The 2011 annual members’ exhibition of AIA New York Chapter is now up at the West 4th Street subway station through the end of the month. The exhibition of is one of many events happening during Arctober (Architecture and Design Month). More information about the exhibition is here.
Typeface(s): Jean-Luc by Atelier Carvalho Bernau
We were asked by the New York Times to contribute an illustration for a piece on the nation’s outsized fear of Al Qaeda, which was to run in the special edition covering the ten-year anniversary of September 11th. We produced the above piece in the spirit of the “see something, say something” campaign, and of the ensuing atmosphere of constant vigilance.
Our friends Babak Radboy and Negar Azimi are featured on CNN discussing the Bidoun Library, Bidoun’s archive of printed matter produced in and about the Middle East, currently up at London’s Serpentine Gallery. The magazine itself, which we art direct, is discussed as well, though not at length.
After months of consideration, reconsideration, postponement and prodding, we’re thrilled to launch our redesigned website.
When we started Rumors three years ago we began with a site that was practical in design but hastily built. Soon, we thought, we’ll find the time to perfect the details, write the stories, and photograph the work. But we fortunately found ourselves busy, and “soon” became a common refrain.
For the past year, though, we’ve thought about what we wanted our new site to accomplish: a design built with the same care and critical eye we bring to all our projects. We took our time, made deliberate choices, and gave ourselves the liberty to repeatedly make mistakes and start anew. The final product is the result of multiple rounds of consideration, design and development.
Rather than treat the homepage as a collection of thumbnails, which turned objects and websites alike into a series of graphic icons, we’re showing each item in full. And instead of presenting everything at a uniform size we’re using varying dimensions, sometimes to emphasize scale and sometimes for the sheer pleasure of it.
Projects are now presented with an emphasis on the reading experience. The type has been given the respect it deserves, both in the design and in the selection (we’re using FF Meta Serif and FF Bau, both served through Typekit). And photographs are shown at a size worthy of their details, using inline slideshow tools we built for the occasion. There’s new work up, too, pieces we’ve been meaning to photograph and share for quite a while.
Finally, we found a way to integrate the blog site-wide while also tucking it out of the way when not needed (hint: scroll up). Let’s hope we put it to good use!
Take the time to look around. As always, you can email us at everyone@rumors-studio.com, or find us on Twitter at @rumors_studio. We’d be happy to hear from you.
— Rumors
PS: If you’re reading this via RSS, take a look for yourself:
www.rumors-studio.com
We’re very excited to launch a new website today — Rookie, a new site for teenage girls, edited by Tavi Gevinson. We’re fans of Tavi’s writing and eye, but it’s her perspective on publishing online that really hits home:
A lot of websites run on a system of having to get a post up every half-hour, and a lot of those end up being filler posts because they don’t actually have that much to say. Rookie is kind of my response to that because we have three posts a day, and we plan everything a month ahead of time. And I like that. After being in all these meetings with publishing companies and advertisers and stuff, it’s like everyone just wants to trick people into reading their website. If the content is good, people will read it…
This neatly matches our own beliefs, and is one of the reasons Rookie was such a pleasure to build. A fast project (after three weeks, an earthquake, and a hurricane, we have a new magazine!), and one we’re proud of.
Itinerary and map for the photoshoot.
We are currently working on the June/July issue of ReadyMade magazine, our inaugural issue as Art Director. In addition to working with the fantastic team at ReadyMade, I was recently lucky enough to embark on a seven-day trip across the country to photograph the environments of six (the seventh, and last, one is coming up!) new homeowners for a Feature story in the forthcoming issue.
The opening room of the exhibition
We recently returned from the Canadian Centre for Architecture in Montreal, where we had the pleasure of collaborating on the design and presentation of 404 Error: The Object is Not Online. This exhibition, a collection of material drawn from the CCA archives, considers what is lost and what is gained when we experience objects online, as compared to our experiences in the physical world.
