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The Weekend Heller: A Name Is Not A Not A Number

Steven Heller — Sun, 24 May 2020 13:41:25 +0000

He has been “consumed by that for last few days,” Tom Bodkin, chief creative officer of The New York Times, told me in an email early this morning: “It references 19 century newspaper design,” he adds. “I kept picturing the Lincoln Dead page [bottom]. For a moment, considered ‘printing the backs of the column rule slugs,’ the thick rules between columns on that historic paper.”

Can any design be more poignant that this?

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The Next Wave of Desk Design

Print — Fri, 22 May 2020 20:00:20 +0000

When brothers Stefan and Achim Reifer took over their family’s small woodworking business in Northern Italy in 2015, they were not interested in producing nostalgic designs. The output of F.LLI Reifer Custom in the years since has indeed been forward-thinking, and that is perhaps on display more than ever in their latest offering: Mizu.

The collection in three styles comprises a set of large-scale sculptural desks and tables in Canaletto walnut, designed by Eberhard Mitterrutzner. Inspired by the natural curvature of wood shavings, as well as ocean waves (“mizu” is Japanese for “water”), the pieces utilize 10 single layers of wood that are bent at a 30-degree angle, a technique that Mitterrutzner developed with F. LLI Reifer Custom. Each installment—limited to nine—is the result of around 800 hours of handmade production time (entirely in Italy), and weighs in at nearly 1,000 pounds.

And contrary to what you might think, the desks are very much functional—they feature hidden power sockets, USB charging outlets, as well as solid wood drawers and other elements.

Please, though: Use a coaster.

Here’s a look at the series.

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Brand of the Day: Lone Star’s Rio Jade

Print — Fri, 22 May 2020 17:06:50 +0000

Texas’ Lone Star Beer, which dates back to 1884, has released its first seasonal offering ever: Rio Jade.

The classic Mexican-style lager draws inspiration from the state’s diverse lands and waterways, and features sweet notes of flaked maize blended with spicy, floral citrus.

The cans stand apart from Lone Star’s signature look, with turquoise complementing the brand’s uniting gold tones and a new, handlettered aesthetic throughout, including in the Lone Star logo. Artist and Burnt Nopal Creative Director Cruz Ortiz designed the packaging, and you can see elements of his signature style throughout the work. In 2019 Ortiz launched Burnt Nopal with his wife, Olivia Flores Ortiz, in response to companies and nonprofits seeking thoughtful design influenced by contemporary art.

The beer will be available through the end of the summer. To find a can near you, click here.

The post Brand of the Day: Lone Star’s Rio Jade appeared first on Print Magazine.

Posters in the War Against Climate Change

Zachary Petit — Fri, 22 May 2020 13:02:25 +0000

Australia was burning.

From New Zealand, Strategy Creative Design Director Chris Flack watched the decimation wrought by the country’s brush fires.

“Being a designer, I didn’t know what else to do than to grab pen and paper,” he says.

With assistance from his 2-year-old son, Leo, Flack found himself with a poster that morphed the words “CLIMATE CHANGE” into “MATE ACT NOW”—and the seeds of a project were planted.

Mate Act Now has since gone global and has drawn submissions from some 200 designers, 100 of which have found their way to a limited-edition print book, with all proceeds going to Red Cross Disaster Relief Australia.

Though humanity is currently engaged in a battle against the novel coronavirus, Flack is urging the world to not lose sight of what will be an even greater crisis if we do not act now.

“We don’t want to take away from the enormous toll COVID-19 is taking on human health and the global economy, but the greatest long-term threat to everything we hold dear is climate change,” he says. “It’s important we don’t lose perspective of that and continue to do what we all can, with the skills we possess, to tackle the climate crisis with the same willpower and global collaboration being displayed in the fight against COVID-19.”

Flack encourages anyone to download and share the posters for free. Here are 20 we found to be especially powerful. For the full set, click here.

Amy Yalland

Carol Green

Mark Richardson

Megan Bowker

Pete McDonald

Ryan Romanes

Stephen McCarthy

The Brand Identity

Two Times Elliott

Wade and Leta

Caroline Konarkowska

Eddy Davies

Kate Darby

Lark

makebardo

Matt Kitto

Milly Scott

One Design

Phoebe Ellis

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Ricoh to explore wide-format opportunities

Fri, 22 May 2020 08:53:57 +0000

Ricoh will continue its new ‘Anything in Print’ webinar series next week by hosting a dedicated session looking at the growth opportunities in the wide-format print market.

Screen eyes packaging with new inkjet launch

Fri, 22 May 2020 08:53:57 +0000

Screen Graphic Solutions has unveiled a new high-speed, water-based inkjet system designed to help users enhance their offering in the growing flexible packaging market.

Deadline looms for Creative Scale-Up applications

Fri, 22 May 2020 07:32:37 +0000

Creative businesses in the West Midlands, the West of England and Greater Manchester have until 12 June to sign up to the region’s Creative Scale-Up programme.

The Daily Heller: A Blog for Designed Photobooks

Steven Heller — Fri, 22 May 2020 05:19:49 +0000

Jeffrey Ladd is a self-described photo nerd and proprietor of Errata Editions, a prodigious publisher of reprinted vintage photography books. He is producing 5B4, a new blog/bookshelf to showcase exceptionally designed photobooks. Among other sources he has access to an archive of artist books at Walther Koenig (the German art bookseller since the 1960s) and is photographing many of them for future articles. The blog is on Patreon to cover some of the bills, and he leaves the donation tier up to subscribers. I asked him to pitch his illuminating work to readers of The Daily Heller.

Kunstzeitung by Berd and Hilla Becher

What is the reason for your deeply held interest in photography, particularly photo books?
Plainly stated, photography is my medium. Photography for me is far less about “making good pictures” than it is an excuse to explore my surroundings, and through the photographs I make, ask further questions about the world.

Over the past 30+ years, photobooks have informed my practice as an artist and evolved my thoughts on the medium, especially regarding the increasingly complicated question.

First Things First by Shriana Shahbazi (2017)

How would do you define a photobook?
Photography books are an artform. They are the way I engage with the work of other photographers, understand the history of the medium and know what has been done. I think it was John Szarkowski, the director of the MoMA photography department for several decades, who once said something to the effect of, “it is important to know if someone else has played the same game you’re about to play and already won.”

I have my own reference library of books and I truly feel it is important to have these works within arms reach. Just as a novel can mean something different to the same person as they reread it several times during their life, photobooks are the same.

