Scoring in WIlliamsburg

(click to enlarge)

Williamsburg taqueria La Superior, is a casual low-key kind of place that serves phenomenal tacos and margaritas. For the World Cup tournament they’ve installed a couple of TVs and a custom scoreboard. The festive elimination diagram, designed by a friend of the restaurant, consists of Vasarely-like clusters silkscreened onto plexiglass.

Elsewhere in Williamsburg ...

Notice for a filming of Girls this week.

Fabulous wall!

First Aid Bandana

Vintage work clothes, pleated taffeta ruffles, camp blankets, peasant blouses and lots of indigo. The Vintage Fashion and Textile Show in Sturbridge is a serious affair. Photography is strictly verboten, but I got a dispensation at Sarajo (formerly of Soho, currently of Maine) to photograph this WWI-era “BANDAGE FOR FIRST AID IN ACCIDENT” scarf/sling.

Infographic on a textile. Does it get any better than this?

eBay Eyes: Air Brake Portfolio

From time to time (like every other day) I see something on eBay that I wish I could buy but I don’t have the space for, the money for, or both. Sometimes I don't really want to own the item, but I am grateful to the seller for the creativity of the presentation or the quality of the photograph. In those cases, the display or the image becomes worthy in itself of a post.

For the inaugural installment of “eBay Eyes” I present this air brake portfolio from the Science of Railways Cyclopedia issued by the Railway Training Institute in 1927. The full portfolio  is 16"x 12" and runs 50 pages.

Strung Out

Some lovely illustrations diagramming Cat’s Cradle. This book from China was acquired by the American Museum of Natural History in 1904. 

I haven’t reduced these at all, so click on them for a slightly larger view.

Curly Bracketology

via Typophile

Just as “CD” can mean one thing to a banker and quite another to a music-lover, so too, the term “brackets” can have quite unrelated meanings to different people.

For example, I travel in circles where “brackets” are simply typographic characters. They come in straight and curly varieties and vary from typeface to typeface. 

But for most of the population, “brackets” is the diagram for the elimination tournament of the NCAA Basketball Championships. “March Madness,” as it’s called, (and which also has a whole other meaning), must be what happens when you watch 32 college teams play 67 games.

Far less lucrative to proprietors of sports bars, is the other “March Madness,” which occurs amongst European hares. The elimination tournament, which is especially frenzied during the month of March, is for the prize of mating with the doe, whose receptivity for breeding is limited to only a few hours during each of her six-week cycles.

A female will viciously fight off her suitors, giving them scarred ears. Hares have been observed to stand on their hind legs and hit each other with their paws, a practice known as "boxing" and this activity is usually between a female and a male and not between males as previously believed. When a doe is ready to mate, she will start a wild chase across the countryside, shaking off following males until only one remains. After this the female will stop and allow the remaining male to mate with her. Wikipedia

 

Why not try Book Antiqua?

Or you can pick a bracket style from the fabulous

Tor Weeks poster, A Field Guide to Typestaches.

Happy National Bracket Day!

(Whatever font you choose.)

Wasser, Gas

I was drawn to them right away—the curious primary-colored plaques affixed to the buildings in Berlin. Each was a deliberate, yet mysterious typographic composition of letters and numerals, with the occasional word “wasser” or “gas.” Was I unaware of a utilities signage project by Schwitters and Lissitzky?
International Dada Archive, Univ. of Iowa
Of course these found Merz poems actually mean something, and
Dr. Lee D. Han, a professor at the University of Tennessee, seems to have cracked the code.

Dr. Han recently visited Berlin to give a presentation about microscopic simulation and mass evacuation to a group of university transportation researchers. Scroll down to read about the puzzle he so proudly describes solving. He even provides a diagram!





From Professor Han's blog:

I’ll have to really sit down and write more about my short visit to Berlin. But one thing I want to report here is finally having time to solve this little puzzle. Basically, I had noticed these little placards on the side of the streets, on walls, and on poles with a “T” shaped marking typically in the center of the placard and with some numbers all around it. I’ve seen them in Vienna, Budapest, here in Berlin, and later in Sarajevo. I thought instinctively that they have something to do with pipelines, but never had the time to look closely. Well, this time I took the time and figured out that these are markers for the access “hole” for water, gas, hydrant, etc.

