Cold Horizon iOS 7?

 

Not that I’m complaining! I’m a big fan of both this new Field Notes edition, and of Apple’s iOS 7 design.

“Cold Horizon” is literally a very flat design—with that glossy cover, there’s really no toothy texture to it. And while that gorgeous Futura doesn’t really compare to an equally gorgeous Helvetica Neue, still.

It’s interesting because iOS 7 was a departure from the “skeuomorphic” look of the previous design, to get away from making it look like it’s a physical environment.  In a funny turn of events, the physical environment is redesigned to look like it!

What do you think? Do you see it?

Is it just me, or does the new Field Notes “Cold Horizon” color remind you of something…

/ Andy Welfle / Leave a comment

Aaron Draplin is coming to speak in my town tomorrow

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Tomorrow is an exciting day for me — designer and Field Notes inventor Aaron Draplin is coming to Fort Wayne to speak about his “cosmic wit and wisdom on design”! This is his only tour stop in Indiana in 2013.

DDC vs FTW: A Night of Graphic Design Straight Talk with Aaron Draplin » 

A draft of the limited edition poster of Aaron Draplin for Kickstarter backers.

It all started as Kickstarter campaign, and quickly met its funding goal and eventually, more than doubled it. Fort Wayne, though not a big city (we’re the second-largest city in Indiana, with just under a quarter-million people) has a talented, tight knit graphic design community. In fact, two of my best friends who form the creative partnership pye,brown are the main sponsors of this event.

As a pledger, I’m getting a super-cool limited edition poster designed by a friend of mine Josh Tuck of Rustbelt Co (you may remember him from his review of Gridbooks), as well as a ticket to the event.

And what an event! According to the event page:

Let’s just say that Draplin is a colorful speaker whose passion for design and the work ethic of the American Midwest and its history shows though in abundance. Once you hear him speak, you will leave the premises fired up to create and make cool things.

I’m definitely going to bring some of my first-edition Field Notes cahiers to get signed, and hopefully — hopefully — there are some DDC branded bullet pencils that will be on sale with the other merch he’ll have.

Why do I think this? Following up my post about Pencil Revolution’s interview with Draplin about bullet pencils, I tweeted him to ask if he ever made them for his prodigious merchandise catalog. This tweet back from Aaron Draplin in September:

And then, as I was reading about XOXO, the big tech fest in Portland that just finished its second year, I found a photoset about it in the Flickr feed of Glenn Fleishman, owner of The Magazine. Draplin was there, and Glenn took a picture of the merch table he set up:

XOXO 2013 Marketplace

Wait, what’s that? There, in the mid-left of the photo:

Could those be DDC bullet pencils?

Could that be? Bullet pencils?

No. It’s too thick and blunt-ended. After scouring the Merch section of the website, I realized it’s a Toothpick Canister.

As you know, I’ve been kinda obsessed with bullet pencils for a while. I’m definitely going to snag some of these puppies if he has them.

In any case: Be jealous, internet, because I’m going to meet The Man tomorrow!

The old Eberhard Faber Pencil Factory in Brooklyn

/ Andy Welfle / 14 Comments

Have you ever listened to 99% Invisible? It’s a fantastic podcast with features about, primarily, architecture and design (and starting in 2014, thanks to their Kickstarter, they’ll be producing episodes weekly!). The newest episode, “All the Buildings”, features James Gulliver, an artist on a mission to draw the buildings of New York City — all 700,000 plus of them.

One building in particular that they talked about was at 61 Greenpoint Avenue in Brooklyn — an old pencil factory:

Drawing by James Gulliver at AllTheBuildingsInNewYork.com. Click image for original post.

Drawing by James Gulliver at AllTheBuildingsInNewYork.com. Click image for original post.

After a minute or two of Googling, I found a photograph of this building:

Eberhard Faber Pencil Factory in Brooklyn Check out the story-tall terra cotta pencils at the top of this building: Eberhard Faber Pencil Factory

(Photographs are from Scouting New York. Check out the original post for lots of great information and more photographs.)

How cool is this? It’s the old corporate offices of the Eberhard Faber corporation, maker, of course, of Eberhard Faber pencils. Built in in the 1920s, it was vacated when the company shut down its Brooklyn factory and moved to Wilkes-Barre, PA in 1952. What they left behind was an amazing six-story art deco building with FREAKING PENCILS on it.

Print Magazine has an interview with a few graphic designers who has developed a relationship with this building. Read it when you get a chance; it’s a fun interview.

As of a couple years ago, other buildings from the factory campus were being turned into condos. The Pencil Factory Condos had a website that now seems to be defunct, so it’s unclear as to what is happening with them. I found an interesting (though cheesy) video on YouTube with a walkthrough of the building in question, showcasing some great looking loft spaces:

Next time I’m in NYC, I need to get to the Greenpoint neighborhood in Brooklyn to check this place out and get some pictures of my own.

Any Woodclinched readers have any stories about this building? I’d love to hear about them in the comments!

Great pencil discussion going on at Lifehacker

/ Andy Welfle / 1 Comment

Walter Glenn, a contributor at Lifehacker, posted a new discussion thread over there yesterday (I can’t believe I missed it until now!), called “Show Us Your Favorite Pencil“:

There are a few innocuous little things in the world on which people harbor disproportionately strong opinions. Maybe it’s your choice of operating system, the best paper notebook, or your favorite pen. Then again, maybe it’s your pencil—the feel of the barrel, the way it holds a point, or even the way the eraser doesn’t choke you when you get too carried away thinking about those beautiful words you’re going to write next. Whatever it is, snap a pic of your favorite pencil and share it with us below.

There were lots of mechanicals mentioned, of course, but wooden pencils had it’s day. And it wasn’t just all Blackwings and Ticonderogas, either — the Chinese Chung Hwa was mentioned:

Chung Hwa pencil

(I know I reviewed the Chung Hwa before, but it may have been lost on the Pencil Things blog before I started Woodclinched. I’ll try to find it and post it here.)

A day late and a dollar short (quite literally on both counts), I threw in my vote:

I love the Palomino Blackwings, too, but the best performance for the money is the Palomino Golden Bear, by the same manufacturer, California Cedar. They perform pretty solidly, slightly better than a Dixon Ticonderoga, I’d say, and they’re less than $3 per dozen. And they’re gorgeous — look at this blue with an orange eraser! They have an orange one, too. And they’re made in the USA! 

Here’s my post recently about the Golden Bears, now made in the US.

Go on over to Lifehacker and weigh in!

Show Us Your Favorite Pencil | Lifehacker.com