Polish designer Filip Lysyszn, who dubs himself a “wannabe type designer,” took the typographic asterisk sign and transformed it into different Marvel and DC Comic Superheroes. What’s amazing is how easy it is to identify each Superhero simply by the color of the costume and a few signature details – Batman’s ears, Mr. Fantastic’s stretchy arms, Superman’s cowlick, and Wolverine’s claw hands. Lysyszn even suggested relative size by showing the Hulk as a bulging asterisk and Storm as a more petite asterisk. Aside from being a clever exercise, the asterisk Superhero caricatures show us that every exact detail does not have to be captured to be recognizable – a few iconic elements will suffice. It also suggests that most of us have spent far too much time reading comic books.

Answers:
A. Spider-Man, B. Superman, C. Storm, D. Batman, E. Iron Man, F. Cyclops, G. Wolverine, H. Hulk, I. Mr. Fantastic

City-dwellers know that we are constantly bombarded with graphic messages. It’s the “white noise” of urban living. Most of us tune it out like the omnipresent sound of traffic and pedestrian chatter.

This 2006 award-winning film, made by Netherlands-based Studio Smack for Museum de Beyerd in Breda, has become a classic. Like an x-ray, the film “Kapitaal” zeroes in only on the graphic stimuli encountered by an “unseen commuter” waiting on a platform for the train, riding the subway and walking through the city. Everything but the graphic information is reduced to black silhouettes. Signage, logos, ads, train timetables, graffiti, posters and packaging labels stand out in stark white contrast. There is no voiceover commentary, just the claustrophobic visual assault pressing in from every direction. It begs the question: How much do people really notice in a world of information overload? How can designers and advertisers avoid adding to the visual clutter and give the public something they really want to see?

The fact that the Museum of Communism in Prague is next to a casino and above a McDonald’s burger restaurant is an ironic “thumbing one’s nose” at the oppressors who kept the Czech Republic under nearly a half century of totalitarian rule. The museum, which has as its slogan “Communism: The Dream, the Reality, the Nightmare,” is dedicated to relating what daily life was like living behind the Iron Curtain, right up to the Velvet Revolution that led to the overthrow of the Communist government in 1989. It includes everything from video clips, Soviet memorabilia, and a replica of a Soviet interrogation room.

As educational and serious as that subject is, the Museum of Communism promotes itself with wry humor, offering a vast collection of well-designed posters done in vintage style. In addition to a Russian nesting doll with a shark-like grin, there are Soviet propaganda broadsides for the masses, an Andy Warhol-style portrait of Khrushchev, and a Soviet soldiers knock-off of the Beatles’ Abbey Road album cover, among others. What better way to celebrate freedom than poking fun at the bad old days.

Chanel let its Le Vernis line of fingernail polish take centerstage with this choreographed dance number by Grammy-nominated director Patrick Daughters and French set designer Aline Bonetto. Sassy fingers strut down a mini-runway to the doo-wop tune of “Little Bitty Pretty One” by Frankie Lymon and The Teenagers and break into chorus-line steps. The set incorporates several of the couture house’s symbols including the double “C” logo, pearl necklaces, and Coco Chanel’s famous mirrored spiral staircase. The closing credit cites the starring roles of the nail polish shades.

The Shade Parade promo video was preceded earlier this year by the equally charming Chanel Nowness animation, by Peter Phillips, Chanel’s Global Creative Director for makeup. It’s all wonderful silliness and great fun.

The occasion of America’s Independence Day on July 4th offers a good time to reflect on how the Star-Spangled Banner became the official flag of the nation. It all started back in 1777. A ragtag army of American colonists was engaged in a fierce battle for independence from Great Britain. Designing an aesthetically pleasing flag to represent themselves was the last thing on their mind. Outnumbered, outspent and outmaneuvered, the Continental Congress had more urgent matters to deal with.

But an emissary from a pro-colonist Native American tribe forced Congress to act by requesting a banner of sorts to display so that scouts would not come under “friendly fire” while on missions for the Continental Army. To prove they were willing to “pay” for such a flag, the emissary included three strings of wampum. Congress hastily put a flag design on its agenda, and 11 days later: “RESOLVED: that the flag of the United states be 13 stripes, alternate red and white; that the Union be 13 stars, white in a blue field representing a new constellation.” This resolution was one of many passed that day. The committee obviously didn’t give the matter much thought, but “borrowed” liberally from several sources, including the Sons of Liberty red-and-white “stripes of rebellion” banner and the 13-star blue canton of the New Hampshire Green Mountain Boys and Rhode Island Continental Regiment.

Produced for the Nevada Museum of Art by Kit Hinrichs while a partner at Pentagram

Since nothing was spelled out, flagmakers interpreted the flag resolution any way they wanted. The stars varied in size, arrangement and points. Sometimes the stars were placed in a circle, staggered in rows, displayed with a big star in the middle surrounded by smaller ones, or just scattered on the blue field as if sewn in place wherever they landed. The red and white stripes also varied in width.

The situation didn’t improve even after the American Revolution. When Kentucky and Vermont won statehood in 1794, Congress agreed to acknowledge them by expanding the number of stars and stripes to 15. Supposedly each time a State entered the Union, it would get its own star and stripe too, but with so many territories slated to enter the Union, Congress decided that the stripes would soon become pinstripes, and decreed that the flag would revert back to 13 horizontal stripes symbolizing the original 13 colonies, with each state represented by a single star.

