Feb

Vintage Fonts Go Digital on Buenos Aires Buses

by Bruce Goldstone on February 17, 2014

Two Buenos Aires buses, one showing the use of vintage fonts as design inspiration and the other showing digital fonts for clarity and utility.

Buenos Aires buses dressed to the nines on their way from Caraza to Retiro, old style and new
© Bruce Goldstone

Torn Between Design Inspiration & Utility

Buenos Aires is a city of kinetic visual overload, where color, pattern, and structure compete for your eye’s attention. One of the first things I fell in love here was the vintage fonts on the city buses. People tend to think I’m either kidding or crazy, but nonetheless, it’s true.

A source of constant design inspiration, the gorgeous graphics bundled onto a Buenos Aires bus pack a powerful punch.

Every bus line has its own vibrant palette, like rival schools sporting their colors. Strong stripes and elaborate, hand-painted designs called fileteado add to the impact.

And it’s all topped off with a big, bold number.

A Buenos Aires bus sporting vintage fonts that are a design inspiration. (Image © Bruce Goldstone)

A Buenos Aires bus is a design class on wheels.
© Bruce Goldstone

More than a hundred different bus lines cover the city in complicated routes that zig-zag through town. The number of the line perches proud and loud on the front of the bus.

A Number Is Worth a Thousand Words

Soon after I arrived, I began to snap photos of every bus that passed (while carefully avoiding being run over).

A collection of numbers in the vintage fonts on Buenos Aires buses are a design inspiration. (Image © Bruce Goldstone)

A number of bus numbers
© Bruce Goldstone

I took new delight in every bold or subtle variation, cruising the city’s streets:

The chessman solidity of the trapezoidal number #1
The thick, squat look of the extra-bold, extra-wide sans-serif #5 and #6
The delicate stroke that outlines the elegant #12
The jaunty snout of the 1 in #17
The rectilinear combo that gives #21 a modernistic flair
The voluptuous curves of #86, bold white on a sexy red background
The cheerful profile of the scooped twin 1’s in 115

Zero Tolerance

So, the first time I saw a digital bus display in Buenos Aires, I was horrified.

A digital bus sign in Buenos Aires lacks the design inspiration of signs with vintage fonts. (Image © Bruce Goldstone)

Where’s the charm in a digital dot-matrix font?
© Bruce Goldstone

The modern clarity of the neon green digits struck me as inhuman and charmless. There was no style, no effort, and no class.

I sulked for days.

I groused to friends as more bus lines began to make the switch from hand-selected, quirky typography to mass-produced digital dullness.

Then Again . . .

But then one night, things got much clearer. Or, rather, they didn’t.

Several hours after 11:00 p.m. (when the subways shut down), I was dutifully waiting, and waiting, for a #29 bus. Early on in my Argentine education, I had learned that you have to flag down a bus if you want it to stop. If you don’t hail the driver, he won’t stop even if he sees you standing there.

Finally, I saw a bus in the distance. Alas, it was a #22, a line that would take me even farther from home.

So I didn’t signal the driver.

As the bus went by, I looked up again and realized I’d misread the barely-lit number. It was, in fact, my #29. I stuck my hand out, but—too late! The driver passed me by.

I Saw the Light

I had at least twenty minutes to think over my mistake, as well as my firm allegiance to dimly-lit vintage fonts of old. I began to rethink my aversion to digital fonts on electronic displays.

Now, whenever I see a night bus, I realize that its shining, vivid clarity has many virtues, not the least of which is visibility.

A digital font on a Buenos Aires bus may lack the design inspiration of vintage fonts, but is useful for helping you flag down the right bus. (Image © holgs / iStock)

I’m beginning to see the charm here.
© holgs / iStock

And so I had an “Oh, I see” moment that was quite literally about seeing—It’s a whole lot easier to read electronic fonts at night.

