A great new book out entitled “Pantone, The 20th Century in Color” incorporates beautiful color plates with accompanying narrative by authors Leatrice Eiseman and Keith Recker that describe the last 100 years in the evolution of the color spectrum through the lens of the groundbreaking 1963 Pantone color system developed by Lawrence Hebert of Pantone.

The system codified the color spectrum, so that a certain shade of a color can be uniformly agreed upon and unknowingly revolutionized the world of graphic design. One can think back to any decade of the past century and certain colors and hues are easily associated with each time period. Serving as more than a mere color index, the book succeeds in describing the evolution of colors’ social imprint on culture, illustrated through advertisments, product design, fashion and general day-to-day life across generations.

Just close your eyes and visualize the 50s, 60s, 70s or 80s–it’s easy. That’s what’s so great about this book. From a historical perspective, filtered through the nuance of aesthetics, we have each period literally ‘colored in’ for us. Beautiful and simple.

Interesting little article from the WSJ about the throwback trend in consumer packaged goods. While the trend itself isn’t all that remarkable, I found the “Chip Flashback” sidebar amusing. Here’s a simple recipe for creating a throwback package:

• Colors: The brown, orange and yellow palette is ‘very time stamped’ to the 1960s. Limitations in printing techniques also meant that only a few colors could be used.
• Letter Blocks: Often used by TV shows and stations in the 1960s to highlight color-television technology, says Mr. Murphy.
• Typeface: ‘Doritos’ is in a dramatic but playful serif font typical of the 1970s, says Mr. Wallace. (Serif fonts have feet at the edges. Sans-serif fonts do not.)
• Flat Design: Before computers, shadow effects and colors that gradually blended into one another weren’t common.

Beautiful animated infographic (watch it here) from the folks over at Flowing Data. It tracks the expansion of Wal Mart (and Sam’s Club) across the United States from a single store in Arkansas to the ubiquity we now know. Enjoy

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For what it’s worth, this is my favorite passage…

I never knew a designer that got hundreds of thousands of dollars to design a logo.  Mostly, designers get paid to negotiate the difficult terrain of individual egos, expectations, tastes, and aspirations of various individuals in an organization or corporation, against business needs, and constraints of the marketplace.  This is a process that can take a year or more.  Getting a large, diverse group of people to agree on a single new methodology for all of their corporate communications means the designer has to be a strategist, psychiatrist, diplomat, showman, and even a Svengali. The complicated process is worth money.  That’s what clients pay for. The process, usually a series of endless presentations and refinements, persuasions and proofs, results, hopefully, in an accepted identity design.

Related article on Wired

By Nikki Graziano

The current issue of I.D. magazine has an interesting feature about toys. Actually, it’s not about toys as much as it is about our recollection of the toys we grew up with. They ask a series of designers and critics to consider their favorite toys from their youth and write a brief  essay about what that toy meant to them. The result is subtly fascinating. Each essay serves as a tiny memoir, a love letter to the toy, and a dissection of the object itself. They take something that has been taken for granted, or relegated to nostalgia, and breathe some new life into  it.

I love sports. I love infographics. Therefore, this site, FlipFlopFlyBall really hit the spot. It offers several dozen, fresh, beautifully-designed infographics that show you a side of sports that you don’t usually see. Take the above graphic, for example. It’s a lovely poster that shows the relative size and shape of the thirty MLB parks.

While it focuses heavily on baseball, the site seems to be delving into other sports. Note the “size comparison of lots of sporty balls” towards the bottom of the page.

Enjoy.

Over the years, my opinion of Armani has swayed radically. In the 80s, I coveted his aesthetic, the guy was ‘it’ for a frenzied generation weaning itself off disco and punk. In the 90s, I chafed at the glut excess of a static attitude gone, I thought, nowhere - a brand for laggard Eurotrash wannabes. Nowadays, I have utmost respect for the man. He has endured, and in retrospect, may actually transcend generational shifts with his personal zeitgeist.

Excerpts from a recent Metropolitan Home interview:

• On Inspiration: “It comes at you when least expected; I can be inspired by almost anything: a book ,a film, or something as simple as the smile of a child walking down the street.”
• On Taste: “The most important thing with taste is to reflect your own character; real good taste is not about an abstract ideal.”
• Fashion vs. Style: “Fashion is often about trends, whereas style is about more eternal qualities.”
• On Design: “The essence of good design lies in the consistency of the approach. Good design should aim to produce things that are both beautiful and functional. If it’s a chair, it should be well made and a pleasure to sit in; if it’s a leather bag, it should hold its contents and be comfortable to carry.”
• On the significance of “Home”: “A feeling of warmth and tranquility; a place of physical and mental refuge.”

The guy just spent millions and millions of dollars to open a store in NYC, which surely didn’t need another high-end store but definitely can benefit from a ‘shot in the arm’ anchor; demonstrating someone is willing to make a significant investment in Gotham during these troubled times with everyone reflexively pulling back, ’rewinding’, seeking a bailout,, or simply walking away from commitment . Given his age of 74 years, he will never see a dime in return. Rather, I think he did it because, aesthetically, it made intuitive sense. This guy is not going golfing…

Intriguing that the program’s curators are considering “new” as a brand element, in addition to exploring the idea of “brand new.” More info from the link below.

“In the arts, the concept ‘new’ is an ideal as well as a curse. The avant-garde has been declared dead and ‘the cult of the new’ is past its peak. The pursuit of absolute originality and total innovation has given way to concepts such as remix and postproduction, eclecticism and syncretism. Is ‘new’ still permitted, how new is neo, how innovative is retro? By looking at the term ‘new’ in light of ‘old’ subjects such as virtuosity, beauty, knowledge and idealism, the lecture series THE OLD BRAND NEW proposes to free ‘new’ of its ‘stale’ image and present it in its full complexity.”