Published last year as a book, The Oxford Project actually began in 1984 when Peter Feldstein undertook the remarkable task of photographing nearly every resident of his town, Oxford, Iowa (pop. 670). Over two decades later, Feldstein did it again, re-photographing as many original residents as possible. This time he was joined by writer Stephen G. Bloom, who compiled their words into poignant first-person narratives that accompany the portraits. The result is a collection of fascinating stories - visual and written - that connect decades and provide a glimpse of life in small-town America.
Zeixs, a German publisher of design books, has chosen Fleming Design’s work for Peace it Together to appear in two of its publications. The logo and identity we designed for the non-profit will appear in Letterhead and Business Cards and two student recruitment posters were selected for Best of Poster Design.
We’re also pleased that Crescent Hill Books, an American publishing company, will include the blog we designed for Omicron, a Canadian design/build firm, in its upcoming title The Big Book of Green Design. As a companion site to Omicron’s corporate website, o-vert.com was designed to raise awareness about sustainability at the individual and operational levels within the company. The blog now houses green tips, news, conversation, and humour. Fleming Design drew inspiration from materials such as grass, concrete, stone, plywood, and aluminum for a distinctive, graphic look that relates to Omicron’s industry as well as the natural world.
A colleague recently brought an interesting book to work. I had read about the bestseller Swing! already, but to have my hands on it and flip through the pages was just fascinating. This is the second book after Gallop! created by Rufus Butler Seder, the inventor, artist, and filmmaker who developed Scanimation out of his obsession with antique optical toys and other pre-motion-picture illusions.
It’s hard to explain how it works. This is how Rufus explains it:
Briefly explained, the technique combines parallax perception (your angle of view) with moiré-style multiple-line patterns to create the illusion of motion. When a scrambled image layer is viewed through a striped decoder layer, a series of sequential pictures is revealed to your eye, and your brain links this succession of images together, creating the illusion of motion.
If this still sounds a little complicated, that’s because it is! Half the fun is seeing these optical wonders in action. The other half is trying to figure out what makes them go!
