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CARI
@cari.institute
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The Consumer Aesthetics Research Institute is dedicated to postmodern analysis of aesthetic trends in graphic design. cari.institute
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Humanscale (1974-1981), by Henry Dreyfuss Associates, a supergraphic guide to designing for humans. Photos (of reproduction) from humanscalemanual.com
Stacked covers of the Humanscale series. Each cover features a stylized vector outline of a person wrapped in colored stripes. Hands holding a reference card from the guide, a diagram of a wheelchair user's proportions and measurements printed in black and white on a bright orange background at maximum density. Closeup of a page showing average measurements of a human body, with graphics and text in white on red.
August 15, 2024 at 9:11 PM
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Osamu Sato's 1994 visual album "COMPU MOVIE" has just been digitized for the first time. It's a surreal example of the early computer-graphics wave we call 'Silicon Dreams:'
www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pprm...
Small loop from the attached video of a figure made from cubes and triangles dancing robotically on a dirt-textured plane in front of a gleaming blue and purple sky
May 23, 2024 at 1:11 PM
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1978 magazine ads for Wega audio gear by Hartmut Esslinger / Frog Design-- A gorgeous example of "cassette futurism." Thanks to CommodoreCoCo in the CARI Discord for finding these!
Two-page spread with a large, dramatic photo where a pedestal-style turntable with attached control deck--which looks like a Ron Cobb-esque spaceship instrument panel--is plugged into a distant outlet in a white, shiny room. Magazine ad for a turntable and some stereo equipment, whose industrial design is monochrome and cubic as if from an 80s vision of outer space. Some copy is set in German in the white space, interrupted by a floating photo of a frog. A two-page spread centered on a large sleek CRT and some more boxy stereo equipment.
May 1, 2024 at 1:06 PM
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For Wacky PoMo Wednesday, a look at Toonstruck (Virgin Interactive, 1996):
store.steampowered.com/app/369830/T...
The title screen for Toonstruck. A Trix Yogurt-esque blue-and-purple swirl makes up the background. The logo glows in neon hot-dog colors above some options like "Play Intro" and "Hot Keys," which are also set in red and yellow on various colors of wacky trapezoid. To the right of the UI is a scary clown with jagged cartoon teeth and what seems to be a row of metal staples keeping the top of his head attached. Screenshot of the game. Drew Blanc (Christopher Lee) is FMV'd into a cartoon arcade where a Care Bear-esque pink creature plays an arcade cabinet that looks like Space Invaders. A goofy blue octopus eyes him up from the ticket counter. The camera appears to actually be looking out through the screen of an arcade cabinet, and everything is fish-eye warped in a Cool World fashion. Screenshot from the game. Christopher Lloyd stands with his back to the camera on a dirt path, looking over a fence at a goofy scarecrow who is saying "Hello!". To his left is some sort of purple creature, also facing away from camera. The dirt path disappears over a very round hill and seems to lead to a barn and silo drawn in distorted, Ren and Stimpy perspective. Lloyd and the purple creature stand on a path that splits into three just before them. Ahead is a giant jumbled sign which reads "WELKUM TU ZANYDU" in various colors and patterns of warped serif letter. The sign is supported by two bent-up orange forks stuck into the ground. Eyeballs on stems, bushes in several hues, a giant fire hydrant, a chrome statue of a flexing dog, and some kind of office or factory fill out the background.
April 10, 2024 at 3:36 PM
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It's Whimsigothic Wednesday! Check out the DVD menu for Season 2 of Buffy the Vampire Slayer (designer unknown, possibly Digital Magic Company):
www.youtube.com/watch?v=cs1D...
A "Chapter Selection" menu where stills from an episode are seen through arched stone windows, which exist ghostily in front of a red-and-blue murky collage of pillars, Gothic text, and smoke. An episode menu where the title of the episode (in this case "When She Was Bad"), set in swashy blackletterm is surrounded in a circle by options like "Main Menu" and "Play Episode," the selected option indicated by a gold Celtic knot. A misty montage of images, including a skull and some kind of chained-up scary guy, floats in the background. The DVD main menu, featuring a feather-edged and blue-cast photo of Buffy herself to the right of the show's logo and some episode titles which float around like wisps of smoke in front of an orange backdrop that combines photos of stone archways and flourishes with medieval text. A chain of ghostly, transparent fleurs-de-lis float by in the foreground.
April 3, 2024 at 10:33 PM
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The Renault Raccoon, from 1992, was a fairly early example of a Y2K "blobject" and the first-ever concept car to be shown off in CGI at an auto show. It could also drive in water.
www.autoevolution.com/news/renault...
Image of the Raccoon on a black background. It's a red car with a clear dome for a windshield, shaped sort of like a computer mouse with wheels. Its headlights and grille suggest a pleasant smile. Photo of the Raccoon in a desert, shot from behind. A man is standing up in the front seat with the hatch open, spaceship-style, facing backward.
March 28, 2024 at 1:42 PM
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It's Supergraphic Sunday! Here are some interiors from the US embassy in Moscow circa 1974, designed by Hans Hollein.
Shot looking up at a white arched doorway in a sky-blue room. A cartoon cloud painted on the ceiling wraps slightly onto the far wall, above some similarly abstracted green trees. A wider shot of the same room. Playful colors and abstract graphics fill the space around two desks, one a standard oak-veneer affair and the other a geometric yellow rectangle devoid of features.
