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“X” Marks The Spot! #7
By Le Vin Chin, with additional material by Ania Dardas
¡Hola! For Spanish speakers, there are three days packed with lectures and presentations from big names such as Xerox, Adobe, Hewlett Packard, Canon and Microsoft coming up at the Designfest ’07 from October 17 to 19 in Guadalajara, Mexico. As well as a strong emphasis on technology and software and how it can help designers, each morning is devoted to a series of presentations on various aspects of design. These range from design in jewellery, comics, cooking and furniture to branding, animation and trends in contemporary design. The conference is supported by an exhibition of the latest tools and products for designers.
Two interesting websites to highlight this month. Firstly, the official website of AIGA (the American Institute of Graphic Arts) is a treasure trove of design resources. From in-depth articles about design (check out the article on the use of the red cross in design, for one good example), design image archives, videos, awards, guides … this is an excellent and comprehensive site.
While researching last month’s column – which featured the Helvetica and Clearview fonts - I came across Typophile, a well designed platform for aficionados of all things font-related. Typophile’s forum members are a learned yet humorous bunch and the site also hosts a collaborative “Typowiki” font encyclopaedia.
"X" marks the spot in ...
... the Alsace.
The design of banknotes is necessarily a complex and esoteric discipline, involving the use of multifarious security technologies – watermarks, printing, security threads – individually and in combination. New materials and techniques must also continuously be researched to ensure you’re always one step ahead of potential counterfeiters. Following on from redesigns of other bills, the U.S. Bureau of Engraving and Printing, who is responsible for the production of U.S. banknotes, has recently unveiled the design of the new five dollar bill, to be released early 2008. A new one hundred dollar bill is also targeted to be launched a year later, with even more high-tech security elements such as hundreds of thousands of micro-printed lenses ..!
We’ve featured the work of designer Janne Kyttänen on XYMARA.com before and we’re pleased that the Design Forum Finland has recognized his work as well, by selecting him as their Young Designer of the Year 2007. Kyttänen’s Freedom of Creation studio is now well-known for its use of rapid prototyping technologies to create complex but elegantly beautiful designs. The judges judged him in “the best traditions of Finnish design – clarity and pure lines without ignoring a light, playful touch.”
Lastly: advertising. Like it or loathe it, it permeates our everyday lives. And now … even more so! Check out this piece on ad placement, and then this …