The Sixth Floor

Today, the family and I toured Dallas. We stopped by the Sixth Floor Museum and saw the recreated scene where Lee Harvey Oswald shot JFK. The entire floor was devoted to that fateful day including the conspiracy theories.

I, on the other hand, was more interested in the logo for the museum:

I really like the simplified graphic image depicting the building. It communicates "the sixth floor" extremely well. However, the typography is a little off... the font choice bothers me... so does the fact that the tracking is applied differently to each word/phrase. The word "Museum" seems to be overly cramped by both "the sixth floor" and its own letters. I would give it a little breathing room and also change the font.

So, who do you think did it? The Cuban government? The Mob?

My Trip to The Modern

The Modern, Ft. Worth, TX

Architect: Tadao Ando, 2002

Even the building is a work of art.

I absolutely LOVE visiting modern art museums. They feature pieces that aren't traditionally beautiful, but I find them fascinating. A modern piece of work can mean two completely different things to two different people, and after the museum employee explains the artist's intent, both of them think "what?!?" I never know what I am going to see, and I am always pleasantly surprised.

Here are some of my favorites:

Martin Puryear

Ladder for Booker T. Washington, 1996

This was so cool to look at. Two words came to mind: Overcoming Challenge.

Hamish Fulton

Rock Fall Echo Dust, 1988

This is supposed to make you picture a rock falling off of a cliff, but when I looked at it, I just admired the typography.

Gerhard Richter

Seestücke—Welle (Sea Piece—Wave), 1969

This painting was so haunting...it was hard for me to take my eyes off of it. Is it night or day? After a storm or during? From the perspective of a boat or the shore?

Nicholas Nixon

The Brown Sisters, 1975–2007

This piece features the same melancholy picture of four sisters taken every year for 32 years. You could see how each woman changed form year to year, it was very interesting.

Mark Rothko

Light Cloud, Dark Cloud, 1957

I love Rothko's work...it is so calming, I could look at it for hours.

Cornelia Parker

Rorschach (Endless Column 1), 2005

This was one of my absolute favs. Each piece of silver (bowl, candlesticks, spoon, etc.) was crushed in an industrial press until it was completely flat. Then they were hung from the ceiling a few inches from the ground. If you bend down and looked at it, it resembles a Rorschach test. What you see after that is up to you...

Andy Warhol

Four Marilyns, 1962

I got to see a special exhibit featuring over 50 works of art by Andy Warhol. This one was my favorites because if you stood in front of it, you could see the Marilyns, but if you stood at a 45 degree angle to the painting, it simply looked like a plain black canvas.

Click here to visit a website where you can change the color of Marilyn's face, eyes, lips and background, it's fun!!

Olympic Posters

The Olympics are under way! So far I've caught a quick snippet of the opening ceremony and watched the men's speed skating while eating at a local sushi restaurant. I'm looking forward to super-G downhill skiing and ice hockey, go USA!

A lot of effort goes into promoting the Olympics, and posters are a great way to convey important information in a short amount of time. Here are some of my favorite posters of past Olympic games:

St. Moritz, 1948

I love the illustration on this poster, it makes me think of the perfect ski day.

Grenoble, 1968

The typography is very cool on this poster. I like how the text is right-aligned and the moving Olympic rings are speeding towards the right corner of the poster.

Sarajevo, 1984

This poster uses a striking symbol as well as the always eye-catching orange-blue color scheme. On the other hand, I wonder how the designer got away with changing the classic Olympic rings from multicolored to just orange...it changes the meaning a little bit, and makes it look less like an Olympic advertisement.

Torino, 2006

This poster expertly uses the colors featured in the Olympic rings to create a design that stands out, um, I'm just not sure what it is...Is it supposed to depict a specific sport or is it just abstract?

Vancouver, 2010

Here is this year's poster. I like the echo of the Canadian Maple leaf, but I don't think this poster is as memorable as some of the others.

To see all of the winter Olympic posters from 1924-present click here.

Snow!

This is what it looked like about an hour ago, and it is still snowing! Not as impressive as what Maryland is getting, but hey, Texas is a southern state!

Geordi loves the snow! Ha, it looks like he doesn't have any legs! :)

I was wondering when we would get our share of the snowstorm...now if only I could go skiing...

Mac Users: Camouflage Your MacBook!

Hahaha! This is awesome!

Have you ever wondered "I think I want my MacBook to look like...well, just a book"? Now you can!

Each of these cases is unique, and made from an actual vintage book. They even claim that your precious computer will get stolen less often:

"Sitting on a coffee table, dorm room or desk, BookBook looks like a vintage piece of literature, not an expensive laptop. It’s a great disguise and a simple way to reduce the risk of your MacBook getting stolen."

Unless, of course, you are in a coffee shop with an antique books dealer...

Learn more about this product here.

Ode to Coffee!

How do I love thee? Let me count the ways...

Even though hot, frothy coffee helps to hone my concentration, letting me work tirelessly for hours on end, I don't want to talk about the actual drink...I'd rather talk about coffee logos!

Here are some I love:

This could've been really cheesy, but it was done in a chic way with a subtle gradient, nice!

I don't know if coffee is necessarily healthy (especially when I add five sugar packets, vanilla flavoring, and frothed milk...mmmmm) but I love this logo, and it makes me believe that it could be healthy!

This one is just too damn cute! Making the handles into noses was a great idea! I didn't see the profiles right away...btw, I love when logos make you take a double-take.

You can't talk about coffee logos without mentioning this one! Some people snidely call it a "symbol of corporate America", but I think it is a beautifully designed one. You can recognize it from a mile away! Wait, maybe not that far...30 feet?

Ok, now for some unfortunate ones (a.k.a. UGLY!):

I can see where they were going with this one...but it is just too blocky and technical-looking. The "b" fitting into the "c" should've been cool, but it was poorly executed.

This one is a nice logo...for a fast food restaurant. It just doesn't give me the impression of fancy coffee drinks in a hip setting, more like hamburgers and onion rings, which do NOT mix well with a vanilla latte!

We all remember when Starbucks decided to shake things up and brought back this 15th century drawing in their logo...it just looks sad, and frankly doesn't make me want to drink coffee.