Heading back to San Francisco tomorrow after another amazing experience at the OFFF festival.  It kept me pretty busy over the past week so I haven’t had much time to post up here or respond to comments, but I will be right back to it once I make it home and get some much needed rest.  Again, I want to thank everyone who came out to my presentation, the workshop (pictured above), and the booth.  It was great to meet and talk with so many people who are so passionate about design. Hope to see you all again next year.

Today is the final day of the OFFF festival in New York.  I want to thank everyone who came out to see my talk on Friday and the workshop on Saturday.  I’ll be around all day Sunday so if you haven’t already, stop by the ISO50 booth (right in front, no OFFF ticket needed) and say hi! I’ll also be playing a Tycho set Sunday night at the OFFF after party.

In New york for the OFFF (which starts tomorrow) so not able to post as often, but here’s a nice poster for the time being.  As always, fill out the details if you have them.  Sort of reminds me of the NFB poster but not quite as clever.

This time French Canada comes with the design skills.  Not much info on this one, feel free to fill in the details in the comments.

There was a massive anti-war protest across the street this weekend, thousands of people everywhere.  All of the signs and posters reminded me of the Avant Garde "No More War" poster contest.  I dug around and found these two issues, #1 and #5. On the back cover of Avant Garde #01 (1967) they printed a call for entries for the contest and announced the judges, Herb Lubalin being among them (quite intimidating for the contestants I’d imagine).  The winners of the contest were announced in issue #5. I’ve posted my favorite example  above, an entry by Billy Apple (England) and Robert Coburn (US). Efficient and to the point, I think the key here is that it goes beyond merely engaging the viewer and calls for active, on-the-spot participation. The choice of language also plays a large role in the impact of the design; in 1967 this was still a very shocking word to see in print for most people.
Although this was 40 years ago, the message is as poignant today as it was then: we once again find ourselves mired in an unpopular foreign war with dubious motives and no clear end in sight.  I have to wonder if imagery like this was more effective in it’s time.  People today have seen so many things and become so jaded to visual input that it’s very difficult to jar them awake with something like this anymore. I think the 60’s were one of the first times it became almost mainstream for people to question the government, so ideas like these were still new and somewhat disquieting for many. 

Design: Otl Aicher / Kiel Design Team
Broadsheet containig maps and information for the Kiel sailing events of the Munich Olympics. Via Alphanumeric

Tickets for the OFFF festival in New York (and, consequently, the ISO50 workshop) have sold out.  Sorry to anybody who missed out.  I will however have an ISO50 booth with prints, shirts, music etc. in the public area (no ticket required).  I’ll be around all 3 days (Nov. 2, 3, 4) so stop by and say hello, ticket or no ticket!

After all the recent B&O bashing I thought I’d post something about a consumer A/V company dropping some proper ID.  Behold the latest from Yamaha, a SCD player and Amplifier. Clean clean clean, not black, not champagne, no LCD display on the Amp, looks like you could throw it from a moving vehicle and the CD wouldn’t skip. And are those wood end cheeks? Bravo…Way to keep it minimal.  More info over at engadget.

Very cool poster from the ’78 Argentina World Cup. If anyone has info on the artist behind this post it in the comments.

Another great poster from the ’72 games.  Anyone know the artist on this one?