Ice Cream
Yesterday, 23 of Iceland's most interesting designers... plus yours truly... presented to a packed house Rjómi (cream) at the Reykjavik Art Museum
Listasafn Reykjavíkur (The Reykjavik Art Museum)
Most performances were action packed and exciting with these personal favs:
Up and coming graphic designer Siggi Eggertsson flashing his illustration work, using patterns and colorful grids to construct images before sharing a documentary on a day (before) of his life.
Siggi Eggertsson: Zoot Woman
Sól Hrafnsdóttir is another new graphic talent that draws line drawing of absurd situations. If you need to know how to put your guinea pig into best use, she's got it all figured out.
Sól Hrafnsdóttir: Man & guinea pig
Acclaimed modernist furniture designer Gunnar Magnússon with some gems from the past.
Katrín Pétursdóttir Young and her complex illustration world of comic horrors.
I'm always amazed how a population of 300.000 on a windy island can even survive, let alone thrive and have a progressive culture to share the 7 billion neighbors of ours.
I'm looking forward to next yeat. We're all going to Rjómi 2007 in Reykjavík.
Reverse computer mullet
Meanwhile, back at Armchair HQ: Nate's got that Parallels thing going on. One computer, two monitors, two OS's.
Trophies, magazines and small Nordic capitals.
Our Coca-Cola M5 website just won a gold at AdWeek, BrandWeek and MediaWeek's MIXX awards.
Keep an eye out for the new Print magazine, where Armchair Media's art director Kevin Byrd's FORM project is featured.
I'm heading heading for the motherland for Rjómi, where I'm being put on the spot as one of Iceland's most ineresting graphic designers (My dad's thinks it has to be a mistake.)
Be back next week! Bless, bless!
Larry Interns
Armchair's new intern (sometimes Björk look-alike) is Larry Luk. He spends his other days at Portfolio Center and nights at Epidemic Coalition.
Removing the boring from benefits
Tired of wading through the reams of benefits paperwork from your HR department? Us too. Armchair Media decided to make it easy for Cingular employees by developing a new benefits portal that delivers straight talk about health care, 401k options and career paths.
Our aim was to focus on the facts but also create a portal with personality. Planning for the future becomes manageable when the details and possibilities are presented in easily digestible info chunks with real-world context.
Cingular is truly raising the bar by making their benefits program lively and accessible. Maybe in the future, more companies will spare a few trees and follow suit.
Get the straight talk!
OnlyTheyKnow.com... Maybe It's Better That Way
ABC is spending a good deal of air time promoting its new series, "The Nine." Critics say it's one of the best new series of the fall, ranking with "Lost" and "24" in terms of excitement and suspense. Unfortunately, its online campaign is more in the neighborhood of "My Mother the Car" and "Manimal."
ABC breathlessly teases viewers to go to OnlyTheyKnow.com for a taste of what's to come. On the surface it's an engaging way to build interest for a series that hasn't yet aired. That's the theory. In practice, it's like stoking a fire with a bucket of ice water.
Visitors to the site are greeted by a slideshow open that looks like it was made in HyperCard circa 1990: stereotypical TV shape filled with static, white noise under, ominous lettering asking the same questions we've seen on billboards, "Who are the nine hostages?" Unfortunately, that's the good part. The slideshow parts to reveal a three-by-three grid of the nine main characters that is supposed to look like security camera footage. In perfectly composed eye-level, two-shots, of course. Click on one of the characters and all you get is a chopped and repurposed clip from the network's show promos. The definition of the digital dead end.
On a scale of one to ten, ABC gets a 9.5 for its enigmatic and often brilliant Hanso Corporation fake ads that aired in "Lost" last season. (Here's hoping they return this year.) But for this misguided attempt, maybe "The Nine" should be renamed "The Two."
See for yourself.
Newest Armchair
Meet the newest member of the Armchair family, Priah-Nicole Ferguson. She's a little under 8 lbs., healthy and adorable.
Congratulations John and Nisha!