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Design
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| Chris Buck |
| I <3 PowerPoint. |
I've been to Academy of Natural Sciences forums before, so I know that PowerPoint presentations are the norm ⦠but still, was anyone else surprised when David Byrne started clicking off slide after slide?
Last night's bike lecture, led by the Talking Heads co-founder and author of Bicycle Diaries (Viking, $25.95) — which was only OK, despite what they tell you, and I'm a bike head — began a little late. There was a video montage of bikes in cinema (The Wizard of Oz, The Sound of Music, unidentifiable '80s movies, etc.) to keep the audience placated, though. Then, at around 6:30, Byrne took to the stage, in a black button-up shirt and loose, comfy-looking black pants, looking as dapper as ever. Byrne hasn't really aged at all — he looks the same as he did 20 years ago, but with gray hair.
I was only able to stay for an hour, but here's what I learned:
— While writing Bicycle Diaries, the three books Byrne thought about most were Michael Sorkin's Twenty Minutes in Manhattan, Jane Jacobs' The Death and Life of Great American Cities, and Christopher Alexander's The Timeless Way of Building.
— Termits build high rises in Australia.
— Frank Lloyd Wright may have made many beautiful buildings, but dude had wack ideas about how cities should look. He essentially wanted there to be a few skyscrapers dotted on various plots of farmland. In other words, no community.
— The General Motors pavilion at the 1939 World's Fair was frightening. They wanted highways everywhere. They got 'em.
— Byrne is fairly confident that cities will be less car-focused and more people- and bike-focused in the future. He kept uttering things like, "It will probably change soon, I hope" and "Some of the cities might come back."
— Italy seems like the perfect country to bike in (because of the small streets).
— In L.A., the actual streets are so anti-pedestrian that they build artificial streets.
— Byrne called the floating whore houses in Utretch "charming." It was funnier then than it sounds now.
Sadly, I had to leave after that. Cloggers, if you went, how was the roundtable discussion afterward?
RELATED: Head Over Wheels: David Byrne on what'll make Philly a great bike city, once and for all
Ah, yes, the city of Italy.
Oops. Thanks for catching that, Pete. All fixed.
David was good. The other panelists were better. Shame because his star power is what drew many to this event. Compliments to Alex,Ignacio,and Julie
Last week we told you about a little impromptu contest Technically Philly/CP contributor Christopher Wink was putting on to come up with new branding ideas for the city in the wake of the slogo that was just announced and widely meh'ed.
There were three contenders.
The winner was chosen by Tweetstorming and commenting.
And that winner is: Sara DeMarco, with an entry that appears to incorporate the same font as the city's version, a more stately use of ye olde Liberty Bell, incorporates some designerly specificity for each department's version, and loses that whole "Life, Libery, (don't even think about the pursuit of happiness) and You" junk. See her entire presentation here.
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| Sara Demarco |
| Click to enlarge |
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Remember that new slogo — Philadelphia: Life, Liberty, and You — that everyone was wretching about a few weeks ago for being dull, uninspired, cliched, Web-fonty, group-thinky and essentially relegating the pursuit of happiness to also-ran status among our country's founding principles?
CP tech columnist CP contributor/Technically Philly co-founder Brian James Kirk Christopher Wink is throwing down the gauntlet.
In the spirit of the new year and because we know you donât want to do any real work this week, we put an open call out to the designers and developers and tinkerers and artists in our community. Make a designerâs design for the City of Philadelphia.
Submit your ideas for a logo that would better suit the City of Philadelphia — yes, it can be sarcastic or heartfelt. It can even include the Liberty Bell or a cheesesteak if you think they sum Philly up well ⦠and you can endure the taunts of your peers. Weâre thinking standard display images, but we wonât begin to limit you, the audience. If it fits in an e-mail or can be linked to, we want to see them.
How do you enter, you're wondering?
All submissions need to be sent to info [at] technicallyphilly.com [files or links] by the final whistle of this Sundayâs 4:15 p.m. Eagles last regular season game, against those bastard Cowboys.
