DAI alumna Maggie Lee featured in IIID Awards 2011 website

Maggie Lee's poster on "Tallest Buildings in the World", which was designed as part of the information design class, is featured in the website for the first International Institute for Information Design Awards competition, Taipei 2011. Maggie will receive a full membership to the IIID organization. 

Awards web page:

IIIDAward Student Work

Map Of Energy Consumption In Every Single NYC Building

A new map by the School of Engineering and Applied Science at Columbia University gives us a picture of energy consumption in the five boroughs of New York, on a block-by-block basis. It’s kind of like Google Maps for spotting the greediest energy hogs of the city (and it won’t surprise you that Manhattan is, by far, the biggest spender). You can zoom all the way down to your own building, if you’re so inclined, and see how your building stacks up.

read the article

The Noun Project

The Noun Project

Gerd Arntz, graphic designer_Traveling Exhibition and Book now available

Gerd Arntz, graphic designer
The work of politically engaged artist Gerd Arntz (1900-1988) has a great visual impact and is full of information. This motivated sociologist and philosopher Otto Neurath to invite Arntz around 1922 to design the symbols for his system for visual education Isotype. Arntz designed more than 3000 symbols. Still today we can see the influence of these symbols which can be seen as radically reduced information. Many on- and off line communication designers today perceive Gerd Arntz as the godfather for visual communication. The brilliant artist and craftsman Arntz was a master in reduction and a sharing idealist. This exhibition gives insight in the work of Gerd Arntz as politically engaged artist on the one hand and as designer of timeless symbols on the other hand. (http://www.gerdarntz.org/)

The exhibition is initiated by designer Ed Annink of design studio Ontwerpwerk, The Hague.

Publication Available
Gerd Arntz, graphic designer, Ed Annink, Max Bruinsma, 2010, ISBN 978 90 6450 763 2, 010 Publishers, Rotterdam, Distributed by Idea Books (issuu.com/ontwerpwerk/docs/gerdarntz_preview,www.010.nl/catalogue/book.php?id=763)

App available

A wonderfull Gerd Arntz memory app for I-phone is available on the Appstore of I-tunes. 

Check the webiste: www.gerdarntz.org

Erler Dingbats [free]

For the first time in the entire history of Unicode standard, the full encoding range for dingbats (U + 2700 – U + 27BF) is now covered by a complete, contemporary quality font. Erler Dingbats is a spin-off of the distinguished FF Dingbats 2.0 family, and was designed as a special collaboration between designers Johannes Erler and Henning Skibbe.

http://ffdingbatsfont.com/erler/index.html

Michael Bierut Pops Up on CBS Evening News Talking About the Design of the USDA’s New Food Plate - UnBeige

From Unbeige

The big news from the US Department of Agriculture, of course, is their move away from the familiar and iconic food pyramid and into their new plate-based system of showing us how much of each type of food thing we should be consuming (full disclosure: this writer’s wife works somewhat directly with the group that creates these pyramid and plate guidelines for the USDA and certainly wouldn’t appreciate his use of “food thing” to describe types of food). And with the transition from pointy to round, eventually the media was going to have to turn to a design expert. We were both surprised and pleased as punch that CBS Evening News went directly to Pentagram‘s Michael Bierut and Mine's Christopher Simmons for their commentary. It’s the nightly news, so of course he only gets a few words in, but nice to hear from someone outside of the food world or government sharing their insight. Here’s the clip:

Using Flickr Geotags to Map the World's Cities

Photographer Eric Fischer uses Flickr's geotags to create city maps that show the places of intense human interest.

• Article in Fast Company
• Flickr: Visualizations of Locals and Tourists

Nuclear Boy has stinky poop

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5sakN2hSVxA&feature=player_embedded

Free Lecture on Data Visualization with: Google - GreenInfo - Stamen

The GIS Education Center and CCA URBANlab are hosting a free lecture with Google, GreenInfo, and Stamen this upcoming Thursday, Nov. 4th 6-8pm at CCA, to discuss data visualization and mapping. This is a great opportunity for students to learn and understand the process of raw data to visual print and web development for Google Geo, Stamen Design, and GreenInfo.