March 24, 2024 at 8:45 PM
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"Fiber Bundles" from Animusic 2 (2005), a beautiful example of the Y2K "blobject" trend. Even the drums are blobby:
www.youtube.com/watch?v=M6r4...
Still from the linked video of a 3D-aminated chamber full of alien-looking glass blobs and tubes linked by floating fiber-optics. In the center is a drum kit where none of the drums are round, and the cymbals look strangely organic.
March 16, 2024 at 2:22 PM
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'Electric Car' by They Might Be Giants, directed by Tiny Inventions is peak Indiecraft, from 2009:
www.youtube.com/watch?v=jAv6...
Still from the music video. A woman drives the titular electric car, which is made of cardboard and cut-up cereal boxes, and is just frames away from hi-5ing a smiling dog in the passenger seat. Still from the video of a smiling bear, made out of shredded brown paper, waking up in a purple bed in a paper-mache cave. On his nightstand is a framed picture of the electric car. The titular electric car, now carrying the woman, dog, and bear, drives through a verdant paper field past a popsicle-stick fence under a smiling clay sun.
February 29, 2024 at 2:30 PM
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It's Y2K Wednesday! Check out the Bed Supperclub, a "dining in bed" restaurant in Bangkok designed by Orbit Studio in 2002: orbitdesignstudio.com/projects/bed...
Interior of a futuristic restaurant shaped like a large oval tube. Spaceship-esque balconies and a floating staircase descend to a dining area edged by two extremely wide beds. In the center, swoopy molded chairs sit at sleek plastic tables. Everything is white and pale blue, except for the large frosted window comprising the far wall, which glows a warm pink. An exterior photo of the same building. It's a large corrugated metal cylinder resting on its side on an X-shaped support structure. A flat, modernist awning shades a long staircase which leads from the front of the tube--the side with the pink window--to a UFO-style convex doorway on the rear right side of the tube.
February 21, 2024 at 6:23 PM
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It's Frutiger Friday! Here are some extremely Aero wallpapers from Korean design firm Asadal, circa 2007:
editphoto.asadal.com/best_all.htm
Photomontage of some people walking down a paved path in a bright green meadow toward a gleaming, 2000s-futuristic city. Above them, hypersaturated green leaves mingle with digital glitter on the breeze. In the background, a plane takes off toward some giant glossy bubbles. Photomontage of a generic LCD monitor, sitting abstractly on a shallow seafloor. Two tropical fish alight nearby, one emerging from the screen with a squished splash. Seagulls fly around glossy bubbles in the sky, and behind the monitor is a shiny blue globe on which the continents are way too small. A ladybug in the close foreground ascends a dewy blade of glass, looking out at a 2000s-futuristic city pretty similar to the first one. Above a field of yellow and white daisies in the middleground, large shiny bubbles float through the sky, one of which contains a bucolic nature scene of a lakeshore with one perfectly-green tree. More giant, shiny digital bubbles float over an extremely green meadow in the shadow of a cluster of high-rise apartment blocks, several of which seem to be copies of the same two buildings. Three of the bubbles contain scenes, which are fish-eyed as if reflected by them: A city overlooking a green meadow extremely similar to the background scene, a lone daffodil rising from a crowded flower bed, and three sunflowers facing the viewer away from yet another distant 2000s-futuristic city. At the bottom of this image is the text "Artplus," then some Hangul text and "photograph," and then the English text "In relation to the copyright of Artplus. The copyright. It is possible to amend and change a source lease. If violates that, you"
February 16, 2024 at 3:05 PM
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It's Ooze Tuesday! In 2001, Burger King asked kids to "Choose the Ooze" with literal, green Neon Ooze as sauces and a slushie:
youtu.be/GsMhHEo0eUs
Frame from the linked commercial, showing a BK "Big Kids" meal served in slime-bedecked packaging. Two packets of Heinz "EZ Squeez" green ketchup and a tub of apple-flavored neon-green dipping sauce sit near a carton of normal chicken tenders and a bag of normal fries. Still from the linked commercial of a child making a cartoonish "this is awesome!!!" face while he wipes through a puddle of green slime sauce with a chicken nugget, headed for his mouth.
February 13, 2024 at 5:54 PM
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The Dell Studio Hybrid from 2008, maybe the most Zen-X computer ever made. Designed by Michael Massucco.
February 12, 2024 at 2:14 AM
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It's Supergraphic Saturday! Here's some of Lance Wyman's classic identity system for the 1968 Mexico City Olympics. More Supergraphic / Ultramodern here:
cari.institute/aesthetics/s...
Workers install an information kiosk printed with sport symbols. Clear balloons printed with a black graphic pattern derived from the Mexico 68 logo float in front of a blue sky. A photographer documents graphic signage set up in the stands at the Olympic stadium. A woman wearing a dress with the graphic pattern printed across it, in front of a wall with the same image.
January 21, 2024 at 2:21 AM
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It's Ooze Tuesday! Here's the Nickelodeon "BlastPak" cassette player from 1997. Photos via Retrospekt. More Neon Ooze here: https://cari.institute/aesthetics/neon-ooze
July 18, 2023 at 3:23 PM