safety first!

Today I found myself in a little predicament which required me to ride my bike two miles in the cold rain to the nearest post office. Two miles would be nothing on any other occasion, but today the car was definitely tempting.

I survived the short trip (quite comfortably actually) with the help of two very well-designed accessories. One was a portable fender that my brother gave me as a gift last year. The other was my helmet. I've wrecked enough times to know that riding without one is a very bad idea, regardless of how silly it looks. The good thing is, thanks to companies like Bern and Yakkay, you really don't have to look all that silly.



Today, I wore the Baker helmet with winter gear attached. The ear flaps kept me so warm and the visor kept the rain out of my eyes! I think they are geared more towards snow and skate, but the EPS foam complies with all bike safety standards. Plus, it's waterproof and dries quickly after each use!










If I could afford one, I would be sporting a Yakkay helmet.

"YAKKAY's products are developed on the basis of our insight into contemporary people’s specific wishes and issues. This insight is transformed into obvious and beautifully designed solutions. The solutions are YAKKAY's products."

I've always thought that stylish bike safety was an untapped market. Another opportunity for design to improve the human condition. How much would the number of bike-related deaths decrease if wearing a helmet was cool?

The Line

I found this comic at Virus Comix while stumbling this morning. A lot of text initially, so much I stumbled again before my curiosity got the better of me and I had to go back.

I am not sure of the author's real name because he doesn't give it.

"WINSTON ROWNTREE (not his real name) likes to make comics for some reason. Virus Comix is the pretend company under which he makes his work known, and Subnormality is his weekly comic in which he inflicts upon the world a variety of thinly-veiled misanthropic tirades (well, maybe). "

The story is pretty touching. It involves two young girls who both joined the BDM (League of German Girls, the female branch of the Hitler Youth) in their late teens. They choose opposite paths and, consequently, opposite fates.

I wanted to post it because there are some design elements involved that I don't generally associate with comics (the line and its separation of text, the overall composition) and I found it incredibly intriguing.

But, I also wanted to post it because it deals mainly with injustice and gives us an idea of what it really takes to stand up against it. It is easy for us to believe that the world is better now than it was then. It is easy for us to dismiss or ignore injustice when we are separate from it, when it doesn't immediately effect our own lives.

Sometimes I think narratives like this, though a little upsetting, are good for me. They remind me that there is always something more that I could be doing for the world, for my fellow humans. As I enter the professional design world, I am constantly reminding myself of the responsibility I have, as a visual communicator, to humanity. I hope that I am able to maintain my values, as one of these girls did, through even the darkest times.

^D
sarah

100 meters of existence

This is a screenshot taken from Simon Hoegsberg's, We're all Gonna Die: 100 meters of existence. The 100-meter long photograph documents 20 days from the same spot on a railroad bridge on Warschauer Strasse in Berlin in the Summer of 2007. (I chose this particular shot because I love her dress and he totally looks like a 50's greaser.) I'm not quite sure how he created the final image, but it's pretty interesting to see the diversity of people he captured.

I am thoroughly intrigued by his way of working. He relies so much on chance and has found a way to connect people on a universal level.

"In 2004 I spent six weeks stopping people on the street in Copenhagen asking
them what they were thinking about the second before I stopped them."

"In the winter 2004 I decided to find out if I could get from Copenhagen to
the Mediterranean Sea with just 14 euro in the pocket."

"In the summer 2005 I decided to cycle from Denmark to Istanbul on a 25
kilo tourist bike with tires of solid rubber."

I can't stop looking through his website, so interesting.