zink

I'm a bit of a Polaroid maniac. I have hundreds...Sadly Polaroid announced earlier this year their plans to discontinue making the film at the end of 2009. For the moment I'm stockpiling, but instead of worrying about what's to come with the classic film I thought I would talk about a new product created by Polaroid. ZINK!

Short for "Zero Ink," Zink is thermal printing paper. Now you may be thinking ok sounds great, but what does that mean. The short version is that it is paper embedded with dye crystals of the primary ink colors - Cyan, Yellow, and Magenta. At first glance the paper is colorless and appears to be nothing special, however when you load it into the thermal printer it goes through a developing process that produces professional quality prints.

So what does this mean for the common recreational photographer? Well since Zink requires no ink cartridges printers can be a fraction of the size, not to mention that you'll never again need to worry about running out of ink. There is even talk of incorporating printers into cell phones & digital cameras, so perhaps you'll finally print out all those digital pictures.

Plus the prints are water-resistant, smudge proof and tear proof. Coming in at a cost of 30 cents a print, they are far less expensive then traditional Polaroids to boot. Even more motivation to print out all those great digital images just sitting on your memory cards.

Zink and Zink products enter the market this fall. Visit the official Zink site to learn more: http://www.zink.com/ OR watch the "What is Zink" video below from Zink.com

architecture noir

Alternate interpretation of the construction of the parthenon. Involving the tootsie pop owl, barbie, and global warming. Puzzlemaster 2007 winning entry.

Filmed by Sarah G and myself (2 bored unlicensed architects protecting their title of puzzlemater champs) Edited by me.

enjoy!


Architecture Noir/ True Story of the Parthenon from Katherine LP on Vimeo.

helvetica

I finally got around to watching Gary Hustwit's documentary on Helvetica.The typeface, which was designed by Max Miedinger, recently celebrated its 50th Anniversary in 2007. In fifty short years it has become the most widely used sans-serif typeface in the world. Now that's really something.

Here are some interesting quotes from Hustwit's film:

"The life of a designer is a life of fight: fight against the ugliness. Just like a doctor fights against disease. For us, the visual disease is what we have around, and what we try to do to cure it somehow, with design." -Massimo Vignelli, Graphic Designer

"You can't do better design with a computer, but you can speed up your work enourmously" - Wim Crouwel aka "Gridnik", Graphic Designer

"When you talk about the design of Haas Neue Grotesk or Helvetica, what it's all about is the interrelationship of the negative shape, the figure-ground relationship, the shapes between characters and within characters, with the black if you like, with the inked surface. And the Swiss pay more attention to the background, so that the counters and the space between characters just hold the letters. I mean you can't imagine anything moving; it is so firm. It's not a letter that's bent to shape; it's a letter that lives in a powerful matrix of surrounding space. It's...oh it's brilliant when it's done well." - Mike Parker, Typepographer

"The Helvetica was a real step from the 19th century typeface...We were impressed by that because it was more neutral and neutralism was a word that we loved. It should be neutral. It shouldn't have a meaning itself. The meaning is in the content of the text and not in the typeface." -Wim Crouwel, Graphic Designer