The Hollywood Reporter invited the founder-director of the Wende Museum, Justinian Jampol, for a walk-through of the Becoming Los Angeles exhibit at the Natural History Museum. Read the full article here.

During their walkthrough they stopped and noticed a moment in the exhibit. Here is the discussion:

"Look at this (two hexagonal cases with antique rifles facing away from one another). This reminds me of Jeff Koons' vacuum cleaners. It’s a really complicated, possibly overcomplicated way to display these two guns. Do you think that was the thinking there -- that you can’t just have a wall of guns? You are constantly competing with a kid's ability to be drawn to something.

 
And the aesthetic of it is quite artistic. There is no practical point for it to be like this. The reaction to that sort of competition has been for so many museums to do this video/digital/multimedia kind of thing. But they’re always going to lose that fight. Because your interactive module at the museum is never going to be able to compete with the array of digital interactive media in people’s lives. I actually like the fact that they play that down here. I’m not against the use of multimedia in the museum. But I think there was a time where it was like the wave of the future and everything was touch screens, stuff like that. I like to see an installation like these guns there – that’s a cool sculpture."

We really appreciate the compliment. And wanted to take this opportunity to share the thinking behind this little exhibit with some sketches.

This first sketch shows the traditional method for presenting this idea. As Justinian Jampol puts it "...your mind would immediately go to thoughts of flea markets, of junk, garages and attics. And nobody wants to be what the Smithsonian was condemned as being -- like America’s attic." For the design of Becoming Los Angeles we strived to reduce the elements to their essence. Not for the purpose of being minimalistic, but to focus the visitors' attention on the core narrative. The minimalism is an honest byproduct of this design approach. In the example, the best possible way to say "war" is not with every object in the museum's collection attributed to this idea, but instead to choose only those objects that distill this concept to its essence - two rifles pointed at eachother.

The first iteration of this distilled idea was sketched with the rifles as if they were shouldered.

The next version tipped the guns on their edge, as if the United States (on the top) and Mexico (on the bottom) were superimposed over an invisible map.

Here is the final installation that Justinian Jampol and Christopher Wyrick discuss in the article. Standing nearly 10 feet tall and dramatically lit from the inside, as if a flash of light is streaming from the rifles' barrels.

LA Weekly's Amanda Lewis asked LR/LA president Leon Rodriguez to join her for a walkthrough and critique of the new exhibition "Anne". Click here to read the article.

Watch visitors comment on and interact with Becoming Los Angeles. See the full story here.

The 9/11 Museum located at the 9/11 Memorial in lower Manhattan is featured on 60 Minutes. See the online segment here.

Lesley Stahl's commentary on her piece for the 9/11 Memorial Museum can be seen here on 60 Minutes Overtime. Hear Leslie describe the project's biggest challege, a very practical and physical one; the flooding caused by hurricane Sandy and the potential disaster to the artifacts and personal affects of the victims.

Exhibit design and digital media development by Thinc Design and Local Projects. Read about the museum's architecture team here.

The Natural History Museum's president Jane Pisano is interviewed by Warren Olney about "Becoming Los Angeles" and the transformation at the museum. Listen here.

Click here to read the Daily News story about our latest project "Becoming Los Angeles". 

Click here to read Curbed LA's post about our latest project "Becoming Los Angeles".

This recent KCET article by Carren Jao clears it up.

To celebrate the 231st birthday of the city of Los Angeles the LA Times is prepared a little investigation about the oldest building in Los Angeles.

Another version of this article appears on the Huffington Post too.

LA Now produced this short segment showing some great interior and exterior shots of the structure.

Sanchez Adobe from Mark Ridley-Thomas on Vimeo.

Finally, Mad Men will return to AMC on March 25th. For the street campaign, AMC chose to roll out the announcement by distilling the ingredients down to the bare minimum. They are so confident in the popularity of Mad Men that they are relying on only two elements. One, a tiny illustrated Don Draper, pulled from the shows intro, and two, the premiere date.

The strength of this campaign reveals so much about the inner-workings of AMC. They know their audience and are speaking directly to them. (If you haven't seen the show, you will not get this campaign.) They trust the power of excellent communication design. (The drama created by the scale and white space stand alone in the over-decorated world of street campaigns.) AMC is willing to commit to a concept that separates itself so dramatically from all others that it is redefining what a street campaign can look like.

