It was only a matter of time I guess. It seems like we just learned the source of Shepard Fairey’s iconic image for the Obama campaign and now Fairey himself is being sued by Associated Press for his appropriation of the image. This is when sorting out exactly what qualifies as “fair use” starts to get a little tricky. Fairey says he didn’t make any money from the image (frankly, I don’t see how that’s possible, but I’ll give him the benefit of the doubt), but AP alleges he made a boatload of it. Whatever the case may be, credit is due to the original photographer, but I don’t believe Fairey should be held liable for his use of the image. I think it could be — and hopefully will be — successfully argued that Fairey modified the image sufficiently. What do you think, does vecotrizing and coloring an image go far enough to differentiate the artistic product from the source? Sound off in the comments.
Update: Supertouch has posted a sort of official response to the general criticism Fairey has endured of late. Definitely worth a read if you took the time to read all the detractor’s sites.
I’ll be participating in my second Layer Tennis match tomorrow, Friday, Feb. 6th (here is an archive of my first match). For the uninitiated, Layer Tennis is a live event where two designers volley a .PSD file back and forth, adding to the image each time and playing off their opponents work. All of this is commentated in real time by the event organizers — Coudal Partners — at the Layer Tennis site. This will be the season opener so the format will be a bit different. They’re calling it “Around The World” and this time there are ten players who each play in succession, based on their global location. Here is the list of players with serve times (Chicago — where Coudal is based — time in parentheses):
Layer Tennis – Around The World – Friday, Feb. 6th, 2009
Scott Hansen – Noon in San Francisco (2:00 CST)
Armin Vit – 3:15p in New York (2:15 CST)
Evan Melnyk – 3:30p in Montreal (2:30 CST)
Tom Muller – 8:45p in London (2:45 CST)
Adriana de Barros – 9:00p in Lisbon (3:00 CST)
David Rondel Cambou + Nathalie Melato – 10:15p in Paris (3:15 CST)
Armin Osmancevic + Werk – 10:30p in Stockholm (3:30 CST)
Briana Bolger – 11:45p in Kiev (3:45 CST)
Jose Illenberger – 6am Saturday in Manila (4:00 CST)
Fanny Khoo + Tom Merckx – 6:15a Saturday in Singapore (4:15 CST)
Just some random perfection from Mr. Crouwel for a perfectly random Thursday. Experimental Jetset has an interesting article about the invitation shown above (the third image down).
Alex Cornell has been my intern for nearly a year now and I thought it would be a good time to bring him on as a contributor to the blog. You may remember Alex from the student project post a while back. Being a grad student at the San Francisco Academy of Art (as well as an accomplished musician), he’s exposed to a side of design I don’t often see and I think that will bring a fresh perspective to the blog. So please give Alex a warm welcome, his first post should go up later this evening.
Ellen McFadden (aka Alki1) has the best design-related Flickr stream out there. Her husband, Irwin McFadden, did some amazing design during the 60’s and 70’s and Mrs. McFadden was kind enough to post up some examples on her Flickr. Bonus: Name that Bauhaus-eque font.
Can you name this poor, unidentified chair? Some people were asking that same question in the comments of today’s Dieter Rams post so I thought I’d put it up in the hopes that someone out there can solve the mystery because, as Joe Clay put it, that is a damn sexy chair. Sound off in the comments. First correct answer gets a Tycho single!
By the way, how badass is Univers LT Std 39 Thin Ultra Condensed? Completely, is the correct answer.
Update: That was quick, Vito called it, it’s a 620 Chair by, of course, Dieter Rams. Here’s some very nice high res shots from the link vito Provided.
Plastolux posted up these wonderful shots by Matthew Donaldson of various Dieter Rams artifacts in their natural habitats. Unfortunately though, if placed in my house — being the cluttered mess that it is — most of these poor creatures would wither and die in a matter of days. There just aren’t enough clean lines and pristine spaces to support their minimalist German sensibilities. Someday… Although seriously, can anyone get anything done in an environment like this? I’d love to see Jonathan Ive’s work space, I would bet it doesn’t exactly mirror his design aesthetics.
I came across the HAL Project site the other day and thought I’d post. There are a lot of cool visuals inspired by the original film along with your very own HAL screensaver. Link