World Soup by Peter Fischli David Weiss (1991)

Your promise is to show the most unusual photobooks published.
The way you are interpreting the intention of my site implies I know every photobook published, and that simply is impossible. I am offering articles on unusual photobooks. If you are a complete photobook nerd like myself, you will know some of the books I feature but hopefully what I write regarding those books inspires you to see them a little differently. The only promise I can make is, if anyone subscribed to the bookshelf and they didn’t find even $3 worth of content that they valued or that interested them, I’ll offer a full refund.

The National Liberation Struggle of the Albanian People (1959)

Wie Venedig sehen by Lothar Baumgarten (1992)

What constitutes this collection and why are the books that you’ve selected so special?
What I am showing are obviously books I find interesting and worth evaluating for one reason or another. They are drawn from many different categories—artist books, documentary photobooks, unintentional photobooks, industrial photobooks, company photobooks, advertising booklets. Whether a photobook or not, I have other interests in design, architecture and concrete poetry, so occasionally non-photobooks will be included too.

In most cases the books I feature have shifted my thinking somehow about that type of photographic work or bookmaking, or even challenged my tastes. I’ve been casting a wider net, looking for photobooks that surprise me in unexpected ways. I am no longer focusing on the “masterpiece,” but open to what a sales catalogue, or a non-artistic book has to offer. For instance, the first article on the bookshelf highlights a book of Eastern Catholic Liturgy. It is a step-by-step guide in over 800 photographs for performing mass in 12 Eastern churches, and it is brilliant. There is greatness to be found in unexpected places. It would be similar for a graphic designer to discover that one of Piet Zwart’s greatest book designs was for a Dutch cable company—Delft Kabels from 1933.

Sanitas Pharmaceutical (1954)

With so many blogs, websites and other online visual distribution points, how will you differentiate your blog?
Yes, the internet is full of information and some of it relates to photobooks. But actually, there seems to be very little original writing on the vast majority of photo blogs, etc. I am constantly on the lookout for good sources of information and to my disappointment, most sites grab two or three pictures of a book from another website and regurgitate the same talking points that have circulated for years. If cut and paste is just fine, then you probably don’t need to subscribe to the bookshelf.

What I am doing is similar to what I did as a teacher for over 12 years and what I still do in workshops and lectures: I’m trying to clearly articulate what I think is interesting about a particular book and put those thoughts out for debate.

Pittlerwerk (c. 1930s)

What is your goal in producing this blog?
Trying to write about these books makes me examine and think about the medium in different ways. So, it is a form of continuing education, as much for me than any reader. Of course, I am not giving it away completely for free; the Patreon platform was specifically created to connect artists with an audience to find financial support for their creative work. That said, the “student” level on my site is only three dollars a month and anyone, even non-students, can subscribe at that level and have complete access to the content. I leave it to the reader to choose their level of generosity.

Although the site is for anyone, the readers I have in mind are students. I see 5B4 as an extension of Errata Editions, my publishing company that created the Books on Books series which examined rare photography books that students could no longer access. That series enabled students to see the books and decide for themselves if those books were important to them. I hope the bookshelf can achieve something similar but faster, and with a wider variety of books. And perhaps more importantly for students, without having to afford the $40 cover price.

Quick by Dieter Roth (1965)

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Need a Design Workout?

Print — Thu, 21 May 2020 19:05:00 +0000

Feeling a bit creatively deflated in quarantine?

Us too.

Today we discovered the Readymag Design Workout though—and it’s giving our brains a bit of design exercise.

The project is a joint effort of Readymag, a browser-based design tool for interactive websites and publications (used by IDEO, Esquire, Forbes and other heavy hitters), and Design Workout, a creative training program created by Dmitriy Barbanel and his team at interdisciplinary project group Masterskaya.

Check out a few of the challenges below—and then break out your sweats and headband and head to the collaboration’s landing page to try a few out yourself.

The post Need a Design Workout? appeared first on Print Magazine.

15 Star Wars and Sci-Fi Posters by Matt Ferguson

Zachary Petit — Thu, 21 May 2020 16:38:36 +0000

Today is the 40th anniversary of The Empire Strikes Back—and to mark the occasion, Matt Ferguson has released a new, official one-sheet poster for Lucasfilm and Disney.

Ferguson co-founded Vice Press in Sheffield, U.K. The independent outfit is known for high-quality limited-edition screenprints and collectibles of sci-fi, comic and cult properties, all officially licensed.

On his own, meanwhile, Ferguson has created a delightful array of work for Marvel, Star Wars and myriad other franchises, rife with detail, call-backs and no small amount of Easter eggs.

Here’s a look at the rest of his Star Wars work, and some of our other favorites. Check out Ferguson’s site for many more.

Images via Cakes and Comics

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COVID-19: Believe It or Not!

Zachary Petit — Thu, 21 May 2020 13:15:06 +0000

Yesterday, Steven Heller wrote about the Toronto Public Library’s challenge to update its wartime posters for the COVID era. After the article went live, we caught wind of Victory Over the Virus and Welcome to the Pause, which have been publishing their own spins on vintage calls to arms—as well as a satirical series based on the Ripley’s Believe It or Not! newspaper columns of yore. (Robert Ripley’s column launched in 1918, and the company claims it is the “oldest continuously run comic panel in history” … but you might fall into the “or Not!” category if you’re familiar with The Katzenjammer Kids, which debuted in 1897.)

Collectively, the “Can You Believe?” comics offer some needed levity—and a reminder of how profoundly the virus has changed the world that was only a few months ago, but so often feels a world away.

Here are 10 installments.

The post COVID-19: Believe It or Not! appeared first on Print Magazine.

Lettering and Typographic Canvas Prints—a Perfect Pairing

PRINT Partners — Thu, 21 May 2020 13:08:33 +0000

This post is brought to you by our partners at CanvasDiscount.com

Typographic and lettering-based prints have a timeless appeal. Whether they feature an inspiring quote or lyrics from your favorite song, an elegant word-art print will complement almost any interior design scheme. The photo printing experts at CanvasDiscount.com are here to explain what makes typographic and lettering prints so reliably popular.

A Great Fit for Any Interior Space

The appeal of this style of prints lies in its compatibility with practically any style of interior design. Looking to set a warm, inviting and personable ambiance? A handlettered positive affirmation or mantra will do exactly that. Going for charmingly rustic cottage decor? Vintage typewriter letters printed on canvas will match the look perfectly. Or maybe you prefer sleek Scandi minimalism? No problem—a literary quote on a solid white background will only add to the mood of sophistication.

Monochromatic or color, witty or serious, typographic canvas prints have been prized ever since mass customization became possible. Part of the reason for their popularity is their simplicity—though simple shouldn’t be confused with basic. A sentence, phrase or even just a single letter can pack more emotional punch than a detailed and saturated image.

