Titanic Stamps

The Edmonton Journal has a great collection of stamps to commemorative the sinking of the Titanic a hundred years ago today, April 15, 1912. Take a look and see how the world is remembering this event.

The Living Principles

With Earth Day coming up it reminds us of our responsibility to do what we can to save the planet. As designers, we can help to move the cause forward and do a little good. One site that is a great resource is The Living Principles.

The site started out of the AIGA's Sustainability effort. Jump on board and see where you can help, make a change and learn more at The Living Principles.

The Living Principles for Design framework is a catalyst for driving positive cultural change. It distills the four streams of sustainability – environment, people, economy, and culture – into a roadmap that is understandable, integrated, and most importantly, actionable. Designers, business leaders, and educators can use The Living Principles to guide every decision, every day. This website is a place for the global design community to co-create, share and showcase best practices, tools, stories and ideas for sustainable design across all disciplines. Help us move the conversation, the industry and the world.

Package Templates

Looking for new templates for your package designs? Check out iStockPack for new templates that are free for use that are uploaded by users.

Happy Leap Day

Every four years we get to experience an bonus and extra day. Happy February 29th. Happy Leap Day.

Get Your Map On

The USGS has a site where you can download historical topographic maps. The maps are in high resolution and cover the United States.

For more than 125 years, the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) topographic maps have accurately portrayed the complex geography of the Nation. The USGS is the largest producer of printed topographic maps, and, prior to 2009, USGS topographic maps were created using traditional cartographic methods and printed using the lithographic printing process.

Because historical maps are stored in a limited number of collections and are not readily available, the USGS National Geospatial Program (NGP) is converting these historical printed topographic quadrangles to an electronic format (GeoPDF). This scanning and processing effort serves the dual purpose of creating a master catalog and digital archive copies of the irreplaceable collection of topographic maps in the USGS Reston Map Library, as well as making the maps available for viewing and download from the USGS Store.

The processing of this invaluable collection is well underway, with more than 141,000 GeoPDF maps of the approximate total 180,000 currently available for download. Over the next months the number of files available, in a variety of published scales, will continue to expand until all of the topographic maps created throughout the Survey's history are once again available to the public.

To search and view, go to this link.

Super "Boring" Bowl Logo

The NFL has decided that it needs a consistent logo for the Super Bowl from now on. To accomplish this task, they are using last years logo and adding an I. The NFL says it will stay this way from now on at this point. Let's hope the NFL takes the boring out of the current long lasting logo and gets back to something super that will represent the game. (See top two logos) Taking a look at some of the past logos shows you just how special a mark can be to represent this iconic event and also keep with the spirit of the NFL. Here is to an exciting game on Sunday that is not representative of the new "boring" shown in the logo.

NPCA Logo Revision

The National Parks Conservation Association (NPCA), an independent, nonpartisan voice working to address major threats facing the National Park System. NPCA was established in 1919. The mission of the NPCA is to protect and enhance America’s National Park System for present and future generations. They have continued to be a strong voice in this cause over the years.

To enhance its voice, the NPCA has revised their logo to better service over a variety of mediums from print to digital media. The redesign was performed by NPCA's Graphic Designer, Annie Riker.

The redesign is elegant and respectful of the long history of the NPCA and their mission. I believe the mark makes a bold statement and projects the strength of this worthy organization.

Annie Riker explains,

"Our previous logo served us well for almost fifty years, but had come to look dated and traditional. My goal was to create something clear, clean, memorable, and, most importantly, readable across all media—from Twitter and Facebook to publications and event invitations.

Our intent was to make the change be an evolution, not a revolution."

You can read a complete article about the design process that Annie Riker took at the newly designed Park Advocate, the NPCA's blog.

Defend What's Yours

The State of California is planning to close 70 state parks this year due to budget issues. If you live in California, I urge you to visit the California State Park Foundation to learn how you can voice your thoughts on keeping them open. Our parks are places for all to enjoy, places that help the local economy, and places in trust for future generations. Please express to your legislative representative that there are better ways to save a few million dollars.

