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OBSERVED

Does anyone love movies more than Martin Scorsese? In case you missed it, the Scorsese montage from the Golden Globes; his speech afterwards was graceful and passionate. (Thanks to Jim Biber.) [MB]

"Ice House Detroit is an architectural installation and social change project currently taking place in Detroit. Photographer Gregory Holm and architect Matthew Radune will use one of 20,000 abandoned houses and freeze it in solid ice to reference the contemporary urban conditions in the city and beyond." [MB]

Design Observer's Job Board has new jobs in Chicago, DC, Cleveland, Pittsburgh, Boston, NYC, Portland, SF, Vienna and Austin. Companies hiring include Lowe's, Whirlpool, Stella & Dot, Kakai, Sheridan & Co, Department of the Treasury and Natural History Museum of Los Angeles. Post your job today. [JSC]

38 years of Super Bowl commercials. [MB]

When Armin Hoffman meets Charlie's Angels: Albert Exergian's modernist TV posters. (Via VSL.) [MB]

Great summary by Paul Soulellis of last night's heated debate, sponsored by AIGANY, over the signage system and map designed by Unimark in the 60s and 70s for the New York City subway. 40 years later, and tensions are still running high. [MB]

It's not about ideas. It's about making ideas happen. Tickets for the 99% Conference are now on sale. The conference takes place April 15-16, 2010 in NYC at the Times Center. Guest speakers include: Stefan Sagmeister, John Maeda, Jack Dorsey, Eve Blossom, Jay O'Callahan, Fred Wilson and others. See our very own Michael Bierut's presentation at last year's conference here.
[JSC]

Design Observer's Job Board has new jobs in Portland, LA, Vienna, Cleveland, Cincinnati, Philadelphia, NYC, Chicago and Milan. Companies hiring include Barnes and Noble, Cinco Design Office, Gymboree, Digitas, Kolar Design, Joby Inc. and Missouri School of Journalism. Post your job today. [JSC]

Through July 12, The New Typography in the Architecture and Design Galleries at MoMA. [MB]

Do you need shots of people doing things? We got that B roll! [MB]

Yamasaki Associates, designers of the World Trade Center complex, has closed, leaving behind "a welter of lawsuits and unpaid claims." [MB]

"Most designers cannot write. I don't mean they can't write like Faulkner. I don't mean they don't have a discernable prose style. I mean they cannot WRITE. They do not know where to put a subject and a verb and a capital and a period. They are functionally illiterate." [MB]

Since it reopened last year, the Philip Johnson Glass House in New Canaan, Connecticut, has been the venue of a series of intimate conversations. They've been moderated by, among others, Roger Mandle, Laurie Beckelman, Maurice Cox, and John Maeda; the themes have included Breaking the Rules, Transparency, and Design and Civic Leadership. [MB]

Unhappy Hipsters! (Thanks to Melissa Davis.) [JH]

Given its recent problems, maybe Toyota needs a different tagline than "Moving Forward." [MB]

Design Observer is pleased to announce that one of our favorite writers and editors, Mark Lamster, author of Master of Shadows and fellow blogger, will be joining our regular stable of contributing writers. Welcome Mark, we very much look forward to more of your essays. [WD]

The US National Endowment for the Arts, seeking a new "Art Works" logo, confuses an RFP (Request for Proposals) with an RFFW (Request for Free Work), with only one lucky winner promised a $25,000 payoff. As Chairman Rocco Landesman tells us, "'Art works' is a reminder that arts workers are real workers with real jobs" — who work on spec, evidently. Sigh. [MB]

Design Observer's Job Board has new jobs in Savannah, SF, Prague, St. Louis, Chicago, NYC, Pittsburgh, Madison and Boston. Companies hiring include Gap Inc., Wunderbar, Martha Stewart Living, Ann Taylor, Goddard Claussen, SK+G and Columbia College. Post your job today. [JSC]

Priceless 1994 video of the late Muriel Cooper demonstrating experiments in dynamic, interactive, computer-based typography by her students from MIT Media Lab's Visible Language Workshop. [JL]

From Elliott Malkin, Mother's History of Birds, a 7-minute documentary about his artist mother and her long and storied history with pet birds. And don't miss Everything I Know About Hyman Victor and other home movies. [JSC]