A Trend That’s Never Out of Fashion

Look at a contemporary apartment and you might notice that many of the design features involve some form of typographic work. Whether that’s wooden letters, signs, wall decals or canvas prints, elements of word art appear frequently on Pinterest interior design boards—not to mention in IKEA showrooms.

The appeal of typographic or lettering-based canvas prints also owes a lot to their accessible nature. Even if you don’t specialize in typography, all you need is the basic software, or the unique flair of your script to create your very own personalized print.

As for backgrounds, the sky’s the limit. A solid white backdrop is the classic option, but you can also use images of starry nights, drone shots, family photos—the possibilities are limitless. You could even try a straightforward alphabet print for your child’s room—aesthetically pleasing and educational, too.

Typographic prints give immense creative freedom, letting you express yourself with a powerfully simple message. You don’t need more than two or three words to channel eternal truths and emotions. A simple message of love and affection will work wonders in keeping your spirits up, while a philosophical reflection (perhaps expressed in verse …) will give you a fresh perspective and help you get inspired.

Have you found the perfect style or font to bring your favorite quote to life? Now’s the perfect time to order a typographic canvas print from CanvasDiscount.com. Use the code “CANVASPRINT15” and get 15% off all photo canvases in the CanvasDiscount.com catalog.

The post Lettering and Typographic Canvas Prints—a Perfect Pairing appeared first on Print Magazine.

QPS offers reassurance amid Covid-19 crisis

Thu, 21 May 2020 12:22:42 +0000

Wide-format print equipment supplier Quality Print Services (QPS) has moved to reassure customers that it will be on hand to assist companies when they move to reopen after the novel coronavirus (Covid-19) lockdown.

Mondi steps up with PPE support in Germany

Thu, 21 May 2020 10:00:39 +0000

Packaging and paper group Mondi has produced plastic protective gowns for staff at nursing homes and retirement facilities in Germany, as part of an effort to help its local communicates during the novel coronavirus (Covid-19) pandemic.

FuturePrint programme confirmed

Thu, 21 May 2020 08:37:46 +0000

The programme for the first FuturePrint Virtual Summit, on 2-4 June, has been confirmed. It includes 70 speakers and over 30 sessions across the three days.

Ricoh webinar to focus on wide-format

Thu, 21 May 2020 07:50:34 +0000

Ricoh is continuing its ‘Anything in Print’ webinar series next Tuesday with a look at wide-format print sector.

YPS launches print solution aimed at home workers

Thu, 21 May 2020 07:49:55 +0000

Your Print Specialists (YPS) has launched a ‘Business in a Box’ comprising a 24in-wide Epson SureColour SC-F500 digital inkjet printer, a PixMax heatpress, a Singer heavy duty sewing machine and a starter kit of thread, transfer paper and inks. The aim is to help people set up a print business at home.

PacJet FL830 due spring 2021

Thu, 21 May 2020 07:47:24 +0000

Screen Graphic Solutions has finalised development of its PacJet FL830 water-based inkjet system for flexible packaging that can handle media up to 83cm wide and run at up to 75mpm. It is scheduled for release around March 2021.

The Daily Heller: A Band of Rubbers

Steven Heller — Thu, 21 May 2020 05:23:10 +0000

There are many overlooked design gems that are woefully ignored because they are so ubiquitous and quotidian (my favorite multisyllabic words). Although I am a stationery store maven, I focus mainly on pens and pencils, paperclips and binders—even staples and staplers—but have neglected rubber bands.

According to Gizmodo, vulcanized rubber gave way to various common uses for the remarkable material. “In 1819, Englishmen Thomas Hancock was in the stagecoach business with his brothers when he attempted to figure out better ways to keep his customers dry while traveling. He turned to rubber to develop elastic and waterproof suspenders, gloves, shoes and socks. He was so enamored with the material that he began to mass produce it, but he soon realized he was generating massive amounts of wasted rubber in the process. So, Hancock developed his ‘Pickling machine’ (later called a masticator) to rip up the leftover rubber into shreds. He then mashed the malleable rubber together, creating a new solid mass, and put it into molds to design whatever he wanted. One of his first designs were bands made out of rubber, though he never marketed or sold them, not realizing the practically of rubber bands. Plus, vulcanization hadn’t been discovered yet … so the bands would soften considerably on hot days and harden on cold days. In short, these rubber bands simply weren’t very practical at this stage of the game, in terms of many of the types of things rubber bands would later be used for. Hancock didn’t patent his machine or the shreds of rubber it produced, instead hoping to keep the manufacturing process completely secret. This would end up being a rather large mistake.”

Yes it was. Rubber bands became essential to homes and businesses. A month or so before the COVID-19 lockdown, illustrator/designer Naomi Ito returned from a trip to Japan (the ground zero of stationery supplies) with this box.

Although I liked its pop-modernist simplicity, I paid little attention at the time. Now, holed up in my home, it has become a focal point of my package and product design collection as well as a daily ritual. (After all, it is neater, quicker and cheaper than string.)

I empty the box of its contents and separate all the permutations. After a day of working online on the computer, it is a zen-like respite. Incidentally, only yesterday did I realize that the circle on the front is perforated, so when removed it provides a handy dispenser for this band of rubber bands. Thing is, I like it just the way it is. What a gem!

The post The Daily Heller: A Band of Rubbers appeared first on Print Magazine.

CoviDiaries: Keepin’ On With Austin Dunbar of Durham Brand & Co.

Guest Contributor — Wed, 20 May 2020 19:58:56 +0000

In order to make the creative world feel a bit less lonely and a bit more connected in the face of the coronavirus pandemic, we’ve been publishing a new blog series—CoviDiaries—that brings us into the homes and minds of various designers, illustrators and other professionals, to see how they’re coping. Today’s installment comes from Austin Dunbar, founder of Durham Brand & Co.

Here we are, in Week 9 of what seems like the never-ending quarantine dream. The last time we were all in the studio, bickering and bantering, grabbing lunch with a table of eight or bellying up to a bar after work, seems like it was ages ago. In some ways, it’s insanity, in others, time has a weird way of redefining your work, your life, your why. As abrupt as normal everyday was pulled away, to me, there’s been some calm during this storm of isolation.

To be transparent, I live in the urban environs of Covington, KY, 11 blocks south of the Ohio River and downtown Cincinnati. I personally don’t know anyone who’s lost a loved one or has been impacted by the terminal thief that is COVID-19. I’m one of the lucky ones. That said, the place I love the most, at its core, breathes a thriving entrepreneurial spirit that’s been suffocated for a longer period than we all would’ve guessed. Cultural institutions like bars and breweries, restaurants and retail are almost frozen in time, or in better cases, operating at a pace that’s stunted. Forget the masks, it’s more strange to see your everyday reality living with the pause button on.

