The editor of Top Estate magazine from the Ukraine is Lubov Franchuk., a sharp and professional editor of one of the leading life style magazine in the region. He just sent us a copy of the latest edition which features a wide selection of highly creative architecture and design from far flung places. The Miriello Grafico office is in between a spread on the Bordello Bar from London and Al Rostamani’s latest real estate mega development in Dubai.  Rich visuals throughout, and absolutely no idea what the stories might be about.

Share in the confusion at Top Estate’s website : http://www.top-estate.com.ua

In the September 08 edition of Wired magazine there’s a small article on a very cool little Germany company called Fluidforms. These guys have wired together Google maps + CAD cutting technologies and a web interface to allow some very amazing one-of-a-kind things to be made. I just went to their site www.fluid-forms.at and ordered a topographic CAD cut wooden bowl-form of our home village in Italy- Radicondoli (Si).

The Fluidforms site allows you to enter a place or zip code like Google Maps, but then renders the location into topo form so you can preview it’s potential as a sculptural object. A very innovative combination of technology that creates a company “brand” that’s both customer centric and entirely made-to-order.

Here’s what they say about themselves: “Each part of the earth is unique in then design of her heights and depths. Fluidforms enables customers to have a piece of this singularity on a table at home. The different contour lines of a chosen area define the shape of the bowl. An expedition into landscapes and cities only known from hiking. The earth becomes a sensory experience, that can be filled with the fruits of the earth.”

When I travel I try to connect with craftsmen whenever I can. (Here are a few photos of a Rome woodcarver and Pisticci shoemaker, two of many I’ve managed to pester, befriend and often then take to lunch.) It’s been a way to learn and connect with real people in far away places. The tools that craftsmen use have also been a fascination. I come home with cool jewelry shaping anvils or wood chisels, just because they were so well designed and impeccably crafted. So when we got a call recently from Craig Winer and Garry Chinn from Garrett Wade in New York City asking if Miriello Grafico might be interested in helping their “tools for enthusiasts” catalog perform better, the answer was an easy “yes”.

Garry has been traveling the world for decades sourcing the coolest, best-made hand tools the world has to offer. Japanese specialty saws, Swedish carving knives, re-issued British tools made from the original metal molds, all the hard to find, form-follows- function tools that transcend their original functional role.

We’re in the process of diving deep into the Garrett Wade brand and catalog design. When the product is as good as this, the design work is more about setting the stage than fabricating a story. I love working when it feels like play.

Garry and Craig’s Garrett Wade site is : www.garrettwade.com

Coming on the heals of this Spring’s 2008 AIGA Y-Conference on Sustainability in Design was the recent AIGA San Diego Student Portfolio Review event. These two events seemed connected in my mind by how they both contributed small puzzle pieces of what I’m sensing is a rethinking of what will make design more relevant, or meaningful, in the coming years. (You might say brands and marketing are more relevant now than ever, but hold on.) Both events moved the design conversation away from “trend-talk” and, instead, showed how designers willing to apply their unique powers of influence and communications will undoubtedly change-thinking and stimulate positive action. (Lord knows there’s a huge market in our growing national “change needed” sector.)

The AIGA Y-Conference on Sustainability began the conversation shift. And Michael Osborne layered onto it when he spoke about the pro-bono efforts of his San Francisco studio MODSF, and how his team is efficiently directing some of their energy and skills to causes in need of a louder voice. I see a consciousness shift beginning in the new crop of designers - and it’s exciting. Osborne is a kind of design pragmatist, willing to share his abilities with as many as he can, rather than insisting they always go to the highest bidder. It’s a Target-like, egalitarian approach. In fact, his currency seems to be highest-need rather than fattest-wallet. And it doesn’t hurt that he’s an astute business man, creating the success that can fund the causes of choice.

The “shift” happens when the talented designer recognizes their most valuable currency is in their ability to reach people, to communicate. Michael Osborne and Free Range Studios are examples of studios changing the design dialog by shifting their intentions.

Learn about Michael Osborne at www.modsf.com/ Visit Free Range Studios at www.freerangestudios.com/

Whenever I start to think corporate branding is complex it helps me to spend time with my friends at Nissan Design America. Think of what it’s like trying to design what the world will want to drive three years from now while simultaneously navigating though a juggernaut of financial constraints, global approvals, huge lead times, world wide supply chains and fickle buyers. Corporate branding just got easier.

