The 47th Precinct

Check out this wonderful piece Chris Ware animated for the This American Life TV show. The way the scene builds in the beginning reminds me of the great TV spot from a few years back featuring March of the Penguins (or March of the Emperors in France). I think I like it so much because it’s so true to the way I build a scene in my head when I hear a story. I guess we all do it.

March of the Penguins:

I remember Chris Ware did another animated piece for the TAL TV show. Are there others?

In celebration of over 333+ posts and over two years of comeraderie, it is time for the next phase of the 47th… To start a magazine! John and I are putting together a project involving: accordion folds, paper cut-outs, secret formulas, and brilliant submissions from YOU! HURRAH! I am including the submissions letter and some funny pictures of my first glimpses of spring below as food for thought on the theme of our first issue, appropriately: AT FIRST

*admittedly, the spring pictures might not be all that funny, but think of pretty pink blossoms bundling down onto the sidewalk, bandaged trees, etc. and your starting in on just one of many ideas that should be a part of the magazine*

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the 47th precinct* is starting a magazine! Appropriately titled 47, the magazine is going to be a 4×7 conglomerate of cultural curiosities, based around a central theme. The theme for our first issue is, fittingly enough, focused on firsts. At First kicks off 47 with an exploration of what is first and foremost, first experiences, first sightings, first descents, first discoveries and whatever else first means to you.

That’s right, you!

We’re looking for contributors for 47, and are thrilled to take all kinds of submissions (the only requirement is some thematic relevance and our ability to convey the idea in 2 dimensions on the printed page). Some ideas to wet your whistle are as follows:

#1: Your first haiku
#2: A drawing of the first finisher of the marathon
#3: A painting of the first half lion, half peacock
#4: The first paragraph to a mystery story
#5: First signs of spring
#6: Impressions of your first __________
#7: What is the first thing you think of when __________
#8: What you saw first

In any case, those are just a few ideas, and we’d be happy to generate some more if that encourages your contribution. 47 is a bit of a work in progress, and we are super excited to know and work with such talented and creative people (if you know anyone that would be interested, please send this note along). Hence, we promise to launch the magazine with fanfare and festivities!

Submissions can be mailed, posted (write for ftp information), or dictated (well…). Let us know if you’d like to participate! Finally, the initial submission deadline will be July 4 (7/4 of course) 2008. HURRAH!

all the very best,
Ann + John

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mail address:
47 c/o pinkcomma
81B Wareham Street
Boston, MA 02118

email address:
info@the47th.com

*Just in case you haven’t heard my chatter about 47 or the 47th: 47 happens to be a lucky number, the 15th prime number, the atomic number of silver, and (perhaps most importantly for our purposes) the quintessential random number. Being the number that occurs with the highest frequency than all other natural numbers, 47 embodies the idea of haphazard discovery yet elegant patterns. In short, order in chaos, which is (very much) the 47th precinct.

a project from a few months ago, featuring the 47th silkscreen station!

aaron and steven at work on a high concept run of shirts for aaron’s band, the libyans. a modified set of 50 shirts in a two color screening process: aaron ripped out the finished sleeve and shirt hems, first white, then coffee dye (mixed with a little rit), then black.

As I am prone to inventing the “time intensive” paper projects (the swing cards for sweet, punching eyelets in a parked car in southie at 7AM; bachelorette collateral, etc.), our wedding invitations were clearly an opportunity to get wildly overzealous in production. Besides, if aiming for about 50 people max, it only meant the labour of 30 or so, right? My better half tempered some of the idea craze by suggesting custom rubber stamps vs. gocco, and here’s what we came up with!

first, the stamps!

then, the library card theme!

I love how library books often come with mismatched strips of paper in the sleeves (well, when they used to come with sleeves), so a we included a few of our own with details. With some, we also included a postcard of the inn we’re directing folks to for the weekend.

This is the prototype of the original idea: a folding extravaganza and likely a printing nightmare. Steven was going to draw the A S letters for the front that would perfectly match up into the folded heart, rather an imposing task!

Finally, we needed a mini-site, and on impulse I bought both annlovessteven and stevenlovesann, since clearly we could use two urls…

*note: stamping adventures were greatly facilitated by rubberstamps.net (who turned around the order in less than a week). I was really impressed by the fidelity of the image (I think, at minimum, we were using trade gothic at about 10 pt?). I also got a quote from a place that signs all of its communications “Happy Stampin’” (recommended by Kelly), but I can’t remember the name right now!

3 of the most interesting music videos I’ve seen this year have come from Justice (the French electronic music duo).

The first one was for D.A.N.C.E., with very cool animated t-shirts

The next was DVNO, an exploration of 80s typography, motion and design

and most recently they released a video for Stress.

In the previous two videos the attraction for me was the great visual execution, Stress, while still a great looking piece, is special for the feelings of stress, anxiety and discomfort it stirs up in the viewer. The video is really an intense and disturbing thing to watch. Enjoy!

At FITC this year I attended a presentation by Patrick Keenan and Alan Smith from The Movement. The presentation was titled “Think Globally, Design Locally” and it was for people who care about design, beauty and functionality but who are also globally aware and want to make a difference.

The presentation as a whole really resonated with me but I wanted to mention one part in particular because Ann has been talking about creative collaboration tools.

The Movement threw a work party. They had a few problems they wanted to solve so they invited people to come have fun and actually do some work. The guests were asked to sign a contract, work in different departments and earn some fake cash to buy beer.

Read more about the work party over at Prototype, The Movement blog.

The CR Blog has a great post (When Objects Become Magazines) about a magazine exhibition. They’re all pretty great but I think my favorite might be Arkitip, just because it’s closest to I’d like to be doing myself.

I also really like the idea behind T-Post.

Check out the full article: When Objects Become Magazines

There are usually only seven or eight people in the world who hear about things after I do, and three of them are in jail.  It follows, then, that you have probably already heard about this man who drew a self portrait on the earth by sending a GPS device on a world tour using DHL.  You probably already have the contour drawing of this man’s head on a coffee mug.  It’s one of those mugs where you don’t see the contour drawing until you fill it with a hot beverage, right?  And you heard about it so long ago that it’s already lame, so the mug is hidden in the back of your cupboard, or on freecycle.

In any case, this idea of drawing in time using only data is pretty invigorating.  I’m having a hard time thinking of an aesthetic medium that leaves less of a footprint.  This drawing requires a whole host of complex technologies just to make itself known.  It basically lives in a gargantuan iron lung.  I’m guessing this may be the point.

new brilliant insights from malcolm gladwell:

video from the New Yorker Conference, talking about hiring difficulties in the modern age.

And in the New Yorker In the Air all about big ideas and where invention comes from. In the history of science, there are innumerable cases of people coming up with the same inventions at the same time (Alexander Graham Bell, Charles Darwin, etc. all had compatriots with ideas along the same innovative path). Great!

Just think what would happen if you put at least four bright web folks in a room at the same time with an open discussion plan, starting with a selected topic, but with the caveat that the discourse could lead to… anywhere! That, my friends, is the future of the 47th precinct!

I get really excited when I see paper fold patterns, whether or not it is the new open source sewing patterns from burda (which, amazingly enough, print brilliantly on 8.5×11 paper) or the readyMechs from fwis or the mock iPhone on John’s desk. Hermes has jumped into the fun with a free paper fold pattern of their iconic Kelly bag (the leather version carries a pricetag starting at $4000, I believe). Oh my!