I own a design studio called Durham Brand & Co. in the city where I work, eat, play and raise my family. For the past six-plus years, the studio has absolutely consumed me. For better or worse. During this mandatory staycation, I’ve been able to step back and really start to see the forest for the trees—learning to balance the heaviest weights of work and life. Instead of designing and capitalizing on some digi-post/ers that say ‘Stay 6’ Back Buddy’ or something kitschy for a double-tap, I’ve really unplugged a bit and used this time to recharge with my family and focus on other fulfilling tasks that feed my creative side. Cooking, gardening, interior and exterior house projects—all things I love just as much as graphic design, but have little time during our old normal way of life. Our home dates back 150 years and there’s always new makeup needed for this old girl.

There have been some great moments, and a few crazy times while staying safe at home. My youngest of three daughters turned 6 mid-April and I turned 33 right on the cusp of the shutdown. I’ve been Zoomin’ my face off with pals I rarely see, and we’ve spent more time as a family than we have in the past eight years. Somehow though during this isolated time I’ve been electrocuted, had a candle blow up in my face, and realized I’m not educated enough for homeschooling. The studio has been busy and I can’t thank everyone enough who works at Durham for their dedication to work harder when the going gets tough. Amidst my personal day-to-day of being stay-at-home-work-hubs-dad, operating a design studio, managing employees, client meetings and shipping out new work every other day, we’ve also gutted the studio and are building a completely new space that will open in the coming months.

With all that seems lost and paused for now, there’s so much more to look forward to with more clarity and sense of purpose, person, and place when we return to our old, new, normal. I look forward to seeing that day come for us all.

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Instrument Holds Office Hours for New Grads Weathering the Storm

Print — Wed, 20 May 2020 18:34:05 +0000

You probably know Instrument from the company’s brilliant brand, strategy, marketing and engineering work for the likes of Nike, Sonos, Quibi, Google and more.

Their latest client: new designers and recent grads struggling to find their footing during the COVID-19 pandemic.

With Instrument’s Office Hours initiative on May 22, the Portland- and New York City–based creative enterprise is dedicating its entire fleet of 80 designers to providing one-on-one virtual sessions that include portfolio feedback, career advice, and more.

As Instrument writes, “Need some tips about how to present your work? Curious about how to go about making connections? Want to take a project to the next level? We’ve got you covered, even if you don’t know where to start.”

Since there are only 150 slots available throughout the day, Instrument is hosting a lottery system and survey that is available until 1 p.m. May 21. To register, click here.

In the meantime, we’re soaking up some inspiration from Instrument’s perpetually thoughtful and well-executed recent work. Check some highlights out here.

The post Instrument Holds Office Hours for New Grads Weathering the Storm appeared first on Print Magazine.

The Plague, Reviewed

Print — Wed, 20 May 2020 13:15:54 +0000

The tagline of Detroit’s Rotland Press is “Fine Publisher of Excursions Into Humor + Despair” and, well, the latter is something many of us are more intimately familiar with these days in quarantine as we crave the former.

The tagline also perfectly encapsulates Rotland’s latest project: The Plague Review.

Cover by S. William Schudlich; image by David Opdyke

The second issue launched yesterday, and though the first two installments may have been hastily assembled to capture the pandemic in real time, they feel anything but—in 56-page bursts, they offer myriad lenses on COVID-19 in the form of art by David Shrigley, Chloé Poizat, David Opdyke and others, comics from the likes of Irene Montemurro, Chris Cilla, Johnny Damm and D.B. Dowd, interviews with Joanna Ebenstein of Morbid Anatomy, artist Sue Coe and filmmaker Guy Maddin, and much more.

As Rotland publisher and Plague Review editor Ryan Standfest writes in his opening editor’s note, “In keeping with the mission of Rotland Press, The Plague Review presents a collection of responses to this moment that engenders the need to give form to collective trauma. Addressing that which challenges our lives at this time, the voices in this publication swing wildly from hope to grief, from intimate joy to overwhelming outrage. From visual makers and thinkers around the world who have worked toward evoking and representing that which is subjectively felt and not directly observed, strategies of thought contemplation mingle with mordantly humored bursts of enthusiastic despair. Collectively, the work contained herein represents a vital attempt at getting a psychic foothold within a pit where the fissures are often difficult to see.”

Ultimately, The Plague Review is more mirror than morbid—the mosaic of emotions presented in its pages offer a panorama of the pandemic and the world as we experience it today.

Rotland Press intends to publish the Review as a free digital read until COVID-19 ends. At that point, the issues will be printed in a limited run.

Here are a few pages and spreads from the first two issues. Check them out in full here.

Andrew Kosten

Amze Emmons; Wouter Vanhaelemeesch

Adrian Hatfield: And the Flames of the Tripods Expired

Johnny Damm

D.B. Dowd

Endi Poskovic

Image: Fred Stonehouse

Paul Nudd; Erik Ruin

S. William Schudlich

The post The Plague, Reviewed appeared first on Print Magazine.

Baumann details upgraded automatic pile turners

Wed, 20 May 2020 09:01:27 +0000

Finishing technology specialist Baumann has announced further details of the latest generation of its automatic pile turners.

OKI Europe offers free media pack to businesses

Wed, 20 May 2020 08:34:03 +0000

OKI Europe has partnered with Floralabels to offer businesses free social distancing media and artwork to help support them during the Covid-19 pandemic and in the transition back to a new norm.

Ricoh revises its greenhouse gas reduction programme

Wed, 20 May 2020 08:28:16 +0000

Ricoh has revised its environmental goals, and outlined plans to reach a 63% reduction in greenhouse gas emissions (from a 2015 baseline) by 2030. Ricoh aims to reach a 30% reduction in 2022, eight years earlier than outlined in its previous plan.

Businesses in shared workspaces missing out on grants

Wed, 20 May 2020 07:49:28 +0000

Thousands of SMEs will be unable to secure emergency grants meant to help them survive lockdown because the Government has allocated too little money, according to local authorities and business groups.

The Daily Heller: CovidRemix

Steven Heller — Wed, 20 May 2020 05:36:08 +0000

David Sprague, the digital content lead in the Preservation and Digitization Department at Toronto Public Library, was parsing the library’s online collection and was struck by how many posters were devoted to cautioning and disciplining Canadians on the home front during the two World Wars. He had an idea to remix these images as positive propaganda aimed at COVID-19.

The Toronto Public Library asked Canadian designers armed with Photoshop to choose one of the many wartime posters held in the Baldwin Collection of Canadiana and adapt it to help message (verb, meaning “to communicate”) this historic pandemic. The call has had dozens of submissions that are now showcased online. According to Toronto Public Library, “All the signs of support in our city during the pandemic have been truly inspiring.”

