Meanwhile #075
Prussian blue can release cyanide, which is fun.
This is an old edition of Meanwhile from an inferior, more simian newsletter platform that has unhelpfully severed all the hyperlinks. It’s included here in the archive simply for sake of completeness.
“Standing before a similarly strained vehicle, stuffed with everything I needed to begin my freshman year at art school, my mother asked me to promise her I would never use what I was about to learn to sell cigarettes. Echoing the tenor of her own training as a nurse, she had me take an impromptu Hippocratic Oath right there in our driveway.” Excellent Design Observer piece by Brian LaRossa on ethics in graphics design. An important subject, especially for freelancers – we all face a should I/shouldn’t I quandary sooner or later, and it’s not always an easy decision to make when you’ve got your mortgage breathing down your neck.
The evolution of the Millennium Falcon by Kitbashed. Exceedingly thorough and fascinating and just takes me want to watch Solo all over again.
Chemists have accidentally created an entirely new blue pigment. It’s rather lovely and, good news, it almost certainly won’t try to kill you (apparently Cobalt blue can be carcinogenic, and Prussian blue can release cyanide, which is fun). Crayola will be adding the new pigment to their range, and need help naming it.
In this month’s Creative Review column I make some kind of connection between Michael Bierut and Cy Twombly and Rowley Birkin QC … but mostly it’s about notebooks.
Phil Gyford is tumbling one of my favourite sub-disciplines of production design: the crazy wall. I particularly like Erica Dorn’s knollish design for Isle of Dogs.
Been reading a lot about the history of mapping Manhattan recently (hence this meaty twitter thread). Of particular interest are three-dimensional renderings, such as the 1962 Bollman map. Codex 99’s overview is a good place to start.
To coincide with the release of Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom (jury currently out, but hopefully better than the last one), the Natural History Museum has launched a fantastic online hub all about dinosaurs. No gimmicks, just lots of facts and research and feathers.
Netherlands to build world's first habitable 3D-printed houses (why would you build uninhabitable ones?). Really interested to see how this technology develops, especially in an off-world context.
The new issue of Eye is an absolute corker, all about magazines. Highlights include a look at sixties classic Town (aka About Town aka Man About Town) and an interview with New York Time art director Gail Bichler.
Who needs a studio when you’ve got a laptop and wifi? Freelance design nomad Zoe Norvell spent four months visiting eight countries while maintaining her normal cover design workload. Now very, very tempted to drag my family on the road …
Polish-German artist Karina Smigla-Bobinski uses a gigantic helium-filled and charcoal-studded sphere to cover rooms with unpredictable designs. As you do.
That is all.