Eva Zeisel Dies at 105

This past Friday, December 30, 2011 marked the end of a beautiful life and career of Eva Zeisel. I have blogged often about Eva, her passion, her life and her designs. The world will miss her creative "playful search for beauty". Design was always a pleasure for Eva who continued to design and release new lines and products. Design kept Eva youthful, discovering and pleasing us all with her immense talent.

Eva Zeisel was one of our most influential industrial designers. Ms. Zeisel had the first one women show at the MOMA and her creative visions are in the permeant collections of every major museum. Her work was non conformist, full of life and beauty. Her joy was creating products for the home and the past few years have seen a huge selection of her work in retail outlets and museum stories.

Please read the New York Times article and the Los Angeles Times article on her life.

Eva's spirit and creative passion will live on and I will think of her each time I use her products in my life. Thank you Eva for sharing your playful search of beauty with us all.

(photos via New York Times and Los Angeles Times)

Happy Hanukkah

My best wishes for a Happy Hanukkah. My your candles burn bright to illuminate family, friends and lots of latkes.

Core77 Gift Guide

Core77 always has the best gift guide for the year and this year is no let down. The theme is End of Year / End of Days for those who are not too sure 2012 will not be the end as some predict. Just incase it does get nasty, you will be happy to have a new hatchet or a bracelet that turns in to a safety rope. Browse and enjoy at Gift Guide 2011.

Pearl Harbor Day

The USS Arizona Memorial remembered this December 7th.

Design Matters - Andrew Gibbs; The Dieline

It is always exciting to see a past packaging design student of mine do good and Andrew Gibbs is doing just that. Today marks the release of Andrew's interview by Debbie Millman for her fabulous podcast series, Design Matters.

Andrew founded The Dieline shortly after graduation in 2007 as a place to find inspiration in the world of package design. He saw a hole and filled it with the most beautiful package designs from around the world. The site started with his passion and has grown into the world's leading "go to site" for all information related to package design, The Dieline awards, several conferences, and a job bank to name just a few.

You can download the podcast via iTunes or listen to it at the Design Observer site.

Congratulations Andrew on your continued success. The Dieline just keeps getting better and with Andrew's continued passion, I am excited to see where he takes it in the future.

New Media In Museums

The New Media Consortium has released an interesting report on where media is moving in museum environments.

In partnership with the Marcus Institute for Digital Education in the Arts (MIDEA), the NMC is pleased to release the NMC Horizon Report > 2011 Museum Edition. This report, the second in the NMC Horizon Project Museum series, examines emerging technologies for their potential impact on and use in education and interpretation within the museum environment.

To read more or to download the report go to this link at the New Media Consortium.

iPhone Lens Dial

Now I don't have an iPhone 4 yet (still sporting the 3GS) but if I did and had a few extra dollars this would be the toy to have. Photojojo has this wonderful lens dial that attaches to your iPhone 4 and adds telephoto and fisheye to the camera. The price point is $249 but if you are going to only carry one camera this holiday season, this add on will help with your creative pics.

(via Core77)

Safe Thanksgiving Fry

We wish you a safe Thanksgiving an if you are frying up a turkey, take a look at these videos, one starring William Shatner. Fry safe and enjoy your bird.

Photographic Portraits - Louis Daguerre

The magic of a photographic portrait was made possible by the contributions of Louis Daguerre (18 November 1787 – 10 July 1851) in the development of what was called the Daguerreotype images. The process started by first exposing silver-coated copper plates to iodine, obtaining silver iodide. Then Daguerre exposed them to light for several minutes, coated the plate with mercury vapor heated to 75° Celsius (to amalgamate the mercury with the silver) and finally fixing the image in salt water. This process gave an exact image and allowed photography to come to the masses. It was still an expensive and time consuming event but available to all through trained photographers. Many great examples of Daguerreotypes can be found at the Library of Congress to explore. Thanks to Daguerre's innovations, photography has become not only an everyday activity but a beautiful way to explore history.

Happy 105th Birthday Eva Zeisel

Remarkable in every way is Eva Zeisel. Today marks Eva Zeisel's 105th birthday which is remarkable but what is even more remarkable is Eva is still active as a designer. Yes, she works at a slower pace today but her passion stills flows out in creative products that fill the shelves of stores such as Eva Zeisel Originals (run by her grandson, Adam Zeisel, who stated he had a pleasant dinner with Eva this past week), Design Within Reach, Crate and Barrel, Room and Board, and The Orange Chicken.

