Frank Cieciorka. Graphic artist, organizer and member of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, he popularized the image of the clenched-fist as a symbol for the New Left. He died Monday, November 24, 2008. More at Art for a Change, NY Times and The Rag Blog.  ¶

Green Guru Gone Wrong: William McDonough. “‘I want to be the Bill Gates of sustainability,’ [I want] to make a royalty off of every green standard and every green product out there.” Proprietary, litigious, self-promoting... in a biting profile Fast Company punctures the mythology around William McDonough and his various projects. While the arrogance of architects comes as no surprise, there’s a lot to unpack here about where for-profit “social ventures” can set back the very causes they ostensibly support.  ¶

Underground Typography. 1957: “It’s a big job. But for the sake of the subway itself and for the sake of the city it serves and for the people of that city it must be done soon.” For all the urban type spotters, typographer and historian Paul Shaw turns out an epic history on the evolution of type and wayfinding design in the NYC (and a few other) subway systems. Of particular interest is the push and pull of internal and external influences, and the spread of good ideas from one transit system to another across the Atlantic.

Previously from Shaw on this blog: typography and fascist architecture in Rome.  ¶

Soup Kitchens and Food Pantries in NYC. The Coalition Against Hunger hosts this Google map of over 1,000 hunger and food resources in New York City, searchable by borough and zip code. The raw data is also available.  ¶