But wait. There's more...

In the Manhattan subway system these ads have taken on a life of their own. First revealed in this Vanity Fair article and this Gothamist article, and then this followup from Gothamist. There is a wave of make-your-own ads, first on the actual subway ads by taggers, graf artists and out of work advertising creatives, then later, Gothamist invited readers to submit their own photoshop mashups. Don would be so proud.

Above is the original blank on the NY subway. Below is an original sketch over the ad, and then few of my favorite photoshop mash-ups pulled from Gothamist.com.

While not as strong as the "falling Don" part of the campaign. There are supplemental concepts that relay on type alone to remind you what it is you missed so much from Mad Men.

Photos of the "Andaz Hotel Don", "Envy is Back" and "Adultery is Back" were pulled from http://dailybillboard.blogspot.com. It's a great site for reviewing LA's latest street campaigns.

The blog "Artinfo" posted this story about the massive increase in visitors since 2009. The design of their new exhibits there must have something to do with it.

This fall, the Gap, or is it just "Gap" has been using some very hand crafted in-store graphics to support the "Joy It Up" marketing campaign. While Anthopologie and Urban Outfitters have been doing this kind of retail handicraft for years, it only makes sense that this use of simple, off-the-shelf based in-store marketing campaign would turn up here. Clearly sustainability has reached enough Americans that this kind of "eco-friendly" aesthetic can now grace the interiors of Americas largest retailers. These photos were taken at the Westfield Century City Shopping Center. While shooting these images I was scolded by several "Gap" employees. There are no photos allowed in the Gap. Or is it just Gap.

Although moving images like these can never replace the multi-sensorial experience of actually being there, a video walkthrough does a decent job of giving a sense of scale and shape that photography can't. These three videos show different perspectives of this amazing exhibit.

Payless Shoes Paleontologist from Danny Weinkauf on Vimeo.

Because it's fun, that's why.

While Volvo accounts for only about 1% of cars sold in the US, they still have a great reputation for build quality and safety.

Their legendary crash test facility turned 10 this year, and all of their 2011, 2012 model year cars have earned a slot on the the IIHS top safety picks list for 2011.

Recently purchased from Ford by Geely of China, after year over year decline in sales of around 25%, Volvo looks poised for a resurgence. Maybe, that's why this year at the LA Auto Show, Volvo has prepared a presentation that distinguishes itself well above its position in the US market.

It takes a great deal of sophistication and patience to successfully translate your brand attributes from the product you sell to the environment you are selling them in, especially if your strongest brand attribute is safety. When walking through the Volvo presentation you sense this attribute in a visceral way - beautiful wood finishes, simple forms, and straightforward communications that result in an earnest yet arresting environment. Of course, an auto show booth cannot make you feel safe, but it can help you understand the commitment to the pursuit of safety through the level of attention paid to materials, light, finishes, shape and form.

While the future of big box bookstores is uncertain, smaller bookstores have had a resurrgence over the past couple of years. Most of these book shops strive to bring knowledge to the community. Some like Libros Shmibros in Boyle Heights (actually a lending library) have become beacons for community activism.

There are other types of bookstores that are more of a distribution center for a specific publisher, like Taschen at the Grove. These publishers' shops are sales driven and they only sell books. Books by their publisher. The tight branding and emphasis on sales feels more like the Gap than a neighborhood book shop or a big box book store like Borders or Barnes and Noble.

On a recent trip to Las Vegas, I had a chance to see the newest flagship store of one of these ultra branded publisher stores. Assouline has an amazing collection of art and culture books. If the Taschen shop at the Grove is like the Gap, then Assouline at City Center is like Gucci. Little vignettes with perfect lighting and a sense of brand narrative create an Assouline experience. The crisp installations and openness and attention to detail create a sense of exclusivity. When a shopper visits Assouline, they are experiencing Assouline, and just so happen to be looking at and possibly buying books.

This weekend, the LA Convention Center hosted Dwell Magazine's Dwell on Design conference. This year's conference featured furniture and accessories, kitchen and bath products, outdoor items, building materials, and modern family products, all with a focus on sustainability. If I included every product or idea that made me spend time at a booth, this blog post would go on forever. Instead, I have focused on products and ideas that have the potential to change the way that people see them.

