the mehallo blog. beta.

Change to Win’s animate of ‘The End of the American Dream?’ – done in the style of RSA Animate.

Found via Occupy San Francisco

Tags: art, design, education, illustration by steve
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‘New landscape for big banks’

Mother Nature Network looks at today’s banking landscape. Original post here.

Found via Shandi Pierzina

Tags: design, events by steve
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‘I’ve been doing posters for tons of cities across America’

In the past few weeks, one of my former students has found herself cast as the visual heart of the Occupy movement. Raina Dayne started with offering to do a poster and it’s blossomed into something much bigger.

Raina’s images can be downloaded for use at the Occupy Together website. Facebook page here, shirts here.

Tags: cool finds, design, education, illustration, typography by steve
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‘Your time is limited, so don’t waste it living someone else’s life. Don’t be trapped by dogma – which is living with the results of other people’s thinking. Don’t let the noise of others’ opinions drown out your own inner voice. And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary.’ –Steve Jobs

Intuition is very powerful, once one knows how to trust it. It involves turning off the insecurities of ego and concentrating on pure feeling. And it works wonders.

The news of Steve Jobs’ passing came in via social media. I saw a Facebook post right after I gave a design history lecture on early modern artists and how they’d managed to change the world.

I was fortunate enough to both go to school and work in and around Silicon Valley where Jobs’ approach reverberates and inspires. Playing it safe, following the status quo will not lead to new things, will not improve life as we know it – and Jobs knew how to get the best work out of Apple’s creative team.

He knew that details are excruciatingly important. Leveraging design, using good typography, giving us what we really want – instead of what we think we need – was all part of the package.

Thinking different makes the world a better place. That’s the legacy he leaves.

Image by Dylan Roscover, using Apple’s suite of fonts from over the years

Tags: design, education, illustration, thoughts, typography by steve
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‘handprinted and unique posters in A0 format, printed and digital invitations and adverts in various Dutch magazines   . . .   woodcut printed.’

E-flyer for Alban Schelbert and Christopher West’s End Exam Show at the Gerrit Rietveld Academie. From 2009.

Found via manystuff

Tags: design, education, exhibitions, typography by steve
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‘Having many food and chemical sensitivities has been a largely trial-and-error process for what can be tolerated and what can’t, and has resulted in many creative kitchen science experiments’

Web designer/cartoonist (and former student of mine) Annie Hero has developed some major health problems. Recently, she’s taken to blogging about her approach to reclaiming her life from years of processed food intolerance.

Annie’s WTF are you eating? can be found here.

Tags: culinary, design, education, illustration, photography, thoughts by steve
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‘Spice up your design’

Hanging on the walls at Ai Sacramento: AIGA poster, designed and photographed by student Devon Cloutier.

At one point, there was a text change and in lieu of starting over, Devon fixed it – orally, swallowing a lot of the saucy rooster.

Designers do suffer for their art.

Tags: culinary, design, education, photography by steve
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‘Avant-garde German artists were now branded both enemies of the state and a threat to German culture.’

In 1937, the Nazi party hosted ‘Entartete Kunst.’ This traveling exhibition showcased modern art as the work of madmen, ‘degenerates’ out to destroy the world.

Confiscated art – works of Kirchner, Nolde, Beckmann, Ernst, Chagall, Matisse, Picasso, Van Gogh, Dali, Klee, Kandinsky, Lissitzky, Grosz and many others – filled the show. After, the pieces were either destroyed or auctioned off.

For more about Entartete Kunst, read here or here. Exhibition catalog here.

Art, ideas, original thoughts: All dangerous.

This past weekend I watched a documentary on The Inquisition. Things such as inquisitions, persecutions – Entartete Kunst, McCarthyism – cycle throughout history.

What beliefs, doctrines and laws exist today that limit freedom, individuality and progress?

Tags: art, design, design history, education, exhibitions by steve
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Harry Potter makeup tutorials. Drag option at bottom.

Found via Trendhunter

Tags: design, education, fashion by steve
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Above, advice from artist Tom Sachs for anyone starting work in a studio. Interns, PAs, gophers. Art, design or otherwise.

Below, Sach’s iconic Prada Toilet, Chanel accessories and the Hermés Value Meal.

Tags: art, education by steve
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‘Before there were photocopiers, scanners and printers, there was the Ditto Machine (a.k.a. spirit duplicator), produced by the Illinois-based Ditto Corporation; originally introduced in 1923.’ -mnn

Clifford the Big Red Dog was supposed to be red. But in the handout I got in kindergarten, he was purple.

So was my introduction to the Ditto Machine – a device used to replicate most of the paperwork I’d used in elementary school.

Some of my earliest experiences as a ‘graphics’ guy was playing with one of these machines – seeing what it could reproduce and what it couldn’t. It couldn’t reproduce much. The copies were so smudgy, Dittos were grunge before grunge was grunge.

And the smell of the purple ink was incredible. Fruity and chemically at the same time! Tho it turns out ink ingredients – isopropanol and methanol – are toxic substances. Who knew? [Read more →]

Tags: cool finds, design, design history, education, thoughts by steve
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