the mehallo blog. beta.

Paperbag Parachute by Lois van Baarle; print available here
Follow the Paperbag Parachute blog here
 

From a conversation on Facebook  . . .

Laura Hohlwein:
you may say I’m a dreamer, but I’m not the only one.

Chris Demas:
Wait no, im pretty sure you are the only one.

Laura Hohlwein:
ha. yeah. could be.

Steve Mehallo:
Nope. There’s more of us. And if you think we’re freaks, you’re right. But we know how to change the world. We invented the ipod, aerosol cheese, disco and the escalator. See if you can do that you non-dreamers you!
 

Escalator, Osaka City, Japan; details here

Tags: art, cool finds, illustration, thoughts by steve
1 comment  . . .   

crazy tasty
is an actual Registered Trademark owned by Hormel Foods, LLC and is used exclusively with their SPAM (all caps) product.

No stealin.

Tags: culinary, flom, thoughts by steve
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As I write this, there are 2,728 items in my spam folder; most of them involve some form of penis renovation, ‘The Big Pink,’ ‘urgent and confidential business’ inquiries from deposed royal family members that need my help – and on my blog, 2,201 spam posts sitting in what I call my ‘hey asshole, don’t spam my blog’ folder.

Designer Floyd Hayes has decided to turn annoying spam into money – for a good cause. Since a lot of spam is about freaky misspelled sex stuff, every four weeks Hayes will be issuing the best subject lines as buttons and donate all the profits to a sexual health charity. Details here.

Oh and wait – ‘The Big Pink’ is actually a cool new band, it’s an email I’m actually subscribing to. Here’s their debut album, A Brief History Of Love. Drops September 22nd.

I really wish spam filters worked better.

Buttons found via PSFK

Tags: cool finds, design, fashion, thoughts by steve
4 comments  . . .   

‘Le Grand Content examines the omnipresent Powerpoint-culture in search for its philosophical potential. Intersections and diagrams are assembled to form a grand ‘association-chain-massacre’ which challenges itself to answer all questions of the universe and some more.

‘Of course, it totally fails this assignment, but in its failure it still manages to produce some magical nuance and shades between the great topics death, cable tv, emotions and hamsters.’

For more about the work of Clemens Kogler, go here.

Tags: cool finds, design, education, thoughts by steve
2 comments  . . .   

‘To mark the return to sanity, The New York Times asked four graphic designers to imagine a new warning system. Their designs range from the cheeky to the possibly useful. Kurt Andersen provides commentary and explains why the current system is a joke.’ -Andrew Price, GOOD

Legendary SPY magazine was one of my favorites – and founding editor Kurt Andersen is still making snarky commentary. Click either the image or the quote link to read more.

For more from Kurt, check out his weekly radio program Studio 360 and ‘Get inside the creative mind.’

And for the record, I am really glad the Obama administration recognizes the value of good graphic design. Makes me all warm and fuzzy inside just knowing this.

Found via GOOD

Tags: cool finds, design, education, thoughts by steve
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San Francisco is a beautiful city.

But there is a dark, very visible problem – one that frames our current national Health Care debate. The problem stems from what has been the traditional US approach: It’s not even happening or We wish all that would just go away.

For the rest of the country, it can be adapted to the acronym: NIMBY. It’s Not In My Backyard so it doesn’t exist. Or: we don’t see it in our backyard, so it’s not actually there.

Danish band Mew was in SF recently and guitarist Bo Madsen posted a simple but poignant observation on their MySpace blog. Here’s the text: [Read more →]

Tags: design, education, thoughts by steve
4 comments  . . .   

Some photos I snapped at the Legion of Honor, San Francisco.

Tags: photography, thoughts by steve
1 comment  . . .   

When I want to design something that calls for sophistication, I thumb thru the work of Jan Tschichold (1902-1974).

Modernist and  . . .  Classicist. This contrast leads to some interesting thinking that informs my own ability to design for different industries.

Tschichold put The New Typography on the map by publishing the book on the subject and helped spread the idea of the bauhaus – and modernism – worldwide.

The largest project of his career took place in the late 1940s – the redesign of Penguin’s line of paperbacks (below). As a whole, Penguin’s quality hasn’t wavered since.

Here’s an overview of the work of Tschichold at retinart – with some good links for additional info.

And I’m still looking for a decent (inexpensive) replacement text for my beginning type courses since Tschichold’s Treasury of Alphabets and Lettering is now out of print. Nothing I’ve found so far comes close to showing well-drawn – and well selected – metal specimens.

Penguin redesign, an exercise in subtlety: before (1941) and after (1947)

Tags: cool finds, design, design history, education, thoughts by steve
4 comments  . . .   

Audrey Kawasaki is an illustrator working out of Los Angeles. Her work channels the soft feminine forms of Mucha mixed with a manga sensibility. Sort of. In this, she takes these influences and makes them all her own. Any references are just that: references.

What really caught me are her notebooks – experimental, playful and erotic. Found in the doodles section of her site, her work plays with cartoonish human forms, ornament, typography and graphic layout. Dazzling.

Visit Audrey’s site here. Her online journal is here. And Twitter  . . . here.

Found via Twitter.com/blackbirdsings

Tags: art, cool finds, illustration, thoughts by steve
5 comments  . . .   

twittery bird rescue me by artist Christine Scheer

Here’s a really good article on the social value of Twitter.

Article link originally posted on Twitter; retweeted from @blackbirdsings, @Glinner

Tags: art, cool finds, illustration, thoughts by steve
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I’m typically not a purist when it comes to a lot of design. But updating a brand should be done with respect to the original brand. In this case, it simply bugs me that in its current configuration, Wrigley’s famous SPEARmint gum is now identified with the DOUBLEmint double arrow.

In terms of visual semantics, the arrow was a SPEAR (for spearmint – get it?). Spearmint was one spear, Doublemint (peppermint) was identified as a double spear (see above).

But now – both gums carry the double spear (below). It’s like someone didn’t get the memo. Totally throws it for me. The current wrapper, with illustrated sweaty mint leaves and pseudo-retro-like design – could have been handled so much better.

Yes, I do worry about this stuff. Someone has to.

Tags: culinary, design history, thoughts by steve
1 comment  . . .