Super Toilet
A toilet that requires a remote control to operate should have its own customized environment and Kohler's Numi gets just that. Numi is housed in a super slick Marmol Radziner prefabricated structure, which looks more like an environment designed for high end apparel than a toilet. On second thought, Numi retails for around $6000 so the upscale trappings make sense.

Perfect Walls
One of my least favorite parts of home interiors are the unfinished look of outlets, light switches and a/c registers. Trufig has finally solved this issue by delivering a completely flush receptacle for almost anything you want to embed in your wall. The system requires much more attention to detail (level five finish) than your standard outlet, but the results are worth it, even if they run about $400 a pop.

Invisible Audio
Harman Kardon has developed a new high end audio system designed to be next to invisible. The amp and glass touchscreen (wipeable) slot neatly into cabinetry. Here, it is seen slotted just above a Meile espresso machine in Poggen Pohl cabinets. Two cabinet door faces become speakers thanks to a tiny diaphragm mounted to a shallow impression routed into the back of the cabinet door. The system doesn't deliver audiophile sound quality, but it's better than most counter top speaker systems without having to lose the valuable counter space. This product is not yet for sale, nor is it featured on HK's site. If you read dutch, enjoy this short description by the designers, D'Andrea and Evers.

Urban Farming
Dwell has focused on home gardens and sustainable practices since the beginning, but they have cemented the trend of urban farming by featuring contemporary chicken coops for 2011. This kind of highly polished product seems antithetical to the get-your-hands-dirty attitude required for keeping chickens. Maybe keeping chickens is easier than it seems. Chickens cluck. You get eggs. Clean pen with high pressure washer. Repeat.

On April 25th, at the AAM conference in Houston, Age of Mammals won the 23rd Annal Excellence in Exhibition Competition award for Special Achievement in Clarity of Message. In attendence to accept the award were Karen Wise, VP of Exhibitions and Education and Simon Adlam, Project Manager.

The small Age of Mammals contingent present at the award ceremonies hardly represented the massive team required to pull off this project.

A huge congratulations to the NHM team, Cinnabar, Second Story, KBDA, Ely, First Circle, Red Cape Studio and everyone else involved in this amazing project.

"From our point of view, the Arctic has no favorable qualities, unless its severity be counted as such." In the exhibit brochure, this is how Edmund Carpenter introduces the Arctic. Severity as a quality? What a great concept for an exhibit design strategy.

Upside Down uses severity in ways that transport a visitor to the barren arctic, where, as Carpenter puts it "there is no line dividing earth from sky." Visitors must wear little white booties over their shoes to preserve the virginal snowy floors (painted white). The spiraling acrylic casework floats along the horizon line. Glowing ice caves exalt worship masks. Inuit tales and sounds of the arctic hang in the air like snow flakes.

Read art daily's review of "Upside Down" here.

Curated by Edmund Carpenter, assisted by Sean Mooney. Art Direction by Douglas Wheeler. Sound design by Phillippe Le Goff

On a recent visit to Houston, I took a quick run to the Montrose enclave to visit the Menil collection. Art installations, matching bungalows, tree lined park lawns and the thick texas heat create a surreal museum experience. The center piece of the campus is the Renzo Piano designed central building that houses the core collection as well as changing exhibits.

While the collections are impressive, the art viewing experience is elevated by how uniquely the building captures and manipulates light. Diffused natural light, softened through Pianos louvre system, incandescent lighting, white walls, and dark glossy hardwood flooring cast, reflect and soften light like no other museum. This intense focus on manipulating light continues throughout the Menil Campus. The Rothko Chapel and Cy Twombly Gallery are contemplative shrines to perfect art lighting. The lighting here has become more than a function of illuminating art, but has become a brand that defines the museum and separates it from all others.

To read more about the Menil Collection and the Montrose Enclave click here.

Art in the Streets at MoCA

Three Fragment of a Lost Tale, Sculpture and Story by John Frame, at the Huntington.

God's of Angkor at the Getty Center.

Central Nigeria Unmasked: Arts of the Benue River Valley at the Fowler.

The Art in The Streets exhibit at MoCA's Geffen Contemporary is on pace to break all of MoCA's attendence records. It's a massive show with plenty of controversy and a connection to pop culture that draws audiences that don't attend other museum shows.