We spent the morning with Doug Wilson, Moria Hill and Brenda Parkin, members of the design and interiors team at Nissan. For several years now we’ve made it a point to get the hell out of our own minds and little design worlds and cross-pollinate together. This meeting was here at Miriello Grafico, set-up to give Brenda some initial reaction to preliminary car interiors packages - finishes, materials and forms. It’s really about branding in many ways- what’s the story behind the car and what are the design cues that bring the story to life. The difference for Nissan Design America though is that they’re designing from a design brief the size of an encyclopedia. It’s impressive to watch the reverse engineering of an automotive brand experience - using both a crystal ball and sketch pad.

A vortex-shaped surface which reacts to sunlight.

From Dezeen Magazine-

OR is the boldest installation project at the Milan International Furniture Fair 2008, a vortex-shaped surface which reacts to sunlight.

The polygonal segments of the surface react to ultra-violet light, mapping the position and intensity of solar rays. When in the shade, the segments of OR are translucent white. However, when hit by sunlight they become colored, flooding the space below with different hues of light. At night, OR transforms into an enormous ‘chandelier’, disseminating light into the surrounding courtyard, an atmospheric space for events and gatherings.

The hues generated by the photo-reactive surface are therefore indicators of changes in weather and daylight, a dynamic architectural tool that can be used on building exteriors. OR is skin, OR is shining, OR is the light OR the shade.

OR is the first time that photo-reactive technology has been used on an architectural scale. The ecological structure is a step in exploring the possibilities of photo-reactive materials in the fields of furniture and design. The beauty of OR is its constant interaction with the elements. Each moment of the day is unique.

The project was developed by the architects and designers Ran Ankori, Francesco Brenta, Maya Carni, Christoph Klemmt, Laura Micalizzi and Elisa Oddone

Learn more at: http://www.klemmt.com/

The question was how to create a cool chronicle of Miriello Grafico creative design that was simple, dramatic and easy to update. The Miriello Grafico entry lounge needed a treatment and got one lately with a system made from throw-away key rings and cutout circles of images we’ve either created or collected over time. Press sheets, posters, collected Hatch Show prints, CROP magazine images, packaging proofs, pictures of Johnny Depp, Josh Higgins Casbah posters, photos proof sheets, Dennis Garcia AIGA posters, they all got carved up and took on a new life as a circle graphic in the MG Lounge.

There’s a sense of satisfaction and connection when you find a designer has created a simple, uncomplicated solution to a problem you’ve been trying to solve. Mia Cullin, an architect and designer from Sweden, has created a very cool system of interlocking Tyvek paper shapes. These diecut paper flakes can be connected to form a sheet of semi-transparent divider screens, which is just what we created with them to subdivide the open studio area at Miriello Grafico. The product is new and only available currently at SuiteNY in New York City, www.suiteny.com. Take at look at the Mia Cullin website too: http://www.miacullin.com/. IKEA can’t be far behind on making their own version of Mia’s original.

Jumpstart Your Brand: Three guiding principles you can put to use now.

By Ron Miriello

Like the birth of new child, creating or refreshing a brand comes about only a few times in an organization’s lifetime. Conducting this initiative is usually done with high energy, self examination, excitement and a sense of a new or renewed company focus. But all too often, the brand can fall victim to high expectation with little or no ongoing care and support.

As shepherds of a company’s public presentation, marketers are usually responsible to guarantee that the brand’s upfront investment converts into improved business results. Branding often brings some weighty expectations and promises of everything from increased notoriety and improved customer retention to cost savings. Not at all uncommon, marketing budgets don’t include the care and feeding activities necessary to keep an organization’s public identity relevant and producing. Regardless of the resources available, here are three simple and cost-effective guiding principles that will help ensure a brand stays alive throughout the year. Read the full story at: http://www.bizsandiego.com/bizbuz-details-548.shtml

Maybe you’ve stayed up with your college and high school reunions over the year. I haven’t. There’s always been a reason I couldn’t get back to Colorado when I needed to. But I’ve had something that’s maybe better still. An ongoing thirty-plus year relationship with my college graphic design professor Phil Risbeck, the international poster guru from Colorado State University. Phil and his wife Marie visit me in San Diego every few years, always ripe with stories of treks through the design studios of South America or poster show jury sessions in China or Russia. Phil initiated the International Poster Exhibition at Colorado State University in the 70’s. It has created a network of poster designer friendships all over the world. A network that has helped increase the exposure and notoriety of social and political issue posters from little known corners of the world. Posters, good posters, can do that.

The 2007 International Poster Exhibition is featured in the January 08 edition of Communications Arts magazine.

The archives of International Poster Exhibition posters can be viewed at http://lib.colostate.edu/posters/gallery.html