Archive for May, 2009
Wednesday, May 27th, 2009
NoiseFive
✍ 2008: Attik
Founded in Huddersfield, England in 1986 by Simon Needham and James Sommerville with a £2,000 grant from the Prince’s Trust, ATTIK has since grown into a multi-discplinary brand development company with 200 designers employed in five studios on three continents. ATTIK’s success can be traced to two key projects: the publication, beginning in 1995, of a series of self-initiated, experimental design books with the shared title Noise; and its revolutionary work for Toyota in launching the groundbreaking youth brand, Scion, in 2002.
It’s been 7 years since the release of Noise Four and, with the acquisition of ATTIK in 2007 by Dentsu Inc., the world’s largest advertising agency, we feared that Four would be the last. Thankfully we were wrong. Three years in the making, NoiseFive is the most elaborate production yet in a series noted for extravagance, with nine paper stocks, 30 spot colours and a staggering range of print finishes, from foil blocking and laser cutting to heat-sensitive ink and scratch-and-sniff. In addition to experimental designs contributed by ATTIK’s UK, New York, San Francisco and Santa Monica offices, the book offers a detailed retrospective of the agency’s work and profiles of its principals. Limited to 1,000 copies in distribution, Swipe is the exclusive Canadian source for highly anticipated publication. (2009: Attik; ISBN 9780955883002)
$129.95
Shipping is available across Canada and to the United States (where, in all likelihood, the book will sell out prior to release). Along the same lines, Pentagram Marks, which sold out immediately worldwide, is currently trading at somewhere around US $1,000 a copy on Amazon and E-Bay. Swipe sold all 20 copies reserved for Canada and now has a couple of customers willing to resell their copies at US $500. If you are genuinely interested in acquiring Pentagram Marks at this price, please e-mail us.
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To purchase any of the products or titles mentioned here, please visit our downtown Toronto location, call us toll-free at 1-800-56-swipe or e-mail us at: info@swipe.com.
Posted in Advertising, Book Design, Books on Communication Design, Graphic Design |
Tuesday, May 26th, 2009
Do Good Design: How Designers Can Change the World
✍ 2008: David B. Berman 
As ethics chair for the Society of Graphic Designers of Canada, David Berman was responsible for the develpement of the RGD and GDC code of ethics, now used by Icograda as a template for national graphic design organizations worldwide. In Do Good Design Berman goes beyond conventional design ethics, taking to task a profession that, too often, is paid to create deceptive or exploitative images in support of a highly destructive form of consumerism based on invented needs. “Overconsumption,” he writes, “is fueled most powerfully by clever visual arguments to convince everyone (including larger, growing Developing World populations) to consume more and more. Our impact as designers and as consumers of design is huge. We should be held responsible”.
The great American industrial designer Raymond Loewy famously refused only one job in his career: that of creating a more lethal anti-personnel hand-grenade for the American military. Berman could rightly be accused of overestimating designers’ influence in the battle between global consumerism and more humane values. Yet, while designers didn’t start the war, there is no denying that they often do help make the “weapons of mass deception” more lethal. Designers are not defense lawyers, they are not obliged to defend their clients’ malevolent actions, indeed they are ethically bound to refuse to do so (and even defense lawyers are legally prohibited from knowingly lying). Designers must not excuse their involvement in the creation of damaging messages by hiding behind the design brief. Rather Berman demands that they be guided by the overwhelming contemporary imperative to do good. (2008: Peachpit Press; ISBN 9780321573209)
$26.99
Watch here for news of a possible upcoming Toronto panel-discussion featuring Mr. Beman. In the meantime, listen to the a pair of interviews with the author, the first is Author Talk with Peachpit Press publisher Nancy Aldrich-Ruenze, about the book itself:
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the second, about the democratization of design, is from CBC Radio’s All In A Day with Adrien Harewood:
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To purchase any of the products or titles mentioned here, please visit our downtown Toronto location, call us toll-free at 1-800-56-swipe or e-mail us at: info@swipe.com.