“Design is pleasure for me”, Eva Zeisel has staed. This statement perchance is the secret to becoming an icon of design but it may also be the blueprint to living a long life. Eva Zeisel who turns 105 today was born in Hungry and found that her passion was to be a “maker of useful things”. Eva has designed thousands of products over her long life that beautify our lives. Eva’s work graces both the permanent collections of the world’s finest museum and the tables of every day life.

One of the keys to Zeisel’s success has been her consistent maxim of “the playful search for beauty”. Eva’s designs arouse the senses with their sensual curves and delightful lines that standout from the commonplace. Making designs that are fresh, intelligent, and discerning would be hard work for most but Eva has been doing it for the last 80 plus years.

Eva learned design and the craft of pottery in Hungry as a young woman. She completed her internship and used her experiences and designs to allow her to see the world. Seeking out opportunities, she selected the job that took her the farthest from her home in Budapest to Germany.

Eva was one of the first to design dinnerware for mass production in 1928 for Schramberger Majolikafabrik in Germany. She moved to Russia in 1932 to design dinnerware, bath fixtures and numerous household products. Zeisel was named the artistic director of the Soviet ceramics industry. In 1936 while working in Moscow, she was arrested by the Stalin regime and placed in a prison camp for 15 months. She was charged with “plotting against the life of Stalin”. Just as suddenly as she was taken prisoner, she was released with only the cloths on her back due to the influences of important European intellectuals that contacted Stalin. Upon Eva’s release in 1937, she traveled to Vienna. She married Hans Zeisel at this time and they both moved the USA as the Nazi movement grew in Austria and Germany.

In late 1938, Eva and Hans move to New York. Eva raised two children with Hans, their son John Zeisel and daughter Jean Richards. She started working on numerous designs and began teaching at the Pratt Institute in 1939, founding the industrial ceramics curriculum. Eva’s designs have been sought after over these many years. She has designed dinnerware and products for all the major china companies the world over in her career.

In 1946, Eva Zeisel had the first one women show at MOMA (Museum of Modern Art). Her work can be found in every major museum collection around the world from MoMA and the Metropolitan in NYC to the British Museum and the Victoria and Albert in London. In 2005, Zeisel was awarded the Cooper-Hewitt National Design Award for Lifetime Achievement.

Eva has continued to design over the years, never letting her passion for design to dwindle. “I design better than before, I have so much experience” said Eva. At the young age of 101, she designed the One-O-One collection of tableware for Royal Stafford.

Eva’s work is available today at Eva Zeisel Originals run by her grandson, Adam Zeisel. Adam wrote earlier this week, “EvaZeiselOriginals.com is having a successful year. We have already added the Eva Zeisel Lounge Chair and Bird Shakers to the collection. My relationship with Eva continues to be strong and joyous.”

We all can learn a great deal for the wonderful career of Eva Zeisel. Design with passion, love your family and friends, laugh, and always look forward. Seeing, using and touching one of Eva’s exquisite and graceful designs might just be our way to drink from the fountain of youth that Eva Zeisel has discovered. May design continue to flow from your heart and mind, Happy 105th Birthday Mrs. Zeisel!!!

Eva Zeisel: Distinguished By Design from Jeremy Bales on Vimeo.

The "eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month"

Today is special not just because it is 11/11/11 but also for what we now call Veteran's Day. The origins go back to the end of World War I where the armistice was signed to end the "Great War". The armistice went into effect on the "eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month" to put an end to the battles on the Western Front.

Let us today not only remember it for the once in a lifetime date of 11/11/11 but also remember those who have served.

(images via Library of Congress)

SNCF Tilt-Shift Video

The French national railroad, SNCF (Société Nationale des Chemins de fer français) presents this great ad to communicate the rail crossing changes and other upgrades they have instituted to increase the safety of rail travelers. I love the "tilt-shift" process and think it was a great way for the SNCF to share with their riders.

(via DesignTAXI)