The National Books Critics Circle recently announced its book awards finalists for 2011. Among the finalists is poet Forrest Gander, who was nominated for his latest book Core Samples From the World. Gander asked Malcolm Grear Designers to provide the graphic design and structure of his book. The book is a compilation of poetry, photographs, and haibun (a Japanese form of essay-poem).

While collaborating with photographers Raymond Meeks, Graciela Iturbide, and Lucas Foglia, Gander takes the reader to various countries to view familiar and foreign environments and to explore relationships. Donald Revell of the The Colorado Review writes “Gander's sharp sense of place has made him the most earthly of our avant-garde, the best geographer of fleshly sites since Olson.”

Gander has degrees in geology and English literature. His recent books include As a Friend, Eye Against Eye, and Firefly Under the Tongue: Selected Poems of Coral Bracho. He has received fellowships from the United States Artists Rockefeller Fellow, the National Endowment for the Arts, the Guggenheim, Howard, and Whiting Foundations. He is currently a professor of Creative Writing and Comparative Literature at Brown University.

Winners of the award will be announced at a awards ceremony on March 8 at the New School’s Tishman Auditorium in New York.

Today Malcolm Grear Designers completed an updated version of recognition signage for the ICA's (The Institute of Contemporary Art / Boston) Annual Donors. The updated design is located inside the large, 140-square-foot Anthony and Beth Terrana elevator, which features two long glass walls providing views to the waterfront and interior spaces as it travels to the museum's other floors. The new design (and location) is meant to inspire visitors to play a central role in supporting of the ICA's wide range of programing and exhibitions.

The Annual Donors installation is the latest in a well-crafted system of donor recognition and wayfinding signs developed by Malcolm Grear Designers for the ICA. The signs continue to enhance the ICA's brand while drawing on visual cues from the building's unique architectural character. The building, which has become a signature destination on the South Boston waterfront, was designed by the architects Diller Scofidio + Renfro.

“We’re very excited to bring our Visual Magnetics Graphic System to one of the most prestigious retail events in New York City and we are confident we’ll be able to show its esteemed audience something truly innovative,” said Joe Deetz, CEO of Visual Magnetics. “We’ve created an environment similar to what you’d see on the floor of an upscale women’s boutique which will serve as an open canvas for visitors to explore the many applications of our media on all different surfaces and fixtures.”

Malcolm Grear Designers worked with Visual Magnetics to create the exhibition's unique look and feel. See the exhibit space and how the Visual Magnetic Graphic System works in this video.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Malcolm Grear Designers’ visual identity and branding program for Visual Magnetics has helped establish Visual Magnetics as the leading innovator in magnetic-receptive, large format retail graphics and display. Malcolm Grear Designers continues to work closely with Visual Magnetics on all applications of their brand including their web and mobile communications, ads, print media, packaging, and trade shows.

For the fourth year in a row, Visual Magnetics has won the Specialty Graphic Imaging Association (SGIA) Product of the Year Award, this time in the Textile Media category for its VM-Canvas™ 22. Part of the Digital Fabrics Collection, VM-Canvas is one of the latest products included with the Visual Magnetics Graphic System.

“We are excited that VM-Canvas 22, has received this prestigious honor from such a well-regarded organization as SGIA,” said Joe Deetz, CEO of Visual Magnetics. “This award is certainly a testament to the product’s quality and we are pleased to be able to offer it to our customers as we grow our MagnaMedia line. The unique properties of our new digital fabric will enable the creation of stunning, fabric-textured graphics that, like all of Visual Magnetics’ products, can be updated effortlessly.”

Visual Magnetics is the creator of the large-scale graphics system that matches magnetic receptive surfaces with high quality print media, thereby allowing businesses to create in-store signage that can be easily and more economically updated.

Malcolm Grear Designers' visual identity and branding program for Visual Magnetics has helped establish Visual Magnetics as the leading innovator in magnetic-receptive, large format retail graphics and display. The VM symbol, emblazoned on all their products and visual communications, is fast becoming the recognizable brand image that it was designed to be. The VM branding system provides Visual Magnetics with a distinguished visual attitude that helps define their unique market position.

