Michael Beirut via The NY Times

Celebrated graphic designer Michael Beirut recently opened up to the NY Times about how the world of graphic design has changed over the years.

In 1980 when he started his career as an assistant designer in New York, it was standard to be surrounded by indespensible tools including rubber cement, colored paper, spray glue and X-Acto knives along with other related businesses including typesetters, retouchers and printers.

When change finally did come in the form of personal computers, it happened fast. He says that:

Design work that would have taken me a week in 1980 can now be done on a personal computer in less than an hour. Cutting and pasting, when needed, is done in the basement, often by interns. I get the impression that this kind of work, to which I once applied myself with the pride of a master chef, is now viewed as a chore like dishwashing.

Though Beirut has kept with the times and embraced modern technology along the way, he still wonders if designers haven’t lost something in the process. He feels that performing tasks at such a rapid-fire pace on computers where mistakes can be undone instantaneously has stripped away some of the deliberation and attention to detail.

Unfortunately, things are moving too fast for people to stop and take notice…

Nemo-branded Skullcandy 2XL Booth at CES 2009 from Dave Allen on Vimeo.

CES is always overwhelming but it was sweet to see NemoHQ client Skullcandy’s booth pop out on the crowded trade show floor.

We gave a group of students from AIGA PSU a tour of the NemoHQ shop yesterday and they were stoked! We sent them on their way with some cool stickers and T-shirts and they got back and posted all their photos to Flickr. Check them out here.

The world-famous logo was designed in 1970 by John Pasche while he was still a student at London’s Royal College of Art. He originally landed the job because Mick Jagger was unhappy with the designs submitted by the Decca record label and searched out students instead.

The logo took about two weeks to create and Pasche was paid a total of £250.00 at the time.

NubbyTwiglet.com: An Art Retrospective

Nemo Design is very excited to present NubbyTwiglet.com: An Art Retrospective by Nemo’s own Shauna Haider, opening on Friday, October 03, 2008. The show will run through Monday November 03, 2008 at Nemo Design: 1875 SE Belmont Street in Portland, OR.

Stripes, shoes and letter forms are collaged into tight, slick pop art on wood and ceramic that are sealed in epoxy resin.

These sturdy and fashion-conscious collages are produced by hand in single editions. Personal photos are edited and combined with fashion magazine cut-outs to create graphically-charged collages that blur the lines between fine art and design.

The Black & White Graphic Insight series is an ode to my love of graphic design. Stark lines and a heavy mix of a mostly black and white palette are a bold contrast to the natural surfaces.

The largest and most complex series yet, Black & White Graphic Insight aims to spark a new-found appreciation for collage as a fine art form.

For further information, please visit http://www.nubbytwiglet.com.

Click image to play.

Our very own Nubby has an art show in Portland on July 2nd. I won’t embarrass her by rambling on about how great her work is, just go see for yourself if you’re any where near PDX.

“A new collection of graphic black + white artwork from Nubbytwiglet.com, the Black & White Graphic Insight series is an ode to my love of graphic design.”

Black & White Graphic Insight
Reception: July 2nd, 6-9 pm
Show runs July 2nd to August 3rd, 2008

@ Vino Paradiso
417 N.W. 10th
Portland, OR 97209
Gallery Paradiso website

I’ll never break my Mac habit to go for a Zune but if there ever was a reason to own one this may be it. Limited edition release of 500 units engraved with the Joy Division iconic artwork created by Peter Saville. Get your finger on the trigger on June 17th.

Tree Stencil Cut and Spray Timelapse – Draft from Jaymis on Vimeo.

From the artist – “This is a timelapse shot over several months totalling about 10 hours cutting and then spraying a stencil. It still needs some tweaks to editing and motion, but it takes an extremely long time to render, and there are loads of other projects in the way, so I’d prefer to share it incomplete and warty rather than never showing it because it’s not “perfect”.

Tech:
Shot with a Pentax *ist DS Digital SLR. The frames were taken as quickly as the camera could record to SD card – about 1 frame every 1.7 seconds.

The camera was immobile on a tripod, the pan and scan (or “Ken Burns Effect” if you want to be all photo nerd) was added later in After Effects. I shot medium-resolution images, which gave me 1500×1000ish pixels, allowing quite a bit of resizing and moving around the frame.

The faster, motion-blurred action as the video progresses is also post-production, created by speeding up the clips and blending multiple frames together.”

For anyone who has been aware of Marshall McLuhan’s life and work and who have read his many books and essays, he is perhaps best remembered for the slogan The Medium is the Message upon which he elaborated in his 1964 book, ‘Understanding Media: The Extensions of Man.’

For those who know the slogan but not the man or meaning behind it a timely book published by Mark Batty Publisher came out late last year entitled Everyman’s McLuhan written by W. Terrence Gordon, Eri Hamaji and Jacob Albert. It’s basically a primer for those interested in McLuhan and who are ready to plunge into his work.

This is a pocket-sized book that’s handy to have around; you can pick up this book and start at any page, you can jump around too without losing the thread and it’s also worth having just for the graphic design. The writers also provide the back story to some of McLuhan’s writings including the slogans. For instance they flesh out his thinking behind “The Medium Is The Message.” They ask “How can the medium be the message? How can the television circuits, screen etc. be the ad coaxing us to buy?” They let us know that McLuhan never intended his phrase to have such a literal meaning. He often rephrased the slogan to fit different audiences and those paraphrases are not that well know. Here’s one – “The medium is the message, but the user of the medium is the content of the medium, in the sense that any medium is an extension of the human body.” By that he could mean that a mobile phone is an extension of our ears. The idea then extends itself to this – “The medium is an environment that produces effects.” I recommend picking up this fascinating book, it’s a mere $12.71 at Amazon right now.

One to bookmark. Modern English coming soon.