me news

paper letters & sour grapes

last night was the awards ceremony for the dutch theater poster awards in amsterdam, i attended along with fellow jury member ‘sander plug’ and the winner was ‘paulien cornelisse’ (shown above), a decision i still firmly stand behind…

afterwards i was, as usual, confronted with all kinds of ‘sour’ and negative reactions from other nominees, the ususal blogs and ‘design journalists’ who like to criticise everything did just that, my own nomination also wasn’t without problems, as usual it earned me a lot of accusations of nepotism, the nomination was then withdrawn several weeks ago as it apparently didn’t meet the criteria (a decision which mainly reflects on the poor quality of the oraganisation itself in my opnion) it was then reinstated and last night i was lead to understand that being a jury member automatically disqualified me from winning anyway, a fact that has never been clear to me, in fact i had been told that quite the opposite was the case

all in all a very deflating and unpleasant experience to be honest, this is certainly the last time i will be spending so much time & energy working (for free) for a jury that earns me nothing but sour grapes from other designers… the jury report can be read online here and if you don’t agree with what it says don’t call me i’m not interested in your opinion right now… and my sincere congratulations to paulien

m / 09-11-2011 09:34 - tags: , ,  

beethoven 1967

i was approximately six months old when the above image was taken, in the ‘summer of of love’: beethovenstraat 1967, three young hipsters crossing the street looking towards the camera, this well-known and quite famous image was shot by ‘ed van der elsken’ who often engaged his subjects whilst shooting around amsterdam, trying to capture the atmosphere on the streets…

now, local journalist and filmmaker ‘bahram sadeghi’ is looking to find the three girls in the image to help him make a film, the photo museum in rotterdam has recently discovered several unknown images from the same afternoon… if anybody knows who they are, he would love to hear from you…

m / 08-11-2011 09:11 - tags: , , ,  

deadlines

(with thanks to ‘wilbert leering’ for the share)

m / 08-11-2011 08:56 - tags: , ,  

recession chair

amusing project from studio tjep, involving an ikea chair and lots of sandpaper… creating tension by deciding at which point you have to stop before it is so weak that it becomes unusable as a chair to sit on

m / 08-11-2011 08:48 - tags: , ,  

nobody wants to buy sour milk

…about five years ago, apple design guru Jony Ive decided he wanted a new feature for the next MacBook: a small dot of green light above the screen, shining through the computer’s aluminum casing to indicate when its camera was on. The problem? It’s physically impossible to shine light through metal…

fascinating article which provides some insight into the inner sanctum of apple, how that tiny green light came to be and how they do business…

…before the release of the iPhone 4 in June 2010, rivals such as HTC couldn’t buy as many screens as they needed because manufacturers were busy filling Apple orders, according to a former manager at HTC. To manufacture the iPad 2, Apple bought so many high-end drills to make the device’s internal casing that other companies’ wait time for the machines stretched from six weeks to six months, according to a manager at the drillmaker. Life as an Apple supplier is lucrative because of the high volumes, though painful because of the strings attached. When Apple asks for a price quote for parts such as touch screens, it demands a detailed accounting of how the manufacturer arrived at the quote, including its estimates for material and labor costs, and its own projected profit…

m / 07-11-2011 19:52 - tags: , ,