Pentagram co-founder Colin Forbes has died aged 94

2022-05-31T20:02:00-04:00

The graphic design industry has lost an icon as multiple outlets are reporting the death of Pentagram co-founder Colin Forbes last week at his home in Westfield, North Carolina.

Forbes was seen as a monumental figure who pioneered various typographical concepts and was pivotal in the migration of design consultancies towards things like brand identities at a time when graphic design was beginning to present itself as an asset in a world awash in corporate advertising.

In an obituary published Thursday by The New York Times, Forbes was recalled as a “Designer’s designer” whose personal designs for brands like the Pirelli tire company, Nissan, and Jack Daniels went hand-in-hand with his role as the “principal architect” of a “partnership structure that balanced independence and collaboration” to make Pentagram into a global mainstay.

Forbes was born...

Amazon HQ2 — what else can it offer to NYC?

2018-12-28T16:23:00-05:00

For years, suburbia has offered these companies acres of disposable, cheap, anonymous office parks: mostly one- or two-story concrete structures surrounded by loads of surface parking. These sites minimized costs, maximized security and allowed companies to scale up, contract or split into different units quickly — at the same time they promoted sprawl and traffic jams and transformed once-quaint bedroom communities south of San Francisco into phenomenally expensive places to live.

Even though Amazon's search for its new headquarters' locations has ended all the talks and negotiations about the company's potential impact on the cities it will settle in — New York and Crystal City, Virginia—have only begun.

In ways, the choice comes as no surprise as tech platforms have been attracted to America's wealthy coastal cities, with their established cultures, universities and transit systems, for years. The intensifying expansion of the tech industry amidst urban landscape raises many questions about corporations' powers and rights in a city.

Michael Kimmelman of the NY Times notes that companies like Amazon, through their multi-billion biding process, should offer to satisfy more than just the city's growing need for new jobs. The author suggests options: "As for housing, the city’s regulatory and zoning policies are more responsible for driving up costs than tech companies. But, in an ideal world, Amazon would reverse what it did in Seattle and commit resources ...

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Pentagram co-founder Colin Forbes has died aged 94

Amazon HQ2 — what else can it offer to NYC?