The main advantage of the world’s fair situation is that there is no need, in fact, the opposite is really required, to develop any given subject in depth; it is by its very nature more superficial, more impressionistic, more playful. Peter Chermayeff, C7A Inc. Designers of the US Pavilion at Expo 67 (via man-and-his-world)

The ultimate object of design is form Christopher Alexander, 1964 (via purestform)

Why do passports and banknotes have to be like this – clumsy montages of national symbols in an 18th-century style? Perhaps it’s because they’re all mostly designed and printed by the same firm, DeLaRue of Basingstoke, purveyor of high-security printed matter since 1821. They do exceedingly fine ridge intaglio printing, exquisite watermarks and multicoloured UV…

Sadly, the Church basically lost the struggle against usury. This failure helped make the terrible cruelties of the conquistadors possible. And it also helped make possible the capitalist economic system which we have today, financed largely by interest bearing loans. Capitalism’s ability to make Christian religion “seem frivolous in comparison” to the imperative of economic…