On the lighter side, a new book from HOW called The Cheap Book celebrates a frugal lifestyle that takes thriftiness to the limit. You can even share your own cheap ideas on TheCheapBook.com and see how you rate compared to other cheappies. Get a peek inside the pages here.

Posted by Megan

From the newswire this week:

• Appleton Coated added a new matte finish and heavier cover weight to its Utopia Two:Extra Green line, which contains 30% postconsumer waste, is FSC certified and is produced with green power.

• A new, limited-edition CTI Paper promo titled "Pretty in Pearl" features the quirky Aunt Pearl oohing over Glama Natural translucents, ASPIRE Petallics, Bindakote, Currency and Splendorlux papers. The company also announced a new design competition for work on its papers (deadline is the end of the year) and released a new swatchbook for ASPIRE Petallics.



• Parsons The New School for Design recently dedicated the Sheila C. Johnson Design Center, a nearly 33,000-square-foot facility that combines classrooms, public spaces and galleries.

• Wausau Paper released a new 36-page Sustainability Question & Answer Guide, with definitions and information about environmental issues surrounding paper use, printing and design.

• Neenah Digital papers now include larger sizes of CLASSIC Crest and CLASSIC Linen for HP, Kodak Nexpress and Xerox digital printers.

• Minneapolis design notable Tim Larsen was named an AIGA Fellow by the organization's local chapter, for his contributions in raising the standards of excellence in design. Larsen's eponymous firm is expanding its California operation with a move to a larger space and additional staff.

• Mohawk has revamped its linen-textured Beckett Cambric line with 15 new and current colors 3 duplex options, 5 papers made of 100% postconsumer waste and 12 shades that are 30% PCW; all are FSC certified. The company also relaunched its website with improved navigation and specification tools; Pentagram designed the site.

Illustrator Sherwin Schwartzrock (yeah, we love his name, too) sent art director Bridgid McCarren a little email promo today, with some cool icons he's done for SuperTarget. The project evolved to include 70-some of these little goodies.

A fascinating exhibit exploring color opens at MoMA this week. But don't worry if you can't make it to the show, the accompanying website captures the flavor of the show with a lovely, polychromatic interface designed by the MoMA team in cooperation with interactive firm Render Monkey.

Color Chart: Reinventing Color, 1950 to Today takes as its point of departure the commercial color chart, an item that openly attests to the status of paint as mass-produced and standardized. Midway through the twentieth century, long-held convictions regarding the spiritual aspects and scientific properties of color gave way to an acceptance and embrace of color as a commercial product. At the same time, many artists rejected traditional artistic pedagogy about the relationships between colors and instead adopted aesthetic approaches that relied on chance, readymade sources, or arbitrary systems. The first major exhibition devoted to this pivotal transformation, Color Chart will feature some 90 works of art—including paintings, sculptures, drawings, prints, photographs, digital art, videos, and films—by 44 artists, primarily ranging in date from the 1950s to the present.

Posted by Megan

Some of the can't-miss events that are taking place all over the country in the next couple weeks that you should know about:

March 11: Deadline for entering Communication Art’s annual photography and illustration competitions

March 11th, 13th, 18th: X-Rite’s “Color Control Freak” seminar will travel to Indianapolis, Houston, Nashville, Kansas City, Minneapolis and Miami 

March 13: AIGA Minnesota’s Design Show of Excellence highlights the region’s top works

March 14: Deadline to enter any projects integrating experimental typography for a new book coming out from publisher PageOne this fall, “TYPOMOFO”

March 21: Deadline to enter HOW’s Promotion Design Awards, where you can submit your best promotional efforts for a chance to win a trip to the 2009 HOW Design Conference.

There's no magic button to push to generate a new logo (despite what your clients may think), but Mohawk has developed a tongue-in-cheek widget guaranteed to create the most bland, weird or otherwise unsuitable logos out there. Just click on the edge of the yellow box to launch the Logo-Matic Machine. (And while you're there, be sure to check out Pentagram New York's new redesign of the Mohawk site.)

Posted by Megan

   
New York City-based artist couple Justin and Christine know exactly what they want so they paint the objects and sell them for what said items would retail for in the real world. They've just posted new March Wants like this one: "Drinks On Us" for $500.

Posted by Megan

From the graphics-industry trendwatchers at The Industry Measure comes another bit of news: The number of creative shops in the U.S. grew from 2006/2007 to 2007/2008. The group's "Design & Production Demographic Atlas" counted 52,513 total design and production establishments, a 0.9% increase (about 500 firms). That doesn't seem like whopping growth, but consider the rise in corporate design departments, the sluggish nature of the economy, and the trend toward consumer-generated/viral marketing efforts, and the data is notable.

Coroflot just released the results of its 2007 Design Salary Survey. You can dig through the data to see where you stack up or peruse a selection of helpfult charts like this one that shows a nice increase in salaries for web/interactive designers.

Posted by Megan