Hi, I'm Erik Maldre. This is my blog about art, design, technology and various cultural observations. It's a Chicago-style hot dog blog. Over 1800 blog posts have been made since 2004 and new posts are made every single weekday.
Here's a desk made from old books. What makes this desk really work is the color coordination and the build of the corners.
This piece reminds me of the phone book chair I was going to build back in 1998. I had about half of my 95 Honda Civic trunk filled with phone books. Soon thereafter I came across Frank Gehry's cardboard chair and I lost interest in the project and wound up recycling the phone books.
Tip: Don't drop a piece of Trix cereal on your dining room chair. It will bounce off the chair and fly into orbit and land in a place you'd never expect.
Do you like aerial photography? How about cutting edge architecture? And what about Old Europe? Mix the three together and you have an incredible photograph of what Rezno Piano's The Shard will look like in London's ever-developing downtown district.
In the photo at shardlondonbridge.com (much larger than the photo above), you'll see The Tower of London, The Gherkin (aka London Easter Egg), London City Hall (aka the sliced ham... my personal nickname for the building), Tower Bridge and The Shard. Great stuff. I love it all.
That last few months I have been fascinated with small simple concrete buildings. I'm adding Jesus Davila arquitectos' Cereso House to that list. It's a list that exists nebulously in my mind.
Photograph by Ignacio Herrera
1966 Topps Billy Williams #580 is one of the best-looking baseball cards I have ever seen.
It features a quintessential baseball waist-up after-swing pose. The 27-year old Billy Williams is wearing the elegantly classic Cubs Away uniform grays of the 1960s. The simple and iconic vintage Cubs emblem is fully featured on the sleeve. The full blue sleeves help give the color blue a strong presence on the card coupled with the timeless Cubs hat. Those blues nestled with the neutral gray uniform are set nicely against an all-blue sky that fades so gracefully from top to bottom. I argue that the soft white vertical lines in the lower left give a youthful vibrancy; for those shapes are light towers from a spring training facility. The excitement of a new season is symbolized by these subtle forms.
The smile on Sweet Swingin' Billy's face is joyful, yet professional. His skyward glance is optimistic and inspiring.
The 1966 Topps set is well-known for its pleasing design purity. The player name is simply displayed as all caps in a bold sans serif left justified in white against a colorful solid block. The player position balances right justified in a bold all lower case sans serif in black. The team name banner in the upper left receives a similar treatment, yet is angled to give a subtle gracious sense of zing. My only complaint about the design is the use of a condensed font for the player name while the team name is not condensed. I would have preferred both to be condensed. A black outline frames the photo and ties in with the black used for the player position which in turn contrasts well with the heavy white text for the player and team names. Every single element works as a team without being overbearing or trite.
In the case of the 1966 Topps Williams card, the orange serves as a natural visual contrast to the strong blues found in the photo. My favorite part of the card is how the team name banner, Williams' bat and Williams' arms form an incredibly dynamic Z-shape.
It'd be great to own this card some day. A quick look on ebay shows the card goes for $30 and up. My funds are currently better invested elsewhere, but someday I'll get my hands on the 1966 Topps #580 card, one of the greatest baseball cards of all time.
The inspiration for this blog post came today as the Billy Williams statue was unveiled at Wrigley Field.
Today, I saw a girl wearing a yellow t-shirt with "RUN" in black letters. I wondered if she ever walked in her yellow and black run shirt. Or maybe she changes into a "WALK" shirt when she walks. Maybe she's running away from bees or yellow jackets. So many questions.
Around 1986, I owned this very exact same calculator watch. I thought I was the coolest 6th or 7th grader around. It's crazy to see so many of them for sale on ebay. It's almost crazier to see them selling for $18. I want one. I'll pay 6 bucks for one.
Imagine a space that's roughly 1000 square feet. (One mile is 5280 feet). Now put a major tollway on the left and a major tollway on the right and have those tollways intersect at the top. At the bottom put a major road where the speed limit is 55 mph. Next put a few houses in the middle of all that.
That very location exists. Interstate 88 is on the left with Interstate 294 on the right. Roosevelt Road (38) is at the bottom. The streets Harvard, Caldwell, Duncan and Forest make up this roughly three or four block neighborhood in what I'm guessing is part of Elmhurst, Illinois. And it certainly is one of the most unusual places to live in all of the Chicagoland area.