As I’ve come to terms with the new digital fonts, I’ve been heartened by another discovery. Not every bus line is content to stick with the simple, minimal dot-matrix fonts dictated by a small digital array. Newer models offer more complicated arrays that allow bus lines to choose their own, unique electronic fonts, like this elaborate #9.

A digital bus font in Buenos Aires may lack the design inspiration of vintage fonts but has the advantage of readability. (Image © Bruce Goldstone)

A nifty new nine
© Bruce Goldstone

I still love the vintage fonts that crisscross the city on many bus lines. They delight the eye as design inspiration for typography enthusiasts like me. But a bus passing in the night with its electronic display helped me get home, and that alone may be reason enough to accept the digital bus fonts that are taking over in Buenos Aires.

Comment on this post below, or inspire insight with your own OIC Moment here.

Bruce Goldstone Comments

Argentina/The World's Art & Design

Feb

In Defense of Selfies

by Sheron Long on February 10, 2014

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: A selfie captures creative expression in the mirror!
© Stephen MacLeod

Creative Expression Is Just a Tap Away

Two hundred years ago, people spent oodles of money and posed hours on end for a painter to immortalize them for the future. Now, with only a camera click and a tap to share, an image is part of a widely spread personal history.

Yesterday’s portrait is today’s selfie. And, like a master’s painting, many are full of creative expression.

Selfies began making news in 2004 and today more than 30 million show up on Instagram when you search the hashtag #selfie. I guess when even the Pope and the President of the United States are showing up in selfies, it’s a pretty big trend. But is it a trend that’s gone too far?

The Downsides to Selfies

Yes, there’s self-absorption inherent in the selfie.

How many pictures of yourself do you need?

Are you sharing just to count the “Likes” and pocket approval?

And when you have to stop in the middle of a slice of pizza to take your picture, has obsession turned to narcissism?

Woman eating pizza and taking a selfie. (Image © Scott Bradley)

“Oh, wait. Let me just get a picture of myself snarfing down some pizza!”
© Scott Bradley

Selfies include the pornographic and the macabre with people posing in front of cadavers or faking their own deaths (and setting off Internet rumors about it).

Some people risk their lives just to get what’s known as an extreme selfie like the one taken by Christian as he ran for his life from angry bulls in last week’s Houston Bull Run.

But downsides aside, the creative side of selfies keeps me on their side.

The Creative Value of Selfies

Always a champion of creative expression, I like how selfies keep creativity flowing, so I offer these three upsides in their defense:

1. Selfies Contribute Works of Art to the World

I admire the selfies that—with little background—capture the essence of an individual and add to the world’s body of portrait art.

Selfie portrait showing creative expression by the photographer-subject. (Image © Yongzhe Wu)

This portrait photographer and the subject
are one and the same.
© Yongzhe Wu

Captivating portraits rely on that intangible talent, the privy of famous portrait photographers, to snap the picture when the subject’s personality peers through. Perhaps that’s easier in a selfie because subject and photographer are the same.

With some staging and the ever-present mirror, some selfies become fascinating still life art—the kind that makes me linger and look deeper into the photo.

Selfie as a still life full of creative expression shows a man's photo in a hand mirror on a shelf of books. (Image © Javier Maubecin)

Selfie photographers thrive on mirrors, bathroom and otherwise,
to set the image into a creative scene.
© Javier Maubecin

An interesting angle and color-coordinated styling turns an ordinary evening at home into a creative stage.

Selfie of a girl in her living room taken at an overhead angle to increase creative expression. (Image © Hoang Minh Trang)

Many selfies unleash creativity with the angle
of the shot and careful styling.
© Hoang Minh Trang

2. Selfies Create a New Concept of Beauty

Smart phones give people, especially girls and women, more than the power to take a picture.

Selfies balance out images of the perfect faces and bodies dished up by advertisers and the media with pictures of real people, thereby creating not just a new but a real concept of beauty. As Dr. Sarah J. Gervais says in Psychology Today, we can now “. . . look through our Instagram feed and see images of real people—with beautiful diversity.”

