Miriello Grafico

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Instead of having the circus come to town once a year, what if it was a monthly deal in the backyard of an old house- showing the bizarre instead of the banal? That’s what’s been happening at Bruce Cartier’s Technomania Circus a few blocks from Miriello Grafico, here in Barrio Logan.

Here’s what Cartier says about it, “Technomania Circus is difficult to explain, but easy to enjoy. You never know what you’ll find happening in the Blackyard: blacklight illusion, performance art, dance, puppetry, music, and more. Whatever you find, it’s never ordinary. From our inception in North Park’s Xanth Club in 1999, to a several-year stint in the Bay Area, to the current location at the Center for Amusing Arts in Barrio Logan, we’ve been breaking down the barriers between performer and audience, between culture and crudity, and changing everything you thought you knew about theater in the process. We strive to remain all-inclusive yet retain our edgy and experimental nature.”

I’m making it part of my 2010 entertainment plan. Gotta love the grassroots, underground energy behind it all. And besides I seemed to have outgrown the Barnum’s thing a while back.- RM

I just pulled up an RRS feed on TREK.  And for the life I me, I can’t find where it came from . . but it really doesn’t matter. What does matter is how I feel when I see passionate makers- like dudes at TREK- making state of the art bikes- like frames for Lance to win with- blended with hands-on handmade craftsmanship. It’s a view of the future. It reminds me of when I toured the Ferrari factory- the same approach to mixing what tech can do with what the hand can do. All to produce products that not only perform- but can talk back! And are incredibly beautiful.

These collect of shots are very cool, very intimate from inside the TREK factory – tuning and making Lances latest frames, with their latest frame graphic program as well. Check it out here on Flickr.

We’ve been harping on our saying that “Creativity is the New Currency”. But the guys at Tesla Automotive have been busy demonstrating it. A very smart 4-door design that is fully electric powered and can match BMW 5-series performance marks-  and it arrives to market at an affordable price level. Especially when you calculate the gas saving into your equation. They had plenty going for them with the technology alone, but they insisted on delivered it in a design package that was stellar. Check out the video here or by clicking the photo. Available later in 2010. Still needs funding and a place to manufacture. OK, creativity does need some help from conventional green-currency too.

My friend Rodolfo Giulietti from Bergamo slipped this image in amongst a series of pictures of friends eating pasta with friends. It’s  become a kind of challenge for us now to figure out why and where this image came from. It looks like a small piazza in Italy and it’s a cool image.  But we need to know more .  Hey is that a US license plate?  Maybe . . .

With the struggle increasing between on-line versus on-paper information delivery system, I know where I stand. I’m willing to read short update news off the web or my iPhone, but reading a lengthy book or anything I care to contemplate, from a screen doesn’t cut it. The Espresso System was announced recently at the London Book Show. It offers publishers and bookstore owners and anyone with the cash I guess- a true self contained print-bind-trim on-demand solution for the printing of countless titles, in a choice of languages. (In about three minutes!).

Is this the new shape of the neighborhood bookstore? So much for browsing titles of impulse book buying.

Here’s the story from http://www.boingboing.net/

Library users will have the opportunity to print free copies of such public domain classics as “The Adventures of Tom Sawyer” by Mark Twain, “Moby Dick” by Herman Melville, “A Christmas Carol” by Charles Dickens and “Songs of Innocence” by William Blake, as well as appropriately themed in-copyright titles as Chris Anderson’s “The Long Tail” and Jason Epstein’s own “Book Business.” The public domain titles were provided by the Open Content Alliance (“OCA”), a non-profit organization with a database of over 200,000 titles. The OCA and ODB are working closely to offer this digital content free of charge to libraries across the country. Both organizations have received partial funding from the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation.

The EBM, now available for sale to libraries and retailers, can potentially allow readers anywhere to obtain within minutes, almost any book title in any language, whether or not the book is in print. The EBM’s proprietary software transmits a digital file to the book machine, which automatically prints, binds, and trims the reader’s selection within minutes as a single, library-quality, paperback book, indistinguishable from the factory-made title.

Bicycles tend to be an ongoing theme here at the MG blog, maybe because these products are the perfect blend of brand, design, functionality, and style – with international flavor thrown in too. Yet another cool bike blog when you need your bike fix: http://bicycledesign.blogspot.com/

After finishing our BLURB book on Barrio Logan a few months, tracking self-publishing has been on my radar. While  “vanity press” was once the last resort for struggling writers, it seems like it could become the new “test ground” for print publishers. With the publishing model under financial strain (what other business model allows retailers to send back their unsold units for refund and destruction) they can now cherry pick the selected “draft” publications with the potential for a more mass distribution, without having to pre-fund traditional royalties, production costs, etc.

My friend Troy Viss just sent me to Magcloud.com ,  an on-line self-publishing magazine site. I just ordered a sample copy of a cool design form the Philippines. If the quality is decent we’ll  experiment with the model. At .20 a pages it’s affordable and a new tool that when matched with quality creative can help move opinion and spawn ideas. All part of the “Creativity is the New Currency” mantra we’re chanting here at MG.- Ron

The images above are pages from a few Magcloud magazines.

I’ve noticed an undeniable resurgence in the interest in bicycles- older bicycles- over the past year.  Classic steel-frame bikes in particular, have made a return and are being recrafted now into individual custom-assembled, personal statements about their maker.

The show we had here at Miriello Grafico/The Logan last September – Reinventing The Wheel- featured cool frameworks by Sky Boyer and the boys at VeloCult, in San Diego.  I must have six friends currently scouting for particular frames they can build their custom creations around.  Buying off the shelf is out, scanning eBay and garage sales for forgotten and neglected bike parts is in.

Pushing the trend even further from the fine arts end, is Willie Cole, an artist from New Jersey (born 1955) who transforms ordinary domestic parts, irons, lawn jockeys, and bicycles parts into sculpture with references to African-American and West African religion, mythology and culture.  Cole has shown at The Whitney, The Walker and The National Gallery in D.C.   A Toronto friend sent me these shots from their museum where she spotted Cole’s work this week.

Find out more on Cole and his other work from Kimberly Brooks’ article on the Huffington Post.

If a picture is worth a thousand words than a logo must be worth a few hundred thousand then, no? We just finished a little book called A Logo is Not a Brand that features a host of Miriello Grafico logos. And it shows how a logo functions like the front cover of a book, a set-up for all that’s to come, while the brand is the full story inside the book. It seems to help the confused and brand-forlorned.

The little 44 page book that could is available on mighty blurb.com.

When Michael Osborne asked if I’d come up to San Francisco in late November to judge at Academy of Art University Design Show I assumed it was for his design students. But after he repeated to me five times that this was their inaugural alumni show for practicing alumni- it finally registered- alumni not students- got it. I spent three days in San Francisco with Mary Scott their graphic design director, Michael Osborne and fellow judge from Wells Fargo Bank creative, Michele Ronsen. We had dinner at Bix, I visited with design friends at 11 and MethodHome and even got around to judging and attending the opening of a very strong design show.

The quality of student work I saw at the Academy was beyond my expectation.  The level of thinking and quality of execution was beyond what I’m accustom to seeing at college level. Mary has that place on the right track and I’m looking forward to scanning their graduates. The alumni from the Academy are now scattered around, working everywhere from Nike and Disney to Tolleson Design and Cahan Associates. Our best of show award when to Cahan designer and alumni Erik Adams.

Learn more about the show and see more pics at The Academy of Art University site.

See more photo-booth candid captures from the opening on Flickr.