interesting and beautiful work from some talented cranbrook kiddies—a photobooth that surprises. what i like most about this is the use of pattern as a meaningful addition rather than simple decoration.
not that i think simple decoration is bad; i think that design culture has been naively feeling its way around how to use decoration again now that modernism’s giving way to something new.
beatport is a digital music store designed and run especially for electronic DJs and enthusiasts. they stock an exhaustive catalog of obscure european electronic musicians, including work from my friend miguel’s label, cronica electronica. miguel was the gent who first invited me to teach with him in oporto in 1999, thus beginning my long love affair with portugal.
emigre has updated the design and architecture of their site, the first major overhaul since its launch in 1066 B.C. unfortunately they only updated their technology to 1997 or so—missing any sort of document type declarations, without any sort of semantic structure, with css used entirely for typographics, nothing else. meaning we’ll be looking at this for a long time. hope you like it.
on the upside, it’s pretty now. i guess that’s something.
addendum: i got a lot of “what the hell?” responses about this. essentially, my objection is that while the site is pretty on the outside, it is not very well constructed.
as su put it, it’s the equivalent of a beautiful book cover on a shelf disguising cheap printing with cut-rate typography on cheap paper. if you don’t judge your books in that manner, you won’t care. but there are those of us who do. we notice when those who have, for years, curated excellent design to the rest of the world can’t be bothered to utilize the craftsmanship inherent to excellent design.
how valuable is a design consultation? with handlers abounding, britney made herself into a pop machine—a flawless, glistening icon. she was untouchable. but left to her own devices, she’s a little bit—just a tiny bit—more sophisticated than miss mayva sue dogpatch. as a result, the press is eating her alive.
in the context of britney, design is everything. britney, it’s possible for you to be a blossoming southern mother and not come off like some redneck hussy, just fallen off the pickup on the way to knockup patch. listen to your handlers. when they tell you to leave the micro-mini at home, listen to them. when they tell you to show up sporting an overmade face, leave the cellulite thighs out of the equation. and above all, when they tell you to take the gum out of your mouth, please please listen.
