Repost World Design Blogs

 20 years ago I was in Cuba for a training period.

Yep, like that.

A few years later the website AdmirableDesign (created by Gérard CARON) started a blog platform to share about design all over the worl (made by Joris BEBIN).

I participated with my cuban experience, also with deutsch and finnish ones.

I loved this exchange platform but then it went without maintenance and died.

I wanted to have a trace from this. Actually the idea emerged when I started to teach in 2015!

Every year since I've been saying I wanted to repost all of this as a good resolution.

It's 20 years since I've been in Cuba so I decided it was time to find and restore these archives as to repost these.

Also to repost the articles I wrote for the main site AdmirableDesign and why not my famous A Blog of Comics about Design (it should be published on Insta too, that could be a pretty way to make it alive again).

It will take time (I didn't started yet to search for it) and it will be on my other blog (sorry, only in french): design-et-identite.blogspot.com
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If I Were A Designer #23: the Citroën 2HP for the future

I previously introduced the future 2HP by the press magazine L'Action Auto-Moto I've been part of when I had a small fame in my career.

In fact I've thought about this subject a long time before, even before knowing I'ld become a designer, rethinking the 2HP with the 90's standards:

Let's zoom on the very first sketch:

A few years later (2002) Citroën will introduce the C3 which form seems to evoque its ancestor but without the exact mood. Exactly as I did with my draw:

It had a "without roof" version to feel a bit like in a very modern Méhari: the Pluriel.

What I didn't knew, what I've discovered a few weeks ago in another magazine (L'Argus) is the way the C3 project thought to reinvent the 2HP before simplify its aesthetic!

 

I've seen a video and I've been schocked: I felt like I was watching at an 1:1 scale model of my own contemporary draw! Okay, not really but a bit.

Once again here is only one thing: the pride that I've been right, even if I never went far away.

Now I should ask if the new C3 designed by Tata for India isn't the real grand-daughter of the 2HP?

It doesn't look like the 2HP but it's the same concept:

From Obese To Marathon

Since a few years I'm pursuing the goal of running a marathon as a motivation to train to have a less bad health and I have a YouTube channel about that (in French, sorry).

 

You need clothes to go do sport so I've created some designs on a website (which makes those to send to you... and I gain a few nothing and empty for every product sold) and here are 2 from this springtime: D'obèse à marathonien [From Obese To Marathonman (this is the actual subtitle of the channel)] and Objectif marathon [pretty sure you understood this one and because it what I'm... running after! Haha ! Joke!).

 

As you can see there are still tank tops, sport shirts, hats, sweatshirts, but also anti-CoVid masks, pencil case, lunch case, insulated bottle, stickers, iPhone covers... And there are magnets now!

 

To buy online here: https://fiteyp.myspreadshop.fr

Tokyo Diecast Racing in French!!

This long title does count!

For more than one year I've been publishing diecast racing videos on YouTube [you can see this channel by clicking here].

 Of course I'm not PiewDiPie nor T-Serie my fame is really small as only 4 of my videos are over 100 views! And it took them time since my very first day ("youtubers" count only on the first 3 days)!

But still my audience is worldwide!

I'm in touch with someone in Portugal whom I then bought a track (for NASCAAAARRR races!!) and some comments arrived from all over the world saying that my commentary ambiant was very cool by non-french speaking people [so now I wrote english sub-titles, yes I wrote them, yes this is long to do] and so on until another diecast racing wannabe youtuber asked me... to comment his races!

 

Yes, he race, film and edit the videos he comments for his channel then he edit differently so I comment and publish on my own channel.

One small think: he's from Tokyo!! You can understand I feel like an international star with this kind of collaboration!

 

Here is the result, the french version of the first episode from the second Tokyo Diecast Racing Season:

You understood the commentary is in french but it's subtitled in english. Eventually you would like to see the original version:

 Before I've published it the second episode was on so I'll need to improve my skills to keep in touch with his rythm!

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Not only clothes!

The bib from yesterday note made me think that there are a lot of different products in the online shop!
I've wrote before about stickers, caps, apron, and now about pandemic masks:

There are also bandanas, smartphone covers, male underwear (unhappily not for women), women croptops (unhappily not for male), drinking... eeh... jars, mugs, cushion...