Selfie portrait of a girl showing creative expression. (Image © Gina Spitale)

The right angle? The right flip to the curl?
A selfie photographer gets to choose.
© Gina Spitale

The selfie has handed over the controls. Now people can experiment with creative expression, deciding how they want to look and which presentation they want to share.

3. Selfies Are Creative Artifacts for Visual Diaries

Not all selfies are just about self. Rather, they have documentary value in recording personal history. A simple selfie in the perfect location can be AMAZING, and it says, “I was here.”

An underwater selfie, showing creative expression. (Image © Niccolo Simoncini/iStock)

An artifact of the sea and me
© Niccolo Simoncini/iStock

A fighter pilot snaps a selfie, showing his creative expression for a visual diary of his adventures. (Image © Stocktrek Images)

A U.S. Air Force pilot takes a selfie in an F-15e Strike Eagle over North Carolina.
© Stocktrek Images

Collectively, selfies leave behind a creative record of the life and times on our planet for anthropologists and researchers like Dr. Mariann Hardey to surely study in the future.

But in our lifetimes, they are also visual diaries of our courageous and inspirational moments; they chronicle our progress when trying to make a life change, like going to the gym. These ideas and more speak to the positive side of selfies in creating a happy life, offered by Dr. Pamela Rutledge in Psychology Today.

Make More Selfies

With selfies hopefully vindicated and in recognition of their contribution to creative expression, OIC Moments invites you to enter our “OIC Me!” contest.

Just snap a creative selfie—portrait art, maybe a still life, or you in a memorable moment—and tell what it says about you. And, if you want to play with some selfie trends, try a

Cat using a smart phone to take a selfie. (Image © borzywoj/iStock)

Even a cat can take a selfie!
© borzywoj/IStock

Helfie, the hairdo selfie, a term inspired by a photo Beyoncé took of her new hairstyle
Seatbelt selfie, snapped when you are safely buckled in the car
Welfie, taken in workout gear
Felfie, farmers taking selfies

Toddlers in the house can submit a toddler selfie. And your pets can submit a pet selfie—there’s even an app for that.

Oh, I can’t wait to see what you come up with!

Just click the phone to go to the OIC Moments contest page on Facebook:

With appreciation to Janine Boylan for research and contributions to this article.

Comment on this post below, or inspire insight with your own OIC Moment here.

Sheron Long Comments

The World's Photography

Feb

The Colorful Life of a Human Cyborg

by Meredith Mullins on February 6, 2014

Neil Harbisson, a human cyborg, wearing a head device which expands his senses for creative expression (Photo © Dan Wilton/Red Bulletin)

Neil Harbisson, cyborg and artist, changing the world of senses.
© Dan Wilton/Red Bulletin

Neil Harbisson: Expanding the Boundaries of Creative Expression

He can hear a Picasso painting.

He can paint a Mozart serenade.

He stands for hours in a supermarket aisle listening to a symphony of rainbow-colored cleaning bottles.

He composes music from faces.

This is Neil Harbisson, human cyborg. His senses defy tradition. His creative expression is unique.

He was born to a colorless world, where, in his words, “the sky is always gray and television is still in black and white.”

But, because he believes that everyone should wish to perceive what they can’t perceive, he was driven to extend his sensory perception.

He wears a cybernetic eye—an “eyeborg”—that translates colors into sounds on a musical scale (and vice versa). Pretty cool.

His “Oh, I see moments” become “Oh, I hear moments” . . . and beyond.

black and white landscape, showing that lack of color is a challenge for creative expression (Photo © Meredith Mullins)

A World in Black and White and Shades of Gray

What would it be like to spend your life seeing only black and white and a range of gray tones—to never know the blueness of an open sky or the multitude of greens that emerge as trees come alive in spring?

color landscape, showing inspiration for creative expression (Photo © Meredith Mullins)

Neil was born with a rare color vision disorder that creates a gray-scale world. At first his parents thought he was just confused by the names of colors. Doctors thought he was colorblind. His classmates teased him when his socks didn’t match.

