Shai Avidan goes to Adobe

Shai Avidan, formerly of MERL (Mitsubishi Electric Research Lab), lead developer of their dimensionality reduction technology, has just been hired this week by Adobe.

Expect great things.

Rather than trying to explain the technology, I recommend that you take the time to watch the video above, you will not regret it.

FotoWoosh your family album

While researching another story, I came across an item worthy of it’s own quick post. FotoWoosh is in an application that transforms your 2D photographs into relatively believable 3D models. It cannot let you see around corners, it can only work from the information that is actually there but, at least with their sample images, is able to do quite a lot with the 2D data that is seen. The software is in Alpha release, and you can sign up to be notified of the Beta release. It basically constructs a 3D model with a texture map, but the modeling/mapping is automated— the software apparently makes some intuitive calculations about the geometry of the environment in the photo, and then maps the image information onto it, so you can make slight perspective tilts on X, Y, and Z axis, within limited constraints, and zoom in, dependent upon the resolution of your starting image. It will be fascinated to see how well this does in real-world application. Kind of a one-trick-ponny gimmick, but a fun one.

Multi Touch Interface release

Enjoy this video of the newly released multi-touch interface by Perceptive Pixel. So Windows Vista isn’t the most significant new operating system release in the past month, after all.

Having experimented some with these next-generation touch screen interfaces, I’d like to point out that using them on a vertical wall mount is not generally very practical. Your arms will quickly become exhausted. An angled table-top implimentation is usually preferred. That said, this was likely done for the purposes of audience presentation. The one shown on the Perceptive Pixel homepage is indeed an inclined table-top version.

I found the above video on the Future Feeder website.

Constructivist Design Books

Oh serendipity. I was looking through a box of leave-behinds and takeaways— the miscellaneous detritus of functions invited or attended, looking for the handbill from a 1990s Miami Beach arcade. I never found it. But I did come across a more recent stack of exhibition pamphlets, including the one shown above from the 2002 MoMA exhibit of Constructivist book cover designs: The Russian Avant-Garde Book | 1910-1934.

In my usual stream of conscious, it made me think of a book that I’ve been watching for some time on eBay- debating a purchase. There is a bookseller in Moscow named yellowcaptain. He has many fabulous books on Soviet era art and design. I don’t know his relationship with the publisher, but he sells the same list of titles over and over. This one is on book cover design:

Borr: Book Cover Design of Bor-Ramensky

Excerpt from the description: The book tells the story of quite forgotten extraordinary self-taught designer, Konstantin Georgievich Bor-Ramemsky. His truncated signature, Borr (or BorR), has gone down as a kind of pseudonym. He was born at the turn of the century and died in action in 1943. He worked as graphic designer, stage designer, interior designer and worker’s club decorator in Siberia, Georgia and Moscow. In the Western and Russian literature, only one of his works is referred to, but attributed incorrectly.

After finding the pamphlet (up top) from the 2002 Constructivist book cover exhibit at MoMA, I looked into whether an exhibition catalog had been published, and if so, was it still in print. It was, and it is:

The Russian Avant-Garde Book 1910-1934

Excerpt from the description: This richly illustrated catalogue accompanied the 2002 exhibition at The Museum of Modern Art of a major collection of Russian avant-garde books. Often hand-made and hand-printed in limited editions, these books were, in many instances, the result of collaborations between poets and painters. Among the well-known artists represented are Natalia Goncharova, El Lissitzky, and Aleksandr Rodchenko.

The book cover designs concentrate more so on the typography. This is what interests me. I have one book on this era in my home library, but it is focused on advertising posters, not book covers:

Soviet Commercial Design of the Twenties

Excerpt from the description: A richly illustrated account of one of the most original, influential and exciting aspects of post-Revolutionary art: commercial graphic design, during the short-lived period of Lenin’s New Economic Policy.

Helvetica, the Movie

According to the website:

Helvetica is a feature-length independent film about typography, graphic design and global visual culture. It looks at the proliferation of one typeface (which is celebrating its 50th birthday this year) as part of a larger conversation about the way type affects our lives. Helvetica will begin screening at film festivals worldwide starting in March, followed by cinema screenings across the US and Europe, and the DVD release.

Screening dates will be announced on the official Helvetica Film website, on February 6th.

NOTE: Many thanks to Allan L. for turning me on to this documentary.

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Other type in film

YouTube has spawned interest in a design world sub-genre of independant short films on typography, such as Typography School, on the disappearing art of handset type vs. computer aided design, the Behind the Typeface series pieces, Behind the Typeface: Cooper Black and Behind The Typeface: Rosewood. There is also the animated piece, New Typography is the Future, based on the 1928 work of Jan Tschichold.

Bang & Olufsen 6500

Vintage late 80s, in ULTRA RARE WHITE finish

HOT FIND: Ebay Item# 300064887504

I stumbled across this ultra-rare Bang & Olufsen 6500 in WHITE.

Although it was produced from 1989 to 1991, it is surprisingly contemporary. Apple’s iMac/iPods have made white the big design craze in consumer electronics and gadgets. Especially if you have already set up an iMac as the heart of you entertainment center.

EDIT: Item was won by mawidad for $890.