The Theory of Nevolution

Old School

Remember when you were a kid, and you always wanted to get letters in the mail like your parents did, because it seemed fun and exciting? Then your parents would grumble that it's all bills, and you don't want to get mail everyday. Souring the hope and dreams of getting stuff in the mail. Then you'd grow up a bit, entering the crappy world of getting bills in the mail. I still secretly pine for getting stuff in the mail. Thursday reaffirmed that secret pining. I got accepted into the Old School exhibition Uppercase Gallery is putting on in September and with that came an inspiration pack, full of kewl little goodies to inspire me for the exhibition.

The "Old School" theme will celebrate the aesthetics of twentieth century education through an art exhibition and companion book, as well as curated objects. It is inspired by vintage flash cards, old desks, biology class, science fairs, crayons, card catalogs, textbooks, class photos, teachers, yearbooks, lunchboxes, gym class, maps, lockers, report cards, film strips, recess, spelling, chalk... and the list goes on!

In addition to drawing, painting and collage, we will be exploring old school technology such as typewriters, mimeographs, photocopying, film projections and polaroid, toy camera, and Holga photography.

The exhibition will be documented in a commemorative book, available in September.

It's worth checking out their blog as well, chock full of designer curiousities, and a gift shop on par with Etsy. They had a group show about William Shatner awhile back (quite simply the most awesomest idea for an exhibition ever), the blog of the show was called (wait for it) Captains Blog. Genius. Be sure to check out their flickr collection as well, I've spent a long time looking at their typewriter and ribbon collections.

Sky Girls

Wired has a nice little gallery of Air Hostesses of Yesteryear if one was so inclined to check it out. If their uniforms are more your thing, check out the Stewardess Uniform Collection.

Abandoned Ruins

Dad sent me a link to these ruins this morning. Forgotten I'd seen them before and dare I say are far sexier than the unfinished ruins in Sinai.

They're in Taiwanese city of San Zhi, and were commissioned by the government to create posh hotels. There were a few accidents during the building of them, and after the locals learned this, didn't want to visit their for fear of it being haunted. So now it just sits there decaying. Beautifully.

These four photos come from ElectroPlankton who has a bit more information about them. Meanwhile, for some Holga close ups, check out Formicas flickr set.

It'd make for an interesting travel itinerary; traveling the world going to all of these ruins, maybe squat in there for a night as well. Be much more interesting going to modern ruins than typical historically important ruins.

Unfinished Ruins

Over at the Vienna Architekturzentrum there's a great photographic exhibition about failed hotels along the Sinai Peninsula, titled Sinai Hotels. The press release reads:

The concrete skeletons of five-star hotel complexes tower up like a mirage before a backdrop of azure skies, photographed in their abandoned state by the artist duo Haubitz+Zoche between 2002 and 2005 in the desert on the Egyptian Sinai Peninsular.

Their envisaged splendour is witnessed alone by their alluring names: Sultan’s Palace, Sindbad, Sunestra or the Magic Life Imperial — names that promise a combination of blissful holidays and Oriental flair.

I've been along there, and had the chance to witness some of these hotels; they're truly bizarre architectural forms, finished or not. As terrorism, bad investments, dwindling tourism and various other problems caused them (and the Sinai tourism sector) to slow down, these buildings just stand there, eerily waiting for the next stage of development. As I was on the bus coming in, the whole peninsula is dotted with these weird hotels. The whole coastline was bought up in a short amount of time, thus most of the buildings were built around the same time giving them all a similar flavour, but huge variations on the theme.

Not all are concrete wonderlands though. The best part is staying in the reed huts and chilling on the beach. Unfortunately, they too sit empty most of the time, great if you want some quiet and privacy, bad if you're a bedouin who relies on tourism for your income. I had a chance to walk up and down where the huts are, and frantically took as many photo's as I could as my camera ran out of batteries. They're all up on my flickr, but I might devote a post to it, come a short news day.

From what I can tell, I've walked around this one, and took a few photos and video while I was there, scared shitless that Egyptian cops were coming to take me away for trespassing. The silence, both auditory and visually, didn't help things either. The above two photos are from the exhibition, while the other three are mine.

I've put my excursion up on flickr for anyone who wants a closer look. And I found a reason to put some video on flickr as well. If you want to see some really bad quality video of the above, just press play.

