Three completely unrelated items for you this time, ranging from the serious and interesting through the loony and interesting to something of a whole different stripe.
The Eames Institute of Infinite Curiosity
Update 2, 25 Apr: Brand New discusses this logo, with the usual catchy title: The Fast and the Curious: Counterspace Drift
Update, 8 Apr: It’s Nice That has more: The Eames Institute launches with a curious, “Eamesian” identity, and a logo that observes
Original post: Practically everyone has heard of an Eames Chair:
What you might not realize is that the legacy Charles and Ray Eames left behind enriches our lives to this day. It’s a shame, then, that while their house is a mid-century masterpiece (and museum), much of their lives have remained behind closed doors.
For almost three decades, a barn-like building in Petaluma, California, contained remnants of one of the most iconic design legacies of the twentieth century. […] We created the Eames Institute because we want you to examine the archive of what you know—the collection of your experiences, understanding, memories, and questions—and connect to the provocations that call to you. We want you to tap into that same fount of relentless curiosity, and its power to shift your perception and open you to innovations and discoveries.
Now, however, there’s the Eames Institute of Infinite Curiosity. Awesome name aside, it introduces us to the more personal side of one of design’s strongest partnerships.
The website requires some interesting scrolling to get where you need, but the results are more than worth the time — and is one that earns (Eames?) its suggestion of satisfying infinite curiosity. Explore and enjoy. (Hat tip: ArchDaily, The Newly Launched Eames Institute Brings Insight into the Eameses’ Design Methodology.)
Loony Toons Backgrounds
Design You Trust: “Looney Tunes Without Looney Tunes: Existential, Surreal, And Creepy Backgrounds.” The post sends readers to an Instagram account, which I’m not going to link to, but the images themselves are fascinating:
Next time I treat myself to a Loony break, I’m going to make sure to spend some time looking beyond the action and appreciate the backgrounds. Nice.
Condor Airlines Rebrands
Most of you have probably never heard of Condor Airlines; they’re mainly a European thing, a “leisure” airline associated with Thomas Cook, formerly owned and run by Lufthansa. (Here’s some history.)
It doesn’t particularly matter. What does is the bravado exhibited by management. Before, a typical airline logo — dare I say, typically Germanic:
Then someone said yelled, “HEY. WE DO VACATIONS. LIKE BEACH TOWELS. LET’S DO STRIPES.” The result:
Armin Vit:
The new livery has zero fucks to give and just plasters every plane with thick vertical stripes that go against pretty much every single assumed tenet of what makes a good livery. It doesn’t look speedy, it doesn’t look nimble, it requires a lot of paint, and by all other standards it is just plain ugly and I love it.
Read more or see images at Condor, see the Brand New post, or even hear from the armchair pilots at Airliners.net. Now: anyone got a beach?