The world’s first traffic light was installed on December 10, 1868 outside the British Houses of Parliament in London by a railway engineer named J.P. Knight. Unfortunately the lamp, which ran on gas, exploded on January 2, 1869, either injuring or killing the policeman operating it. The modern electric traffic light was invented by Lester Wire, an American policeman, in 1912 in Salt Lake City, Utah. The design was simple, consisting of a green light for go and a red light for stop. Since then there have been other interesting ideas.
Governors Island turned into the West Egg for the second time this summer over the weekend thanks to Michael Arnella and his Dreamland Orchestra’s Jazz Age Lawn Party. The shot above of a ’30s-style Annie Hall was taken by Flickr user jwoodford35; click through for more old-school sartorial inspiration courtesy of the turned-out crowd.
Back in 1998, Paul Shaw — a calligrapher and typographer working in New York City — wrote a piece for Letterspace, the newsletter of the Type Directors Club, naming the “top 100 typefaces of all time.” Now that a few years have passed he has decided to update the original with a list of the top ten typefaces of 2000 to 2010. Click through to check out his picks, and keep in mind what he says: “As before, it is not a list of my favorite typefaces, nor is it a list of the most popular typefaces. Instead, it is a list of typefaces that have been ‘important’ for one reason or another.”
When you think about it, music and home design have a lot in common: both are constant, ambient influences on us. Simply put, we have to live with them. It makes a certain kind of sense, then, to combine the two — especially if you’re the kind of fan who’s already buying T-shirts and making mixtapes. After the jump, peruse a roundup of covet-worthy housewares, from coasters to commemorative plates, devoted to musical acts ranging from Little Richard to Serge Gainsbourg to Animal Collective.
A cheaper (and more attractive) alternative to whining over drinks with friends [via @Core77]
On June 19th, 2003 three men met at the Tekehtopa restaurant in Oslo and founded the Norwegian Cartozoologic Society. What exactly is cartozoology? The society’s website defines it as, “The science or practice of discovering and studying animals outlined paradigmatically by street layouts as they appear on maps, especially with reference to physical evidence of the animals’ presence in the corresponding terrain.” There’s a list of animal shapes they have found, mostly in Oslo. However the society also accepts submissions of cartozoological findings, given it meets three conditions, one of which is “the animal should emerge.”
What, you ask, is this bizarre, light blue contraption with exposed circuit boards and attached audio cassette? Why, it’s apparently the world’s first digital camera! Back in 1975, Kodak created the “toasted-sized” prototype, which took a whopping 23 seconds to record its data on the cassette tape. ISO50 also points us to a fascinating first-person account of the project by the man who invented the camera.
So, you may be wondering, how did Kodak view the images in the days before convenient home computing? It turns out that it required an even uglier contraption. Take a peek at that machine and the photos it displayed after the jump.
In 1996, Adam Reed Tucker graduated with with a degree in architecture from Kansas State University. For 10 years he worked with firms in Kansas City and Chicago until one fateful day in 2002 when he was inspired by a book called The World of LEGO Toys by Henry Wiencek. Tucker had also been thinking about the decreased tourism to famous skyscrapers like the Sears Tower since September 11th. He decided to marry the two ideas, and now, as one of 11 “LEGO Certified Professionals,” he uses the iconic plastic bricks to recreate models of modern-day architectural marvels.
As one may have expected, design company Dowling Duncan’s imaginative currency redesign for Richard Smith’s Dollar Rede$ign Project has sparked some heated reactions. Conservative blogs Right Wing News and Conservative Crusader both posted an article by Warner Todd Hudson, which calls Obama and FDR (who are featured on the $1 and $100 bills, respectively) “[t]he two presidents that hated capitalism and wealth most” and accuses them of funneling money to “their pals, supporters, and party members.” Mirroring further criticism, a blog called Southern Beale sarcastically referred to half-British company as “a bunch of tea-drinking fancy pants Limeys.”
Things are not looking good for American Apparel. Besides the fact that Gawker has launched an illuminating (and very entertaining) investigation into its shady hiring practices and employee dress code, Dov Charney’s company also seems on the brink of total financial apocalypse. And now, the Wall Street Journal reports that American Apparel is so behind on its quarterly paperwork that it might get delisted from the New York Stock Exchange.
We imagine there will be much speculation in the coming weeks about American Apparel has fallen so far, so fast. Us? We’re pretty sure that the signs of impending doom can be tracked directly via the company’s notorious ads. After the jump, we examine the evolution of this year’s marketing campaign to find a brand that is, by all appearances, grasping at straws.
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Gaurav, if you read everything here and have come to that conclusion....well.......
james • Thu Sep 2 at 2:05pm
WORD in Greenpoint, Brooklyn is really making leaps in terms of showing how a sm...
Russ Marshalek • Thu Sep 2 at 1:55pm
@Rachel if you click through to the original post, he does explain them: I had h...
purp • Thu Sep 2 at 1:54pm
Great list. I'd also suggest Atomic Books in Baltimore -- it specializes in comi...
Judy Berman • Thu Sep 2 at 1:50pm