it is super: a really well made and researched book, the term ‘supergraphics’ was actually coined in the late sixties/early seventies and was… i quote:
…an architectural movement in the 1960s and 70s that saw architects attempt to ‘remove solidity, gravity, even history’ by the simple act of applying paint and graphics to the interior and exterior surfaces of buildings… the result was an eruption of dazzling graphic imagery that used scale, chromatic verve, and visual sleight-of-hand to achieve aesthetic and social aims. Yet it is a body of work that rarely attracts the attention of design historians and commentators…
definitely worth getting hold of a copy if this area of design interests you at all…
