Scrapbook

Neat things from across the web that inspire, excite, and innovate.

— Concrete architecture done right.

— Minimalist advertising is so intriguing; when a company is so well known and so prominent, it can afford to not even show its product.

— Really cool example of skeumorphic cartography in use for London's Kew Gardens. I still prefer the clean, unsaturated style with pseudo-3D icons of buildings and monuments (a style popular in city wayfinding maps), but this is really cool. One can ask, when will satellite view and 2D representations of space meet? When will maps become just an annotated globe? Perhaps the rule of map purpose in cartography will regulate these questions.

— An example of socialist architecture which looked really cool in its time. Arguably it's more the contemporary trends in architecture that led to this than ideology, as flawed as it might have been in other aspects. However, it reminds me of times when the world was willing to be a little more experimental and crazy with the places we live and work in. The lesson learned about these kinds of buildings is that they must be be maintained and kept clean because concrete rots and degrades with time. This is what it looks like today (2019), albeit in a slightly worse state. It's definitely seen better days. It appears that it's undergoing reconstruction which looks hopeful!

— I thought I'd never see an advertisment that uses topographic maps, but here we are. We're all familiar with contour lines that indicate elevation changes, yet the idea of "breaking" or skewing them to demonstrate that "our vehicle can surpass all kinds of terrain" is quite frankly, genius. Artwork designed by Dario Ingiusto for a promotion by Publicis, Canada.

— The thing I love most about European transit hubs is that despite being built in the 19th or early 20th century, they find their raison d'être in our modern world. Their interiors change together with our collective lifestyle and technology (particularily electricity instead steam) yet their architecture and presence remain an important contrast to modernity. They are proof of our long lasting value and care for the infrastructure that we use. It's important to have really old structures in a city. Otherwise, one might ask, "did it really ever exist?"

— I'm a big fan of Persian rugs. I find they bring warmth and coziness to any room and are nicer to walk on than cold hardwood floors in the morning. Apparently, there's a whole wiki about rugs that describes various patterns and ornaments along with their meaning and history. It also features this really cool map of rug patterns of Iran by province created by Niloufar Alipour and Maryam Adivi.

— A building made of signs. Well now I'm overwhelmed. Definitely going to go here next time I'm in Switzerland. I don't know when that will be… I need a sign.

— A interesting read on Hong Kong's neon signs 📖


— A new platform cover for a bus terminal in Gelsenkirchen, NRW, Germany: this reminds me of the timeless design of transit infrastructure of the 1960s. It's effective yet "light", keeping the space open. Really cool stuff.


— This is a really cool new tram design by Stadler (not to be confused with Staedler, the stationery company) debuting in the regional network of Basel, Switzerland in 2023. I really enjoy the long, sleek design, as well as the energetic, magnificent, and radiating yellow. The accordion design and the low-floor design make it feel like a very casual train. My favourite classic tram is the Czechoslovak Tatra T3 but when it comes to modern trams, this looks very exciting.


— I love the design of 20th century locomotives, especially from former Eastern Bloc states. These are some retired deisel locomotives on the Sakhalin narrow-guage railway. The bright colours and the headlights have this awesome aesthetic that is congruent and nostalgic. *The D2 was made in Japan.


— The complexity of geometry that old (and new) logos sometimes have can be astounding. I sometimes wonder how logos of the golden era of design would look today. Perhaps they'd morph the geomety to be more organic, maybe brighter colours, and maybe a more display-oriented neo-grotesque. Who knows. All in all, it's unfortunate to lose another great creative mind like Mr. Blackburn.

Speaking of retro logos, Fast Company wrote an article about the return of retro logos a few years ago that's worth a read.


— I found this Twitter account that posts different images of textures from Berlin from all sorts of type and applications. It's beautiful.


— Like the account above, this one posts images of mid-century architecture from Berlin. It shows how clean and beautiful residential architecture can be. People often critisize architecture of the 1960s and 70s but I disagree. It's a question of maintenence. Buildings of that era look awful because they're made of concrete which ages poorly and gets dirty over time. If you sandblasted some of those buildings and gave them a proper washover, they'd look as marvelous as they did when they were first built.




— This guy created a script for Adobe Illustrator that automatically creates road signs. When I first saw it and understood what was happening, I went insane. Sure, it's based on the slightly inferior Soviet GOST style signage but all the elements are there to make it work. The given example in the GIF appears to be of Ukrainian signage. By the way, I like the Quebec-stye angle-cut exit signs. Really cool stuff.


— Speaking of Adobe scripts, this designer wrote one specifically for signage by adjusting the text orientation relative to the viewer for better communication. It's advanced, but it may be the future of signage.


— I don't have a door to put this on (or even on my non-magnetic fridge) but I really want one of these apartment number door magnets.


— I love population density maps, especially when their scale of data is very small. It can really show you where people actually live. From this map, for instance, one can tell that Spain's 47 million people are spread along the coasts and a few individual inland points. Portugal, which geographically part of the same peninsula, lives much less densly. Now I understand why so many Germans and Benelux residents head to Spain for their holiday. Not much lebensraum at home.

Or how about France, which has 67 million people has a much more rural popuation. I could stare at this for an hour finding new insights.


— Updated map of Moscow's Diameters (equivalent of S-Bahn in Germany). Currently, only D1 and D2 are open.

By the way, Yandex has a really cool interactive metro map tool.


— This news website used a cool diagram to show COVID-19 cases across Russian regions by simplifiying the geographic shapes to squares.


A travel guide about the newly built MKAD (Moscow's perimeter ring road) from the 1960s.


– * Heavy breathing *


— The lovely town of Rybinsk, Yarsolavl region, decided to collaborate with local businesses to recreate these marvelous pre-revolutionary storefront signs (including even a national bank).

More examples can be viewed in this article.


— A lovely map of Finland's forest cover. This is just pleasant to look at. I'd totally frame this on my wall if had this. Now, if only I could read Finnish...


— This animated sea wave public art installation in Korea is so mezmerizing to look at. I can almost feel the force of the wave hitting the "wall" vibrate my consciousness.


— A while ago, I found this neat project where French artist and designer Eric Tabuchi collected photos of trucks throughout French motorways to assemble a "truck alphabet." He has plenty of other intriguing Works that he has on his website.

Alphabet Truck