Same place than always: https://shop.spreadshirt.fr/unitedsavoy/
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The Apple of Savoy

My visual this fall being around the famous Opinel knife (without telling the brand as I don't want any case for intelectual property infragment) here comes some new ones, right in time fir the new lock-down!

This time I'm looking after another famous brand for inspiration, still hoping not to wake up the advocates!

You recognized it's about Apple with the Opinel and a big cheese...
 

Which cheese? Tomme? Tome? Beaufort? Reblochon? Abondance? Emmental? Gruyère?

If you ever try to go in an Apple Store please let me know if someone think you're working in there!

Still online here (for all the ages): https://shop.spreadshirt.fr/unitedsavoy/

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1,200 diecast modelcars

You know I'm making videos of diecast racing since a few saturdays.

Our time is not at fun, well maybe yes, it's time to have more fun.
So, when the idea was hanting me to film videos but my cars were all at my parents home which is a bit far away, I took a look on the net and I've found.
I purchased 1,200 diecast modelcars.
A thousand and two hundred cars.
Plus a few other toys, in a lot, sold by a retiring second-hand dealer.
A lot so it was not expensive.





If you were wondering how much space 1,200 cars could take, here you can see that's a lot in my small 30m² flat.
One layer of vehicules by box, 2 columns of boxes, and it's higher than me!

Before filming them I have to clean them and sort them (because there are a few gemmes but a lot of sh*ts) which will also reduce the overall place it takes.




#1200 #diecastracing #coursesdepetitesvoitures

A New Blog?

A long time ago I had a blog, which was on a platform which closed. I didn't save anything as I was really disappointed. Now I think that has been an error, may the notes have been good.
Then I started this blog, personal, and another one to help my survey about public spaces design.

I haven't wrote anything on this second blog since 2013, but I never forgot it!
I didn't defined my redactional strategy yet but I wanted to relaunch it.
Firstly, as I wrote here, I want to republish my former blogs and when a rumour saying that Peugeot-Citroën and Fiat Chrysler Automobiles could make a new group together I did wanted to restart it.
I didn't had time for that so I said no to myself but tonight I was tired so I wrote a new note!

Here comes the new note, only in French, about Lancia, a car brand I do like a lot, but I'm not sure it really like itself...
Here it is.

A New Year, New Projects

One of my new year resolution is about old things. First of all as it is not a new resolution, I've had this for a few years I think. Most of all because I'm about reusing posts from old (and some dead) blogs I wrote a few years ago.

There are 2 of these, well the second one is not just one but let's say it is.
The first one is my Comic drawned Blog about Design, in french that's the B.B.D.D.:

The second one is the Worldwide Design Blogs which is, as you can read its title, a few blogs about design all around the world. That was on the AdmirableDesign.com platform whe this was Gérard Caron and Joris Bébin working on it:

I won't say when I would do because I have to restore evry text, recap the pictures, or find them in my archives (archives, you know, that's so well stocked and classified and...), translate every text in english (everything was in french), and that's in more after making lessons, correct the works, prepare my exam, videomaking, running...
Here it is, written so that engages me more than if I keep it alone in my head!
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Diecast races Videos

A few weeks without any post, teaching requires so much energy!
After some days I'm exhausted, my brain is out of service. I chill with my phone, looking videos on the web.
I recently discovered a trend I didn't knew existed: commented videos of diecast races.
Yes, you did understood well.

And now I'm obsessed with that.
I'm watching a lot of this stuff, some track designs come, and the mood to make some by myself.
That would be easy as I'm the owner of a lot of model cars.
Unfortunately these are all in my moving cardboxes at my parents' home. And the mood if always growing to make some of this.
Finally I'm done, here is the first:

I was at my parents for a birthday celebration so I took some of my cars and here is the second video:

This is the beginning of a beautiful friendship!
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Head Hunting Accident

Some head hunters give themselves pleasure by selectioning my kind of profile for a job they dream to have me in the list they sell to their client even when I don't match the background you would need. That happened to me when I was really profesionally active.
Now that I have less pro news of course, less.
Well, now the hunting season is on [yes you can see their name because they spend some of my time for nothing]:

This text sounds like they introduce you to firms but on their website I can read that they offer coaching for bosses so where am I supposed to have something to do? Well, let's accept their appointment and see. Until the day before the day when I receive this in the afternoon:

So they just cancelled the appointment after they took a real look on my resume to finally see I'm not the one they were searching for.
You know what, if one day I have to work with them in any way... could I trust people who proved me they don't do their job properly?
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InstStar?