Granted, the prize isn't exactly jawdropping — bragging rights and maybe a button on the site, a promise to try to put the winning design in front of the city peeps responsible for these things, and a beer at TP's next group meetup — but we'll point out that that beer officially makes the reward bigger than what the city gave the Star Group for its trouble.
So get on it, PhotoShop monkeys, Quark jockeys and InDesign lackeys and whip up a slogo to be proud of.
I love taking credit for work I didn't do, but CP contributor and Technically Philly co-founder Christopher Wink threw down this particular gauntlet, not I.
Thanks for the heads-up! Here's the one I did:
Thanks for the heads-up! Here's the one I did: http://luvataciousskull.deviantart.com/art/City-of-Philadelphia-Logo-149019106
[...] put together in five days of a holiday week a slew of better choices. So we challenged you. Others put out the word until last night, when we closed the [...]
[...] week we told you about a little impromptu contest Technically Philly/CP contributor Christopher Wink was putting on to come up with new branding ideas for the city in the wake of the slogo that was [...]
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| adfreak.com |
| Coulda been worse? |
The text at top right reads: "The tsunami killed 100 times more people than 9/11. The planet is brutally powerful. Respect it. Preserve it." (Click here for a larger version.)
David Gianatasio at adfreak.com says of this award-winning World Wildlife Fund ad: "Unfortunately, respect is the main thing lacking here. Exploiting one tragedy to try to prevent another is just stupid and self-defeating, and will always backfire."
I agree. But what are your thoughts? With the eighth anniversary of 9/11 only a week away, is it still too soon to reference the tragedy in order to get us behind a pretty unrelated cause? Or do we need this level of shock value in order to really think about big, important issues? Holler in the comments.
[UPDATE, Wednesday, 8 a.m.]: Thanks for the updates, commenters. Looks like the WWF had nothing to do with this poster, and condemns the Brazilian ad agency that used the organization's logo without their permission. Here's the statement:
"WWF strongly condemns this offensive and tasteless ad and did not authorize its production or publication. It is our understanding that it was a concept offered by an outside advertising agency in Brazil. The concept was summarily rejected by WWF and should never have seen the light of day. It is an unauthorized use of our logo and we are aggressively pursuing action to have it removed from websites where it is being currently featured. We strongly condemn the messages and the images portrayed in this ad. On behalf of WWF, here in the US and around the world, we can promise you this ad does not in any way reflect the thoughts and feelings of the people of our organization."
That's a powerful image, I like it.
Some 40 years after seeing an image of a tear rolling down the face of an old Native American, who'd been canoeing through a trash strewn lake, and I still feel the emotion. Might even be why I never litter. Now, that's powerful creative. This? This is amateurish.... and yes, extremely tasteless. Don Draper would have taken a huge hit of bourbon, and sent these hacks back to the drawing board.
Please update this post. This is an unauthorized ad and WWF has issued a statement condemning it: http://www.worldwildlife.org/who/media/press/2009/WWFPresitem13540.html
Hey Carolyn! How about a little correction here??? http://www.worldwildlife.org/who/media/press/2009/WWFPresitem13540.html Almost every media outlet has updated this story. The WWF did NOT authorize this ad. It was a rejected spec that the ad agency submitted to a contest WITHOUT WWF's knowledge. And before people dumbly follow up with, well, it won an award! It won a MERIT RECOGNITION. One of seven in that subcategory alone. There were several hundred awards given out. Of course WWF wouldn't have found out immediately. Sheesh. Social media FAILURE. Can you imagine how much money they've lost on this?
Horrible. Disgusting.
This ad is NOT horrible or disgusting! Yes, 9/11 was horrible and sad! but were the lives lost by the tsunami any less important? a loss of a life is a loss of a life and no matter how it was taken, its terrible and sad! People need to stop taking things so offensively. This ad is just trying to show people how many people were killed.
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