Links For June 21, 2015

The Internet is looking for who designed this cup. What does Springfield have to do with it?

A continuous broad teal brushstroke, topped with a finer purple one. If that doesn’t ring a bell, imagine it on disposable cups. Over the past couple decades, the pattern has been mass produced on millions of them, in addition to other products. The design is called “Jazz,” and it has an oddly passionate fan base.


Recording the Fading Local Typography of Our Cities

“Vernacular typography and lettering have a way of creating and preserving a sense of place, and when we lose these symbols, we lose a sense of our own history,” she said. “It seems like every day a sign is either being covered up or destroyed by new construction. If we don’t document and appreciate these signs now, they’ll disappear forever and we’ll sever our connection to the past.”


Inceptionism: Going Deeper into Neural Networks

So here’s one surprise: neural networks that were trained to discriminate between different kinds of images have quite a bit of the information needed to generate images too.


Aaron – The original original art program.


Jerry’s Map

In the summer of 1963 I began drawing a map of an imaginary city. The work started as a doodle done in the spare time I had while working at a tedious job. I continued to add to that map through the years until, in 1983, I set it aside to put my free time to other use.... My son, Henry, found it one day while rummaging around. He brought it down to me and asked what it was. Seeing it then triggered me to dust it off and continue the project. It now comprises over 3200 individual eight by ten inch panels.