15 Packaging Delights From the Dieline Awards

Print — Tue, 19 May 2020 20:32:08 +0000

Today, Dieline announced the winners of its annual packaging design awards program, and the cache of brilliant work in the galleries is officially our latest tool to offset the quarantine blues.

The 10th outing of the Dieline Awards was presented by Adobe Dimension, and sponsored by Arconvert, Designalytics and Neenah Paper. It brought in more than 1,400 entries from 21 countries, and featured a jury composed of Debbie Millman, Pum Lefebure, Sean Adams, Roanne Adams, Ken Lo, Leland Maschmeyer, and other leading design minds.

As Dieline writes, “Overall, this year’s selection of winners shows a commitment to innovation, using plastic-free packaging materials, and human-centric design, all a clear marker for what lies ahead when it comes to the future of branded packaging and a preview of the world to come.”

It’s a future we’re all-in on.

Here are 15 winning projects we love, from the top awards (with some background on the projects) to other rankings throughout. For much, much more—94 winners in total—check out the full gallery here.

Best of Show: Figlia—Feminine by Nature, designed by Superunion, Hong Kong. (Note: Superunion also took home Dieline’s Studio of the Year award.)

“This year’s overall Best in Show winner went to design and branding agency Superunion for Figlia, an Italian olive oil by Agricola Dargenio. The limited-edition olive oil was released to promote the first female CEO of the company, Emanuela Dargenio, and it comes in a handmade ceramic bottle with a wood top, a primal, back-to-basics design that gets at the core of what packaging is.”

Type Tuesday: Laura Meseguer’s Sisters

Print — Tue, 19 May 2020 16:40:16 +0000

Laura Mesegeur’s latest typeface celebrates the creative women of the world.

The family of four dubbed Sisters began as a custom lettering project for an art exhibition identity, and grew from there.

Mesegeur started with the stencil-based Sisters One …

… Added contrast to create Sisters Two …

… Equalized the weights of Sisters Two to create Sisters Three …

… And threw some deco flair into Sisters Two to create Sisters Four.

As Type-Ø-Tones, which Meseguer co-founded, writes, the styles “share foundational principles of construction yet complement each other—as sisters do—by celebrating their differences.”

Check out the display family in action below with Gerard Joan’s specimens, featuring text by Tamye Riggs.

The post Type Tuesday: Laura Meseguer’s Sisters appeared first on Print Magazine.

Setting the standard in social distancing

Tue, 19 May 2020 14:52:10 +0000

Cumbria-based print and display business H&H Reeds has launched a new social distancing signage support service to help local businesses reopening after the coronavirus (Covid-19) lockdown.

Brand of the Day: Terrain Vague

Print — Tue, 19 May 2020 13:00:06 +0000

In 2015, creative director Thomas Ollivier got a fair amount of press for his “99 Wine Bottles” project—in which he envisioned what wine from 99 ubiquitous brands would look like.

A couple of years later, he took things to the next level—he started making his own wine under the brand Terrain Vague. And for his labels, he turned to illustrator Malika Favre, whose bold, minimal work you likely know from The New Yorker and any number of other major editorial clients.

Terrain Vague has just released its third official offering, Mise à Jour 2019, and like the two that preceded it, it’s made from indigenous grapes and is the product of manual harvesting and organic farming. We can’t wait to get our hands on a bottle. Until then, we’ll happily judge the wine by its label.

The trio is available here.

Images via

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Future Factory draws attention

Tue, 19 May 2020 12:54:46 +0000

On 18 May more than 500 people from almost 30 countries previewed the Print4All Conference, ‘Future Factory’, which had been slated to run on that date and which, due to the current circumstances, will now be streamed on 24 June.

Kern hands new UK-facing role to Cox

Tue, 19 May 2020 08:26:57 +0000

Mailing and packaging equipment specialist Kern has appointed David Cox to the newly created role of UK head of sales.

Inspirwood unlocks new charitable funds

Tue, 19 May 2020 08:05:36 +0000

Teignmouth-based Inspirwood is using its Mimaki JFX200-2513 LED UV to print £4 wooden rainbow keyrings, with all profits going to Age UK, a local food bank and NHS Charities Together.

The Daily Heller: The Pandemic Sanity Clause

Steven Heller — Tue, 19 May 2020 05:27:45 +0000

This pandemic has been quite a fortuitous calamity for poster designers. In fact, most catastrophic events these days are bringing out the creative in graphic designers, typographers and illustrators to do what they do best: communicate messages. Already, books and exhibitions are being discussed.

Stay Sane, Stay Safe, a platform created by Netherlands-based graphic designers Max Lennarts and Menno de Bruijn and writer Ronald de Leeuw, is possibly the largest poster venture in terms of quantity and the quality collected. It started March 22 when a friend asked Studio Lennarts & de Bruijn if they had “a nice and uplifting poster laying around to hang up on the wall of the hospital he works at.” If they didn’t, he asked if they could design one. The answer was yes, of course, but the duo also quickly started thinking that this could and should be a bigger project. Both designers had a quick phone call to discuss the possibilities and how to set it up as quickly as possible. That same day they launched a website.

They also asked de Leeuw, who has a text/communication bureau called overdeschreef, if he wanted to write some copy for the Stay Sane, Stay Safe website where the posters live.

“The three of us are working together intensively and remotely,” write Lennarts and de Bruijn, who are two meters apart at their studio, while de Leeuw works from his home office near the beach. “We only communicate digitally, mostly just WhatsApp and email. It’s not an issue at all because we all grew up online.”

In addition to the online gallery, the posters are printed and hang in public spaces on portable hoardings. As of now they have 1,688 posters (and counting) from 82 countries. Everyone is in it together!

Jasek Tofil

Sanja Planinic

Dicle Yildirim

Lennaert Stam

Kees Krabbel

Viktorija Liaudanskaite

The post The Daily Heller: The Pandemic Sanity Clause appeared first on Print Magazine.

Fujifilm to develop AI-based technology to aid COVID-19-induced pneumonia diagnosis and assess the effectiveness of treatments

Tue, 19 May 2020 04:00:00 +0000

See the Actual Pitch Deck That Launched NASA’s “Worm” Logo

Zachary Petit — Mon, 18 May 2020 17:40:02 +0000

Last month, COLLINS hosted a Zoom gathering for designers featuring Richard Danne—who, with Bruce Blackburn of Danne & Blackburn, created NASA’s legendary “worm” logo program in 1974. In his presentation, Danne showed some slides from their original pitch deck to NASA … so we followed up to see if he might be up for sharing the full historic deck with PRINT readers. Danne agreed—and he did us one better: He gave us a sneak peek at a new book he’s currently working on. In his own words, what follows is an account of the fateful meeting that would define the look of space exploration for decades. The excerpt begins following the 1972 launch of the National Endowment for the Arts initiative to improve visual standards across government agencies. At the time, NASA’s look was defined by its “meatball,” created by employee James Modarelli in the 1950s.

