Winter has arrived. You may say I’m early, but if it snows in San Francisco and the Oakland hills, as far as I’m concerned — it’s winter.

Tomorrow, tomorrow, tomorrow!

Light and Design event at PG&E Pacific Energy Center

On 10 Dec 2009 from 6pm to 9pm swissnex will be starting a new series on light. Very exciting.

Light technology, primarily LEDs are at the precipice of being used everywhere. Low power, high output lights serve to compliment other green and power-saving technologies to be used in homes and municipal applications. Halogen and sulfur lamps, watch out!

Tomorrow there will be a panel of designers to talk about their experience with light and lighting design. Though registration is full now, this should prove to be a very interesting event — I will report back next week.

Stay warm everyone!

Goodbye to summer, and Hello to green — but first:  the gray .

The rains have started here in the bay area, so you can expect all sorts of nice-smelling flowers.. in a couple of months.

As the holidays roll in, we have events to close out the season for those of you interested in roof gardens and design. What fun!

Graze the Roof Work Day and Holiday Tea Party!

Maya Donelson and the crew at Graze the Roof are having — you guessed it — a work day! And, of course, a holiday part to celebrate all the great volunteers that have contributed to the project.

Come on by and have a cup of tea. Help out if you like.

Community Work Day and Holiday Tea Party!
Date: This Saturday, December 5th
Time: 10AM – 1PM
Location: Glide Foundation (330 Ellis St @ Taylor St, San Francisco, CA)
No RSVP required, but for more information/details please email
GrazeTheRoof [at] gmail [dot] com.

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Emigre at Gallery 16

I was excited to see last month that Emigre (Berkeley locals, if you don’t know), put together a compendium of their work from the eighties until just recently. The work, Emigre No.70, is a huge book. It is the book I wish I had when I was studying design in undergrad, and now it’s nice to see all these resources gathered. Emigre and all the folks surrounding that scene gave an introspection and a way into design thought that has been invaluable to me.

Look for Emigre No.70 at William Stout Architectural Books and the SFMOMA Museum Store in San Francisco.

If you’d like to see all of the work from Emigre in person and would like to have your copy of Emigre No.70 signed by the authors, check out the show at Gallery 16 from December 18, 2009 through January 30, 2010.

The opening reception is on Friday 18 December from 6pm to 9pm.

Emigre at Gallery 16
December 18, 2009 – January 30, 2010
Gallery 16, 501 3rd Street, San Francisco, California.

Have a nice warm-up to the holidays.

Hello!

You may have noticed — just now — that the site has changed slightly in appearance. I’m Louis Rawlins, a new collaborator with the rest of the folks at Overlap. We’ve been hard at work to coordinate the launch of this new site design with the release of the new Flossin EP.

Over the next few months, we’ll be tweaking the structure of the site to support advertising and a better-integrated shop. The goal is to have an online community that can grow with its participants while being self-sustaining. We hope you enjoy the changes, and please don’t hesitate to comment — I am looking forward to feedback from all involved.

Snapped this photo at Folsom Street Fair last weekend. It’s San Francisco politics and humor in a nutshell (with a cute red heart to boot!). 

Originally from Another Interpretation of Obama

I’ve always loved finding new ways to visually explain information, whether through maps, diagrams, charts or other graphical models. Edward Tufte is an old favorite on this very rich field of study — if you haven’t already, be sure to check out his latest book, Beautiful Evidence.

In similar fashion, Sha Wang’s nifty spiral generator creates a visual portrait of your musical tastes. By using your scrobbled Last.fm music tracks, Wang’s simple script whips up a sweet spiral graph of your listening patterns over the past year (see my spiral below). Want to try it out? Make your own at www.diametunim.com/muse, or view other spirals at http://datamine.tumblr.com.

Another colorful graphing tool for Last.fm users is LastGraph, which renders your listening history in the form of a wave graph. It’s just as pretty and clearly marks artists using varying color fields:

• My LastGraph (PDF download)
• Make your own LastGraph

Originally from Last.fm Graphs

Parma-based artist Simone Racheli’s work is both irresistible and grotesque. Using materials like paper maché, plastic, wax and metal, Racheli recreates everyday objects in the form of raw flesh.

His work is reminiscent of the Pop art movement and Bodyworlds, the traveling exhibition of human body plastinates. Especially cringeworthy is Racheli’s interpretation of an iron (see image at bottom).

 

Originally from Simone Racheli

Hard to topple as titans of design, the Italians and Dutch now have good reason to worry: this year, the Brits have pulled out all stops for some fantastic sights and events. Here are a few not to be missed:

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The London Design Festival will soon take over dozens of locations throughout the city from September 13-23. This year’s events cover such topics as sustainable design, the influence of emerging materials and technologies, marketing and business tips for design professionals and, of course, plenty of fresh talent from the local scene. Come and (re)kindle your creative spark as you mingle amongst the UK’s own heavyweights. 

• Official website: http://londondesignfestival.com
• London Design Festival Event Guide

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The East End’s independent Kemistry Gallery currently features a retrospective of graphic design including typography, illustration and mixed media. Hurry in before the exhibition is gone:

Image from Kemistry Gallery

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Troika’s ‘Cloud’ installation for British Airways at Heathrow Airport looks like an ultra-modern cross between the game Reversi (or more popularly known as Othello) and a standard disco ball. Shaped more like an amoeba than a cloud, the curved surface of the sculpture is covered by thousands of round discs that alternate between black and silver mirrored sides. The result is an audiovisual delight to behold, both in its wavelike transformation as well as the subtle clicking sound of moving discs: 

Originally from Design Links: London