Des Temps

The only blog you’ll ever need.

  • Chivalry + Brands

    Alphonse Mucha's Heraldic Chivalry

    Last night I drank at the Four Seasons with some friends. Standing outside afterwards, the doorman and I exchanged that simple nod of “cab?/yes please”. And so then as my friend Liz turned toward the street to find a cab, one ‘magically’ arrived for her, and into the night she went.

    Standing there on 57th street, into my mind’s eye blipped Grant McCrackin’s PSFK slide about “Just In Time” design.
    One Slide from Grant's show

    The beauty of great design is that it delivers precisely at the moment you want/need it. Chivalry is also rooted in an apparently seamless execution, one that obviates stutter steps. When a chivalrous person opens a door or tosses a cloak across that mudpuddle, s/he does this not with flair, but with dharmic ease. Peacocking would make the act moot.

    Could a brand build products and identity with the basic concepts of chivalry in mind? I think I see echoes of that in the (sterling) spots and shorts from Liberty Mutual. Going beyond what’s onscreen, I wonder if this insurance company has since become generous by dint of its dharma, a knight in shining armor, arriving just in time.

  • Yup, the 90's are the new 80's.

    save me dear

    I used to raid my mother’s closet for cool clothes.
    But now I just raid my own.

    -Erinn, 26

    Our cultural examination of last decade began in 2004 with the VH1 series I Love the 90’s. It started getting remixed amongst cool kids from NYC to Kansas in 2006. Grunge, Hypercolor and Hammer Pants were a clear influence at fashion shows throughout 2007. Musically, 90’s synth is coming back via DFA, DJs are spinning New Jack Swing and the fuzztortion rock of that time is coming back via Matador darling Jay Reatard. Hell, I even made tidy sum by flipping a rack of early 90’s track suits to a vintage boutique.

    oMLCrzy9TEs
    (is an ad campaign gonna grab this Running Man’s coattails?)

    —-
    superkewl!

    But.uh.but, so what? I might just be trainspotting. Nostalgia is normal like death + taxes, and with our increasing speed, the lag time between events and their canonization is ever decreasing.

    There is some thought in design circles that along with the angles and edges of 90’s design, we’re moving into new aesthetic ground, that magazines like Super Super or Men’s Vogue signify a ‘new ugly’ backlash to the cleanliness of Apple/Ikea/Google. But witness Tiger Beat’s font orgy from 1972. Or just think back to any collages made in your teen years. Or DaDa. Messy is always the hip response to clean.

    1972, same year Atari was formed.

    Graphic design is now a global conversation like never before thanks to our pal the internet. From Mumbai to Minneapolis, people are sharing in the experience of using the same aesthetics and architecture of MySpace, Apple, WordPress, etc… I wonder will this spreading + sharing foster a greater diversity of styles that get accepted as having value, both artistically and professionally? Or as we all begin to talk amongst ourselves, will it flatten out regional aesthetics like regional accents? If so, are we arching toward a common ground of efficient design, maybe even something naturally intrinsic? Toward beauty or toward Babel?
    kollagingb4u were born. or Prince was writing songtitles. or hipsters were drppng vwls

  • All You See Is Crime in the City

    Evan of G.R.L. holding one of tags from the lab's collection.

    Sip, sip.

    At its root, hip-hop has always mixed tech and middle-finger D.I.Y. with open-source. It’s why there are so many different “purple drank” recipes on the web and the raison d’être of the Urban Dictionary. Enter the Graffiti Research Lab — one of the more novel embodiments of all three of these things, but with the backing of the art establishment.

    You might have missed the last time when G.R.L. got the MoMa invite, or thought that since the words “F— You Snobs,” appeared in their presentation sometime after a phallus that they’d fail to get another. But the fusion of tech, open-source, and street art is just too compelling a concoction to turn down and thus the G.R.L.’s DVD will make its New York premier at MoMa in two weeks. There is, to be sure, an alluring tight rope that separates the worlds of the graf (anti) establishment and the places where the film has shown — places like Sundance. Many of the graf writers in attendance in the video below obscure their faces even as the bubbly swirls around them — probably as much for affect as for security, but the point is inescapable.