Even limiting changes to the stars proved problematic. Since 28 states entered the Union between 1818 and 1912, practical flagmakers left unsightly gaps in the blue canton so they could easily stitch another star into place. During the Civil War, the opposite happened, with angry Unionist tearing stars off to protest Confederate secessionist states.

The lack of graphic standards for the American flag proved both negative and positive. Free to interpret the nation’s banner any way they wanted, average Americans creatively applied stars and stripes to everything from pincushions to cans of pickled pork. Sometimes the lack of design sensibility bordered on desecration of the flag. By 1912, when the nation had 48 states, Congress decided that enough was enough. It adopted the graphic guidelines that are in place today. When we consider the history of the American flag, it is a miracle that the Stars & Stripes has become so iconic and recognizable when it ignored every rule of how to build a strong graphic identity.

When Dr. Martens celebrated its 50th anniversary, its agency, Exposure Communications, decided to launch a website featuring 10 contemporary artists interpreting 10 alternative music tracks from the past 50 years. Vanessa Marzaroli from the Los Angeles -based multimedia design studio, Blind, was asked to create the music video for “Lilac Wine” by the Cinematic Orchestra. Marzaroli captured the “sweet and heady” lyrics in the delicate, fluid lines of Spencerian calligraphy – a perfect melding of music and images.

As a senior project at the Kyoto Institute of Technology in Japan, designer Mika Tsutai came up with this manga comic drawing approach to decorating Japanese-style plates. It’s a sight-gag that really works best when dining Japanese style, where each dish is served on its own small plate, rather than served with side dishes and entrée placed together on one large dinner plate.

On Tsutai’s manga plates, the food itself becomes the “hero” or subject of the story — e.g., the fist drawing striking a pulverized food mass; the strawberry slices forming the woman’s earrings, a volcano erupting a red lava flow. The presentation is meant to be appreciated as a single visual image. Even the arrangement of plates imitates the panels of manga comic strips. This is just as Tsutai intended. “By placing these dishes in a particular manner, you can transform your dinner table into a story, just like that of a page from a Japanese comic,” he says. It’s an interesting concept for those who like to be entertained while eating, but it’s hard on the cook who has to plan the menu around the storyline. Via Design Boom.

It was bound to happen. Publisher Shogakukan in Japan has just issued the second of two manga Twitter comic books, explaining the benefits of social media. Drawn by cartoonist Yoko Gendai, the first Twitter manga called “Mitaka no Chushin de Nau wo Tsubuyaku” – or “I Tweeted Now at Mitaka” – depicts in manga cartoons the artist’s experience in registering with Twitter and mastering Twitter protocol. The second manga Twitter book, released September 25, called “Koma de Tanoshimu Tonari no Twitter” – or “Twitter – Joy of Twitter in 4-Frame Cartoon” – is drawn by Ajiko Kojima and relates amusing incidents that Twitter users face regularly. These two manga Twitter books follow on the heels of a Twitter novel called “Twitter Shousetsu – 140 ji no Monogatan” – or “Twitter Novels – 140 Letters Stories,” published by Discover Twenty-One. It features very very short 140 letter stories by ten established Japanese authors. One reviewer pointed out, however, that Japanese characters can convey roughly double the information possible in equivalent 140 English letters, so maybe that isn’t as impressive as composing a Twitter novel in English. Then again, the Japanese invented the 17-syllable haiku and the 35-syllable tanka poetic forms, so literary brevity is an inherent part of the culture.

With the kick-off of New York Fashion Week, Pantone has come out with its report on spring 2011 color trends. Their survey of prominent fashion hues suggests that apparel designers have been influenced this season by colors evocative of exotic destinations like Africa, India, Peru and Turkey. Pairing warm-cool complementary shades that are opposites on the color wheel, the spring palette is lively yet muted.

Fashion color trends do not necessarily cross over into other product categories such as household goods or wall paints, but many designers find them useful to track because they help them coordinate everything from point-of-purchase displays and packaging to editorial layouts. Being aware of the most up-to-date fashion colors helps suggest a contemporary look and keeping the Pantone formula numbers handy makes it easier to match what’s “in.”

Having trouble relating Western art history to contemporary culture? Watch this video that the French-American band Hold Your Horses made for its track “70 Million,” produced by L’Ogre. Apparently, the entire video was filmed over two weekends in a parking garage in Paris. See if you can name the painting and the artist.

Answers on next page.

Answers:

• “Last Supper” by da Vinci
• “The Birth of Venus” by Boticelli
• “The Anatomy Lesson” by Rembrandt
• “Girl with a Pearl Earring” by Vermeer
• “Portraits of Henry VIII” by Holbein
• “The Raft of the Medusa” by Gericault
• “The Death of Marat” by David
• “The Creation of Adam” by Michelangelo

Chorus:

• “The Son of Man” by Magritte
• “Composition with Large Red Plane” by Mondrian
• “Self-Portrait” by Kahlo
• “Portrait of Dora Maar Seated” by Picasso
• “The Scream” by Munch
• “Self-Portrait, 1899” by Van Gogh
• “Ten Marilyns” by Warhol

Verse:

• “Gabrielle d’Estrees et une de ses soeurs by Unknown
• “Maesta” by Cimabue
• “Salome” by Caravaggio
• “Olympia” by Manet
• “Liberty Leading the People” by Delacroix
• “Portrait of the Journalist Sylvia von Harden” by Dix
• “The Kiss” by Klimt

Chorus again:

• “La Mariee” by Chagall
• “Las Meninas” by Velazquez
• “Sunflowers” by Van Gogh