F.O.B.

CALENDAR EXHIBITIONS Design Cities, Design Museum, London, Sept. 5–Jan. 4, 2009, designmuseum.org / Eero Saarinen: Shaping the Future, Walker Art Center, Minneapolis, Sept. 13–Jan. 4, 2009, walkerart.org / The First Chicago International Poster Biennial Exhibition, Daley Bicentennial Plaza, Chicago, Sept. 15–Oct. 15, chicagobiennial.com / America and the Tintype, International Center of Photography, New York, Sept. 19–Jan. 4, 2009, icp.org / Miroslav Tichy, Centre Pompidou, Paris, through Sept. 22, centrepompidou.fr / Second Lives: Remixing the Ordinary, Museum of Arts and Design, New York, Sept. 27–Feb. 15, 2009, madmuseum.org / Wall Stories: Children’s Wallpapers and Books, Cooper-Hewitt National Design Museum, New York, Oct. 3–May 8, 2009, cooper-hewitt.org / Time Line: Sheila Metzner, Visual Arts Museum, New York, through Oct. 4, 2008, sva.edu / Made in Georgia: The State of Industrial Design, Museum of Design Atlanta, through Oct. 18, museumofdesign.org / 23rd International Biennale of Graphic Design, Brno, Czech Republic, through Oct. 19, moravska-galerie.cz / Photography on Photography: Reflections on the Medium Since 1960, Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, through Oct. 19, metmuseum.org / Twentieth Century Portraits: Photographs from Vanity Fair 1914–2006, Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Los Angeles, Oct. 26–March 1, 2009, lacma.org CONFERENCES, TALKS, EVENTS Golden Bee 8: Moscow International Biennial of Graphic Design, Moscow, Sept. 1–12, goldenbee.imadesign.ru / Networks of Design: Design History Conference, Penryn, England, Sept. 3–6, networksofdesign.co.uk / The London Design Festival, London, Sept. 13–23, londondesignfestival.com / ATypI 2008, St. Petersburg, Russia, Sept. 17–21, atypi.org / Design Legends Gala, AIGA, New York, Sept. 18, aiga.org/events-gala / Toyota Lecture Series: Jeffrey Veen, Art Center College of Design, Los Angeles, Sept. 25, artcenter.edu / Click NY, ADC Gallery, New York, Oct. 1, click-conference .com / Vienna Design Week, Vienna, Austria, Oct. 2–12, viennadesignweek.at / UCDA Design Conference, Savannah, Georgia, Oct. 4–7, ucda.com/conference.lasso / P&D Design 2008, 8th Brazilian Conference on Design Research and Development, São Paulo, Brazil, Oct. 8–11, sp.senac.br/ped2008 / Dutch Design Week, Eindhoven, The Netherlands, Oct. 11–19, dutchdesignweek.nl / Icograda Design Week, Turin, Oct. 13–19, icogradadesignweektorino.aiap.it / Opposites Attract: Margo Chase and Carin Goldberg, ADC Gallery, New York, Oct. 16, adcglobal.org / Gain: AIGA Business and Design Conference, Oct. 23–25, New York, aiga.org / Between: Graphic Design Between Boundaries, Sicily, Italy, Oct. 27–31, typevents.com Send suggestions to calendar@printmag.com. CLAIRE LUI

BOOK

decidedly
unboring

Much of the fun in Zach Dodson’s art-world-skewering debut novel, boring boring boring boring boring boring boring (Featherproof), is in the design. The cover, for instance, features a black-and-white photo, funky bar code, and a lengthy title that wraps around before cutting itself off. “It never would’ve gotten past a marketing department,” Dodson laughs. A partner in Chicago-based design firm Bleached Whale, Dodson— who assumes the pen name Zach Plague—first designed the book as posters that would fold down into the tidy signatures from which the book was printed.

“I wanted to have a version of the book that was a nod to its original form,” he says. “So I designed at the poster level, keeping in mind what would happen to each page when it was folded down.” The paperbound book version is a collage of excerpts from journals and letters written in the voice of various characters, all of whom carry their own identifying fonts. (Jenson and Dante are used for the two main characters.) The effect is one of artist’s journal–meets–ransom note, in which the text is held hostage by the design.

JAMI ATTENBERG

ENVIRONMENT

learning
lines

This fall, enigmatic snarls of crisscrossing lines will help Stanford University students navigate campus buildings as well as their curricula. The patterns, devised by Portland, Oregon–based firm The Felt Hat, stretch across nylon wallcoverings throughout Stanford’s new Jerry Yang and Akiko Yamazaki Environment and Energy Building (Y2E2 for short). Built by the Portland firm Boora Architects, the building, which occupies a corner of a science and engineering quad now under construction, is one of the most multidisciplinary hubs on campus; ecologists, economists, policy scholars, and earth scientists all do their work here. Boora asked Felt Hat to create wayfinding murals that would double as “environmental storytelling” for Y2E2’s four atria. To help Stanford illustrate how it is “breaking down barriers between disciplines,” explains Felt Hat partner Nicole Misiti, the design firm drew up hundreds of lines representing Y2E2 scholars and their various fields. Monochrome photos and colors hint at the building’s five disciplines— the atrium devoted to land use and conservation features a photo of a rainforest canopy, tinted green; the energy and climate atrium (left) depicts red solar flares. The designers are working on similar patterns for the quad’s newest engineering building, slated for completion in spring 2010. EVE M. KAHN