IEEE Spectrum Magazine commissioned Thirst for this realization for their January issue reviewing the best and worst technology of 2009. Rick Valicenti created a typographic flavor while channeling Paul Rand as John Pobojewski animated the ‘winners’ into fireworks and the ‘losers’ into ashes.

Inspired by sparks and timelapse photography…

the winners rise to the top of the heap…

…while the losers fall to the earth. The animation was built out of a simple particle system using Processing and Toxiclibs.

We were disappointed that the illustration wasn’t selected for the cover, but ultimately it was a fantastic process.

From: Mark Montgomery
Date: January 19, 2010 2:05:01 PM CST
To: Rick Valicenti
Subject: Re: losers

Rick: Your design was the most innovative and provocative. I wanted to go w/ your cover but was over-ruled by Exec. editor and E-I-C.
Thanks again and hope to work w/ you again.
–
Mark Montgomery
Senior Art Director, IEEE Spectrum magazine
IEEE: Fostering technological innovation and excellence for the benefit of humanity.
Celebrating 125 Years of Engineering the Future

The full graphic is below, but if you want to learn what these numbers really add up to, run to your closest newsstand and pickup a copy. Who knows, maybe you’ll even catch a few red-hot sex secrets!

Pentagram’s Rebrand of Guitar Hero get reviewed by Armin Vit on Brand New.

As a black-and-white work, this is strong enough, but where the solid and smart structure of the logos really shines is in their proficiency to take on a multitude of hard rockin’ effects and Pentagram worked with some of the best in the business — Rick Valicenti, Adam Larson and Steve Wilson — to bring the identity to life and show how it can be implemented in a variety of ways while using the same backbone.

See more of the variations Thirst contributed and Read the full post on Brand New.

“Sketchbooks are such an integral part of the creative process, that they are often more interesting and inspirational than the final work. We are celebrating this unfiltered expression and hope to include roughs, prelims, doodles, and musings.”

Eight of Rick’s iphone photos are featured in Stefan G. Bucher’s new book, The Graphic Eye – Photographs by International Graphic Designers published by RotoVision (UK) and Chronicle Books (US) Fall 2009.

The book is curated by Juland Barcelonavienna and will be published and distributed worldwide by our partner Indexbook Barcelona.