The Indian government is going to be holding a public contest to redesign the Rupee. Currently, the rupee is referred to only as abbreviated forms like Rs or INR (Indian Rupee). Only Indian citizens are eligible to participate in the contest. Finalists will receive $500 (in US dollars) and the grand prize winner will receive $5000 (in US dollars) which will also be “payment” for the rights of the symbol.

Read more here. Thanks BBC.

Can you imagine trying to redesign the US dollar symbol “$” ? I can’t. I really can’t imagine designing such a widely used and such an important symbol. Hopefully, by creating a sort of Universal symbol for the Rupee, the Rupee will gain more clout. While being known as a relatively poor country with a giant population, India has billionaires and money and deserve to be on the same playing field/market as the rest of the world.

My boyfriend pointed out the “fact” that most currency symbols are just the first letter of the name of the currency with two lines through it.

Euros, Yen, Pounds, Dollars, Pesos.
They all pretty much have the first letter.

Okay, admittedly I didn’t realize that. Thanks Smarty-Pants.

I asked him then why the dollar symbol is an “S” then. He couldn’t answer me because he forgot the reason. I still want to know why… so here is the reason.

Apparently the “S” comes from British North America evolving the use of the Spanish dollar a long long long time ago. The British adapted the Spanish dollar for North America.
Thanks wikipedia!

I really hope that the Rupee will be something more interesting than just an R with a few lines through it. It think it would be great if they used a character from a language specific to India instead of an English “R”. I want to see a character that I am not used to seeing.

It will take a lot of time (and money) to really implement the new symbol into the world’s daily life with all of the computers, different fonts, different languages, different pieces of technology like phones, and even in print in books and magazines. I’m really interested in seeing how this new symbol works out. And plus, it’s just another glyph for typeface designers to play with.

Notable parts of the transcript…

How did Shepard Fairey pick out the image for the Obama piece?

FAIREY: Well, I looked through a lot of photographs, but I had an initial concept that I’d like to divide Obama’s face in highlighting shadow between tones of blue and red. So, it was really the direction of the gaze which I felt looked presidential, looked like Obama had some vision and some leadership, and that combined with the way that the light was falling.

…why did he decide to sue the AP?

FAIREY: Well, the AP was threatening to sue me, and they first contacted me and said, you know, let’s figure out how to work this out amicably, which I was vey open to and said, you know, I’m glad to pay the original license fee for the image. For all the reasons I’ve already given you, I didn’t think that I needed to, but I’m glad to do it because, you know, I’d rather just make this easy for everyone.

And then they said no, we want damages. And then they ran a piece in the National Press basically saying I stole the photo, which as an artist that works from references frequently, you know, I feel that they’re calling into question the validity of my method of working as well as the hundredsif not thousands of other artists that made grassroots images for Obama working in a similar way, or people that made things, you know, against the Bush agenda that had a likeness of him. These are all things that were created by people who probably don’t have the resources to license an image.

And the meaning of their art pieces is completely different than the original intention of the source image and adds a new layer, a new value. It’s transformative, and I think it should be fair use. And I felt that I needed to fight the AP not for myself only, but for a whole group of artists that would be self-censored, probably, because they can’t afford the photos and they don’t want to be in a legal entanglement over using those types of images to communicate a message.

What was Mannie’s reaction when he found out the reference image was his?

GARCIA: Initially when I found out, I was disappointed in the fact that, you know, someone had – was able to go onto the Internet and take something that doesn’t belong to them and then use it. I think that that part of this whole story is crucial for people to understand that simply because it’s on the Internet doesn’t mean it’s free for the taking, and just because you can take it, doesn’t mean it belongs to you.

**Currently AP over who owns the copyright.

And finally…

Professor GREG LASTOWKA (Rutgers School of Law-Camden; Visiting Professor, Columbia University): One thing that’s really important about fair use, they need to understand, is the Supreme Court has said that each fair use case needs to be decided individually, and there are no bright-line rules. And that’s one of the things that’s most frustrating about fair use because if you look at these four factors for fair use, none of them are strictly controlling, and you can find a case that has, you know, one of these factors going one way or the other and a finding of fair use or no fair use.

About the recent Facebook uproar…

Prof. LASTOWKA: I see it as very relevant because I think the reaction of the public to something like, you know, Facebook’s changing the terms of service, the fear that someone else is going to be able to monetized the creative work that you’re uploading to Facebook shows that we all feel like we are authors and proprietors of the content that we create. So, yeah, I think it’s very relevant because it shows the public’s reaction when their own authorial interests are at stake.

