Trailblaze – "We Need to Talk about Ireland" Event St. Paddy's Day 2014

Just sent this brochure to print and very excited about tuning into RTE player on Paddy's Day to watch the event live. Cover image by Brendan Canty at Feel Good Lost.



Binding visual research: a book art workshop in Cork Printmakers

I often wonder what to do with random bits of research and sketchbook bits when finished a set of prints. These are a couple of pamphlets I made playing with different scales and folds, and a Dosados book using a sailing map for the cover. (Part of a workshop with the book artist Andrew Kelly at Cork Printmakers)

West Cork, Ireland – A Day Out

Rasmus Engelhardt Gundersen – Alfabetisk

I revisited Danish designer Rasmus Engelhardt the other week – (I know him from the MA in London College of Communication, where he was one of those with a sensitive typographic touch and unassuming manner). His work is grounded in a strong sense of playful modernity and rich heritage, which when applied to a museum environment or a city such as London, works wonderfully. 

www.alfabetisk.dk

Richard Florida – Who's Your City?

I really did say to myself in 2004 " It doesn't matter where I do my MA, it's more about what I do and what I want from it". Well, ahem, I discovered that I got that so wrong. It did matter, and it does matter where I live. A friend of mine, who was also on that course was fascinated by how the city environment affects us, and did an amazing project on psychogeography. Anyhows, I also realise the power of place when I check out the hits to one of my sites and see that there's something about California, Texas and New York that seems to return to it. I like the Monocle 'Top 25 Most Liveable Cities', because I like the magazine. So, when I came across this book I immediately ordered it:

It’s a mantra of the age of globalization that where you live doesn’t matter ... According to Richard Florida, this is wrong. Place is not only important, it’s more important than ever... Globalization is not flattening the world; on the contrary, the world is spiky. Place is becoming more relevant to the global economy and our individual lives. The choice of where to live, therefore, is not an arbitrary one. It is arguably the most important decision we make, as important as choosing a spouse or a career. In fact, place exerts powerful influence over the jobs and careers we have access to, the people meet and our “mating markets” and our ability to lead happy and fulfilled lives.

On his creative class website, are interesting data maps and a nice questionnaire to help you compare your own choice of top cities. Below, a global map of innovation locations, and personality areas in the States.

KHUAN + KTRON – Weekend Knack Magazine

By Khuan + Ktron
Via Grainedit

Hans Rosling - Population Growth

When I learnt about the arithmetric involved in population growth, I was gobsmacked. It seemed like there was no hope for the world to sustain itself once the global headcount would inevitably double. Hans Rosling offers a pragmatic solution, one that involves a positive approach to human welfare.
Via TED

RSA Animate - The Secret Powers of Time

Professor Philip Zimbardo conveys how our individual perspectives of time affect our work, health and well-being. Time influences who we are as a person, how we view relationships and how we act in the world.
Lots more of these videos here. Super engrossing.

And, following up from a recent post about mirror neurons and the scientific validity of empathy, here is an appropriate video from the series expanding on this. It is based on a lecture by Jeremy Rifkin.

Baedeker – the first travel guides?

Victorian era guides by Karl Baedeker were characterised by their famous red covers. Exquisite maps and intense details for the discerning tourist.

Prior to World War I, Baedeker's guides were famous enough that baedekering became an English-language term for the process of travelling a country for the purpose of writing a travel guide or travelogue about it (Wiki)

Map Envelope

Remember that great idea for a google maps envelope from Beste Miray? Well I'm delighted to see a site built around that very idea – you can now generate your own map envelope by simply inputting any location that google maps generates, and a template is generated for you to make your own li'l envelope. Now isn't that very neat?! Check out mapenvelope.com, built by tweevio.

Cautious Cartography - Keep Out of Ireland!

Problem: it's WW2 and countries are being invaded left right and centre. Cause: over-zealous nationalistic bragging. Solution: a map showing your country as the most smelly, disease ridden and toxic as possible. Worth reading the background to this at Strangemaps

Julie Michel - My Way

Before I first moved to London, I went to my local library and photocopied all the pages of the area around where I would go to college, and taped them all together into a kind of monster wall hanging. Fluorescent filled areas for parks and bits of interest, and village areas ringed. Staring at the areas and getting familiar with the names was essential for beginning the trawl through rental adverts. So when I came across these maps from Julie Michel, it all came back to me. the personalisation of an area to visit with stickers and interventions. She has found some neat ways of folding the maps too.... so check out the rest of the site as well.

Nendo – Minimal Globe

via M.E magazine

www.nendo.jp

Beste Miray Dogan — Mapenvelop

Oh I do love an indexhibit site. I do I do. There's always something wonderful to discover in a template place, that is filled lovingly. So, via something called 'radar' in tumblr, I stumbled onto this beautiful and witty envelope. Neat idea!

Beste Miray Dogan

Katy Scott - Travelogues

"Her idea was to allow the natural landscape, the weather, and the movement of tide to determine the path to take, and along the way, she took a diary recording what she saw, drew maps and also collected small items washed up along the banks. Katy also produced a 'zine with a synopsis of the the story to which she attached a walk 'souvenir'." Via MeDesignMag
Katy Scott's SIte Her Blog

Ten Thousand Cent

A collaboration between Aaron Koblin and Takashi Kawashima

Ten Thousand Cents from Ten Thousand Cents on Vimeo.

Ben Fry – All Streets

Fry has mapped all of the streets in the lower 48 United States: an image of 26 million individual road segments. No other features (such as outlines or geographic features) have been added to this image, however they emerge as roads avoid mountains, and sparse areas convey low population.

Study of Heathrow - Ian Carr

This study is focused on uncovering the noise created by the vast network hub that is Heathrow Airport, specifically looking at the sources which create that noise, by breaking down the noises into visual format. www.iancarr.net

Lesser Spotted Cards

I came across this range of greeting cards in Paperchase: all the signs are real places and located on a map of England on the reverse. I sent my Dad "crackpot: 3/4 mile" for Father's Day. The photographer is Dominic Greyer.

I Lego NY

Christoph Niemann's "Abstract City' is a series of illustrations that appear in the NY Times. They're very witty and you can just feel his joy creating variations using materials like coffee stains on napkins and mosaic tiles in his bathroom.