The meatball

Here’s Danne, with the slides arranged chronologically as they were originally presented:

It was October 1974, and my partner Bruce Blackburn and I were headed to Washington DC for our initial design presentation to NASA administrators. The National Endowment for the Arts “Federal Graphics Improvement Program” was quite new and the NASA redesign was an early and important test.

There were very few NEA guidelines for this phase of work, but we had really knocked ourselves out … going the extra mile. Danne & Blackburn had invested an extraordinary number of hours on research, design development and the presentation. Why would we do this? Not just because we wanted to look good (we did) but because we felt pressure to gain a quick and vital victory for the NEA. No doubt about it, a lot was riding on this one.

After the successes of the Mercury and Apollo programs, NASA now found itself in a slump, impatiently waiting for their Space Shuttle program to kick in. There were no automatic headlines for the agency now. Also, though the NEA had convinced NASA to embark on the redesign, the agency wasn’t obligated to go the distance. Most of the federal agencies that signed up for redesign were just as cautious. Agreeing to a Phase 1 study didn’t mean a commitment to implement the study’s conclusions. It just meant, “Let’s see what you’ve got.”

Many of us who worked on these massive federal redesign projects were surprised that all of this was happening on President Richard Nixon’s watch. Go figure!

Dr. James Fletcher was the NASA Administrator at the time, and his deputy was Dr. George Low. Several other staff members would attend the closed presentation but it was clear the show was for these two individuals. Low had actually served as Interim Administrator prior to Fletcher being selected for the top spot (adding some intrigue to the relationship).

After the proper introductions, our 35mm slide presentation got underway. One objective was to make a case for replacing the NASA insignia (nicknamed the “Meatball”) with a more useful new logotype. The meatball was complicated, hard to reproduce and laden with “Buck Rogers” imagery. Clearly it was born out of the classic airman syndrome where hype and fantasy dominated over logic and reality. Our logotype was quite the opposite: It was clean, progressive, could be read from a mile away, and was easy to use in all mediums (it later survived much of the inferior printing furnished by the GPO—the U.S. Government Printing Office).

It is important to note that Danne & Blackburn was only presenting one solution to the client—it was a controversial idea for the time as it would be today. But we had developed a nomenclature system with the various center names all linked to headquarters in a totally democratic way. Yet the logo was radical enough that it had the room abuzz. We trotted through the various applications we had designed to show how strong and effective the program would be when it was fleshed out. Though this was not required in our contract, we had decided that it was the only way to make the point: This is a coordinated, comprehensive design program, not just another ornamental badge to be stuck on a multitude of different products by countless personnel and sub-contractors.

Before

After

These attendant visuals went a long way towards making the entire program “real” and convincing. There was considerably more acceptance as the presentation unfolded. Perhaps it was worth all those hours we had invested?

But there were residual issues and the focus shifted back to the logotype itself. And here is one of the most interesting exchanges I’ve ever witnessed in a design presentation:

Fletcher: “I’m simply not comfortable with those letters. Something is missing.”

Low: “Well, yes, the cross stroke is gone from the letter A.”

Fletcher: “Yes, and that bothers me.”

Low: “Why?”

Fletcher: (long pause) “I just don’t feel we are getting our money’s worth!”

Others, not just the designers, were stunned by this last comment. Then the discussion moved back to the strong red/rust color we were proposing. We had tried many other colors, of course, including the more predictable blue range, but settled on red because it suggested action and animation. It seemed in spirit with the Can Do nature of the space agency.

Fletcher: “And this color, red, it doesn’t make much sense to me.”

Low: “What would be better?”

Fletcher: “Blue makes more sense … space is blue.”

Low: “No, Dr. Fletcher, space is black!”

This is not to suggest there was any animosity between the two men, and I doubt if there ever was. But their dialogue is still pleasantly stored in my memory bank.

Spacesuit

We didn’t get the ultimate win that day as no one signed off on the presentation. But we left feeling that our chances were far better than 50/50. Bruce and I headed back to New York on the Eastern Shuttle and would simply have to wait for the NASA response. That response came in a call from Jim Dean, our contract coordinator at the agency. Our small firm was thrilled to get the news …

“It’s a Go!”

Editor’s Note: There’s much more to the story of NASA’s worm. Stay tuned for news about Danne’s forthcoming book.

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Design Matters at 15: Austin Kleon

Print — Mon, 18 May 2020 14:10:53 +0000

Austin Kleon exists at the brilliant intersection of word and image—but as a schoolkid in the small town of Circleville, Ohio, the two were neatly torn into “art” and “English.” It stayed that way for Kleon until he had an epiphany while studying a Charles Dickens novel at Cambridge University. As he told The Great Discontent, “I was trying to explain what the book was like, so I took out a piece of notebook paper and drew a map of London; as I drew, I said, ‘Here is what happens when the characters are in these parts of London, and this is how the narrative maps.’ It was a really crude map, but my professor looked at it and said, ‘This is better than anything you’ve turned in for me.’ That crummy map was better than any of the writing I had done! I knew that I had to bring drawing back into my life, so I bought a sketchbook and started drawing again.”

After graduating from Miami University, Kleon began making poems by redacting lines of text in the newspaper—leading to his first book, Newspaper Blackout. And then, he gave a talk outlining 10 things he wished he had known when he was younger, dubbed “Steal Like an Artist.” It went viral, and launched Kleon’s career as we know it today—the sage of word and image, author of the subsequent books Steal Like an Artist; Show Your Work!; and his latest, Keep Going, which Kleon says he wrote because he needed to read it.

Rather than wax philosophical about Kleon, here, we steal his words (within Fair Use limits, of course). As a complement to this episode of Design Matters, what follows is a sampling of his books—and the many wisdoms you can find therein.

Steal Like an Artist: 10 Things Nobody Told You About Being Creative

Every artist gets asked the question, “Where do you get your ideas?” The honest artist answers, “I steal them.” How does an artist look at the world? First, you figure out what’s worth stealing, then you move on to the next thing. That’s about all there is to it.

When you look at the world this way, you stop worrying about what’s “good” and what’s “bad”—there’s only stuff worth stealing, and stuff that’s not worth stealing.

Everything is up for grabs. If you don’t find something worth stealing today, you might find it worth stealing tomorrow or a month or a year from now.

Nothing is original.

