ALL MY EYES

Monday, May 3, 2010

Exxon's Layered Bars of Meaning

The cover of ExxonMobil's recent annual report, folds out to reveal a lavish chart illustrated with photos of various types of energy. It shows the history of energy demand in the U.S. by source back to 1850 and projected out to 2030.

Interesting that they chose to show demand with bars all the same height, plotting percentage and not actual amounts. This is completely kosher and correct and this is exactly how to display the data for the story Exxon wants to tell: By 2030, the mix of our energy use in the U.S. will have shifted to cleaner sources. I am posting this because I thought it was an excellent example of “message management” with infographics. Exxon clearly wants to show that oil consumption is decreasing, and that they are being smart and responsible for investing heavily in natural gas (which is cleaner than oil). Keep in mind, however that the segments show demand ONLY AS A PERCENT OF TOTAL.

A few pages into the report, after CEO, Rex Tillerson’s letter to shareholders, we learn that worldwide energy demand between 2005 and 2030, will have increased by 35%. Over that same period, even with all the legislation, technology, and international agreements, energy-related CO2 emissions will still have increased 25%. So as you can see in their much more modestly produced chart, below, when actual amounts are plotted, the picture is not nearly as pretty.

I think that their choice to depict oil in green was carefully calculated as well.

Sunday, May 2, 2010

Missoni Beach Towels

I’m so glad these Missoni beach towels are $195 each (at Barneys). Otherwise I’d be spending all sorts of time trying to decide which one to buy.

I found some images of them open. I'm thinking Italian, terry-cloth, sarape/ikat/Navajo blankets.

Saturday, May 1, 2010

May Day

I personally do not celebrate May 1 with either political demonstrations nor with dancing around the maypole. The political holiday, however, has graphics …

I couldn't believe that this was not a poster, because it sure reads like one. It's a sticker from May 1st, 2007, which marked the 30th anniversary of a deadly May Day rally in Istanbul. From Another Limited Rebellion

"Long Live the Festival of the Workers of All Countries"
From Chtodelat: News about activism, art and critical
thought from Russia and elsewhere.

There's no date for this poster at Labor Arts. It's from the Robert F. Wagner Labor Archives and the Tamiment Library at New York University. Apparently tens of thousands of people used to march in the annual May Day parades in the 1930s in NYC's Union Square.

No info on this, but great design and use of numeral "1."
I think it's Turkish. absolutcure.deviantart.com

"Work and peace for the republic, well-being for the
people." Produced by Zdeněk Rossman for the Communist
Party of Czechoslovakia, for May 1, 1946. From Wikipedia.

1973 May 1 poster by the artist Dimas for ICAIC
(The Cuban Film Institute). From Cuban Posters.

Soviet poster from Dull Neon. It links to a huge flickr set of USSR posters.

Thursday, April 29, 2010

Garden Cleanup

It's never-ending, of course, but I finally did the first round ...

Still life with snail.

These Bleeding Hearts turned creepy in when the flash went off.

Assembled detritus, with pruner.

Crafty snail poses as a fern fiddlehead.

Monday, April 26, 2010

Drumroll For My Blogroll

As I am finally getting my blogroll together, a peek at a few of these visual bloggers who will now be just a click away.

A Journey Round My Skull
Strange, odd, illustration from obscure, far away places. What more could you want? Here's how Will describes his blog:

Unhealthy book fetishism from a reader, collector, and amateur historian of forgotten literature. Recent obsessions: illustration and graphic design.

llustration by Alexander Alexeieff, 1929

Fluxus postcard, ‘Men are cheeky but
MONSTERS ARE INOFFENSIVE,’ 1967

The Unknown Hipster
Not unknown to us. Who better to visually eavesdrop on Larry Gagosian and Mick Jagger at a Damien Hirst opening than Jean-Philippe Delhomme?

The Textile Blog
From the U.K. Just like the name says—plus links to every important textile resource out there.

Ann Macbeth rug design, 1905

Textile by Scandinavian Modernist, Sven Markelius, 1958

Mbuti barkcloth

Bibliodyssey
You’ll only find it here, if it is old, printed, and truly remarkable.

Croatian genealogical book, 1740

Cutaway of a French nuclear power station, June 1978

Ace Jet 170
Belfast based graphic designer Richard Weston is impressively tuned into the nuances of print Here’s what he writes about Read Better, Read Faster.

No design credit, and some might claim to understand why, but I think there's an unsung hero at work on this sublimely balanced cover from 1976. Take that finger, for example (photo-credited to John Hybert by the way); positioned one third in. Now, you're telling me that's by accident?

...and wonderful found type.

Nothing is New
No one knows her way around the archives like Kelly Rakowski. She has been a huge inspiration for many of my far flung virtual adventures.

Members of the Western Massachusetts commune, Brotherhood of the Spirit, in the mid 1970s.

Grain edit
Frankly, I don’t know why the rest of us bother to post vintage graphics. Chances are anything cool from the 1950s-70s has been posted here already by Dave C + Elizabeth Surya’s crack team.

Little Augury
An aesthete of the highest order, Little Augury is a devotee of devastating beauty and high style, wherever it may be found, be it antique aristocratic elegance, black & white glamour, or uber-class decadence of a bygone era. Only the most rarified of today’s tastemakers make it onto the radar of this blogging interior designer.

Ivory Objects on an 18th century English lacquer desk.

Lady Ottoline Morrell

Incredible hair by Marisol Suarez

Lee Radziwill in one of the most famous of all the
Indian chintz tented rooms designed by Renzo Mongiardino

Manystuff
Contemporary graphic design blog by Paris-based Charlotte Cheetham. Offshoot projects, publications and exhibitions have been developed from this blog.

Words and Eggs
Lots of vintage goodness.

AisleOne
"An inspirational resource focused on graphic design, typography, grid systems, minimalism and modernism."

Album covers by Josef Albers.

2010 calendar poster by This Studio.

War Design packaging for adhesive manufacturer, Construction Technologies Australia.

Thursday, April 22, 2010

Earth Day & Other Troxler Posters

As far as images go, Earth Day turns out to be quite a yawn. I was hoping to uncover and post all the fabulous posters of the last four decades, but alas, mediocrity is mostly what I found.

I did find one winner—this 1992 poster by Swiss designer Niklaus Troxler. Simple to the point of abstraction, it needs no type to to remind us of the violence we inflict upon our environment. Now, I might not get away with this anywhere else, but since this is my blog, I’ve decided that instead of boring you with Earth Day posters (which you are welcome to see here and here), I’ll show more of Troxler’s work.

Discovering jazz as a teenager, Troxler organized his first concert in 1966 at age 19. While passionate about music, he pursued his other passion, graphic design, as a career. In 1975, he united the two by producing the first annual ‘Jazz in Willisau’ festival and creating all the related visual material. Over the course of the ensuing 35 years, Troxler has designed an astonishing number of posters in a wide range of styles for the festival and for the performances of the participating artists. You can see them all on his website. Michael Beirut was quoted in a NY Times article about Troxler, "I love the poster series because it so neatly recapitulates the design history of the last few decades. You see the influence of Push Pin eclecticism, California new wave, Swiss post-modernism and post- punk grunge, all passed through the unique prism of a guy working in a really small town in Switzerland."

Below are posters on a variety of subjects, followed by jazz-related posters.

Happy Earth Day!