Colophon: Found this exhibition through BLDG BLOG, articulate as ever. The Vienna Architekturzentrum also have an exhibition titled 'The White City of Tel Aviv'. Tel Aviv having the highest density of Bauhaus designed and inspired buildings in the world, which I also have some photos of while I was there

Vintage Australiana Week – Day Three

Nothing vintage here, hopefully not just yet anyway. After walking around my area and spotting a few milk bars after the challenge that these were worthy of their own post. I've already talked about what makes milk bars so special, as has Gemma Jones; after looking at them again with new eyes I've realised how crappy and devoid of aesthetic charm they really are.

The lolly counter will always have a special place in my memory; but they're bland ugly buildings, plastered with whatever brand they sell. Vinyl lettering having come from a signwriting business, Herald Scum on top of each one of them and all the brandmarks have been redone to suit 'modern' times (Compare the Street logo in the first picture to the one below). No logo is safe from being rebranded to suit modern times, and it seems that milk bars aren't exempt from this. The general architectural form has remained the same: glass frontage with brands and a verandah.

I think the problem here (despite my tired state and almost unintelligible syntax and lack of any coherence in what was going to be a fairly pointed post) is that there's no vintage in them anymore. There's nothing charming about them, at least not the way I remember it. They are just vessels for what they sell – milk, bread, soft drink and cigarettes – it's been awhile since I saw one with lollies in them. Maybe I'm just not looking for them anymore.

Crosswalk at Osaka Station

Anyone who doesn't love emergent social theory as much as I do might not get how gosh darn sexy this is.

Flickr video, despite all the protests, is working out pretty good. The crispest online video system I've seen. Sadly, I have nothing to video yet, this lovely scene comes from jtab99.

Alsatian Paints

Saved this one for a post all to itself. Never heard of them myself, way before my time; but Laurie from the museum remembers them clearly. It's such a great honest drawing of a dog.

A few magazine adds as well. I've tried finding any reference to it in any of my Good Housekeeping magazines, but haven't found anything.

Laurie told me that he remembers seeing this on the tins of tester paint. You'd mix up whatever colours you wanted and they'd write the name or colour ration below the bridge.

Australiana Vintage Week continued

Forgot that I made some copies of most of the advertising stereotypes that I archived (printed) at the printing museum. I naturally gravitated to any thing that displayed a sense of local history; and tacky Australiana.

One of the charms of the somewhat disorganised collection is the history contained within the plates. Having been collected from printing shops all around Victoria, it gives insights into the small and medium businesses that needed things printed. From wafer shops that have since closed shop to bug killer that I'd never heard of, but the older guys there remember with fondness.

I spent a good month going through everything I could get my hand on and print out. It was such a joy to slowly learn how to set everything up in the galley, lock it all in, then make sure they were all type-high. Watching them come out was magical. You can get a vague idea of what they're going to look like, but you never know until you see it on paper the right side around.

And then there's this tacky little gem.

Australiana Vintage Week

Meet me at Mikes have started a week of vintage australiana hosted by painter girl Gemma Jones. I'm a bit late with it, they may or may not have finished up with it, but after the milk bar challenge from a few weeks ago, I figure I can squeeze out some more australiana from my collection. Turns out I can't really, well, not now at least. Have to wait until tomorrow morning for some good light to snap up what I have. But for now, here's two shots from Chapel Street Bazaar.

Turns out they even shot the same tarax site (top left) that I included in my original milk bar challenge! My favourite by far has to be the ode to Hills Hoist. Great shot of it as well.

Nescafe does it again

God I just love this kind of shit.

Stepping off the train today in typical shitty melbourne rain wanting a coffee and this orange monstrosity comes into my field of vision. You can just tell that someone was really proud of what they'd done.

Synergising the brand elements into a cohesive whole! Aligning the brand values with the flavour of the 'freshly roasted' coffee that allows the product line to grow! Allowing a space for the consumer to relax while enjoying their great new product range! Creating a space within a space while allowing the structure to create a dialogue with the culture of Melbourne! Creating an interplay between the public, space and the notion of a temporary structure masking itself as a trendy cafe!

Let's not forget to put some Eames chairs in there so they can relax with their coffee while watching the day go by!

Or even better, we can put some modular modernist couches in there so they can relax inside the brand structure! Guys, we're creating an experience here!

I know, to make it even funkier we can create these funny t-shirts that objectify the model SLASH barista while reinforcing brand values!

