Geyrhalter & Co. has an ideal location on Main Street in Santa Monica. It’s close to the ocean which makes for a perfect lunch hour. Walk two sunny blocks to the beach, take your shoes off, and eat your lunch. A true “sandwich,” as it were.

The lunch choices in our neighborhood are plentiful. Within a few-block radius we can choose omusubi or seitan and pico de gallo or pancakes. But with too many choices comes indecision. Read the rest »

I was thrilled to see a full page in yesterday’s New York Times Sunday Edition being dedicated to depicting the world cup to date. Being spoiled by the beautiful trend of seeing not only useful, but also extremely creative and conceptual information graphics these days – a trend that was definitely fed by Good Magazine – I was ready to analyze. Too bad I did not get very far, as the designer of this page clearly designed in color, which then got translated into a greyscale chart, with a gradation from dark to light and right back to dark again, making the chart impossible to accurately decipher and quite hard on the eyes. It surely is an unfortunate mishap to happen on a full page within the New York Times on a Sunday, but lesson learned: Design according to the medium and the restrictions from the very start of the assignment, because, like in this case, the medium is the message.

When I designed a calendar for the year 2000 for several european companies, who ‘private labeled’ it to use as a corporate gift, I focused on the symbolic meaning of the numbers that represent each month to coincide with the switch of the millenium. Yes, back then we were all freaked out about ‘numbers’.

I illustrated or photographed each piece and was in desperate need of a great looking old wheel for the calendar’s cover. Down the street from where I lived in Santa Monica there it was, in a shop window. A strange shop it was as it was never open to the public and no one really knew what exactly was being sold. I caught an old man opening a side door and that’s how I met Parke Meek. A remarkable man who worked with Frank Lloyd Wright and Charles and Ray Eames, and who let a young Mr. Geyrhalter shoot his props for that calendar and shared his stories with me that fine day.

Yesterday’s Los Angeles Times announced that the little shop, Jadis, will be open today at 11:00 AM to the public to sell its vast inventory of curiosities, which were mainly rented by studios as props. In true fashion it was not yet open by 11:45 AM when I swang by to see if I could purchase that wheel as a memory of Parke Meek, who passed away in January at age 86. Thanks to the LAT write up, people lined up around the block. So instead of being in line, I opted to share this article about a great man, and some shots of my 2000 calendar with you:

Link to the Los Angeles Times Article

Pictures of the shop

I taught a class at Art Center College Of Design with the focus on creating Brand Atmospheres™ for an artist or a band. I am very passionate about music, design and branding, so the outcome of the class was a big success for the students as well as for myself, which most often is the case when you put passionate people to work together.

Based on us just having spent 3 months designing for music as a group, it was reassuring to see today’s digital music fans being very opinionated, and also quite savvy, about design and brands that are being built around their favorite artists as new albums are being released.

Three of my favorite creative collaborators, Depeche Mode, U2 and Anton Corbjin, sparked this blog entry. Depeche Mode’s soon to be released single design to the upcoming ‘Sounds of the Universe’ album is, well, let’s face it ‘wrong’. I will not bash it more then others have already done before me, but it is amazing to see fans’ mock-versions appearing online when the single will not even be released until April 6th. As a bonus I throw in the design of the full-length, just so we all understand the depth of the design issue at hand. Anton Corbjin is the backbone of the visual re-launch of the Depeche Mode brand in 2009, and it shows that an amazing creative force with a unique vision for the moving image, does not immediately make a good graphic or brand designer. Or typographer of course:

The mock ‘remix’:

The full length album design (NOT a mock-version):

U2′s just as eagerly awaited full-length feels like the opposite to me and I was taken by its beauty and modern simplicity, yet the equal sign disturbed me mainly because of Coldplay’s very apparent and frequent use of the ‘trade fair’ symbol. Yet, as you can read here, fans of photographer Hiroshi Sugimoto and U2 had their own strong opinions.

And the ‘trade fair’ logo as seen in tattoo form:

The power of brand building, seen in one of its mass market – and most competitive and critically viewed – forms.

On that note I salute our friends at Audiolife for having launched their web site recently. The power of music and design, displayed in a visual language that, we hope, shares common ground.

We are looking for talent. High-caliber senior level design talent, and it is not an easy task. We spent over $500 on posting the job to some of the best industry sites and have received over 200 replies within 48 hours. I took on the task of reviewing the replies myself, I wanted to get a feel for the market. I taught a Portfolio class at Art Center College of Design last term, and I hold lectures to soon-to-be graduates about the ‘real world’, so I wanted to feel that world and also see if it has changed given the current economy crisis.

The shocking truth is that I had to delete 95% of all applicants based on everything BUT their talent. E-mails had crazy large attachments (28MB files anyone?), they started with the greeting of ‘Hey’, some did not have a url or any samples attached so there was not even a way to review work, but most had too many typos for comfort. One even managed to put in a ‘competitor’s’ company name in front of ours – he must have sent mass mailings out and screwed up when trying to personalize it.

How can professional designers who are in the market of creating corporate identities, not be aware that they themselves are a brand. And in these 95%, the brand loyalty has been lost even  before there was a chance given to gain it. Take a job market that is extremely competetive, an economy that is in the slump, a profession that seeks extreme perfectionists and pair it with the design generation that is applying and I start questioning not only the public school system, but some of the most respected, and pricey, private colleges. Change is needed, and I will be voicing it in every single class i will teach, and I will tell soon-to-be design graduates what they can NOT expect with such behaviour: A job.