The 2011 annual members’ exhibition of AIA New York Chapter is now up at the West 4th Street subway station through the end of the month. The exhibition of is one of many events happening during Arctober (Architecture and Design Month). More information about the exhibition is here.

Typeface(s): Jean-Luc by Atelier Carvalho Bernau

We were asked by the New York Times to contribute an illustration for a piece on the nation’s outsized fear of Al Qaeda, which was to run in the special edition covering the ten-year anniversary of September 11th. We produced the above piece in the spirit of the “see something, say something” campaign, and of the ensuing atmosphere of constant vigilance.

After months of consideration, reconsideration, postponement and prodding, we’re thrilled to launch our redesigned website.

When we started Rumors three years ago we began with a site that was practical in design but hastily built. Soon, we thought, we’ll find the time to perfect the details, write the stories, and photograph the work. But we fortunately found ourselves busy, and “soon” became a common refrain.

For the past year, though, we’ve thought about what we wanted our new site to accomplish: a design built with the same care and critical eye we bring to all our projects. We took our time, made deliberate choices, and gave ourselves the liberty to repeatedly make mistakes and start anew. The final product is the result of multiple rounds of consideration, design and development.

Rather than treat the homepage as a collection of thumbnails, which turned objects and websites alike into a series of graphic icons, we’re showing each item in full. And instead of presenting everything at a uniform size we’re using varying dimensions, sometimes to emphasize scale and sometimes for the sheer pleasure of it.

Projects are now presented with an emphasis on the reading experience. The type has been given the respect it deserves, both in the design and in the selection (we’re using FF Meta Serif and FF Bau, both served through Typekit). And photographs are shown at a size worthy of their details, using inline slideshow tools we built for the occasion. There’s new work up, too, pieces we’ve been meaning to photograph and share for quite a while.

Finally, we found a way to integrate the blog site-wide while also tucking it out of the way when not needed (hint: scroll up). Let’s hope we put it to good use!

Take the time to look around. As always, you can email us at everyone@rumors-studio.com, or find us on Twitter at @rumors_studio. We’d be happy to hear from you.

— Rumors

PS: If you’re reading this via RSS, take a look for yourself:
www.rumors-studio.com

We’re very excited to launch a new website today — Rookie, a new site for teenage girls, edited by Tavi Gevinson. We’re fans of Tavi’s writing and eye, but it’s her perspective on publishing online that really hits home:

A lot of websites run on a system of having to get a post up every half-hour, and a lot of those end up being filler posts because they don’t actually have that much to say. Rookie is kind of my response to that because we have three posts a day, and we plan everything a month ahead of time. And I like that. After being in all these meetings with publishing companies and advertisers and stuff, it’s like everyone just wants to trick people into reading their website. If the content is good, people will read it…

This neatly matches our own beliefs, and is one of the reasons Rookie was such a pleasure to build. A fast project (after three weeks, an earthquake, and a hurricane, we have a new magazine!), and one we’re proud of.

Itinerary and map for the photoshoot.

We are currently working on the June/July issue of ReadyMade magazine, our inaugural issue as Art Director. In addition to working with the fantastic team at ReadyMade, I was recently lucky enough to embark on a seven-day trip across the country to photograph the environments of six (the seventh, and last, one is coming up!) new homeowners for a Feature story in the forthcoming issue.

Initially, we thought of hiring local photographers to shoot each location, but after a month of planning and foolish proposed itineraries, we were able to coordinate the schedules of the homeowners to fit a hectic week of photoshoots and hire just one photographer. For this project, it was ideal because we wanted the photos to have a consistent style so it would reflect the personalities of each homeowner and their dwelling in a controlled, thoughtful way.

Ft. Wayne, IN — Chatting and setting up the shot.