"This is a blog documenting a project that will span exactly one year, from January 1, 2010 to December 31, 2010. On each of those 365 days, I will photograph or draw (and occasionally paint) one collection." Lisa Congdon presents A Collection a Day, 2010. (Thanks to Dean Morris.) [MB]

Documentary editor Karen Schmeer, who helped shape, among many other films, Errol Morris's The Fog of War, dies at 39, the victim of a hit-and-run accident. A tragedy.
[MB]

Over 650 Philip K. Dick book covers. [MB]

The light blue Olivetti Lettera 32 typewriter on which Cormac McCarthy wrote 5 million words in over 45 years, has been auctioned off for $254,500. Previously on DO, Rick Poynor eulogizes his own manual typewriter. [MB]

The book (cover) that changed my life. Rest in peace, J. D. Salinger. [MB]

"With every new day, the phrase 'I'm just not the target demographic' seems to be more relevant for me." Ken Carbone on Diesel's Stupid campaign. [JL]

"What really knocks me out is a book, when you're all done reading it, you wished the author that wrote it was a terrific friend of yours and you could call him up on the phone whenever you felt like it." — Holden Caulfield from the book The Catcher in the Rye by J. D. Salinger. Salinger died yesterday at the age of 91. [JSC]

Design Observer's Job Board has new jobs in NYC, Chicago, Las Vegas, Pittsburgh, Toronto, Durham, LA, Cincinnati and DC. Companies hiring include Thinkso, V Agency, Timberland, Burt's Bees, IA Collaborative, Adobe, Nestle, Sapient and Estee Lauder. Post your job today. [JSC]

Luke Hayman on five ways the iPad will change magazine design. [MB]

Mapping the Axis invasion of the United States, Life magazine, 1942. Amazing. (Via MeFi.) [MB]

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Ars Libri Ltd

Hungarian Rhapsody

This collection is a record of the immensely productive life of György Kepes, it includes crates of notes and manuscripts from his books — many of them lavishly illustrated with original drawings and diagrams; heavily annotated sketchbooks crammed with compositions for paintings and stained glass; photographs, as well as pictures acquired for publication purposes and incidental examples of his own drawings, watercolors and other works of art.

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Andy Chen

Left Me Speechless

I don't know what to make of this image. Clearly, it's an over-Photoshopped portrait of Cindy McCain that looks like something straight out of the X-Files. Then again, the notion that Mrs. Maverick is openly championing gay rights is a bit alien after all.

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Mark Lamster

Big Book, Small Reward

Among the trends I’d like to see disappear in this new decade, right up there with urban taxidermy and use of the term “foodie,” is the mania among design professionals for obscenely fat monographs.

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Meredith Davis

Who Owns Student Work?

The prevailing opinion at many design and art schools is that the faculty and university have some “ownership rights” in the output of any class. (Hence, the free art that graces of the pages of so many college recruiting brochures.) But what happens when the student enters into a client relationship within the context of curriculum or university activities? In other words, when does a student own their own work?

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Eric Baker

Today, 01.30.10

Here are Today’s images.

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Alice Twemlow

Howling at the Moon: The Poetics of Amateur Product Reviews

An Amazon reviewer called N.A. Cat Lover, who turns out to be a doctor from Tampa, Florida, bought a self-washing, self-flushing cat toilet. His review is not just hilarious; it can also be seen as an example of a democratizing impulse in design criticism.

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Sarah Williams Goldhagen

Moshe Safdie

In judging any urban development, one must consider what it replaced, what it is and what it might have been instead. As to the first and the second: Moshe Safdie's nearly completed Mamilla Alrov Center in Jerusalem, the last portion of a 28-acre mixed-use development, is superb.

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Eric Baker

Today, 01.23.10

Here are Today’s images.

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Steven Heller

Harsh Words from T.M. Cleland

“The generosity of your invitation to me to speak on this important occasion leaves me a trifle bewildered. I am so accustomed to being told to keep my opinions to myself that being thus unexpectedly encouraged to express them gives me some cause to wonder if I have, or ever had, any opinions upon the graphic arts worth expressing.” Graphic designer T. M. Cleland, gearing up to chastise the AIGA in 1940.

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