Who Is The World’s Most Typical Person?

In December, National Geographic released a fantastic teaser for 7 Billion, their ambitious series on overpopulation, delivering some jaw-dropping statistics in brilliantly animated kinetic typography. Today, they’re back with the second installment, which examines the same issue through a highly unusual lens: In a world of 7 billion people, who is the most “typical” person? The answer might surprise you.

The world’s most typical person is right-handed, makes less than $12,000 a year, has a cell phone but not a bank account. […] Based on these traits, the world’s most typical person is a 28-year-old Chinese man. […] But he won’t be typical for long. By 2030, that person will come from India, and typical is always relative.”

For an intelligent take on overpopulation, its implications for our not-at-all distant future and the opportunities that lie in it, we highly recommend David Christensen’s Two Elephants in the Room: Overpopulation and Opportunities We Overlook at Our Peril.

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Street Artist JonOne Celebrates Abbé Pierre

In 1949, iconic French activist Henri Marie Joseph Grouès, better-known as Abbé Pierre, founded the Emmaus movement — a charitable effort to combat poverty and homelessness. One cold winter night in 1954, after a lady froze to death in the streets of Paris, he went on the French national radio and asked everyone in France to sleep in the street for a night. Many did, and the incident propelled him into the public eye.

He passed away four years ago, but his legacy and his eponymous foundation remain a powerful force in social justice. To commemorate this, French agency BDDP Unlimited partnered with New York graffiti artist JonOne on a street art operation to raise awareness about Abbé Pierre’s work among young people by painting a stunning mural on a wall donated by the city of Paris. Recall is a poetic short film that captures the project, to the soundtrack of Abbé Pierre’s original speech remixed with the music of Jean-Gabriel Becker.

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Pioneers of Spanish Graphic Design

Spain has a rich and widely recognized art tradition — Picasso, Goya, Dalí — but its equally noteworthy design legacy hasn’t achieved the same level of exposure and acclaim. Emilio Gil’s Pioneers of Spanish Graphic Design is a bold and visually striking effort to rectify that by spotlighting 15 groundbreaking Spanish graphic designers whose work between 1939 and 1975 defied the political circumstances and visual vocabulary of post-war Spain to ignite a provocative new culture of visual language.

Alongside the artwork are essays by some of Spain’s finest art historians and design writers, tying the era’s design landscape to the social and political realities of the period. From advertising to expressionism, the book covers an extraordinary range of graphic expressions in the context of their cultural belonging.

Pioneers of Spanish Graphic Design is the kind of book that not only unearths a treasure trove of vintage eye candy, but also makes a compelling case for design as art.

via 50 Watts for But Does It Float

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Street Sketchbook: The Creative Process of Top Graffiti Artists

It’s no secret we have a soft spot for street art books. So we’re all over Street Sketchbook: Journeys — a rare peek inside the sketchbooks of 26 of the world’s hottest new artists.

From Brazil’s iconic favelas to Tokyo’s backalleys, it reveals both globe-trotting adventures and rich internal landscapes in 227 large-format pages and lush double-spreads of pure creative genius.

Street Sketchbook: Journeys is the sequel to Tristan Manco’s 2007 gem, Street Sketchbook: Inside the Journals of International Street and Graffiti Artists.

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