Posted in Advertising, Books on Communication Design, Canadian, Design Theory, Exhibits & Events, Friends & Links, Graphic Design, Graphic Design Ethics, Socially Responsible Graphic Design, Sustainable Graphic Design |
Wednesday, May 20th, 2009
With Doors Open Toronto 2009 just around the corner we here at Swipe and BUILT are more thankful than ever to be part of the extraordinary culture complex at 401 Richmond Street West. A prime destination during the festival, 401 is expecting several thousand visitors over the weekend of May 23rd and 24th. Accordingly, Swipe and Built will be open both days from 10 am to 6 pm.
In celebration of this celebration of our city’s cultural, social and architectural heritage, BUILT offers the following selection of recently published Torontoiana, beginning with a look at the history of local urban sprawl from one of the most sagacious figures in Toronto municipal affairs, ‘Mayor Blue Jeans’ himself, John Sewell.
The Shape of the Suburbs: Understanding Toronto’s Sprawl
✍ 2009: John Sewell
A meticulous and thoughtful account of how Toronto became ‘Greater’ Toronto, expanding on the author’s classic study The Shape of the City. When BUILT opened it’s doors for the first time last week a photo was needed for the 401 Richmond Street newsletter and it was (rightly) deemed unnewsletterworthy to simply shoot one of us behind the counter so, on the flimsy pretext of a book signing, former Mayor John Sewell was lured down to the shop where he graciously agreed to have his picture taken. After recounting a series of fascinating anecdotes, taken from the book, on the origin and purpose of Toronto’s expressway system, the economic and political history of infrastructure in the 905, and the unlikely connection between the QEW and Adolph Hitler, Mr Sewell was off on his bicycle and back to work (despite the fact that he has every right just to sit at home all day muttering “I told you so.” over and over). Hard to imagine that, back in the Seventies, riding a bike to Council meetings was an occasion for snide derision in the Toronto SUN and elsewhere. (2009: University of Toronto Press; ISBN 9780802095879)
$24.95
Toronto’s Visual Legacy: Official City Photography from 1856 to the Present
✍ 2009: Steve MacKinnon, Karen Teeple & Michelle Dale
This unexpectedly beautiful book, published in conjunction with the City of Toronto Archives to celebrate the 175th anniversary of the city’s incorporation, brings together a selection of official City of Toronto photographs chosen by City archivists from their collection of hundreds of thousands of images. Among our favourites, this 1913 scene at 21 Elizabeth Street with the perfect juxtaposition of poverty and power which, unfortunately, characterizes the area around City Hall to this day. (2009: Lorimer; ISBN 9781552774083)
$44.95
Art Deco Architecture in Toronto: A Guide to the City’s Buildings from the Roaring Twenties and the Depression
✍ 2009: Tim Morawetz
With a friendly and accessible writing sytle, Art Deco Architecture in Toronto combines the elegance and flair of a coffee-table book with the accurate, practical information and anecdotal background of a guidebook. This important new book will provide the lay-person, architectural historian or Art Deco aficionado with a meaning ful appreciation of this important architectural style as it manifested itself in Toronto.
Concrete Toronto: A Guidebook to Concrete Architecture from the Fifties to the Seventies
✍ 2007: Micheal McClelland & Graeme Stewart
Concrete Toronto acts as a guide to the city’s extensive inventory of significant concrete buldings and re-examines the unique value of the material and design idiom. Included are the insights of many of the original concrete architects along with a wealth of new and archival photos and drawings. (2007: Coach House Books; ISBN 1552451933)
Endangered Species
✍ 2007: John Martins-Manteiga, ed.