The writer Jonathan Lethem has said that when people call something “original,” nine out of ten times they just don’t know the references or the original sources involved. What a good artist understands is that nothing comes from nowhere. All creative work builds on what came before. Nothing is completely original.

It’s right there in the Bible: “There is nothing new under the sun.” (Ecclesiastes 1:9)

Some people find this idea depressing, but it fills me with hope. As the French writer Andre Gide put it, “Everything that needs to be said has already been said. But since no one was listening, everything must be said again.”

If we’re free from the burden of trying to be completely original, we can stop trying to make something out of nothing, and we can embrace influence instead of running away from it.

(Bonus: Click here for Kleon’s TED Talk on artistic thievery.)

Show Your Work! 10 Ways to Share Your Creativity and Get Discovered

We’re all terrified of being revealed as amateurs, but in fact, today it is the amateur—the enthusiast who pursues her work in the spirit of love (in French, the word means “lover”), regardless of the potential for fame, money or career—who often has the advantage over the professional. Because they have little to lose, amateurs are willing to try anything and share the results. They take chances, experiment and follow their whims. Sometimes, in the process of doing things in an unprofessional way, they make new discoveries. “In the beginner’s mind, there are many possibilities,” said Zen monk Shunryu Suzuki. “In the expert’s mind, there are few.”

Amateurs are not afraid to make mistakes or look ridiculous in public. They’re in love, so they don’t hesitate to do work that others think of as silly or just plain stupid. “The stupidest possible creative act is still a creative act,” writes Clay Shirky in his book Cognitive Surplus. “On the spectrum of creative work, the difference between the mediocre and the good is vast. Mediocrity is, however, still on the spectrum; you can move from mediocre to good in increments. The real gap is between doing nothing and doing something.” Amateurs know that contributing something is better than contributing nothing.

… Sometimes, amateurs have more to teach us than experts. “It often happens that two schoolboys can solve difficulties in their work for one another better than the master can,” wrote author C.S. Lewis. “The fellow pupil can help more than the master because he knows less. The difficulty we want him to explain is one he has recently met. The expert met it so long ago he has forgotten.” Watching amateurs at work can also inspire us to attempt the work ourselves. “I saw the Sex Pistols,” said New Order frontman Bernard Sumner. “They were terrible … I wanted to go up and be terrible with them.” Raw enthusiasm is contagious.

The world is changing at such a rapid rate that it’s turning us all into amateurs. Even for professionals, the best way to flourish is to retain an amateur’s spirit and embrace uncertainty and the unknown. When Radiohead frontman Thom Yorke was asked what he thought his greatest strength was, he answered, “That I don’t know what I’m doing.” Like one of his heroes, Tom Waits, whenever Yorke feels like his songwriting is getting to comfortable or stale, he’ll pick up an instrument he doesn’t know how to play and try to write with it. This is yet another trait of amateurs—they’ll use whatever tools they can get their hands on to try to get their ideas into the world. “I’m an artist, man,” said John Lennon. “Give me a tuba, and I’ll get you something out of it.”

The best way to get started on the path to sharing your work is to think about what you want to learn, and make a commitment to learning it in front of others. … Don’t worry, for now, about how you’ll make money or a career off it. Forget about being an expert or a professional, and wear your amateurism (your heart, your love) on your sleeve. Share what you love, and the people who love the same things will find you.

Keep Going: 10 Ways to Stay Creative in Good Times and Bad

When I’m working on my art, I don’t feel like Odysseus. I feel more like Sisyphus rolling his boulder up the hill. When I’m working, I don’t feel like Luke Skywalker. I feel more like Phil Connors in the movie Groundhog Day.

For those of you who haven’t seen it or need your memory refreshed, Groundhog Day is a 1993 comedy starring Bill Murray as Phil Connors, a weatherman who gets stuck in a time loop and wakes up every morning on February 2nd—Groundhog Day—in Punxsutawney, Pennsylvania, home of Punxsutawney Phil, the famous groundhog who, depending on if he sees his shadow or not, predicts whether there will be six more weeks of winter. Phil, the weatherman, hates Punxsutawney, and the town becomes a kind of purgatory for him. He tries everything he can think of, but he can’t make it out of town, and he can’t get to February 3rd. Winter, for Phil, is endless. No matter what he does, he still wakes up in the same bed every morning to face the same day.

In a moment of despair, Phil turns to a couple drunks at a bowling alley bar and asks them, “what would you do if you were stuck in one place, and every day was exactly the same, and nothing that you did mattered?”

It’s the question Phil has to answer to advance the plot of the movie, but it’s also the question we have to answer to advance the plot of our lives.

I think how you answer this question is your art.

… The reason is this: The creative life is not linear. It’s not a straight line from Point A to Point B. It’s more like a loop, or a spiral, in which you keep coming back to a new starting point after every project. No matter how successful you get, no matter what level of achievement you reach, you will never really “arrive.” Other than death, there is no finish line or retirement for the creative person. “Even after you have achieved greatness,” writes musician Ian Svenonius, “the infinitesimal cadre who even noticed will ask, ‘What’s next?’”

The truly prolific artists I know always have that question answered, because they have figured out a daily practice—a repeatable way of working that insulates them from success, failure and the chaos of the outside world. They have all identified what they want to spend their time on, and they work at it every day, no matter what. Whether their latest thing is universally rejected, ignored or acclaimed, they know they’ll still get up tomorrow and do their work.

We have so little control over our lives. The only thing we can really control is what we spend our days on. What we work on and how hard we work on it. It might seem like a stretch, but I really think the best thing you can do if you want to make art is to pretend you’re starring in your own remake of Groundhog Day: Yesterday’s over, tomorrow may never come, there’s just today and what you can do with it.

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10 Bold Book Cover Designs From AIGA’s 50 Books | 50 Covers

Zachary Petit — Mon, 18 May 2020 14:01:36 +0000

This morning, from a pool of 800 entries representing 32 countries, AIGA announced the winners of its 50 Books | 50 Covers competition.

The jury was chaired by Michael Bierut, and judges included Hilary Greenbaum, Lisa Lucas and Silas Munro. All told, the awards program, which today features both book design and covers, dates back to 1923.

“Our world has changed since the inception of this competition—and even the judging, which took place in New York City on March 9,” AIGA Executive Director Bennie F. Johnson said in a release. “How we interact with books has shifted thanks to technological and societal advances, but it has not changed the power of a book. The elements that make up the entirety of a book play an important role in how we communicate and share knowledge.”

The books will become part of a permanent collection in the AIGA Design Archives, and print copies will be preserved in the AIGA collection at the Rare Book and Manuscript Library at Columbia University.

Here are 10 selections we loved from the pool. For the full gallery of winners, click here.