    G.R.L. @ M.o.M.A. from fi5e on Vimeo.

    In speaking with Evan, one of the founders, nearly two years ago, he mentioned that one of the difficult parts in getting started was in convincing many of the graf writers that he wasn’t out to arrest them. But in graffiti as in hip-hop, being more visible or “up” trumps being obscure (I’m sure Shepard Fairey and Marc Ecko would agree). It follows, then, that the party video is set to Jay-Z and not the Artifacts. Let’s just hope they swerve the right drinks at the after-party.

    Ah, what the hell. Artifacts from back in the day:

    xmR2lBmhQfQ

    True to their D.I.Y. roots, the G.R.L. has made a torrent of their dvd available here.
    ——
    UPDATES
    4/21/08: NYPost says that NYC graf is on the rise.

  • Honey Smacks & Hawaiian Punch

    last-supper1.jpg
    This Thursday morn the snarkosphere is flitting about the new Kellogg’s Street Wear line. While the campaign is corporate corny and the models chagrined, it’s not wholly off base. Streetwear has long history of rocking cartoon characters that Ad Age, Gawker & I wouldn’t touch with a ten-foot pole. But what’s truly of note is that this might be the first time that cartoon characters flipped streetstyle are not a bootleg, but coming from the F500 HQ.

    Time will tell if the products sell. While waiting, click below to see how the streets are riding Pepsi.

    gu3adzXwgcgAnd what I love is that it seems the men with cars took their cues from the kids with bikeshQGLNPJ9VCE
    ——
    car vid via Frank 151

  • Bug Hunt

    Game On

    I’m not a fan of video art, but not sure why. Sometimes I think when the execution is abstract, it lacks purpose and gets buoyed by explication. Or when it’s referential, it smacks of clever (and nowadays is far better executed online than in the gallery). Maybe I’m just behind the times.

    But last week whilst wandering through the Hunter MFA Open Studios, I got mesmerized by Robert Debbane’s 90 second Bug Hunt. It’s a great tapestry of abstract + referential and has since made me start questioning my previous stance.

    LKSUWyBsxOg
    (your browser is fine, there’s no sound at the jump)

  • Hello, Spring

    Zhara's Rainbow

    My Hawaiian surfergirl Zhara just sent this picture and a note that “the horse, rainbow and colors are all real. life is fucking great.” So for those who are reading this today in NYC, where spring is winking, I beseech you to finish them taxes, go outside & engage First Life to the fullest.

  • Too Well Connected

    What up son? I'm good. How you?

    Is there a chance that our rapid rate of discovery on the web is simply too fast to be useful? The so-called web 2.0 has created many bursts of useful or at least nominally cool applications that we in turn ogle and rush to begin using. Muxtape being the flickr of the month this time around. And a damn good one at that. But is the rapid adaption of new processes something that inherently improves our quality of life or ability to navigate our virtual lives? Or is it chatter — a sustaining churn of new that fails to deliver on the Jetsons premise we all eagerly await?

    In the world of agencies and brands, Second Life stands as a recent cautionary tale in the cultish urge to embrace what is new online. The blogosphere, on the other hand, serves as a compelling, and profitable for some, reminder that people are in search of the adequate medium to interact and express themselves. As ever there seems to be a vital disconnect between the apps that can actually make life easier or more fun, and the ones being made that (whether through clunky design, poor concept, or muddled purpose) needlessly clutter our online lives with more links to click. Are we hamstrung?

    Tied up by links.

    Often when returning from vacation or otherwise less-wired times I find that the number of blogs I actually want to read, or the applications that I actually wish to use is diminished by a fraction of half or more. The process is both liberating and confusing — all of it being stuff that I’ve chosen to make life richer. But when Gizmodo trots out new phones with the same wary voice it uses to play up the latest batch of iPhone parodies, shouldn’t it as easily remind us that a snazzy phone is among the last things that will transform our ability to process the information machine that swirls around us? What is missing is the step that perfects the process of using each added contraption or assesses its value beyond cool.

    Without this vital step, we have techniques to navigate data, but no way forward, toys and exercise without endgame.