Art of the Modern Movie Poster 3 - Saul Bass

I came to know this famous American graphic designer through my favorite movie Vertigo. The the eye of a vortex perfectly catches the essence of the film. This books presents more of his wonderful designs. I'm really impressed with his extraordinary visual thinking and sense of humor. He definitely created a whole new language for movie poster which has a strong influence on today's design such as the Burn After Reading poster.

Saul Bass is also well known for making the title sequences for many great films including works by Hitchcock, Stanley Kubrick and Martin Scorsese.

Art of the Modern Movie Poster 2 - Hans Hillmann

One of my favorite European designer in the book is Hans Hillman from Garmany. His version of Bresson's masterpiece Pickpocket is the best I've seen. His works presents different styles based on the theme of each film, for instance, the enigmatic image for Buñuel's surrealism and the comic abstraction for Lubitsch's satire To Be or Not To Be. His recent work has focused on book illustrations.

Cake of the Day!

Rexie's favorite all-natural ice cream cake reached its largest size today!!

Meredith Monk

I'm listening to the CD Volcano Songs these days and was intrigued by the minimalist and haunting quality of the music. Then I found out more about the musician Meredith Monk: a composer, performer, director, vocalist, film-maker, and choreographer. I always admire people who have multi-talents and blur the boundaries between different art forms. In her own words: I work in between the cracks, where the voice starts dancing, where the body starts singing, where theater becomes cinema. Many of her vocal works are very innovative: pure voices rather than lyrics or instrument construct a complex and emotional music peice.

I'd like to check out more of her works including the two films made by her: Ellis Island and Book of Days. There's a documentary about her on YouTube - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f_Xj3ID-ybw
I also found an interview with her on NPR last year - Meredith Monk: Of Posterity and 'Impermanence'

Art of the Modern Movie Poster 1 - Roman Cieslewicz

The book Art of the Modern Movie Poster is a remarkable collection of post-WWII movie posters from all of the world. It introduces to me many great poster designers esp. those from Eastern Europe. Since most posters were designed for art films, I also found many interesting movies to check out.

The book starts with Polish movie posters, also in my opinion the most riveting part. The Polish style was so avant-garde at that time, reminiscent of Russian Constructivism. My favorite designer is Roman Cieslewicz (1930-1996). Born in Lvov, Poland, he spent most his life in France where he worked as art director of Vogue, Elle and Mafia. Rather than using movie scenes or star portraits, he developed a unique movie poster language which is abstract, metaphorical and emotional.

No More Plastic Water Bottles on Penn State Campus?

I learned about this encouraging news today. I would have joined the protest if I were still in school! -

Members of the newly formed Penn State Environment, Ecology and Education in the College of Education (3E-COE) group and other environmental activists gathered to protest the sale and use of plastic water bottles at Penn State. The activists also delivered a letter to Penn State President Graham Spanier's office asking him to ban the sale of disposable water bottles on campus.

"Eliminating water bottles on campus isn't without precedent," said Alexandra D'Urso, co-founding member of 3E-COE, citing Washington University in St. Louis as a university that prohibits the sale of plastic water bottles on campus. "We're not asking people to make huge cultural changes."

The letter to Spanier spelled out the environmental and health concerns 3E-COE says are associated with the use of plastic water bottles and gave examples of their negative effects, particularly the amount of discarded plastic polluting the oceans.
(full report)

Instead of creating mountains of landfill out of plastic bottles, why can't we carry water in an eco-friendly and artful bottle such as SIGG's product? A simple change in our daily habits can make a huge difference on our planet!

Fish in Forest

Is it a dream that fish can swim in the forest? No, it does exist in reality! During the rainy season in the Amazon, the water level of the rivers can rise 10m or more. Thus the rainforest is transformed into part of the river where fish and dolphins swim through the tree trunks. The flooded forest becomes fish's paradise, for they have more places to hide from predators. The trees can also stand in the water for 6 months or more. I learned all this from BBC's Wild South America, another amazing natural world series.

I'm so fascinated with this magic transformation of space in nature. I can't help thinking that even the natural world possesses such flexibility and possibility, what about architecture? Shouldn't there be more wonders to be created?