Wednesday, April 1, 2009

Peter Grundy


I was perusing Non-Format and finally found the artist who designs the fun infographics in Wired Magazine - Peter Grundy

Peter Grundy is currently the owner of a firm called Grundini, which focuses on the creation of information design that is tasteful, creative and visually pleasing.  All of his characters and graphics are very simple, thereby allowing readers to gather information quickly and effectively while making information easy to understand. Infographics have the tendency to be either too extensive, with way too much information, or just plain old boring. But how can sex be boring when characters are dressed with plump round breasts and jovial smiles.  

or when everything you ever wanted to know is on one page?


via
non-format, Grundini and Debutart

more etsy love




Passover

If this is a Passover dessert, I think I will be ok!


Passover begins on Wednesday evening, and like last year, I have taken it upon myself to have a goy seder - that is, of the 25 people invited, 4 are Jewish! But, I have to say, having non-Jews honoring and enjoying a good ol' Jewish holiday is almost better than the tradition seder in my opinion, and it gives me the option of having a less traditional dinner menu.

For instance, why eat gefilte fish when you can make these?


I'm so excited

via epicurious

Monday, March 30, 2009

Sitka/Birobidjan



Stalin's Forgotten Zion

I recently stumbled across an article about a Yiddish resurgence in a city in Siberia called Birobidjan, otherwise known in the 1930s as a city within Stalin's Jewish Autonomous Oblast. Stalin established the region in 1934 to allow the Jews of the USSR to pursue "Yiddish cultural heritage within a socialist framework." The idea was to create a soviet zion, or an alternate Israel, within the Soviet State. But in Siberia? People were banished to Siberia to live in gulags and work in coal mines? Thanks Stalin!

Reading this made me think of Michael Chabon's rewritten history of the Jewish Homeland, which in his novel "The Yiddish Policemen's Union" is situated in Sitka, Alaska.

I thought I would share

Maps and Legends Dust Jacket




Artist Jordan Crane designed this interestingly constructed dust jacket for the McSweeney's edition of Michael Chabon's compilation of stories, "Maps & Legends." I love that McSweeney's has the capacity as a small, but well-established, publisher to spend extra money and care on the design and execution of their novels. The first McSweeney's book I bought, "You Shall Know Our Velocity" was also interestingly printed, with the story actually beginning on the cover and on the inside fly sheet of the book:




The Crane Jacket consists of three belly-bands that whimsically wrap around the book in sections--oceans, jungle and flatlands. Crane is able to add little elements of interest throughout that make you want to peel off the dust jacket and see what is happening underneath. I would like to see the book in person, although I already have a long list of books I am in need of reading.

via design:related

Sunday, March 29, 2009

Almost a Graduate

I think that the panic is starting to set in. What to do next?

Then AIGA gave me some advice here and I felt better