It could also be Hillside, Westchester, Oakbrook Terrace, or Oak Brook.
I was going through my photos in my favorite photo viewing software, Adobe Bridge, when this set of four tire photos caught my eye. I like the way they were arranged in Bridge.
If you head to chipotle.com to find out the nutritional value of their burritos, then you better bring a calculator with you. They list the nutritional value of each ingredient (which is very nice), but they don't list the total nutritional value (which isn't very nice). The good folks at Chipotle should make their nutritional chart interactive and let people check off which items they like on their burrito.
I haven't had a Chipotle burrito in over 2 years now because I heard they have 2000 calories. I feel quite a bit better that my burrito has 1120. I'm not sure if I get the 260 calorie vinaigrette. I don't remember that being a choice. That would drop me below 1000.
Toyota's slogan, "moving forward" has problems. I understand that they're trying to say that they're a forward-thinking company that is an industry leader with its latest and greatest advancements. However, it can also be read that they are dismissive of their recent random accelerator issues in their vehicles. That's bad.
I strangely feel a very strong connection to this living room in a computer. Perhaps it dates back to my years as a tech guy. Or maybe it's my pack rat nature crying out. I do have an Apple G3 tower (circa 1999) that I absolutely refuse to toss because I want to convert it into a storage system of some kind. The hinge opening door is just too cool.
Can you believe it's been over 2 1/2 years since the last Faceoff Friday match? Today Faceoff Friday makes its triumphant return with the battle between two giant architects.
Who would win? Mies van der Rohe or Philip Johnson
Both were arguably among the most powerful men on planet Earth during their tenure. I think Mies would win. He was a lot bigger than Johnson and would crush his fragile bones to a pulp. Can anyone give a good case for Philip Johnson winning?
My favorite is when I gave Patrick from (Spongebob Squarepants) a knife to battle in his faceoff. Classic.
The most popular Friday Faceoff is the Monopoly Piece Faceoff with over 44,000 hits.
Yesterday's blog post mentioned how Futura is a terrible font for fantasy football magazines or any publication where there's a great deal of information to fit into a limited space.
If you're looking for an economic font that allows for maximum utility, functionality and readability, then go with a slightly condensed serif with a semi-tall x-height. Here's a list of good recommendations: Memento Stone Serif Meta Serif (my favorite font for text-intensive copy) Veritas
If you want to go experimental, Unit Slab just might work.
Then you could still use a nice, solid, football-like font for headlines and such. You can't go wrong with Trade Gothic, Helvetica, or especially Gotham. Again, avoid Futura. It has no place in a fantasy football magazine.
Go to any major book store this time of year and you'll find at least 10 fantasy football magazines. How do you pick which one to use? Well, don't go for any that uses Futura for its body copy. Futura is a demanding font. Its geometric tendencies are not intended for magazines where you're trying to cram in as much information as humanly possible.
I'll tell you why designers of fantasy football magazines use Futura. It's a gigantic family with tons of weights which theoretically allows more flexibility in different applications. Theoretically. Just look at any chart in a magazine that features Futura. They always end up using Futura Light Condensed. It looks terrible and is highly challenging to read. It's just plain stupid and offensive.
Please, designers of fantasy football magazines, do not use Futura. Please. Tomorrow's blog post will feature my font recommendations for fantasy football magazine designers.
Christies is selling an AT-AT toy that has simulated graffiti all over it. It's cool, but I have a beef with it. If an AT-AT were to be tagged, there would a ton of spray paint on the feet and less and less paint as you get higher. And there there would be one giant tag on the body because one person figured out how to climb all the way up there.
Take a gander at Las Vegas on Google Maps. I'm not talking about all the fancy casinos. Look at the communities. They're fascinating. You'll see bundles of cookie-cutter homes forming a giant mosaic that is Las Vegas.
I am seriously behind on my "blog post every weekday" mantra; a little over a week's worth behind. To make up for this deficit I was going to google search for completely made up words and post the results.
Through September 7, Ebay is offering FREE Insertion Fees for up to 100 Auction-style listings. That's a very good deal.
I have expressed great disgust with ebay in the past (examples here and here and here). However, getting to post just about anything you want for free is really nice.
The graphic above came in the email I received from ebay.
Here's an interesting church design: Kuokkala Church
Location: Jyväskyla, Finland
Architects: Lassila Hirvilammi Architects
I'm not crazy about the wall piece behind the altar though.
