If it’s ugly, it’s probably not well done

One of the basic principles of engineering and design is: if it’s ugly, it’s probably no good from the engineering point of view either.
The new AGO building      already sprung a leak. QED.

A new blog on photography

My friend Alex Gridenko, a photographer and graphic designer, who also restored photographs of Prokudin-Gorsky (and who is responsible for the header photo of my blog), now blogs in English.
Check out his blog for great photos and design insights.
Alex Gridenko – Graphic design, photography and image restoration

The new AGO is a usability nightmare

I visited the new AGO today. And yesterday I started reading “Why we buy“, a wonderful book by Paco Underhill. One would think there is no connection between the book on shopper’s psychology and an art gallery visit. However, today when I approached the gallery and then roamed its vast rooms, I thought about the book more and more. Why?

Merry Christmas (Old style)

Two cartoons illustrating Gaza problem

Stephen Pastis, “Pearls Before Swine”

Animated history of Latvia

Another nice cartoon

Animated cartoon, 1924

About interplanetary revolution and bad capitalists who drink proletarian blood. The good guys win. You have been warned.

Tinku Gallery – William Oldacre Opening reception Dec.4

William Oldacre Coloured City: Limited Edition Photographs December 3rd – 24th, 2008 Opening reception: December 4th, 6-9 pm The city is a complex environment of discordant sight and sound. Each element competes with its neighbour for our attention. Despite this clash, there is a subtle river of connection. This work is part of my quest to connect with beauty in the urban world. I am driven to find harmony within my surroundings. Music is part of my process; the rhythms subconsciously influence my work. By blurring the scene, an underlying harmonic form and colour are revealed. Coloured City simplifies the rhythm and pattern of our urban existence. –William Oldacre, Toronto.

	Thinking About Shapes and Colour 18″ x 24″ archival pigment ink on archival paper

tinku gallery | 437 roncesvalles ave. | toronto canada

How do you make your blog stand out?

How do you make your blog stand out from a million of similar blogs?
I don’t know.

(Pearls Before Swine by Stephan Pastis)

Color photography dated 1907

In the early 1900s Prokudin-Gorskii, a Russian photographer, developed an ingenious technique of taking colour photographs. The same object was captured in black and white on glass plate negatives, using red, green and blue filters. He then presented these images in colour in slide lectures using a light-projection system involving the same three filters. He went around what was Russian Empire then (1909-1915) and produced a series of amazing photographs.

In 1918, after the revolution, he fled from Russia, taking with him only his collection of nearly 2,000 glass-plate negatives and his photograph albums. The collection was purchased by the Library of Congress in 1948 from his heirs.

In 2001, the number of glass plates have been scanned and, through an innovative process known as digichromatography, brilliant colour images have been produced.

Here’s one of them and a link to some more restored by Alex Gridenko.

Fishing settlement