In partnership with The School of Design at George Brown College, Dominion Modern catalogues twenty-six formative examples of Canadian Modernist architecture threatened with demolition and seeks to engender a wider debate about the value of this aspect of Canadian design heritage. (2007: Dominion Modern; ISBN 9780968193327)
GreenTOpia: Towards a Sustainable Toronto
✍ 2007: Alana Wilcox, ed. with Christina Palassio & Jonny Dovercourt
In this third volume in the influential uTOpia series, green-minded Torontonians are invited to imagine a more environmentally responsible and humane city. Included is a directory with profiles of green organizations in the GTA, as well as a how-to guide and a fun-facts section. (2007: Coach House Books; ISBN 9781552451946)
Historical Atlas of Toronto
✍ 2008: Derek Hayes
In this new addition to the acclaimed series, geographer Hayes charts Toronto’s history with more than 200 period maps, providing a unique visual record of the city’s development. (2008: Douglas & Mcintyre Ltd; ISBN 9781553652908)
Inside Toronto: Urban Interiors 1880s to 1920s
✍ 2006: Sally Gibson
Recognized with a Heritage Toronto award in 2006, this lovely book combines 260 vintage images with extensive original research to document the rarely recorded places where Torontonians lived and worked at the turn of the last century. (2006: Cormorant Books; ISBN 189695195)
Mean City: From Architecture to Design: How Toronto Went Boom!
✍ 2007: John Martins-Manteiga
Mean City captures the spirit of an unparalleled boom period in Toronto architecture and industrial design when, from 1945 to 1975, young architects and designers attempted to defy convention in a most conventional city. The book also persuasively laments the indifference that has lead to the loss of so many great modernist buildings in Toronto. (2007: Key Porter Books; ISBN 1556239126)
TSA Guide Map: Toronto Architecture 1953-2003
✍ 2005: Toronto Society of Architects
This Guide Map is intended to encourage the public to explore modern architecture in the City of Toronto, cataloguing both well known buildings and those deserving of wider recognition. We are happy to report that he TSA is currently working on a new Guide Map on Open Spaces, which is scheduled to be completed later this year.
Unbuilt Toronto: A History of the City That Might Have Been
✍ 2008: Mark Osbaldeston
A tremendously engaging approach to the social history of architecture and urban planning, Unbuilt Toronto examines the aspirations of the city by looking at significant building projects that were never realized, from St. Alban’s Cathedral and Eaton’s magnificent College Street tower, to the Spadina Expressway and the Queen subway. The book inspired a very successful exhibition at the ROM last winter, which is currently being remounted at Urbanscape in the Junction. (2008: Dundurn Press; ISBN 1550028359)
Art Deco Architecture in Toronto: $39.95
Concrete Toronto: A Guide to Concrete Architecture from the 50s to the 70s: $29.95
Greentopia: Towards a Sustainable Toronto $24.95
Historical Atlas of Toronto: $49.95
Inside Toronto: Urban Interiors 1880s to 1920s: $59.95
Mean City: From Architecture to Design: How Toronto Went Boom!: $26.95
TSA Guide Map: Toronto Architecture 1953-2003: $7.95
Unbuilt Toronto: A History of the City That Might Have Been: $26.95
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To purchase any of the products or titles mentioned here, please visit our downtown Toronto location, call us toll-free at 1-800-56-swipe or e-mail us at: info@swipe.com.
Thursday, May 14th, 2009
The rumours are true, Swipe has opened a second shop in a beautiful, high-profile suite on the ground floor of 401 Richmond Street West. BUILT, Books on Architecture is hoped, in the fullness of time, to fill the void left by the (really, really depressing) closure last year of the venerable Ballenford Books. For more than 30 years a succession of Susans served the community with a commitment and a level of expertise that we cannot hope to match, at least in the short term. In fact, so as not to make matters worse for our colleagues, Swipe avoided architecture as a subject area altogether for as long Ballenford was in business, with the result that we now feel embarrassingly ill-prepared and uninformed. So … um … help!
E-mail us and let us know what you need, want, or would just like to see at the new shop. Or drop by and see what’s here and what’s missing. We’re open Monday to Saturday from 10 am to 6 pm and we’ve even got windows! Please help us to make this your community bookstore.