Malcolm Grear Designers continues to work closely with Visual Magnetics on all applications of their brand including their web and mobile communications, ads, print media, packaging, and trade shows. At the SGIA 2001 show, Visual Magnetics made available their new Swatch Book, designed by Malcolm Grear Designers, which for the first time, allows prospective customers to physically see and feel how the Visual Magnetics Graphic System works, in a compact, portable format about the size of an iPad.

Technology, machinery, and nostalgia have been combined into artwork at the David Winton Bell Gallery at Brown University in an exhibition titled Nostalgia Machines. Featuring the sculptural work of five artists, Meridith Pingree, Jasper Rigole, Jonathan Schipper, Gregory Witt, and Zimoun, the exhibition seeks to explore the ways that machinery can invoke memories of the past, whether a sense memory, a personal history, or something aesthetic.

The sculptures serve a dual role of provoking personal responses through their functionality and simple design of machinery. Curator Maya Allison says that the sculptures' gears and wires makes the "technology feels familiar, even old-fashioned, from a time before the computer hid its technology behind touch screens."

The show will be exhibited through Sunday February 9, 2012. The David Winton Bell Gallery is free and open to the public. Visit their website to learn about their hours, location, and past exhibitions. You may also read a review of the exhibitionthrough the Brown University website.

Continuing its long-standing relationship with the David Winton Bell Gallery, Malcolm Grear Designers created the catalogue, invitation, installation graphics, and exterior signs for the exhibition.

The Center for Ethics and Corporate Responsibility at J. Mack Robinson College of Business at Georgia State University awarded Andrew Young the 2011 Ethics Advocate Award. The Ethics Advocate Award is a prestigious recognition of an individual who has been an effective agent of change in a particular field or in the business community at large.

The selection committee chose Young for his lifetime of leadership for civil and human rights. Young has served as mayor of Atlanta, a Congressman from the 5th district, and United States Ambassador to the United Nations, and was a supporter and friend of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

Designed by Malcolm Grear Designers, the award sculpture consists of a sphere within a crystal cube, resting on a patina bronze base bearing the honoree's name. The selection criteria for the award is based on Aristotle's three components of ethical action: perception, reason, and desire. These three words are engraved upon the cube.

Malcolm Grear further explains the design intent of the award sculpture, "The cube is reflective and seems to be lit from within, referencing a 'light in the world.' Suspended and placed directly in the center of the crystal cube is a semi-transparent sphere that seems to be floating. Such suspension references an inner control in the individual that Aristotle believed was of great ethical value. The physical sphere is made up of countless small points simultaneously forming one large point. The Ethics Advocate is an individual whose actions contain the possibility for positive influence of other individuals and thus a community."

Timothy O'Sullivan started his photography career by assisting Matthew Brady and working with Alexander Gardner in documenting the American Civil War. While employed by Brady, O'Sullivan produced many well known images of the event, most notably the photograph titled "The Harvest of Death" which depicts dead soldiers from the Battle of Gettysburg in 1963. When the American Civil War ended, O'Sullivan was just beginning his career.

From 1867 to 1873, he was the official photographer for the U.S. Geological Exploration of the Fortieth Parallel, better known as the King Survey. This survey explored from western Nevada to eastern Wyoming and was designed to attract interest for perspective land settlers. His images were among the first to show the barren landscapes, prehistoric ruins, and Native Americans of the Southwest. O'Sullivan produced about 450 finished photographs during his time with the survey group. This collection became a major contribution of O'Sullivan's photographic career and has stirred a debate into his artistic or documentary intentions.

Sixty photographs from the collection are currently on display at the Art Institue of Chicago. Organized by curators Keith Davis and Jane Aspinwall of the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art in Kansas City, the exhibition is titled "Timothy O'Sullivan: The King Survey Photographs" and will be on display through January 15, 2012. Then the exhibition will travel to the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art where the entire collection will be on view from April 14 through August 26, 2012.

