A GUIDE TO TV GRAPHICS
TV commercials featuring self-satisfied consumers of erectile dysfunction medications soared, so to speak, in 2004. Remember the subtle symbolism captured in the 30-second spot for Levitra where a man throws a football (eventually with success) through the opening of a tire swing? Well, that particular one didn’t spiral through into the AICP (Association of Independent Commercial Producers) Show, a presentation of last year’s best commercial filmmaking. Still, if the spots teach us anything it’s not to get discouraged: There are more artistic and less ubiquitous ads to honor. Including the funkadelic animated ad for Nike’s Neo Shoe. Playing up the Blaxploitation film genre, the 60-second trailer “Shoxploitation” shows o. the graphic genius of New York production agency PSYOP. It lives up to its tagline: performance with soul. As do CZAR.US’s animated spots for Coinstar, where loose change under sofa cushions is magically and magnetically drawn to a co.ee table and forms a high-heeled shoe, and Diesel’s bizarre mini-movie Kaboom, which features a toy plane dropping a peanut bomb over a toy city only to explode into a large holiday gift-box bow. It’s work like this that gets our hopes up. Tune in to the 2005 AICP Show at the L.A. County Museum of Art ( July through August) and the Museum of Contemporary Art in Chicago (November through December).

TESTING ONE'S TALENT
99 Ways to Tell a Story: Exercises in Style will be published in October by Chamberlain Brothers, a brand new imprint of Penguin Books. An enigmatic experiment in graphic communication, 99 is the brainchild of New York illustrator Matt Madden. In it he takes an everyday incident like forgetting what he’s looking for in the refrigerator and examines it from every angle and in every view, style, and genre he can think of. Madden’s project is inspired by the experimental literary efforts of the French writer Raymond Queneau, who wrote the 1947 early post-modernist monument, Exercices de Style, 99 variations of a brief encounter on a city bus. Queneau chose a sonnet, a telegram, and even resorted to pig latin to test the elasticity of his talent.

Madden’s various takes on the action include voyeur, fantasy, political, and sci-fi. The result is not only an impressive, illustrative example of Queneau’s significant creative exercise but it also serves as an homage to classic comic book artists like Jack Kirby, Spiegelman, and Töppfer, to name a few.

VALUE MEAL
While Mireille Guiliano, CEO of French champagne house Clicquot, enjoys the success of her book French Women Don’t Get Fat, French-born design curator Laetitia Wolff is trying a more hands-on approach to help America fight obesity. Wolff commissioned 20 A-list designers including John Maeda and David Rockwell to create visual aids for overeating intervention— devices to make people aware of what they’re consuming. The exhibition, Value Meal: Design and (over)Eating, features 20 prototypes including Eric Chan’s (of ECCO Design) admonishing necklace pendant. A built-in sensor detects calories approaching the user’s mouth and sends a vibration commensurate with its nutritional benefit. Scott Henderson’s Sandal Scales display body weight on the ankle strap in real time. Clever ideas for a design exhibit, but potentially destructive if ever available for mass-market consumption, particularly for those on the opposite side of the eating disorder scale. Value Meal is on view at the New York AIA Center for Architecture until Aug. 13.

CORRECTION
In our March/April issue in “Design Solutions: Finding the Perfect Image,” we inadvertently switched the images for IPNstock (Independent Photography Network) and Image Source. The hands image should be credited to IPNstock, and the bolt image to Image Source. We regret the error.