Thursday, May 7th, 2009
Graphis was launched, rather optimistically, in Zurich in 1944 at the height of the Allied advance on Germany. In the following decades, the journal and founding editor Walter Herdeg were among the foremost proponents for rationalism and quality in the graphic arts. Herdeg continued to run the magazine until 1986 when it was sold and moved to New York under the editorship of B. Martin Pedersen.
Under Herdeg, Graphis never charged an entry fee for submissions, so that Graphis annuals regularly featured high-quality work by young talent. This has been particularly true in the case of Photographis, with arresting personal work being displayed alongside the best international commercial projects. There is an unfortunate perception that these publications stand somewhere behind the cutting edge, however, taking the current issues as an example, this seems unwarranted. That said, the Gold and Platinum winners categories do make the whole endeavour sound a bit like a travel rewards program.
For fans of Graphis publications in Canada, availability has been a much larger concern as the publisher has, for some years, struggled with an inconsistent release schedule and poor Canadian distribution. By the end of last year Graphis was behind by up to two years on several (formerly annual) series. We at Swipe were worried that the whole program might simply disappear. Happily, these problems seem finally to have been resolved with improved Canadian logistics and an almost overwhelming raft of new releases.
Graphis Annuals 2009
✍ 2009: B. Martin Pedersen, editor
All series: $83.95
Graphis Design Annual 2009
The flagship annual from Graphis, published continuously since 1952, this year’s volume features linked essays by Stefan Sagmeister, Korea’s Ahn Sang-Soo, and Harry Pearce of Pentagram London. (2008: Graphis; ISBN 9781932026139)
Graphis Advertising Annual 2009
One of the more recent additions to the program, since its introduction in 1993, Graphis Advertising has become an important single volume alternative to the regional and association-based annuals. (2009: Graphis; ISBN 9781932026528)
Graphis Photo Annual 2009
First produced in 1966, Graphis Photo is consistently the most beautiful and inspiring general photo annual in the world. (2009: Graphis; ISBN 1932026509)
Graphis New Talent Design Annual 2009
The only international student design annual, featuring creative work produced by students from professional programs in graphic design, advertising, and photography. This edition offers a special profile of the SADI School of Design in South Korea. (2009: Graphis; ISBN 1932026460)
Graphis Annual Report 2009
Featuring 106 international examples Graphis A.R. is the only fully editorial-based annual devoted to the annual report. Designed by Robert Louie of the Louey/Rubino Design Group in Santa Monica, this year’s annual was judged by Audra Brown, David Schimmel, Michael Stinson, Davor Bruketa, Robert Louey, Javier Leguizamo, and Richard Colbourne. (2009: Graphis; ISBN 1932026517)
Graphis Poster Annual 2008 / 2009
Since 1976 Graphis Poster has been the only international showcase of contemporary poster design. This edition also offers critical essays by renowned curators Christian Larsen of The MoMA, René Grohnert of The German Poster Museum, Kari Savolainen of Finland’s Lahti Poster Museum, Rene Wanner of Poster Page, and Pepe Menéndez of Cuba’s Casa de las Américas, among others. This is one of the titles that seems to have moved from an annual to an occasional publication. (2008: Graphis; ISBN 9781932026122)
Graphis Branding 5
This edition of Graphis Branding is divided into two sections, one offering 10 comprehensive case studies of recent branding projects and the other a simple showcase of 50 new identity systems. The series was formerly titled Graphis Corporate Identity and we assume Graphis already regretting the change. (2009: Graphis; ISBN 1932026207)
Previously published and also available:
Graphis Brochures 6
(2007: Graphis; ISBN 9781932026481)
Graphis Letterhead 7
(2008: Graphis; ISBN 9781932026498)
Graphis Logo 7
(2008: Graphis; ISBN 9781932026030)
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To purchase any of the products or titles mentioned here, please visit our downtown Toronto location, call us toll-free at 1-800-56-swipe or e-mail us at: info@swipe.com.