The exhibition is accompanied by a striking 260-page catalogue, published by the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art and distributed by Yale University Press. The catalogue includes all of 450 photographs credited to O'Sullivan, essays by curators Keith Davis, Jane Aspinwall, and a foreword by Julian Zugazagoitia, director of the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art. Keith Davis asked Malcolm Grear Designers to design the catalogue. Malcolm Grear Designers has previously collaborated with Davis on numerous books for the Hallmark Photographic Collection, including his important series The Origins of American Photography.

Last Thursday, the cupola from Brown University's former Marvel Gymnasium was placed upon the new Nelson Fitness Center. The cupola honors the legacy of two brothers, Henry and Charles Aldrich, who donated generously to Brown's previous athletic center building that was built in the 1920s. The 50-foot cupola included four clocks whose faces' numbers were replaced with the letters spelling "Aldrich Field."

When the brothers died in 1931, they bequeathed their Hope Street mansion and property to Brown University to be used as a woman's athletic facility. The property was transformed into Pembroke Field which is across the street from the current Erickson Athletic Complex. Now the cupola and clock face, placed upon the new fitness center, will overlook the brothers former home and pay tribute to their enduring legacy to Brown University's athletics.

The University’s new athletic complex, which includes the Katherine Moran Coleman Aquatics Center, the Nelson Fitness Center, the David J. Zucconi Varsity Strength and Conditioning Center, and the Ittleson Quadrangle, is scheduled to open in June of 2012.

Malcolm Grear Designers is currently engaged to design the sign and donor recognition system for new Aquatics and Fitness Center.

Currently on display at the David Winton Bell Gallery at Brown University is the exhibition titled Building Expectation: Past and Present Visions of the Architectural Future. The show is a collection of historical and contemporary visions of the architectural future.

The show is divided into three categories, each providing a different motive or motif of the proposed future world. The first category includes imaginary places designed to inspire political reform; the second category consists of exotic environments crafted to earn money on the open market through entertainment such as early twentieth century pulp magazines or utopian romance novels; and the third category is comprised of futuristic cityscapes envisioned by business and corporations in clever promotions and advertisements. The final portion of the exhibition of the exhibition is dedicated to contemporary viewpoints of the future and include installations reflecting this vision by illustrator Katherine Roy and New England based artists such As Pippi Zornoza, Jane Masters, and Brian Knep.

The show will be exhibited through Sunday November 6. The David Winton Bell Gallery is free and open to the public. Visit their website to learn about their hours, location, and past exhibitions. You may also read a review of the exhibition through the Brown University website.

Continuing its long-standing relationship with the David Winton Bell Gallery, Malcolm Grear Designers created the catalogue, invitation, installation graphics, and exterior signs for the exhibition.

In memory of their 358 employees and consultants lost in the September 11, 2001 attacks on the World Trade Center, Marsh & McLennan Companies commissioned Providence artist Richard Fleischner to create a place of remembrance within the plaza outside their midtown Manhattan offices.

Fleischner responded by creating a permanent space for reflection that includes a granite platform, bench and steps, a cast bronze screen, two cast bronze monoliths, as well as planting, trees, and a perimeter fence. The focal elements is a freestanding glass wall, over ten feet high and twelve feet wide.

Fleischner brought in Malcolm Grear Designers to collaborate on the design of the glass wall. The names of the victims are carved into the second layer of glass in carefully typeset columns, and the signatures of each person are set into a deeper layer of clear glass while the surface around the signature is frosted.

The formal columns of names in type remain an elegant, constant identification of the victims, and the signatures suggest the unique humanity of each individual lost in the tragedy. As some have observed, the effect of this naturally illuminated wall of names and signatures is reminiscent of the somber rhythms of falling rain depicted in Japanese prints.

In honor of the tenth anniversary of the terrorist attacks, the Providence Journal published an article about art devoted to the attacks. Fleischner's memorial was one of the featured pieces in the article. To read more about Richard Fleischner and his work, visit his biography page. The Marsh & McLennan Memorial website includes more photographs and information about the memorial and those victims of the tragedy.