Francis Bacon

Francis

Excited to view his new exhibition at the Met.

Britain’s bad-boy painter.

Self-taught, controversial, and revered, Francis Bacon was one of the most talented figurative painters of the 20th century. This year, a major traveling retrospective marks the centenary of his birth.

He left home at 16. Banished by his father after being caught wearing his mother’s clothes, Bacon drifted between London, Berlin, and Paris for the next several years — surviving as a gambler and hustler.

Bacon got his start as a designer. He first gained notoriety for his modernist furniture and rugs, but quickly abandoned that career to focus on painting surreal, fragmented subjects, based on found photographs and reproductions.

He immortalized his fellow barflies. From the ’60s onward, Bacon painted twisted visions of his inner circle of drinking pals, including his lover George Dyer, who he first met when Dyer burglarized Bacon’s pad.

View work from Bacon’s traveling retrospective (and visit the exhibition in New York), read three classic interviews, watch video of the artist from the BBC archives, and buy the exhibition catalogue.

Via Paul Laster from FlavourPill

Erik Spiekermann

Erik Spiekermann, born 1947, studied History of Art and English in Berlin. He is information architect, type designer (FF Meta, ITC Officina, FF Info, FF Unit, LoType, Berliner Grotesk and many corporate typefaces) and author of books and articles on type and typography.

He was founder (1979) of MetaDesign, Germany’s largest design firm with offices in Berlin, London and San Francisco. Projects included corporate design programmes for Audi, Skoda, Volkswagen, Lexus, Heidelberg Printing and way-finding projects like Berlin Transit, Duesseldorf Airport and many others. In 1988 he started FontShop, a company for production and distribution of electronic fonts. He is board member of ATypI and the German Design Council and Past President of the ISTD, International Society of Typographic Designers, as well as the IIID. In 2001 he left MetaDesign and now runs SpiekermannPartners with offices in Berlin, London and San Francisco.

In 2001 he redesigned The Economist magazine in London. His book for Adobe Press,“Stop Stealing Sheep” has recently appeared in a second edition and a German and a Russian version. His corporate font family for Nokia was released in 2002. In 2003 he received the Gerrit Noordzij Award from the Royal Academy in Den Haag. His type system DB Type for Deutsche Bahn was awarded the Federal German Design Prize in gold for 2006. In May 2007 he was the first designer to be elected into the Hall of Fame by the European Design Awards for Communication Design.

Erik is Honorary Professor at the University of the Arts in Bremen and in 2006 received an honorary doctorship from Pasadena Art Center. He has just been elected an Honorary Royal Designer for Industry by the RSA in Britain.

Blobism

The Apple iMac. The New Beetle. The Oh Chair. The Guggenheim Bilbao Museum. These are all classic examples of blobism, a futuristic retelling of the curve, resulting in protoplasmic forms designed by computers. A growing number of inventive architects are now embracing this concept, making blobitecture the hottest global trend in the industry.

This is the first book to focus exclusively on the blobitecture phenomenon in detail: how the process works, the geometric and environmental challenges it presents, the sophisticated software that allows artists to bend the lines of traditional architecture, and the stunning work produced by this art form. Featuring curved walls to blob-esque furniture to Greg Lynn’s Embryological House and Koloatan and McDonald’s Title House, this is both a showcase of the best in blobism and a guide to applying it in a designer’s own work.

75th Year Airstream.

Designer David Winick took the lead in creating an interior space that is both ultra modern and retrospective. Natural linoleum in warm tones brings out the highlights of genuine wood veneers. Upholstery inspired by 1940’s tailoring heightens textural contrasts, reflecting in an array of aluminum surfaces. Porthole windows, round vents and yacht-inspired details further integrate the past and future in this very special travel trailer.