Global Graphica

The hue of blue known as International Klein Blue (or “IKB”) is a color that cannot be accurately rendered on computer monitors and thus websites as it falls outside the gamut range of color. IKB was created by French artist Yves Klein in the 1950s.

We were recently thinking about this unusual color again while reading Willam Gibson’s recent novel “Zero History” (which we highly recommend). One of the book’s main characters, Humbertus Bigend, always wears custom-made suits that are International Klein Blue. Bigend is the head of a global brand-strategy-marketing-technology-advertising-trend-forecasting-whatever-agency. So that makes sense.

The New York City home of Austro-Italian style duo Rubin Chappelle is a beautifully architecturally designed space on West 14th Street in the Meat Packing District of downtown Manhattan. The space was designed by arty architect Annabelle Selldorf.

But the detail that really strikes us about the space is an interior (or, rather, exterior) design touches. The chandelier hanging from the industrial awning over the sidewalk in front of their store. We love it.

On the southwest corner at the intersection of Kenmare and Elizabeth streets in Nolita, in downtown New York City, there’s this curious rope-controlled folding-flap road sign that says “No Trucks W’msburg Br” (referring to the nearby Williamsburg Bridge linking the Lower East Side of Manhattan to northern Brooklyn). Below are images of the sign in its folded and open states.

Video titled “My Social Tattoo” of a woman getting her Facebook friends’ profile pictures tattooed on her arm. 152 kinds of awesome or 152 kinds of wrong. Whatever your opinion, this tattoo is a serious testament to friendship. (152 is the number of Facebook friends the woman had tattooed on her arm.) Question: Is this a hoax or PR stunt?

More details on the story behind the tattoo via Mashable.

The wonderfully retro-iconic “Monopoly Man” paste-up by Alec. The character was also known as “Mr. Monopoly.” But his official name was Rich Uncle Pennybags and he was the mascot of the famous Monopoly board game. Alec put this poster up in New York City’s Meat Packing (MePa) District, on the block that runs along 14th Street, near all the new neighborhood landmarks like the Standard Hotel, High Line Park, and Hotel Gansevoort. There are a few of these Pennybags  wheat-pastes in the nabe and elsewhere downtown.

Awesome video of awesome animated infographics (infoporn). The clip is a beautiful, clever data visualization by Neo and Mitsue of stats on the way we access the internet now and in the year 2015. That’s just four years away.

Digital Life: Today & Tomorrow from Neo Labels on Vimeo.

Super-duper awesome “I Wanna Rock with You” mural on a storefront roller-shutter on the Bowery in the Lower East Side of downtown New York City. Wasn’t this a line from a famous Michael Jackson song from the 1980s? The mural is one of many such paintings on the Bowery as part of an art project commissioned by the New Museum.

In our thematic photo series “What’s Outside the Window,” we post a shot of the view from the second floor window of a studio where high-end luxury-fashion images are produced, retouched and prepared for  media. The view in the picture below is looking north out over W. 14th Street in the Meat Packing District in downtown Manhattan. In the foreground, a FedEx truck and classic NYC yellow cab are parked on the cobblestone street in front of the Apple Store.