I traveled with John Francis Peters, a talented documentary photographer and photo editor. For the Midwest leg of the trip, we were fortunate to be accompanied by ReadyMade senior designer, Adam Holt. Rather than hire a prop stylist for the photoshoots, we decided to tread the line between true documentary photography and posed, stylized shots by asking each homeowner to tidy up but not fuss with it too much.

Ft. Wayne, IN — I'm trying desperately to figure out how to style the lamp. (Photos by John Francis Peters)

I was ambivalent about invading people’s homes with pounds of bulky camera equipment, while also telling them how their belongings should look—in photos, anyway. Moreover, this was the first time I had worked on a photoshoot of this capacity. My fears ebbed as I met and worked with more and more wonderfully genuine people all over the country. Everyone was so accommodating and excited to be involved. Towards the end of the trip, I even became efficient at locating potential still-lifes, in and out of the homes we were shooting.

Each home took 3-6 hours to shoot and a considerable amount of that time was allotted to preparing the rooms or outside scenes. We would determine the concept of each photoshoot, then Adam and I would pretend to be stylists, carefully arranging (then rearranging) furnishings and organizing their possessions into compositions to photograph. John handled the lighting, initial framing of the shots, and also lent his opinion to the styling. Oftentimes, there was still dead time during preparations and between shots. Subsequent to the first few photoshoots, I found my bearings in the process and started taking behind the scenes photos.

Ft. Wayne, IN — Pups napping; Photography is back-breaking work.

Ft. Wayne, IN — Prepping a room for photos.

Ft. Wayne, IN — What a curious pup; Chicago, IL — A fraction of the equipment we lugged around.

Chicago, IL — Not fake prop food, it was delicious!

Chicago, IL — John's foray into Art Direction; Photographer's stance.

Los Angeles, CA — Quiet moment while setting up; I'm arranging leaves. (Photo on right by John Francis Peters)

Los Angeles, CA — Sneaky pup.

Admittedly, prior to the trip, I fretted that everything would go awry: our tight itinerary would implode, I would fail at directing and styling the photoshoots, and no one would work well together. However, throughout the duration of the shoots, I gained confidence in what we were working on as a team. The homeowners were all so sweet, and Adam, John, and I established a smooth working rhythm. My intent in writing this account was indeed to demystify the process, but more importantly to encourage jumping into projects that can be uncomfortably full of unknowns at first, because it may prove to be a worthy learning experience.

So, thank you, ReadyMade! I’m excited to go back to Des Moines for the closing of the issue.

A big, HUGE thanks to the homeowners throughout our trip for allowing us into their homes. I’m so glad we were able to pull off this trip. Hopefully, the experience was enjoyable and not too stressful. Also, thank you all for being troopers through poses that sometimes were silly and ridiculous, and for ultimately being lovely hosts/hostesses.

Thanks Adam and John, it was great fun to work and travel with you both! I also need to mention that we listened to a lot of Katy Perry on the long drives to our destinations and that “California Gurls” and “Teenage Dream” might just be the songs of the trip.

Quick shout-out to the folks with whom John and I were able to crash and hang out. Your couches were really comfortable. And I will definitely be going back to Handlebar and Smog Cutter.

Behind the Scenes, Pt. 2 soon, after the issue’s released, with many more revealing photos—#scandalous!

The opening room of the exhibition

We recently returned from the Canadian Centre for Architecture in Montreal, where we had the pleasure of collaborating on the design and presentation of 404 Error: The Object is Not Online. This exhibition, a collection of material drawn from the CCA archives, considers what is lost and what is gained when we experience objects online, as compared to our experiences in the physical world.

The exhibition title text

The main exhibition space, featuring the central table seen on the website

The captions were printed on extruded forms.

Given the intent of the show, we wanted to use the exhibition website as a core component, rather than simply document the material on display. So we built the site around a live feed of the gallery, taken from a webcam placed high above the central table. The items on the table, as seen in the video feed, act as links to entries on the website. When the user rolls his or her cursor over the item, a label appears giving a brief description of the piece.

