very positive review of the unseen photo fair this weekend from the UK financial times, i will be writing my own review this week too for ‘fontanel’
me news
the rainbow road
travelling along the A12 motorway this weekend i noticed a series of rainbow coloured stickers attached to the street lights all the way along the road, i had seen them before but was curious as to what their function might be…
the answer is rather surprising; it turns out that this motorway which stretches from ‘the hague’ right through to the german border has been designated as the ‘rainbow route’ and the stickers represent what is possibly a first: a visual identity for a piece of motorway
the dutch ministry of transport felt that the road needed some kind of visual markings and the chosen rainbow sticker (attached to some 1600+ lampposts along the route) represent the four primary areas which the motorway dissects: red for city, lilac for mosaic (?), light green for meadows and dark green for forest…
the idea being that the visual identity (i.e. rainbow stickers) would tie the whole area together and give it a coherent feel, quite why this is necessary is a bit of a mystery to me, but it seems that the cash spent to realise this ident has caused a bit of a stir: 120.000 euros worth of colored stickers… (thanks to my brother-in-law ‘ruben’ for unearthing the story)
siggi
…I started working with geometry over ten years ago and somehow I’m still exploring it… a short interview with talented man siggi eggertsson
bloks
this has been circulating around the net for a few weeks and although it is more of a political statement then a serious product idea at this stage; it reflects the sentiment that i’m sure, a great many people feel right now…
perhaps they should try to collaborate with these people…
(story via ‘uwe’)
book sketch
talented designer hansje van halem has released a thick tome featuring 499 pages; which offers an overview of her early sketches and experiments, her working process and failures… my copy arrived this week and it is an impressive publication, for many reasons…
including the fact that she has chosen to use this medium which involves a considerable amount of time, organisation (and presumably her own money) to make a publication that focusses on her process rather than using it as a podium to show potential clients what she has done, promoting her particular point of view and aesthetic vision rather than her commercial viability, a brave choice and one which says a lot about her as a designer
as we know these kinds of ‘oeuvre’ books often function as a retrospective and can mark a turning point in a designers work, i wonder whether this is true in hansjes’ case? perhaps she is due to start heading in a new direction with her work, we shall see
‘sketch book’ has been produced in a very limited print run… so be quick