The word “Wasser” is water in German, which is not hard. But the “T” in the middle really means, I think, an access point to the water line 2.1 meters from this placard (perpendicular to the face of the placard) and 2.2 meters to the left of the placard. If the access point is to the right, the number would be written on the right side. If it is behind the placard, which is not uncommon, the number 2.1 would be negative.

I think this system must have been around for many a decade and widely employed in many European countries. As utility workers walk or even drive around, they can see these placards and easily identify the access points. There must also be a nice GIS-based asset management system with everyone of these access points inventoried, which is not hard as they are already clearly identified.

I’m sure the simple rules of these placards are common knowledge among utility workers. But it is still interesting to figure them out. As it turned out, everyone I asked along my trip acknowledged that not only they didn’t know what these placards are or how they work, but most of them never even noticed these little colorful markers. Perhaps somewhere on Wikipedia or a website in some other language all this is explained in detail. But this is where you read about it first. :)

Danke Herr Professor!

IN GRAPHICS Magazine

During my trip to Berlin in August, I visited with infographics specialist Jan Schwochow. Jan and his talented team at Golden Section Graphics had just recently published Volume 2 of his wildly ambitious, independently and beautifully produced magazine, IN GRAPHICS.

While the sections of the 90-page issue are completely familiar-- politics, technology, sports, entertainment, etc., IN GRAPHICS is no ordinary magazine. Instead of running text and occasional photos or illustration, the content is displayed entirely in the form of infographics. Text is in German and English.

The cover story of Volume 2 takes on the events and aftermath of 9/11. We are first presented with a spread of front–page coverage of over a hundred publications from around the world. The six spreads that follow use diagrams, illustration, timelines, and quantitative charts to digest data and information of the last ten years. They are all thoughtfully conceived, meticulously researched and exquisitely executed.

THE DAY THAT CHANGED THE WORLD


ATTACK ON THE WORLD TRADE CENTER


3RD TARGET: THE PENTAGON! AND THE WHITE HOUSE?


TERROR TRACES
How the terrorists prepared themselves for the attacks in the USA


TERROR IN NUMBERS


CIVILIAN CASUATIES


THE NEW WORLD TRADE CENTER

In addition to his technical expertise and years of experience, Jan has a great knowledge and interest in information graphics history. His ability to incorporate design solutions from the past, with cutting edge visualization techniques, creates work that is rich and sophisticated with plenty of fresh visualization surprises.


Even the contents page is a visual display.

Both volumes of IN GRAPHICS are available for shipping throughout Europe from Amazon.de. For shipping to the U.S., you can order from the Golden Section online shop directly.

A handful of bookstores in Germany, Amsterdam, London and Vienna also sell the magazines. If you are traveling in Europe, I suggest you use this list as a general resource for the coolest bookstores there are.

New Year’s Eve Infographic: Champagne-Glass Pyramid

ChampagneSabering.com offers this diagram along with a table for calculating the number of glasses needed for building pyramids of various heights. Also tips for filling the glasses and all things related to Champagne. They can be hired to build a pyramid for your next event.

There is a page of Champagne quotes, including this one from Art Buchwald: "I like Champagne because it always tastes as if my foot's asleep."

May this be the only kind of Pyramid Scheme you encounter in the new year. Wishing a happy, healthy, and peaceful 2011 to all!

Found Infographic: Vintage Corset Directions

Imagine needing directions with a diagram for getting dressed! Before elastic and stretch fabrics came into regular use for foundation garments, the design and proper fit of a corset took a fair amount of engineering and customization. (See previous post on the Berlei Body Type Calculator.)

I was curious about why the name of a corset manufacturer would be “Camp.” I thought that perhaps the company originally manufactured tents--you know, canvas, cord, grommets, rigging hardware. Not so. It turns out that the name of the corset maker was Samuel Higby Camp. In 1908, he patented the "fan-lacing" system of attaching straps and buckles to groups of laces so that the garment could be tightened from the front, by the corset wearer herself. Before that, women were dependent on a maid/mother/other, to pull the laces tight from the back and tie them. So, what appears to us as a garment of torture and confinement, actually provided women with a level of self-sufficiency, not previously available to them.

And remember, NEVER pull upwards or downwards, always in a straight line!