Events

Julius Shulman, photograph of Case Study House #21 (Pierre Koenig, architect)

Birth of the Cool: California Art, Design, and Culture at Midcentury—opening May 17 at the Oakland Museum of California—looks at the painting, architecture, furniture design, decorative and graphic arts, film, and music that launched mid-century modernism in the United States, and established Los Angeles as a major American cultural center. The exhibition continues through August 17, 2008.

Birth of the Cool is accompanied by a 300-page illustrated book (published with Prestel Publishers, 2007), which provides a thorough reassessment of the era.

Design Studio/ gallery Wonderful Union have an upcoming exhibition of work from brothers Don and Ryan Clark (better known as Invisible Creature).

The Exhibition is entitled Haven: An Exploration of Domestic Life and opens on Saturday, April 12th, 2008. The art work highlights the tension between modernism’s smiley-faced rejection of things past and their own coming of age domesticity from an autodidactic, punk ethos point of view.

Details:
Saturday, April 12th, 2008, 6-10 PM
The Wonderful Union Gallery
2221 NW 56th St. Suite 201, Seattle WA 98107

For more details check out the Wonderful Union gallery.

Be sure to check our interview with Invisible Creature.

Check out this Easter egg coloring contest from Hatch design. Lots of great submissions. I think my favorite so far is the Sir Eyes Egg Newton entry. Funny stuff. Keep your eyes open for our entry which will be posting tomorrow.

For those of you in the bay area, be sure to check out The Small Stakes: a year in posters going on tonight at the The Curiosity Shoppe. Jason Munn will be there in person, so stop by and say hello!

Heres the details:
The Small Stakes: A Year in Posters
Opening Reception - Friday, December 7th, 6-9pm.
At The Curiosity Shoppe, 855 Valencia Street in San Francisco

(via Smarts and Crafts)

Now in its 4th year, Personal Views is a unique series of conferences that brings together an unparalleled group of designers, writers and educators from the world of graphic design. Coordinated by Andrew Howard, and taking place at the Escola Superior de Artes e Design in Matosinhos, Portugal, the series aims to examine contemporary definitions of graphic design by asking these professionals to talk about the values and objectives that have value for them. It is an attempt to explore where the boundaries of contemporary practice lie, to discuss what we might expect of ourselves, and to examine what social and cultural objectives we seek to fulfill.

Available online are lectures by Experimental Jetset, Ellen Lupton, Erik Spiekermann, Wim Crouwel, Steven Heller and Neville Brody among others.

This is the last of the four part lecture series featuring Alan Dye, Creative Director with Apple’s graphic design team. Alan’s work has been recognized by a number of design shows and publications, he recently spoke at the AIGA’s “Fresh Dialogue” event, and was also selected by Print Magazine as one of their New Visual Artists in the annual 20 under 30 issue in 2003. Event will be held at Adobe Systems Incorporated, 601 Townsend Street San Francisco.

Thursday, Nov. 8th from 6-9pm, AIGA Members: $15, Non-Members:$20

For more information please visit the official Design Matters Live website.

Cosponsored by Chronicle Books, the San Francisco Center for the Book, and the San Francisco chapter of the American Institute for Graphic Arts, this year’s annual 50 Books/50 Covers show, which has been held at the SFCB for the past several years, moves over to the new Chronicle Books headquarters at 680 Second Street. The above sample gives you a glimpse of the talent you will be reviewing. ‘Arboretum’ cover designed by McSweeney’s Publishing.

Opening reception: 680 Second Street, San Francisco
Friday, Oct 26 from 6-8pm and is free to the public.

Please visit the ‘San Francisco AIGA’ website for more details.

The “NEXT” Aiga design conference kicks off Oct 11th and runs through the 14th. Pretty solid line up of speakers including, Michael Bierut, Steven Heller, Tobias Frere-Jones, Ed Fella, Ellen Lupton,Scott Stowell and a ton of other design heavyweights. The conference will be addressing the relevance of design in a changing world as well the role of the designer within it. Read more…