I've written here before my new main hobby is to exercize to lose weigh and regain health, and it helps motivate myself  to make videos on the Internet about that.

My channel is not yet succeding so to help it I satrted an Instagram account!

@fiteyp_officiel

Join up they said! It's a man's life they said!
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Zorro is 100!

On the 9th of August 1919 was released Johnston McCulley's novel The Curse of Capistrano which has been adaptated on movie the year after starring Douglas Fairbanks as the masked crusader.
The films was a success so the author went to write others stories, then the fox went far in movies (and TV shows, but a lot less than films).

He was my favorite when I was a child! The costumes, the stories, the good one helping the poor people... well, now I undrestand that he can do it only because he was born rich, and that's still incredible than no one see who he is, smarter than Superman!

He has been inspired by people who lived for real like Joaquin Murietta (actually it seems than for one name were in fact 6 men having avenged themselves on white settlers who have had robbed them, the legend grew up then a novel inspired by these popularized the myth) and William Laport (a renegade who was marking his victims with a Z with his blade). Also a english theater series character named The Scarlet Pimpernel.
He has been an inspirtation for DC's Batman and Marvel's El Aquila, and certainly other modern heroes.

So Happy Birthday Zorro!
But... How old is Don Diego?
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ThatFits!

I've been obese for a long time, I am not any more.

3 years ago my back was totally blocked: cervical, dorsal, lumbago (in the both senses) I've been to see an ostheopatic.

The best way to fight against the lumabo pain was to walk half an hour EVERY DAY.
That went better for my back, also for my weight and my feeling, I was losing 6 pounds a month just by walking!
I walked until I was no longer an obese and I went to stabilize myself under my "obesity weight". So I wanted to do more, to felle better, and I've searched on the Internet, I tried a few "beginners schedules" and I have to say that my definition of a beginner is not the same than the profesional sportpeople's! So I decided to do my own fitness programs.

Then I thought that these could help other people so this Januray I started to share my exercices, food habits, experiments about losing weight and gaining good feelings on a Youtube channel: 

My first videos were about getting out of obesity and today starts my "real" fitness program for overweighted people.
I'm not a coach, nor a nutritionist, here are some advices I've found, the ones I tried, the ones I have thoughts about.

Here I start a every-day-challenge on 2 monthes, which is noit easy when you are not a sport addict. Will we play in the next Avengers at the end? Of course not, firstly because it will be in theaters before we end this, secondly because the goal of this program is to recreate energy and force in the muscles to feel better (and maybe to start a real fitness program to gain muscles, we will see what we have done on the 20th of June):

Of course every comment, like, share, subscribe on this Youtube page will be a support to help me motivate myself in making videos... which helps motivate myself to do sport!
So please comment, like, share and subscribe 🍆!
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French National Radio Interviews

I'm listening like every day and all the day-long FranceInter the french national radio.
Let's forget about why and carry on my goal. For years now I've been asking myself what was the plurality of this network. Mostly in the breakfast broadcast (which is the more successfull in France. And even more this yeart so... I wanted to count it!

That's not a scientific method, I'm not a profesional and I just do it (and whaaaat it's hard to keep it when I'm connecting less than once a week on my computer).
First critic I'm not respecting the groups of the Parliement to count the politician families. For example the MoDem (center-right party) is supporting the governement so I count every person from this party like one from the President's party.
I don't count depending on what people say, only regarding the politician family they assume. So someone from Le Figaro daily newspaper give me a ? in the Diverses right parties but a cineast/videast/documentarist is in none column.