One of the many special events and exhibitions kicking off in New York this week for Architecture Week is AIA New York Chapter / The Center for Architecture’s Made in New York exhibition in the West 4th St Subway station. The exhibition features the work of AIA NY’s members and will be up on display until the end of the month.
There will be an opening reception this Friday, Oct. 8th from 6-8pm at the station.
Last night was the launch party for the new issue of Bidoun. There was ice cream & beer & issues for sale, but given that we do the art direction I just grabbed a few and legged it. You’ll find it on newsstands soon, but in the meantime…
The new issue of Bidoun coincides with & comments upon Museum as Hub: The Bidoun Library Project, an exhibition recently seen at the New Museum.
The Bidoun Library Project, organized by the magazine Bidoun: Arts and Culture From the Middle East, at the New Museum, is a highly partial account of five decades of printed matter in, near, about, and around the Middle East. Arrayed along these shelves are pulp fictions and propaganda, monographs and guidebooks, and pamphlets and periodicals, on subjects ranging from the oil boom to the Dubai bust, the Cold War to the hot pant, Pan-Arabs to Black Muslims, revolutionaries to royals, and Orientalism to its opposites.
Each copy features a unique photograph glued to the cover — the photographs were purchased by the thousands from the flea markets of Cairo. Some are warped and old, others glossy and new. Prior to this issue’s production, no one at the magazine had seen the full range of images; they went directly from Egypt to the printer. So it was a delight to receive unpack the copies and sift through them, trying to select our favorites, discovering unexpected quirks (”this one’s still got a staple hanging from it!”).
The exhibition consisted of hundreds (thousands? tens of?) books, a material history collated into themes. Some abstruse, some broad, all rigorously sloppy. Endless. Many of these books found their way back into the design of the magazine.
Running through the issue is the catalogue, designed (by Bidoun proper, separate from us) for the New Museum exhibition. The magazine operates as a footnote for the catalogue, which in turn was built as a series of footnotes for the exhibition.
There are fireworks, too!
Please join us on Friday, June 4 for the New York release of Rock Paper Show at The Strand at 7pm.
Geoff Peveto, curator of Rock Paper Show, president of the American Poster Institute and partner in The Decoder Ring, an Austin based design collective, will be available to discuss the history of Flatstock and the steady growth of the gig poster community. Featured Rock Paper Show artists Hero, Mat Daly, Strawberryluna, Vahalla, and Tara McPherson will all be available to sign copies, as well as Holly Gressley of Rumors, the book’s designer, and Mike Treff from Soundscreen Design, the book’s publisher and producer.
Rock Paper Show: Flatstock Volume One
The Strand: 828 Broadway at 12th Street
June 4th, 7pm
Information about the event is available on the Rock Paper Show site.
More about the book:
Rock Paper Show documents the first decade of the twenty-first century as the high-water mark in the storied intersection of graphic design and music. Against the backdrop of the digital- music revolution, the rock poster reemerged during this period as the calling card of impossibly talented new artists and design studios brought up on Black Flag, Joy Division, the Flaming Lips, and the Melvins. Simultaneously, the posters that these studios produced were celebrated by a rapidly growing nation of indie-rock fans who all woke up one day craving beautiful new music-related objects in their lives. The excitement—matched equally in the design and music worlds—was captured by and celebrated via the birth and rapid rise of Flatstock, the American Poster Institute’s ongoing rock-poster exhibition.
Since its inception in 2002, Flatstock has evolved into the definitive showcase of the most talented poster artists working today. Rock Paper Show: Flatstock Volume One is an editorial and visual history of the first 20 Flatstocks, with contributions from the artists and studios that regularly attend the events and the bands who are often the subjects of the posters, as well as critics and collectors involved in this community. Rock Paper Show collects for the first time the original posters created for each Flatstock by the attending studios. Veteran poster-makers take the reader on behind-the-scenes looks at the studios, the artists, the regional scenes, and the personalities of this vibrant and varied community.