Thursday, October 9th, 2008
The Telegraph interviews set designer extraordinaire Ken Adam who designed the ‘War Room’ for Kubrick’s ‘Dr Strangelove’ as well as some of the most iconic sets for the James Bond films including ‘Dr No’ and ‘You Only Live Twice’. The article includes video of Adam talking to Christopher Frayling about his work and includes some great Kubrick stories. He was offered ‘2001: A Space Odyssey’ but turned it down because Kubrick had already been working on it for a year with experts from NASA, this however left him free to concentrate on the Bond films. Other highlights include his work on designing the car for ‘Chitty Chitty Bang Bang’ and an Oscar for Best Art Direction on ‘Barry Lyndon’.
There’s a book out ‘Ken Adam Designs the Movies: James Bond and Beyond’ and Adam will also be giving a talk at the V&A on Friday 7th October as part of the Cold War Modern Show.
Tags: 2001, Kubrick
Posted in Design, Film, Kubrick | No Comments »
Monday, October 6th, 2008
Knowledge of all fonts - BBC News ‘In Pictures’ article on typefaces used in movie posters. It includes a comment on the use of Futura for Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey.
“Futura was the official font of the Apollo moon landing program,” he explains.
“Because it’s based on geometric features - the square, the circle and the triangle - it’s got an inherent simplicity and timelessness.”
Sebastian Lester
Possibly correct but it also happened to be Kubrick’s favourite typeface as mentioned by Tony Frewin in Jon Ronson’s Citizen Kubrick interview. Anyway nice to see an article on type linked to from the news front page.
Tags: 2001, Futura, Kubrick
Posted in Design, Kubrick, Typography | No Comments »
Thursday, October 2nd, 2008
- LittleBits - Open source electronic components for easy electronic prototyping. A bit like the Philips Radionic Kit I had when I was a kid but better!
- Pump-Hub - Semi-automatic bicycle tire pump that fits into a hub. Great idea!
- Enter the world of Eichler Design. Great resource on the Eichler range of modernist homes built during the period of 1949 to 1966.
Tags: Bikes, Electronics, Modernism, Prototypes
Posted in Architecture, Connected, Design | No Comments »
Wednesday, August 6th, 2008
- There’s a great article over on the Creative Review blog about the reprinting of Wim Crouwel’s ‘Vormgevers’ poster and the process behind reproducing the artwork so that it matches the original ‘non-computer’ created design and all its imperfections. The reprinted poster is available from Blanka and looks fantastic.
- Lego Wall-E as created by pixar animator Angus MacLane. Think Lego missed a trick here.
- SoundCloud - Online audio platform designed for music professionals that’s come up with some clever ways of sending and receiving music.
Tags: Lego, Wim Crouwel
Posted in Connected, Design, Music | No Comments »
