French Illustrator Greg-Guillemin has taken a modernist slant to the comics. They are quite good. Check them out.

Prints at the LeonStore

On August 26, 1957 the first Edsel rolled off the production line. Unfortunately, the Edsel was a huge disaster for Ford. It was definitely pushing the envelope from a design and styling standpoint. Wouldn’t you prefer to have an Edsel than a “Mediocrity?”

As I sat in the Apple Store waiting for my appointment at the Genius Bar, I observed the throngs of people buying and playing with all things Apple. The shopping mall was empty but this store must have had 200 people in it. These people were not technology elitists but kids, grandparents and even people that looked like extras from Jersey Shore. This was a Tuesday at 3PM! For years I had “fought for the mac” and bemoaned Apple’s slide in market share or the Wintel lock on the computer industry. Now Apple had arrived and was a household name. Brilliant, visionary design was accessible to the masses. William Morris’ dream of affordable design for the common man had become a reality. I grumbled slightly because I was 10 minutes past my scheduled appointment and my elite club as a Mac user was not so elite any more. Success has brought some drawbacks that I needed to live with.

Then I got the news. There is a song by Baz Luhrmann called Everybody’s Free (To Wear Sunscreen). A line in the song says…”The real troubles in your life are apt to be things that never crossed your worried mind; the kind that blindside you at 4pm on some idle Tuesday.” Well it was a Wednesday not a Tuesday. Steve Jobs was stepping down as CEO of Apple. Whatever Steve has, has taken its toll and he can no longer perform his duties of CEO. The guy that brought us the Mac, ipod, iphone, ipad and brilliant, visionary, revolutionary design is sick and can no longer perform his duties. This after he just recently announced his plan for a fantastic new headquarters in Cupertino. Get well Mr. Jobs. The design world misses you already.

Free (To Wear Sunscreen) by Baz Luhrmann

Steve Jobs presentation to Cupertino City Council

On August 24, 1456, the Bible was printed for the first time in Johann Gutenberg’s shop in Mainz, Germany. Where this date came from no one knows. Most scholars agree that it was completed in 1455 and it took several years to produce. 180 copies of the book were created and the University of Texas has one of five that are in the United States. Regardless of when the book was actually created it should be celebrated. How about today!

The USPS has created stamps honoring 12 of the nation’s most influential industrial designers. Norman Bel Geddes designed the “Patriot” radio that featured a red-and-white grille that looks kind of like the stripes on the American flag. It can be seen on his stamp.

The music industry is funny. Apple’s itunes store is not so. There is a great deal of music that is not offered in the itunes store in the US but is available from itunes stores in other countries. Apple lets you go to itunes stores in other countries but doesn’t let you buy anything. They give you a dialog box that forces you to go back to the US store. Not very user friendly.

Quickbooks has a nice little feature where they route emails through their servers if you want to send an invoice. They use this to force you to upgrade to the latest version of their software. If you don’t upgrade, they turn it off. Yesterday their servers went down and as a result all their users could not send out invoices yesterday. Nice work intuit. Having a monopoly must good.

Fox News has discovered that the latest Nuclear Security Summit logo has a secret Muslim agenda. John Stewart does a pretty good review of the issue on the Daily Show.

Heinz Edelmann was the chief designer for the Beatles animated film Yellow Submarine. He died on Tuesday. He was a great illustrator and graphic designer.

Read more about him on the New York Times.

We have become enamored with Hans Ledwinka and his Tatra T 87. Hans was the chief designer at the Czech car company Tatra from 1921 to 1937. He designed some very beautiful streamlined cars that were technologically advanced. Jay Leno did a great video about his Tatra. Check it out.

Hans Ledwinka

Tatra 600