Ewa recently completed a book design for the New York Center for Autism Charter School. The 24-page book contains a compilation of the drawings by the students at the Center. The themes of the drawings are butterflies, flowers and tracings of leaves. There are also a few black-and-white butterfly images that were colored-in by the students. The book celebrates the creativity and the remarkable details of these art works. Few images were included showing some of the children drawing. Description pages of the works are in complimentary or accent colors of the works. The drawings were laid out full-bleed and some across two pages to accomodate the shape of the drawing. In few instances photographs of the butterflies were included for comparison.

We were very happy to contribute in showcasing these beautiful drawings.

We recently visited Panama and came across this very unique and vibrant art form. Molas are created by the Kuna Yala culture indigenous to Panama and residing in the autonomous region and archipelago islands of San Blas.

The word mola literally means ‘shirt’ and traditionally is part of the female attire where two panels form front and back of the shirt. The patterns of the molas were originally painted on women’s bodies and were mostly geometric. Kuna Yala started creating the designs in fabric once Europeans brought cotton. In the last half century or so more realistic elements such as flowers, fish or birds started appearing.

Creation of molas is quite interesting. Several pieces of cotton are sewn together and then the design is created by cutting away parts of the layers. The largest pattern is usually cut from the top layer showing the smaller pattern and the colors of the layers below. Edges of the molas are then turned under and sewn. Often the stitches are made almost invisible, especially in the higher quality molas.

The picture on the bottom shows the mola we purchased. To us the colors resembled the art of the 1980s, a bit in the style of Keith Haring and the geometric patterns of the Op Art of the 60s.

(From Save Cooper Union! A Community Summit December 5, 2011)

My name is Jason Paul —, Art 2000. I’m a designer and web developer. I helped create the CooperUnionCommons.org online community with Karina Tipton. The Save Cooper Union Facebook page has demonstrated how much students and alumni care about Cooper and want to be connected. We saw that Facebook is a fantastic entry point for conversation however its aggregation limitations quickly become apparent. Cooper Union Commons was born out of a desire for a niche social network to help forge a stronger Cooper-centric online community. The ideal I have for the network is to help keep Cooper students and alumni connected to each other in perpetuity. I believe a network like this could be introduced to students from day one as one of the main means of communication for the school. After graduation, instead of losing access to the network, they would simply keep their membership to the network increasing the likelihood that alumni will remain involved in the social world of Cooper Union.

(below) is the part of the speech I skipped to save on time

Cooper Union Commons runs on BuddyPress which is a plugin for the open source platform WordPress. We’re treating this as a beta in that anyone is welcome to join the network and contribute. An advantage of a tool like this over Facebook is that if there’s a feature you think would be useful for the site all you have to do is request it. If we can get it and it will enhance the network then we’ll install it.

The Cooper Union Commons won’t replace Facebook, the Alumni site or any other official Cooper channels. All it seeks is to be a niche social network where informal Cooper conversations can continue. The network can only succeed if it is embraced by the Cooper Union community. I encourage you all to sign up and contribute your ideas. The url is cooperunioncommons.org

Of all the top social networks Facebook most successfully satisfies our vanity. We’ve all gone online. We want our existence reinforced. Facebook has claimed a monopoly on our actual personal networks. Twitter, Google+ and Diaspora are biased to connecting outwardly, helping us forge new networks. While this is a more noble premise if you believe in the potential of the world wide web, it also makes these networks much more disposable.

I recently allowed my birthday to appear for my Facebook friends. I received over thirty birthday wall posts. This personal and very human connection got me thinking that this is where Facebook’s advantage lies. Only Facebook virtually guarantees feedback on the signals we put out now matter how small our networks. This is because for most we’ve replicated our real life social networks on Facebook and nowhere else online.

I really like Twitter but I rarely use it for social purposes. My following is currently too small to give me much feedback on what I put out there. I do appreciate that so many reputable periodicals and notables use it to broadcast their links and links they find interesting. Twitter is life support to my Flipboard. The greatest paradox I find in Twitter is that nothing is better for receiving signals yet nothing is worse for sending them (for the average individual). I think Twitter will need to become more authentically social or the jig may be up very soon. I’m actually surprised Apple went with deep Twitter integration for the latest iOS release. I rarely use it. For photos I prefer Instagram as it sends out to several social services simultaneously. Why would I just Tweet photos when it’s nearly a guarantee no one is looking for my personal stuff there? Not saying I don’t do it but I’ve learned not to expect much feedback from Twitter. Thus far Apple hasn’t demonstrated many successful ideas for social media as relates to their software and devices.

I can see a counterpoint argument suggesting I just need to put more effort into Twitter. But why should I? My existence on Facebook is validated with minimal effort. Interestingly I’ve been getting decent feedback on Diaspora.

My Google+ profile has been floundering. My Facebook friends just did not migrate over. I dislike so much about Google right now that I can’t bring myself to invest more of my time in what feel like mediocre/unfinished products.

To circle back I don’t want to leave the impression that I’m pro-Facebook. I’m just pointing out that they will continue to be on top because they are better at finding ways to use our personal data to deliver the most meaningful signals to us. To leave off on a critical note, the Facebook paradigm feels too simplistic. The Like button has likely done irreparable damage in over-simplifying a complex world. Facebook’s presentation often feels much more superficial than the other networks.

I think the answer is not to have one network to rule them all, but to open up the ports so they can start to talk to each other. This comes back to the Promise of Diaspora. Many Diaspora users have closed out their Facebook accounts. I won’t be closing any social accounts until the day comes when I can communicate and interact with Facebookers without needing to actually be on Facebook.

ARTnews.com has not undergone any redesign initiatives for a number of years. The project required a great deal of planning including migration of 15 years of magazine articles. We restructured the content to work within a contemporary content management system. To create the optimal User Experience and retain the traditional print magazine feel, we incorporated elements of print magazine layout and editorial design. The design and the structure is scalable and it can grow over time as new technologies become available.

Read our case study from our portfolio. And please visit the ARTnews.com website.

The exhibit is running through August 7th at the Met Museum:

http://blog.metmuseum.org/alexandermcqueen/

The New Museum presents Cronocaos, OMA’s installation that asserts the critical position of preservation in archi-
tecture and urbanism. The exhibition will take place at the New Museum’s 3,600 square foot, partially renovated ground floor space at 231 Bowery. It includes historic objects and photographs, analysis of the rapid growth of preserved urban and natural territories, and a take-away display of OMA’s projects spanning thirty-five years. Cronocaos redefines this underexplored theme as one of urgency within and beyond architecture’s disciplinary boundaries.

Visit the New Museum website.

Visit the festival website.

Visit the OMA website.

Images from the talk. On the right is woman looking at Malevich’s Black Square.

The Festival of Ideas for the New City, May 4-8, 2011, is a major new collaborative initiative in New York involving scores of Downtown organizations, from universities to arts institutions and community groups, working together to effect change. A first for New York, the Festival will harness the power of the creative community to imagine the future city and explore the ideas destined to shape it. It will take place in multiple venues Downtown and is organized around three central programs: a conference of symposia; an innovative StreetFest along the Bowery; and over one hundred independent projects and public events. The Festival will serve as a platform for artists, writers, architects, engineers, designers, urban farmers, planners, and thought leaders to exchange ideas, propose solutions, and invite the public to participate.

Find out more at festivalofideasnyc.com

More info on the festival

Read more here on NASA website

130 countries participated around the world. Earth Hour event started in 2007.

Here is the video of the lights getting turned off