Yeah! We can put 'Smooth' and 'Dreamy' on the guys pecks and put 'Luscious' on the girls tits! That will create a positive brand memory!

What should we put on the cups? Oh, I know! we'll write "Feed your Cafe Craving" in bold white Avenir on a bright orange background and put these squiggly lines that act as metaphors for each flavour; we'll reinforce this on the menu as well! It's gonna be great! We'll win awards and get put up in all the trade magazines for this humdinger! I can see it now! We'll give the coffee away so that we create repeat customers!

I had Hazelnut.

FT Wimble

FT Wimble was one of Australia's main suppliers and producers of type. He was also an ink merchant, later on becoming a politician. The most interesting and disappointing aspects of his career is the fact that his entire collection of type were rip offs of other faces. While it's rather amusing that he copied faces and named them after Australian places - this face is Perth Engravers Gothic, it's rather sad from a historical perspective that nothing new was created.

Australia could have some semblance of a typographic history, but unfortunately, no culture was created. Instead, punchcutters were employed solely to copy well known faces. I've wailed about this before regarding the Citizenship Test, but felt it important to bring up again as I finally found some historical evidence of FT Wimble at the Printing Museum the other week. So, while it's great that this man fostered a printing culture, and contributed greatly to it, it's a great loss to Australian history that his creativity wasn't further than his ledger books.

Despite all that, it was a great find, especially his trademark. As usual, larger versions are on flickr.

To the Five Boroughs

No, this isn't about the Beastie Boys, but something far cuter. Anyone who has walked down Lygon St in East Brunswick is aware that something is going on there. I'm too young to know what it was like before (despite the obvious small scale industrial warehouses dotting the area), but all the right shops seem to be popping up. Good bars, better cafes and small scale bakeries and delis. Now you can add fine Australian and International design and handmade products tapping into the ever growing new craft movement. I'm talking about Five Buroughs. They have a nice range of stuff, quite cheap, and the coolest coffee ever! It would be really helpful if I had some shots of what they stock, but it's easier if I just point you to their blog.

Instead, I got distracted by this little cabinet that they have there. They bought it for the shop, but it came with all these little goodies inside, so they bought a few more like minded things to put in it. None are for sale, opting more as a conversation piece, but it worked for me.

It's all up on flickr if you want a closer look. If anyone should want to check it out, point your feet to 345 Lygon St East Brunswick.

Highlight of the trip was finally getting some calm at a price I could afford. The tea towels would be wasteful, and I haven't found any posters, so a key ring is just the right reminder I need.

The Duplicator

I also found these as well. There's a great big pallet of duplicator stuff just sitting there. I've opened a few boxes and had a looksee, but none had the same faded Futura charm as these two. I have a vague idea of how the whole duplicating system works; I think this is the same system as carbon paper and if my memory serves me, it has a very specific smell.

Printing Today

I was locked inside at the printing museum yesterday, which would normally be great fun, except I had work I had to do and couldn't get to the Ludlow mats. Anyway, all is not lost, I did find this. Which coincidentally, was the same face that I was after - Karnak, a typical geometric egyptian slab named after a sprawling egyptian temple complex.

Orbit O Clique

Sorry for the simply awful pun, but I just couldn't help myself. Went down to the opening of Orbit Oblique at Craft Victoria tonight. Part type sampler, part exhibition; it's a tongue in cheek ode to the animals that were sent out into space by both sides during the cold war. While the concept interesting and whimsical, and the design good quality (what else to expect from the Letterbox, really) I was a little confused as to the purpose of the whole thing. While Banham always puts on a good show, and the melbourne design and type community owe him a major debt of gratitude, I felt tonight was mildly pointless. I've always been a major fan of the studio, having gone so far as to buy one of their t-shirts (sadly lost) and gladly stuck up their free stickers but tonight it all seemed a bit coddling, back patting and a bit sceney. It just reeked of rampant self promotion, and I wasn't sure wether the emphasis was on the artwork or the fonts. All was not lost though. Free champagne refills always goes down well and I had a chance to meet the illegible Mr Barry Spencer thanks to the imposter. Anyone interested in testing the notion of typographic legibility should check out his blog (just look to your right) or have a look at his typefaces.

If anyone wants to go down and have a look at Orbit Oblique it's at Craft Victoria, 31 Flinders Lane. Despite my bitching it's worth a look.