Vilnius, Lithuania

Circle’s founder, Robert L. Peters, has spent the better part of the past week in Vilnius, capital city of the Baltic state of Lithuania, as an invited speaker and active participant in the Spring: Icograda Design Week. Official activities included attendance of the Icograda Regional Meeting, delivery of a lecture entitle Welcome Change at the International Conference held at the Vilnius Academy of Arts, and acting as a presenter at the European Design Awards 2011.

Highlights of Peters’ week included numerous design exhibitions that ran in the old city (concurrent to the Design Week), meeting with old and new designer colleagues from some 20 different countries, and spending time in some excellent art galleries and historic cultural venues. A big thanks goes out to the organizers and to Gediminas Lasas and his colleagues at the Lithuanian Graphic Design Association in particular…

Photos (by Ines Subtil): participants of the Icograda Regional Meeting outside the Vilnius Academy of Arts; an on-stage group shot of all of the winners and presenters of the European Design Awards 2011; Peters and MTV hostess Ugne Skonsmanaite presenting a silver award to Beetroot Design Group from Greece for their packaging work “Konva.”

Ottawa, Canada

(from a piece in CBC’s Arts & Entertainment)

…Canada Post has announced that a new stamp featuring the celebrated singer-songwriter will be issued on June 30 as part of the third instalment of its Canadian Recording Artists series. His stamp will join the previously announced stamps of Kate and Anna McGarrigle, Robbie Robertson and Ginette Reno.

“This is very exciting,” the Ottawa-born Cockburn said in a statement. The stamp’s design—a black and white image of him against a red background featuring titles of his hit songs—is “beautiful,” he added. Over the years, the folk-rock singer and activist has won multiple awards for his music, which includes hits such as The Coldest Night of the Year and If I Had a Rocket Launcher. His original songs have inspired covers by a wide range of artists—from Jimmy Buffett to the Barenaked Ladies.

He released his 31st album, Small Source of Comfort, in March and is currently touring the U.S.  Cockburn, who is also an officer of the Order of Canada and member of the Canadian Music Hall of Fame, is slated to publish his memoir in April 2012.

We were happy to have the honor of designing this latest set of stamps featuring Canadian singer/songwriters (our third such series)… look for more news and image releases in the weeks to come.

Toronto, Canada

Circle’s founder, Robert L. Peters, gave a presentation at FITC Toronto 2011 earlier today… exploring “why” we as designers do what we do, and “to what end.” His talk included a personal existential narrative (tracing back to the 16th-century Holy Roman Empire) wrapped in a “big-picture exposition” on the power of design to shape culture and influence our tomorrows. Thanks to Shawn Pucknell for bringing Peters back to FITC on this special 10th-anniversary occasion (his 8th time giving a talk at FITC).

DesignEdge Canada has a writeup of Peters’ talk in its May 4th news, here.