The cavernous gallery spaces and frenetic installation complement the themes of the exhibit. The scale of the pieces and their display push viewers back. A closer look reveals similarities in the pieces as well as installation that ties this show together. Enjoy.

You know I love scrabble. Well, not enough to have people over to play. Instead, I play the online version "Words with Friends". After seeing this amazing Scrabble board on Fast Company, I had a sudden urge to invite some word smiths over and get it on. Then I realized it was just a concept and thanked Steve Jobs for being a genius. Yes, it would be a lovely decorative object in an interior, but if I can't drop it in my jeans pocket and play it anywhere, it's probably not really worth it.

For the last couple of years there has been what appeared to be a temporary shop in shop concept called House of Hoops inside the Beverly Center's Foot Locker. The massive marketing campaign for the original House of Hoops was just a warmup for the new Los Fearless concept. With the NBA All Star Game in LA, Nike is giving hoop-lovers a destination other than Staples Center. It's a little tough to understand exactly what Los Fearless is. It's a very Nike concept - a visceral connection between the spirit of LA and a select few of Nikes highest paid endorsers. Here's how they put it:

The Getty Trust and LACMA have teamed up to acquire around 2000 photos by Mapplethorpe. Among the group are some of his most important and controversial work. To sweeten the deal, the Getty Research Institute has been gifted the remainder of the Mapplethorpe archive. The huge collection includes: 200 unique artworks, 120,000 negatives and 3,500 polaroids along with personal and professional correspondence.

As part of the build-up to the first-of-it's-kind street art exhibit at MoCA, Jeffery Deitch, a longtime supporter of street artists, commissioned Blu to paint a massive mural that would cover the entirety of Moca's Geffen Contemporary's north-facing facade. But there's a problem. Apparently, Deitch never saw a sketch or approved the piece, and found the content insensitive to the neighbors. So, it was painted over the next day. The piece depicted rows of wooden coffins draped with dollar bills. According to a MoCA spokeswoman, the huge piece is in plain view from the VA hospital on Temple Street and is adjacent to a WWII Japanese American memorial. To read the full story according to the LA Downtown news, click here. Mat Gleason, art critic and contributor to the Huffington post has this to say.

Back in May of last year, the Galleries of Modern London opened at the Museum of London. Over 7000 objects help to tell the story of London's long cultural history from 1666 to present. WilkonsonEyre was responsible for the gallery renovations and although I have not seen the space in person, it photographs very well. Click here to see more images on the Guardian online. The space featuring "Booth's Poverty Maps" is a highlight. The content rich color coding of streets by relative wealth, makes these maps a great example of timeless information design. Read all about it at this NY Times article. The display of the maps is impressive too. The walls, ceilings and floors are covered with maps. The framed maps are hung so they appear to be tiles of the maps covering the entire room. 

Last Sunday, the popular HBO show, Big Love, featured the interior of the Homelands exhibit at the Autry Museum. A main character, Barbara Henrickson, played by Jeanne Tripplehorn visits her mother, who volunteers as a docent at a museum in Utah. Two long scenes show several views of the gallery exterior and interior. The rich textures in the galleries make it very difficult for anyone who has seen the exhibit to think this could possibly be anywhere but the Autry.

The concept of the food court has transformed in the last  few years from a basic mall cafeteria to a fully branded culinary lounge experience, with food sophistication on par with the attention to detail of the interiors. The latest LA examples at the Westside Century City and the Westfield Pavilion in Culver City are great examples. The new Santa Monica Place has go so far as to rename the concept all together. They call it the Dining Deck. But in the end - it's still just a food court, plastic trays and all.

After a visit to the newly opened Resnick pavilion, I left the property in search of sustinance. Turning east on Wilshire revealed a caravan of food trucks. Now this is a new concept in food courts. It's moving, changes from week to week and elevates the experience of visiting LACMA. So what you need to give up some amenities, like chairs. Or tables. The food is amazing and the experience of watching the chefs work their magic in those micro-kitchens is lots of fun. Click here to visit LACMA's site.

Read the full article here

This beautiful refuse is a typical by product of powder coating steel. The bolts are used to fill the holes that would otherwise fill with the powder coat. Hangers and overspray are covered over by the next batch of color.

Among the NHMLAC's amazing resources is its staff of master craftsmen, builders, experts and technical wizards. It is a pleasure working along side them every day.