—Very interesting. I thought about this on the train home tonight…

In this blog, I am trying to share and showcase some of the most interesting and beautiful content and creations that other people have created that I have found on the internet. I always try to link back and give credit or at least link back to where I originally found it (or I probably won’t post it).

I now wonder if Shepard Fairey had originally given credit to Mannie Garcia during the Obama campaign, would there still be an issue?

In these hard economic times the issue is very much monetary but it’s not to say that credit is worth less (or worthless?). If Mr. Garcia had received credit and had his name brought up in a more positive manner rather than in the middle of a legal scandal with a very high profile person in the art and design world, would he have gotten more work as a result? Or any money? For an important political campaign that was considered to be a non-profit situation, would money have been an issue if all parties had received recognition?

It is always important to be recognized. I think that the public in general “thought” (knew/understood) that the Shepard Fairey image was based off of a reference, but neglected to acknowledge that fact because of how Fairey treated the work. It is not a photograph that has been altered. It is a drawing/design that was based off of the image, which should fall under fair use. Whether or not it was legally under fair use, it is still, I feel, the “right” thing to do to acknowledge others works.

Does common courtesy and honesty still exist?

Did you know that Dr. Seuss not only drew his amazing characters, but he actually created them? In the 1930’s he began a strange method of taxidermy. His father worked for the Forrest Park Zoo in New York.  Dr. Seuss took horns or other pieces of the deceased animals and incorporated them into his sculptures of characters. Strange, but fascinating and beautiful results.

Check out the collection of works here at drseussart.com.

The commercial director and as photographer legend Howard Zieff died at the age of 81. He was most well-known for his Alka-Seltzer commercial (“Mama mia, that’s a spicy meatball!” ) and the Levy’s Jewish Rye ads (“You don’t have to be Jewish to love Levy’s real Jewish Rye”) staring common ordinary people rather than “beautiful” actors. Time magazine referred to him in 1967 as “the leading practitioner of what the trade calls the indirect sell.”

He had a unique sense of humor that made his ads stick out and more memorable. Zieff was one of the greats and helped to create the characters that we are so familiar with today such as the Marlboro cowboy. But he also broke stereotypes. Levy’s Jewish Rye ads are photographs of a Chinese man, a Black child, and a Native American all eating the rye bread.

“Everyone was blond and perfectly proportioned; I didn’t want that. Look, for the Levy’s ad. I shot many photos that failed. They weren’t the kinds of faces that gathered you up when you went on the subway. That’s what I wanted, faces that gathered you up.” –Zieff, 2002

Over the summer I saw his work at the New York Public Library’s Business and Science Center when they had a special exhibit about the history of advertising on Madison Ave. He was brilliant.

Originally found on NYTimes.com

Solveig is a 10 year old girl in the UK. She is being referred as the female Banksy right now. She loves to paint and has got a lot of style, especially for someone so young. She’s been painting for a few years already! This girl is impressive! Someone liked her work so much that he asked her for a tattoo. She actually tattooed the guy herself. 10 years old and and she already has made some permanent marks on her world. Solveig has big dreams. She’s already painted on the Berlin wall.

I totally dig this little girl. Check out her flickr.

The Clinton’s White House cat died.
He was 18.

Socks was a stray cat that was rescued by Chelsea Clinton. He didn’t stay with the Clintons after they left the White house. He stayed with President Clinton’s personal secretary. He had cancer but he still lived quite a long time. He was put to sleep today.

When I was in elementary school, I wrote about Socks when I wrote President Clinton a letter about how I thought that all cars should be made like bumper cars because people wouldn’t get into accidents as much. He was a cool cat.

Wouldn’t you think that if you had to give a 200-pound “domesticated” chimp some psychiatric drugs like Xanax that you would think that the chimp was unhappy with his life?

The news about this poor chimp is a shame. It could have been easily avoided. I feel terrible for the animal and I do feel somewhat for his owner. She lost a friend. But she should have been thinking about his happiness and well being.

Please do not take wild animals and make them pets. Chimps are not house cats or dogs. Wild animals need to be in the wild.

Read more about this here.

Impressive! M.I.A. performed 9 months pregnant at the Grammy’s. She looks great! Her due date was February 8th. Props for not having the “elective cesarean” just because that was the due date.

Heh… I’ve watched this performance 3 times on YouTube this morning.

This looks great. I’m excited!!!

This is a documentary film about industrial design, it’s objects and it’s designers. A chair is not just a chair. A lamp is not just a lamp. They start out as ideas and become obsessions. Then they live.

Gary Hustwit was the man behind the film Helvetica. That film was great. The first time I saw it was at the Pratt Institute where Hustwit was there and spoke about the film a little bit.
www.objectifiedfilm.com