Meditation2

Back to school

Buying a new pair of sneakers always signaled a new start of the school year for me--until college of course. Then, I had to show up with new pencils (Dixon), new pens (Uniball Micro), and ink for my Rapidographs. How design school changed the little things...

And so, Core77 has appropriately put together a very nice Hack to School Guide for design students. It's spot on. Oh and the part about IKEA Hacker? My roomie and I totally made that cocktail umbrella lamp.

Now that's what I call fortified water

I thought Sprite was hip hop

Serious Eats:

Coke decided to relaunch Cherry Coke this month and they did it by hiring the design team behind Rocawear—hip-hop legend Jay-Z's uber successful clothing brand—to redesign Cherry Coke's packaging as well as creating that of the new Cherry Coke Zero. I think Cherry Coke's palette of pinks and cityscape are really pretty, but Cherry Coke Zero's packaging is rather clever—the same cityscape in black, and cherries with holes (zeros) punched into them.

Press release

The special Fashion Week Cherry Coke launch event will also showcase six artists who will reinterpret the brand’s graphics in five different media. The participating artists — sneaker-designer Dave White, photographer Shareif Ziyadat, digital artist and illustrator Nigel Dennis, sculptor Charlie Becker and lifestyle influencers Nick Poe and Jeff Roberts — will unveil their interpretations of the Cherry Coke look at the event.

Joining Cherry Coke, Shawn “Jay-Z” Carter and the five artists, attendees at the exclusive event will include a mix of celebrities, musicians, athletes, stylists and New York City tastemakers. Guests will enjoy specialty food pairings, signature cocktails, and ice cold Cherry Coke.

New Cherry Coke and Cherry Coke Zero packaging will be supported by a fully integrated marketing campaign, which includes a new 30-second television commercial that will debut on the February 14 episode of American Idol on FOX, plus radio, outdoor, and point-of-sale executions. The new creative for Cherry Coke was developed by advertising and design agency 72andSunny of Los Angeles, California.

Shapeshifting, line crossing, color changing Nikki S Lee (and the female Asian Jew)

Oh, Nikki. Cool photographer. Korean-born and always pushing the limits of her identity, she's really one of my favorite artists.

I came across "The Wedding Series" recently and got kind of a weird feeling. Today I flipped through the latest issue of TeenVogue (you haters can just hush!) and saw a spread on Josephine Becker, daughter of fashion designer Vera Wang. The spread was about her bat mitzvah. Bat mitzvah!? As it turns out Vera Wang is Chinese-American but she married a Jewish man and decided to raise her children Jewish! There's a photo of her lighting candles with Josephine.

I keep hearing that there are only 14 million Jews in the world, but somehow I managed to surround myself with them.

Will I get paid in dollar bills for this?

I get to re-design an ad for a group of strip clubs.

Yeah....

The Art of Noise

I bought DZ a badge for the upcoming Noise Pop Festival which includes:
-- a film festival
-- a bajillion shows
-- music expo
-- rock poster show
-- parties!

Of course, I bought him the badge weeks ago when it was $150 (early bird price) and I didn't get myself one because... Uh, I don't know why I didn't buy one. Probably because $150 a lot to throw down, but now I'm wondering if I should get one for $175 because I totally spaced on the fact there's a lot more going on than just the shows. The rock poster is being curated by Lil Tuffy, who is local but I met him at the Pitchfork Festival in Chicago. (It's always a little weird to meet someone whose work you like and respect.) He has some really great posters but of course I'll be looking forward to seeing more of Jason Munn's work. Hrrmmmm....

On a totally unrelated note, miniscule Japanese restaurant, Kappa, has a new review in the Chronicle. The host is still warning people that they do not serve sushi which is exactly what she said to me when I tried it.

Because sometimes I am a design nerd

I was looking at Craigslist today saw a posting for a job that interested me so I clicked on the link for the design studio and, whoa, they designed the Feyman three volume set in a matching slipcase.

"Trying to look good limits my life"

Here's a short video on Stefan Sagmeister, probably one of the most well-known living designers.

Yes! A great jeeeeooorrrrrbbbb!*

I got a job offer today! Did I mention it's to be an Art Director? At a magazine? Oooooohhhh!!! Yesss!!!

*Thousand brownie points for those of you who got that reference.

WTF? Slashdot has a new CSS?!?

Dear Slashdot,

Welcome to 2006.

Love,
Monica

Holy fuck!

I got a job!!!

Type Porn

OMG OMG OMG. Typographica has called out nearly all of the typefaces that appear in the title squence for the very funny movie, Thank You For Smoking.

Some of the typefaces used:
Copperplate Gothic 30 AB by Frederic W. Goudy
Fenway Park by Jason Walcott
Bodoni Bold Condensed by Giambattista Bodoni
Freestyle Script by Martin Wait
Neue Helvetica 66 Medium Oblique by Max Miedinger
Solex Bold Italic
Blackoak by Kim Chansler and Barbara Redick
ITC Century Condensed Book by Tony Stan
Avenir 85 Heavy by Adrian Frutiger
Charlotte Book by Michael Gills
Gotham Bold by Tobias Frere-Jones
Avenida by John Chippendale
ITC Avant Garde Book Oblique by Tom Carnase and Herb Lubalin
Eccentric by Gustav F. Schroeder
Helvetica Black Condensed and Italic
Orbit rounds and ITC Blair straights
FF Scala Sans Caps by Martin Majoor
ITC Blair Medium and Adobe Caslon by Carol Twombly
Knockout Junior Flyweight by Jonathan Hoefler
Peignot by A.M. Cassandre
FF Scala Bold by Martin Majoor
Franklin Gothic No. 2 Roman

Logo porn

A brief look at the The Logos of Web 2.0

Here's the collage of logos made by Ludwig Gatzke.