Laura Coombs

Joseph Logan & Rachel Harrison

Design: Alban Fischer. Illustration: Cody Coppernoll.

Gustavo Piqueira & Samia Jacintho

Irma Boom

Ellen Lupton & J. Abbott Miller

Tyler Comrie

Design: Bianca Iberlucea. Illustration: Meghan Morrow.

Design: Juan Pablo Rahal. Photography: Rodrigo Fonseca.

Chris Ware

The post 10 Bold Book Cover Designs From AIGA’s 50 Books | 50 Covers appeared first on Print Magazine.

Share the love with Split prints

Mon, 18 May 2020 10:32:49 +0000

Leeds-based design studio Split has launched a new campaign aiming to pay tribute to those who have gone the extra mile to help others during the coronavirus (Covid-19) outbreak and also raise money for the NHS.

IMI Inkjet Summer School to run online

Mon, 18 May 2020 09:07:10 +0000

The IMI Europe Inkjet Summer School, due to be held 6-10 July in Ghent, Belgium, will now be held virtually. Details are yet to be published of the online event.

Azutura sees jump in home wallart demand

Mon, 18 May 2020 08:51:57 +0000

Durham-based wallart printer Azutura, which slashed the prices for its wall murals and stickers by half due to a fall-off in business just before the UK lockdown, is again running at full capacity due to a surge in demand.

The Daily Heller: Henrik Drescher’s One-of-a-Kinds Keep Him Afloat

Steven Heller — Mon, 18 May 2020 05:27:40 +0000

Henrik Drescher says his illustration career has pretty much disappeared: “I didn’t leave it—it left me (I’m always open to working but I get no offer).” He is, however, publishing some kid’s books, including one titled Thumbshiners, which is being released by a Norwegian publisher. He hopes it will eventually make its way here.

“As you probably know I’ve always made non-illustration work (fine art … a term I hate). In fact, my main interest has always been making non-illustration pictures and book works. The illustration spills from this interest; while living in China I began working seriously on painting.” Since returning to the States, “I’ve been selling these. That, combined with teaching a few classes, is what keeps me afloat.”

From an exhibition in San Francisco, here are some of the things Drescher made while in China. This year he has been making large watercolors, which are non-figurative color indulgences, and that’s where he says his energy mostly goes now. Also, “I’ve been pretty active—a collector has commissioned me to create one large one-of-a-kind notebook per year. I’m now into my second year of that project. The idea is that the books are actually folios that bind into a book, which can be dismantled and framed if the occasion arises. They are loosely based on themes—one is ‘fulfillment center collapse,’ which comes from a headline about a wall collapsing at an amazon fulfillment center.”

I was taken with the idea of consumption being thought of as fulfillment. The commissioned notebook that’s devoted to this is mainly an inventory of the stuff of our dreams and nightmares. This work is, he says, “a nice change from the (inscrutable) significance-packed world that my other work occupies.”

The post The Daily Heller: Henrik Drescher’s One-of-a-Kinds Keep Him Afloat appeared first on Print Magazine.

Paragon makes acquisitions

Fri, 15 May 2020 08:44:20 +0000

Service Graphics parent Paragon Group has acquired ZenOffice (subject to approval by the UK FCA) and OfficeTeam to strengthen its business services capabilities.

Covid-19 signage/banners reignite Signworks

Fri, 15 May 2020 08:12:28 +0000

Switching to printing signage and banners relating to Covid-19 is saving Moray-based Signworks according to its founder Cameron Philson. He said his work has gone from “zero” to “crazy” in the past few weeks with such orders, which he can turn around in hours using his HP Latex 315 printer.

The Daily Heller: Double Crossing A Disease

Steven Heller — Fri, 15 May 2020 05:40:27 +0000

The bacteria that causes tuberculosis (or consumption) was once the scourge that COVID-19 is today. Indeed, for a disease that can be cured through a vaccine and other antibiotics, it is still active throughout the world and can infect a body through airborne contact (including spit). TB remains one of the top 10 causes of death in the world.

TB also has a logo. The double cross (above) has various meanings; it was a symbol of French patriotism, and a sign representing the war against tyranny—the tyranny of a killer respiratory disease, in this case. Known as the Cross of Lorraine, it consists of one vertical and two horizontal bars. In most renditions, the horizontal bars are “graded,” with the upper bar being the shorter, though variations with the bars of equal length have also appeared.

It is prominent as the red cross of the American Lung Association (and was originally suggested in 1902 by Paris physician Gilbert Sersiron as the symbol of the aggressive “crusade” against TB) and related organizations throughout the world. In the United States using the stamps was the idea of Emily Bissell, a fundraiser for the American Red Cross. Bissell got the idea for a sale of Christmas Seals from an article written by a Danish-American investigative reporter, photojournalist and social worker Jacob Riis. The cross is familiar for its ubiquity on the tuberculosis Christmas seals, among the most well known of the combative identities for any disease.

Poster by Joseph Binder

Poster by Earnest Hamlin Baker

Posters have long been used to make the public aware of the disease and its countermeasures. About one quarter of the world’s population has latent TB, which means they have been infected by the bacteria but are not (yet) ill with the it, and cannot transmit it. “Tuberculosis is preventable and curable” yet the risks are significant.

People infected with the bacteria have a 5–15% lifetime risk of falling ill. Those with compromised immune systems, including people living with HIV, malnutrition or diabetes, or those who use tobacco, have a higher risk of falling ill.

When a person develops active TB, the symptoms (such as cough, fever, night sweats or weight loss – similar to COVID-19) may be mild for many months, leading to delays in seeking care, and results in transmission of the bacteria to others. People with active TB can infect 5–15 other people through close contact over the course of a year. Without proper treatment, 45% of HIV-negative people with TB die—and nearly all HIV-positive people with the disease die.

Read more about posters and the disease by Anna Talley and see how dataviz has been used to chart TB by me both at Design Observer.

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FUJIFILM Diosynth Biotechnologies teams with COVID-19 Therapeutics Accelerator to reserve manufacturing capacity and provide technical expertise to deliver future COVID-19 therapies

Fri, 01 May 2020 00:00:00 +0000

FUJIFILM Toyama Chemical starts a Phase I Clinical Trial of FF-21101 for the Treatment of Advanced Solid Tumors in Japan

Fri, 24 Apr 2020 02:00:00 +0000

Fujifilm develops 2 broadcast lenses capable of producing dynamic 8K UHD video

Thu, 16 Apr 2020 04:00:00 +0000

Fujifilm accelerates production of its influenza antiviral drug “Avigan® Tablet” for COVID-19.

Wed, 15 Apr 2020 04:00:00 +0000