Having established the gallery and website as distinct windows onto the same body of material, we wanted to bridge the space — to flatten the distance between gallery and internet, and in doing so to reconsider the traditional hierarchy of physical over virtual.

As the online visitor uses the site, an image of the visitor’s cursor is projected onto the table. If multiple people visit the site at once, multiple cursors are seen. This is not a static projection but a real-time feed, tracking each cursor moving across the webcam and recreating it in the exhibition space.

The exhibition runs through February 13, 2011, at the Canadian Centre for Architecture.

There will be an opening reception this Friday, Oct. 8th from 6-8pm at the station.

The new issue of Bidoun coincides with & comments upon Museum as Hub: The Bidoun Library Project, an exhibition recently seen at the New Museum.

The Bidoun Library Project, organized by the magazine Bidoun: Arts and Culture From the Middle East, at the New Museum, is a highly partial account of five decades of printed matter in, near, about, and around the Middle East. Arrayed along these shelves are pulp fictions and propaganda, monographs and guidebooks, and pamphlets and periodicals, on subjects ranging from the oil boom to the Dubai bust, the Cold War to the hot pant, Pan-Arabs to Black Muslims, revolutionaries to royals, and Orientalism to its opposites.

Each copy features a unique photograph glued to the cover — the photographs were purchased by the thousands from the flea markets of Cairo. Some are warped and old, others glossy and new. Prior to this issue’s production, no one at the magazine had seen the full range of images; they went directly from Egypt to the printer. So it was a delight to receive unpack the copies and sift through them, trying to select our favorites, discovering unexpected quirks (”this one’s still got a staple hanging from it!”).

The exhibition consisted of hundreds (thousands? tens of?) books, a material history collated into themes. Some abstruse, some broad, all rigorously sloppy. Endless. Many of these books found their way back into the design of the magazine.

Running through the issue is the catalogue, designed (by Bidoun proper, separate from us) for the New Museum exhibition. The magazine operates as a footnote for the catalogue, which in turn was built as a series of footnotes for the exhibition.

There are fireworks, too!

Geoff Peveto, curator of Rock Paper Show, president of the American Poster Institute and partner in The Decoder Ring, an Austin based design collective, will be available to discuss the history of Flatstock and the steady growth of the gig poster community. Featured Rock Paper Show artists Hero, Mat Daly, Strawberryluna, Vahalla, and Tara McPherson will all be available to sign copies, as well as Holly Gressley of Rumors, the book’s designer, and Mike Treff from Soundscreen Design, the book’s publisher and producer.

Rock Paper Show: Flatstock Volume One
The Strand: 828 Broadway at 12th Street
June 4th, 7pm

Information about the event is available on the Rock Paper Show site.

More about the book:
Rock Paper Show documents the first decade of the twenty-first century as the high-water mark in the storied intersection of graphic design and music. Against the backdrop of the digital- music revolution, the rock poster reemerged during this period as the calling card of impossibly talented new artists and design studios brought up on Black Flag, Joy Division, the Flaming Lips, and the Melvins. Simultaneously, the posters that these studios produced were celebrated by a rapidly growing nation of indie-rock fans who all woke up one day craving beautiful new music-related objects in their lives. The excitement—matched equally in the design and music worlds—was captured by and celebrated via the birth and rapid rise of Flatstock, the American Poster Institute’s ongoing rock-poster exhibition.

Since its inception in 2002, Flatstock has evolved into the definitive showcase of the most talented poster artists working today. Rock Paper Show: Flatstock Volume One is an editorial and visual history of the first 20 Flatstocks, with contributions from the artists and studios that regularly attend the events and the bands who are often the subjects of the posters, as well as critics and collectors involved in this community. Rock Paper Show collects for the first time the original posters created for each Flatstock by the attending studios. Veteran poster-makers take the reader on behind-the-scenes looks at the studios, the artists, the regional scenes, and the personalities of this vibrant and varied community.