For more information:
View the lecture flyer
Visit GISEC website
Visit CCA URBANlab website

CCSF GIS Mapping Collaborative: A Facilities Management application using GIS
maps.ccsfgis.org

SIGNS 2010: How they tell us where to go.

from slate.com

"She Does a Better Job Than Map Quest!" Wonderful hand-drawn maps from firefighters, club-hoppers, Boy Scout dads, grandmothers, and Alexander Calder. Julia Turner April 28, 2010

A World Without Signs Does the advent of GPS mean we'll no longer need them? Julia Turner March 12, 2010

The Big Red Word vs. the Little Green Man The international war over exit signs. Julia Turner March 8, 2010

Do You Draw Good Maps? A professor has been examining hand-drawn maps for three decades. Send him yours. Julia Turner March 4, 2010

Legible London Can better signs help people understand an extremely disorienting city? Julia Turner March 4, 2010

The Secret Language of Signs They're the most useful thing you pay no attention to. Start paying attention. Julia Turner March 1, 2010

Lost in Penn Station Why are the signs at the nation's busiest train hub so confusing?Julia Turner March 1, 2010

IDEO Imagines the Future of Books

Meet Nelson, Coupland, and Alice — the faces of tomorrow’s book. Watch IDEO’s vision for the future of the book. What new experiences might be created by linking diverse discussions, what additional value could be created by connected readers to one another, and what innovative ways we might use to tell our favorite stories and build community around books?



The Future of the Book. from IDEO on Vimeo.

Kindle E-Book Sales Surpass Hardcovers at Amazon

"We've reached a tipping point with the new price of Kindle—the growth rate of Kindle device unit sales has tripled since we lowered the price from $259 to $189," said Jeff Bezos, Founder and CEO of Amazon.com. "In addition, even while our hardcover sales continue to grow, the Kindle format has now overtaken the hardcover format. Amazon.com customers now purchase more Kindle books than hardcover books—astonishing when you consider that we've been selling hardcover books for 15 years, and Kindle books for 33 months."

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=128629853&sc=emaf

It's a Bird! It's a Plane! It's...an Infographic?

South African airline Kulula launches a new fleet of conveniently labeled jets.
From Fast Company, by William Bostwick

Ah, the power of branding. While Boeing plays around with carbon fiber, South African airline Kulula--unknown to me before this--slaps a new decal on its fleet and becomes the talk of the blogosphere.

With the help of local branding agency Atmosphere, Kulula launched this new look, called Flying 101. It's more proof of the ubiquitous cool of infographics, I guess--everyone loves a good labeled diagram. And what a way to stand out on the tarmac, amidst South African Airways plain-Jane fleet: white, serifed type, and the most predictable logo possible, the South African flag.

GAFTA Exhibition: OPEN

Gray Area Foundation for the Arts (GAFFTA) is pleased to announce its Inaugural Exhibition, OPEN, featuring the works of C.E.B. Reas, Camille Utterback and Stamen Design. Including new works from three pioneers in the field of digital art, OPEN celebrates GAFFTA’s arrival as San Francisco’s leading digital arts organization and cornerstone of The City’s emerging Tenderloin Arts District.

OPEN commences with a series of fundraising events, public celebrations and workshops October 1st – 4th, with related programming running through November 18th (see full calendar of Grand Opening events below).

The multidisciplinary works in OPEN span a range of formats and techniques: from prints and sculptures to interactive video, generative processes and cartography. While the styles of each featured artists are unique and diverse, all the works in GAFFTA’s Inaugural Exhibition exemplify the core values of our organization’s creative vision and civic mission: technology, community and openness.