Design Dish: Amanda Clarke

What do you do/ Where do you work?
I’m a designer at WGBH Boston in their Interactive department. My job involves everything from graphic design and illustration to storyboarding and character design.
I just redesigned my own site and am really excited about it. Also, there are some upcoming projects that I’m looking forward to: I’m working on my second deck design for my friend’s skateboard company, Movement. I’m going to do a couple gig posters for the band Ten Minute Turns and just finished a poster for the band Harris.

Who or What inspires you?
Lots of things but I especially like: Alphonse Mucha, Tamara De Lempkica, Mary Blair, Jim Flora, Raymond Pettibon, Art Chantry, Roz Chast, Gil Elvgren, my brother, Margaret Killgallen, Evan Hecox, the Sean Connery James Bond movies, The Talking Heads, Barbara Kruger, J.C. Leyendecker, Jamie Hewlett, Tim Biskup, Spike Jonze, Daniel Clowes, Fiep Westendorp, Amy and David Sedaris, John White Alexander, Kirsten Ulve, Yoshitomo Nara, The Sound of Young America, bunnies and ice cream.

Do you listen to music when you work? If so, what are you listening to these days?
Music is a big motivator and inspiration for me-I like “everything” and I go through phases where I just listen to an album over and over and over. For a while it was Girl Talk’s “Night Ripper”. I also like The Jesus and Mary Chain’s “Automatic”. A lot. At work I like to listen to podcasts, mainly “Wait, Wait Don’t Tell Me” and “This American Life”.

What are you reading?
I started reading Michael Chabon’s “The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay”, but really I’m reading “The Best of Slate” anthology. And magazines.

Been to any good web sites lately?
One of the projects I work on for GBH debuted at TED this year and I’ve been going through their site and watching different presentations from the conference.
A friend pointed me to MK12’s site-their demo reel from 2006 has some cool type stuff in it.
Did I mention I like Slate?

What shows have you been to lately?
I saw Zidane: A 21st Century Portrait at the ICA recently and I’m excited to see the Hopper show at the MFA. I also saw “Hot Fuzz” which I think counts as art.

How do you unplug (what do you do with your spare time)?
I go to shows (music and art), I run around outside, I drink beers with friends and/or acquaintances, I draw, I play Battleship with my boyfriend. Stuff like that.

NY Mag

If you haven't been, you should visit New York Magazine's site. It's chock-full of sarcasm and sass. Woops. I mean... it's full of intellectually stimulating literature.
My latest guilty pleasure is their Approval Matrix.

Sara Singh Illustrations

I saw Sara's work in the Times and I love her style. We're very busy this week..otherwise, I'd wax poetic about her sophisticated use of color and layering...

Run Easy Boston.

So the Boston Marathon came and went again this year, and I didn't win. Actually, I didn't even run. Why? I AM NOT A RUNNER! Although I am reconsidering after the I drove along side a bus recently and Reebok's Ad Campaign starting speaking right to ME! The non-runner.

I think their "Run Easy" ad campaign is pretty smart.
Their taglines like,
"A 10 Minute Mile is just as long as a 6 Minute Mile. Run Easy Boston."
"Run at the speed of a chat. Run Easy Boston."
are aimed right at me, and possibly Melissa too.
In this Boston.com article from last month, you can see that I am their target market, and it's working, "This softer approach might play better with younger demographics of females," said McGee. I might actually try running again this spring— of course only with my new pair of Reeboks.

Beirut's 13 ways of Looking at a Typeface

Michael Beirut's recent post "Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Typeface" on Design Observer is a good read. Here's a snippet that we found funny:

For the first ten years of my career, I worked for Massimo Vignelli, a designer who is legendary for using a very limited number of typefaces...Then, after a decade, I left my first job. Suddenly I could use any typeface I wanted, and I went nuts. On one of my first projects, I used 37 different fonts on 16 pages. My wife, who had attended Catholic school herself, found this all too familiar. She remembered classmates who had switched to public school after eight years under the nuns: freed at last from demure plaid uniforms, they wore the shortest skirts they could find. "Jesus," she said, looking at one of my multiple font demolition derbies. "You've become a real slut, haven't you?" It was true. Liberated from monogamy, I became typographically promiscuous.

Love Louis

The Spring/Summer 07 Louis Vuitton print ads are so much fun. The styling reminds me very much of "The Swing" by Jean Honoré Fragonard. It has the same flirty, playful sexiness that embodies rococo art. Probably a play on Louis IV/Louis V. Way to think outside of the box!

FringeHog Tags the World

Our good friends over at FringeHog are in the midst of a really exciting project. They're futurists, so to be fair... all of their projects are exciting. Here's the lowdown from Michele Bowman:
FringeHog Tags the World is a collaborative social media project that is creating an interactive map of photographs and images that illustrate emerging ideas about the future. We’re interested in where future ideas emerge, how they migrate throughout society and ultimately how they catalyze with people and institutions to create change. Our goal is to design a visual vocabulary of ideas that will inspire a global conversation about the most important trends and memes shaping the future.
Where do you see the future? Set your sights on the people, places and activities that hint at what the future might look like in 10, 20 or even 50 years. Than snap a photo and email it, along with a title, brief description and the location the picture was taken to future@fringehog.com.
Photographs will be geo-tagged, credited and displayed on the FringeHog Tags the World map; select photos and contributors will be featured in a book describing the project.

keepin it classy

I really dig the trend of reusable cups that look disposable. I bought my mom (a native new yorker) a pair of the New York Coffee Cups($14) from the MoMA Store. The Beaker Juice Glass($1.95) from CB2 is hand blown, heat-tempered and just the right size for sipping wine. Crinkle cups($10 & $12), available at A+R, look just like Solo cups. They would make great conversation starters for your next rager!

At Tiffany's

Tiffany's has launched a mini-site to promote their line of charms. We instantly recognized illustrator Sujean Rim's watercolors. (We read Daily Candy.) Cute stuff!

6 Billion Others

6 billion Others, a project by Yann Arthus-Bertrand, is an amazing web experience.
The project which began shooting in '03 contains 6000 "testimonials" or interviews with people from 65 countries. 6 billion Others says,"the object of the project is to attempt to reveal each person's universality and individuality." For continuity, they were asked the same list of questions covering topics like Dreams, Fears, Happiness and Love. It's an interesting view into someone else's life. I was most surprised by the similarities in many of the answers. 6 Billion Others illustrates the human race at its most beautiful.

via Fringehog