At age 11, he was officially diagnosed with achromatopsia. He could not see color at all.

The Eyeborg

Over time, he tried to make sense of color— to associate colors with people. For example, when someone talked about the color blue, he thought of a friend who was very brainy. He created his own world.

When he went on to study music in college, fate introduced him to cybernetics expert Adam Montandon. The result was a collaborative invention—the “eyeborg”— that would enable Neil to hear color.

Neil Harbisson , a human cyborg, using the eyeborg to translate the color orange into a sound so he can use his senses for creative expression (Photo © Dan Wilton/Red Bulletin)

The eyeborg translates light waves (colors) into sound waves, by linking each color to a note or frequency on the musical scale. A camera mounted on Neil’s head scans the colors in front of him and transmits the sound through a chip in the back of his head.

He had to memorize the names of colors and the frequencies associated with each hue, but eventually that became subliminal.

“When I started to dream in color, I felt the software and my brain had united,” he explains. “That’s when I called myself a cyborg.”

He grew more and more comfortable wearing the device on his head. He wore it everywhere—to sleep . . . and even in the shower.

Colorful cleaning products on a grocery shelf, illustrating how Neil Harbisson, a human cyborg standing nearby, will hear a symphony of sounds via his eyeborg. (Photo © Meredith Mullins)

And, finally, he appeared on his passport photo complete with his headgear (after a battle with the British authorities, who don’t allow official photographs with electronic equipment). Neil convinced them that the eyeborg was a part of his body.

As advanced as the eyeborg is, Neil still has to plug himself in periodically to charge his antenna through a USB port at the back of his head. He looks forward to the day when he doesn’t have to depend on electricity. He hopes to use his own blood circulation to keep the device charged.

Neil Harbisson, a human cyborg, plugged into wall, recharging the device that expands his senses for creative expression (Photo © Dan Wilton/Red Bulletin)

Exploring Creative Frontiers

In a world of science fiction, robotic prowess, and Google Glass, Neil is an unexpected hero. He uses his new perceptions as creative power, breaking boundaries between sound and sight, art and science.

He is the ultimate listener—listening to art, his environment, and the people he meets.

“The way I perceive beauty has changed,” he admits. “When I look at someone, I hear their face. Someone might look beautiful but sound terrible.”

His taste in art has changed. Certain painters, like Rothko and Miró, produce very clear notes. Others produce clashing chords because of the colors they use.

He performs in concerts by playing the colors of the audience. He preempts review with this caveat, “The good thing about this is that if the concert doesn’t sound good it’s their fault, not my fault.”

He creates sound portraits, so that people can “hear” their faces. He’s also working on a sound portrait of Venice, with other cities to come.

Then, in a creative reversal of fortunes, he turns musical notes or frequencies into visual art. He paints Vivaldi, Bach, Beethoven, and Rachmaninov and creates visual impressions of famous speeches.

Neil Harbisson's painting of Mozart's Queen of the Night, creative expression inspired by hearing color. (Image © Neil Harbisson)

A Cyborg Gathers No Moss

Neil continues to push the boundaries with his work. Regular human color vision includes the visible spectrum of light. But, that’s not enough for a cyborg.

He has added both infrared and ultraviolet light to his audible wavelengths, giving him the advantage of being able to detect motion sensors and of knowing when it’s safe to sunbathe.

Neil Harbisson, a human cyborg, wearing yellow, an inspiration of creative expression (Photo © Dan Wilton/Red Bulletin)

He has also created the Cyborg Foundation to help humans become cyborgs, to promote the use of cybernetics as part of the human body, and to defend cyborg rights.

“Life will be much more exciting when we stop creating applications for mobile phones and start creating them for our body,” Neil says.

Spoken like a true cyborg . . . and an artist who understands the value of extending the senses for unparalleled creative expression.

Photographs courtesy of The Cyborg Foundation and Dan Wilton/Red Bulletin.