We recently stumbled upon the Grain Edit and The Art of the Title Sequence posts on the Visual Language of Herbert Matter.  From the website, “Herbert Matter was a man who seemingly fit many lives into one by excelling in the creative disciplines of design, photography and film. The documentary The Visual Language of Herbert Matter profiles his extraordinary life and seminal work.” We just love movies about designers and are definitely looking forward to when this one screens in Portland.

Another fun piece by Friends of Type!

Letter Cult recently compiled a list of of the Best Custom Letter Forms of 2009.  The artwork above is by Jessica Hische, who we’re big fans of. The list is a nice roundup of innovative design techniques and a good snapshot of what designers are doing in the present day. Worth checking out!

We’re looking forward to a fun week in New York to attend the Nadi Retail Design Collective Show December 9-11th.  NADI is the Visual Merchandising Committee for A.R.E., the Association for Retail Environments. Members include manufacturers, suppliers, and retailers involved in the visual merchandising industry. As visual merchandising has evolved throughout the years into its current integral role in retail success, NADI has taken the lead in informing and educating members. The association’s significant support of the visual design profession has grown with NADI’s exclusive support of GlobalShop’s Visual Merchandising Show and Retail Design Collective.

While  in New York, we also look forward to checking out Droog NY, Odin New York, the new Armani flagship on 5th Avenue, the Bauhaus show at MoMA and the High Line!

We would like to invite you to stop by the new PDX Pop-Ups shops this Thursday evening November 12th at 5PM for their grand openings. Mayor Sam Adams will be on hand at 5PM for brief remarks and ribbon cutting. As part of the Downtown Retail Strategy, Portland Business Alliance, Portland Development Commission, Downtown Marketing Initiative, Downtown Retail Advocate and local design consultant Tad Savinar partnered with property owner Downtown Development Group to turn two vacant retail spaces along Morrison street into PDX Pop-Up Shops. Local artists and designers were presented with the opportunity to temporarily ’set up shop’ in the core retail district, sell their work and even design right in the space. Randy Higgins of Vizwerks helped the designers re-imagine these vacant spaces into their first retail shops, working with student designers at PNCA to create store fixtures, and designing the store layout to incorporate active elements and best showcase the products. Together, we are helping entrepreneurs grow their business, bringing even more unique products to downtown, developing the retailers of the future, and showcasing these properties to prospective tenants.

Workroom 719 at 719 SW Morrison Street, in the former See’s Candy Space will showcase artwork, women’s clothing, jewelry and accessories from six artists.

Flurry at 401 SW Morrison Street, in the former Shoe Pavillion Space is presented by Portland Fashion Synergy and will showcase women’s and men’s apparel, footwear, and accessories.

UPDATE: Ten days in, designers recoup their investments, exceed sales expectations and gain extra exposure…read the latest report from the Portland Development Commission.

In our quest to read every single page of the internet, we recently stumbled upon the homepage for the Aspen Art Museum.  Wow!  That fresh mountain air must be great for contemplating contemporary art. We were pleasantly surprised with the caliber of their exhibitions and their refined modern aesthetic. We were also immediately transfixed with the flash loop on their front page. The graphic above is actually a promotional graphic from an exhibition in 2008 entitled ARAC@AAM: Anderson Ranch at the Aspen Art Museum which can be viewed here and here. From their website, here’s their mission:

“The Aspen Art Museum is a non-collecting institution that presents the newest, most important evolutions in international contemporary art. Our innovative and timely exhibitions, education and public programs, immersive activities, and community happenings actively engage audiences in thought-provoking experiences of art, culture, and society.”

The identity for the Aspen Art Museum was designed by Jared and Rachel Rippy of You and Me, a small design company from Denver, CO which specializes in design for cultural companies, non-profits, and individuals invested in the arts. Their body of work is impressive and definitely worth checking out.

We found this graphic floating out in the blogosphere and used it for various strategy conversations on projects happening around the office and thought it’d be good to share with all of you.

One of the trends we’re noticing in environmental design these days is the use of triangulated panels and irregular surfaces. The Barcelona-based design and architecture studio, Deardesign recently showcased this approach with their launch of the Lurdes Bergada Flagship Store in Barcelona. We enjoyed this space for being both restrained and experimental in the same breath. If you’re interested in a deeper look at things, check out the extensive reviews featured at Cool Hunter and on Dezeen Magazine. We searched for a website for Lurdes Bergada…however were unable to find anything outside of placeholder blog with no posts on it. Looks like they are focusing on making clothes, not websites.

We confess. We are obsessed with type.  As such, we’ve been huge fans lately of the type collection over at Friends of Type.  These folks are craftsmen who showcase a true passion for type and the different creative ways it can manifest itself.  Currently, they are made up of the following talent:

• Aaron Carambula—Objective Subject
• Erik Marinovich—The Big Animals
• Jason Wong—enormouschampion
• Dennis Payongayong

The type treatment above is called Kelly Greens and was digitized by Aaron Carambula, whose work at Objective Subject is also worth viewing.