NHM DC team: left to right, top to bottom. Josh, Phil, Liam, Scott, Jerome. Not pictured: Kristina, Michael, Robert, Tim, Chris, Justin and Michelle.

The NHM's massive collection of taxidermy is featured in the new Discovery Center. The NHM's in-house taxidermist is responsible for creating, caring for, and displaying every once-living creature on display.

In April 2008, hand lettering master, Marian Bantjes, teamed up with Pentagram partner Michael Bierut to develop another home run project. In the great tradition of hip hop, Sean Combs  "sampled" the beautiful rococo lettering and reshaped some of the letterforms to spell Sean John. Fast Company has taken exception. Compare the artwork here.

To marvel at the creations of Marian Bantjes click here.

A rainy weekend in LA sends residents running for cover. I'm usually no exception, but while I cleaned my office on Sunday morning, I couldn't help but wonder, what would one of the busiest landmarks in LA look like on a rare, rainy Sunday morning. 10 minutes later I was out the door and headed for Griffith park. The parking lot was empty, the hiking trail was empty, Griffith Observatory was empty. Not only did I get in a nice little workout, but experienced a part of LA in a way that few rarely do.

"Who doesn't remember the first time they entered a natural history museum and dropped their jaw at a large, articulated skeleton of some megamammal—most likely a mastodon, mammoth, or African elephant—that greeted them in the rotunda? I have fond memories of museum visits from my youth that transported me to locations around the world, revealing the fauna and flora characteristic of often exotic sites. Museums of science and natural history have come a long way since the days of static dioramas, and the new Age of Mammals hall at the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County does not disappoint. It inspires the wonder I felt when I was younger while incorporating an accurate depiction of mammalian evolution that visitors of all ages can grasp."...

Read the full article here.

F1 engineers have been exploiting loopholes in regulations to make their cars faster since the sport began. So, it's no surprise that Ferrari has applied that same strategic thinking to promotions. Marlboro has been Ferrari's title sponsor since 1997. The official team name is Scuderia Ferrari Marlboro. In 2002 the FIA, F1's governing body, banned cigarette advertising on F1 cars. Ever since, the Scuderia has been referencing, eluding to, and hinting at a Marlboro logo, without showing the logo. In May of this year the FIA finally said enough is enough and forced all references to Marlboro be removed permanently. While these outlines, stripes and barcodes are not a registered trademark of Marlboro, they certainly mean Marlboro.

To celebrate SFM's success at tricking the FIA for nearly eight years, I have collected as many iterations of these logos I could find online. Please send me more if I have missed any. A contemporary artist in LA has been wheat pasting a parody of the Marlboro logo all over town. Thought it made sense to include it here too. To see more work by this artist click here. To read the full story of SFM's battle with the FIA click here.

The new Gap logo was a huge disaster. Click here to read the whole story on Adage. While the Gap logo may have been misguided, there are plenty of re-branding initiatives that have been very successful in 2010.

The financial giant PriceWaterhouseCoopers, has dropped the full name in favor of initials. Everyone has been calling them pwc for years, anyway. The new "pwc" typemark and colorful digital flower thingy, designed by Wolf Olins, is a departure in the financial sector, and will hopefully begin to establish a new vernacular. An animated version of the logo can be seen on the pwc site.

Read some backstory about the new brand strategy here.

Bausch and Lomb worked with Pentagram to help them rebrand their business to focus on total eye health care. Their previous brand focused on contact lenses exemplified by refraction. The corporate colors have been freshened up and transparency has been introduced to exemplify the new direction for the brand. B+L's re-nu brand has been redesigned too. See more examples of the re-branding and read the strategy on Pentagram's site.

"LOS ANGELES — Part of the oldest museum in Los Angeles County has been turned into a home for the aged — and the ages.

With specimens that date back 4 billion years, the Age of Mammals exhibit opens Sunday in the north wing of the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County.

It's the first permanent museum exhibition in the world to trace 65 million years of evolution based on geology and climate, said curator John Harris."...

Read the full article here.

"How do you squeeze 65 million years of mammalian history into an eye-popping, mind-bending, crowd-pleasing exhibition?

Not easily, even if you have a stellar collection of prehistoric specimens and a talented team of curators, scientists and designers who like to tell big stories with the help of interactive technology. Or if the showcase is part of a $107-million architectural restoration project...."

Read the full story here.