So no, it's not perfect, I would be interested to see an observatory counting more precisely than me (maybe the CSA which is the one counting for ethic time in medias during elections?).
So here is the entiere list since they started the actual season:

There are 3 interviews: the first one during the 5-7:00 broadcast, a special guest by one journalist, and the great interview by two of them. That's not more informative but I can see it better.
I surely can see better that the radio I listen every day is not counting better than me depending on the groups at the Parliement!
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If I Were A Designer: All-Terrains Bugatti

A long time ago I've published on a website my vision for a Bugatti Veyron AWD

 Nothing to see here, it was just to forget a bad day at work.
This creation has never had any mediatic exposure, and it didn't deserve any of it, and now I fell sad to see the same kind of  stupidity published on a design website reference:

Okay, sure he made more work than me on this, and it should not be a shame to see it on a blog about cars, but not on a design website.
Here is my ephemeris for the end of the year!
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Le cycliste

I'm proud to move in the city as a walker as a cyclist as a car driver AND as a public transportation user.
No, I'm not usin skateboard rollers or gyrostatics because of security, no more with a motorbike as I don't have any.
So I can easily see the risks and errors by every user of the public space, regardeless of their vehicule.

The Swiss National Insurance is a YouTuber! With videos about security, mainly at work, and here is one about going to work while biking:



Sorry, there is no english one. But there is a german version and an italian one!

The end is good:
"biker: 10 minutes of biking to go to work, you know it's not death...
crash
voice off: Death on the other hand is to ride like an idiot on a bike. In almost half of the accidents involving bicycles, cyclists are at fault."

I agree with this portrait, even if for years I'm really less in speed while biking in donwtonw. Sometimes I see myself in a position that could lead to an accident, like in the video when the bike needs to avoid a car which didn't saw him.






That reminds me of a rule that should be taught to everyone for everything.
How many kinds of priority do you know on the road?
In fact, there are only two: the one you must respect, and the one which must respects you.
The first one is an obligation when the second is only optional.

And that's so sad to lose your life by going to "gain it".
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Low poly images

This year I tried a few new apps for graphic design, just for fun. One of these is TriangulateImage7 by ConceptFarm. That's not the only free low poly app I tried but that's my favorite (so far ;) ).

There is an hipster mood with this kind of picturing as it's seems like the polygones in 3D models. FabLabs gave this aesthetics a way to democratize so you can see it more and more, for posters or just for nice pictures.

I started with a countryview, then a face, then other sources:

Of course you'll be more precise if you do all by yourself on Photoshop but it's sooo much faster that you'll accept this. And if you really want to do better, let's open it in Photoshop to draw more (or less) polygones, change colours...
I had so much fun that I finally used it for a first poster, soon finished, I will show it in here because that's really nice to try something new!

To be continued...
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Helvetica is 60 y.o.

There is ONE emblematic software for designers, it's Adobe Illustrator which is 30 years old this year.
There is ONE emblematic typography for designers, it's Helvetica, created by Max Miedinger 60 years ago. The goal was a typography with a perfect visual balance and we could say that's a success. Just take a look on how much this has been used over the time! We can see the emblematic Swiss neutrality!

Wikimedia - Jim Hood

To be fair, it was not a totally new creation. It's an evolution from a typography from 19th century. In fact, the name came after 3 years of commercialization!

It has been used for a lot of logotypes (Saab, Toyota, Orange, Tupperware...) but the story the most interesting is when Microsoft made Arial by copying Helvetica they thought too expensive. Copying but less good, if you have ever read a long texte written in Arial you know how it give you an headache. BUT the logo of Microsoft is in Helvetica!!
Since that it has been copied, and worst of all declined in some not glorious ways. When in the entire world the Helvetic Rounded respects the balance and the rightness of the original?

And here is an amazing hommage by some graphic designers:

Tribute to Jean-Charles Gaté

Jean-Charles Gaté is dead this month.
His name should be known only by French designers as he was the founder of DesignFax, yes a weekly fax about design news, with real design inside and not decoration neither star system. And job offers.

I never met him but he has been the first (and only french design media) to announce my international prize at the Paris Autoshow in 2006. The office I was working for wasn't registered so that's a friend that called to felicitate me who taught me I was in the edition.

His main work will survive as someone esle took over for a few moths, as the fax is now a e-mail and the number of pages has been adaptated. DesignFax will stay a reference for a while.
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