Andy Warhol did it. Damien Hirst will sell you a kit to do it yourself. Time did it, and now The New Republic has gotten into the act. We're talking, of course, about the art of painting by number. Our sister blog, FishbowlNY, noted today (via Portfolio) that The New Republic's in-progress paint-by-number Obama cover is strikingly similar to Time's paint-by-number visage of Howard Dean of four years ago, although TNR publisher Franklin Foer says that nobody at the magazine "has any recollection of seeing that cover." Someone needs to go talk to the art directors, because we suspect that both covers are homages to Richard Hess's famous drawing for Esquire's June 1967 cover (art directed by Samuel N. Antupit), which featured a color-by-number portrait of Lyndon Johnson on the occasion of his imminent birthday. The cover line read: "LBJ's birthday is August 27th. Color this portrait, send it to him, and make him happy."

Although Hess' DIY LBJ cover was bumped at the last minute for one of a sledding Jackie Kennedy cradling a pint-sized Eddie Fisher, the cover was widely exhibited and lauded, even making it into Hess' 1991 New York Times obituary. Hess was something of a paint-by-number expert, having worked early in his career to create pictures for the Palmer Paint Company's paint-by-number drawing kits. And clearly, his influence is felt to this day, if not always knowingly.

What happens in Miami doesn't have to stay in Miami. In fact, if all goes well, visitors should leave there with something to take home and put on the wall -- or on the floor or in the closet. At least that's the message of the city's newest tourism campaign, which replaces bikini-clad lovelies lounging poolside at boutique hotels (not that there's anything wrong with that) with the work of local artists and designers to extol the city as not only sizzling but also "a refined destination awash in culture." In the above ad, created by agency Turkel and debuting this month in such publications as The New Yorker and Architectural Digest, a man dives into a sea of (digitally multiplied) benches created by local furniture designer Avner Zabari.

Word of the new campaign (catchphrase: "Miami: Express Yourself") made the front page of yesterday's Miami Herald, which titled the story "From Abs to Abstract."

"We've created a more sophisticated image of Miami," said Rolando Aedo, marketing director for the Greater Miami Convention and Visitors Bureau, which commissioned the new campaign. "We're shifting from style to more substance."

According to Thomas Ranese, chief marketing officer at Empire State Development:

"We have been reviewing anything found by our licensing agent," said Ranese. Undesirable products include ashtrays ($6.99) and cigarette lighters ($3.99) because the state wants to discourage smoking.

Marshall Blonsky, 70, who teaches semiotics at Parsons the New School for Design, expressed skepticism at the state's new efforts. "Oh, boy! That's very odd!" he exclaimed. "They're trying to re-proprietize this thing." The brand is battered, Mr. Blonsky said. "What was absolutely original and therefore thrilling in 1977," he said, "is now an empty signifier, nothing in it, no communication, zed, zero. It moved from poetry to banality, from red to pink, like a coin that has been rubbed smooth from so much usage."

While the art industry suffers heavy loses, perhaps the budding new design-as-art industry will continue to thrive. Our friends over at Details were kind enough to send over word of a recent mini-feature they'd put together (meaning, if it's in their magazine, it's well on its way to becoming a larger trend, maybe), ranking their top five picks for design auction houses in the country, places to pick up an extremely pricey couch or a very strange, expensive chair you'll be too afraid to sit on. We do like that they gave Chicago a nice shout out with their pick of Richard Wright's great space here in town. Here's that one:

Wright 1440 West Hubbard Street, Chicago; wright20.com Founded eight years ago by auctioneer Richard Wright and his late wife, Julie, Wright practically created the auction market for high-end postwar furniture. The independent outfit had its breakthrough moment when it put one of California's landmark Case Study houses on the block in 2006. It was the kind of feat achieved only by behemoths, and Wright is using its newfound power-player reputation to expand its inventory in ways few houses do. This month's biannual Important Design auction will star pieces from early-20th-century French master Charlotte Perriand and Droog Design upstart Tejo Remy. Note: Though prices will start at $2,000, they're expected to reach nearly $500,000 for some prize items, so bring your AmEx Black.

Staying in the museum world for a second, we caught this brief, very strange story over at the NY Times. It concerns one of the more unusual showings at the MoMA's current "Design for the Elastic Mind," a piece created by SymbioticA called Victimless Leather, that featured a mad scientist looking creation that was keeping handful of living mouse stem cells alive on top of a miniature coat. Apparently, the museum found that the thing started growing like mad (perhaps into a new mouse?) and, after getting the okay from the artists, they decided it had to die. Here's a bit:

...after checking with the coat's creators, a group known as SymbioticA, at the School of Anatomy & Human Biology at the University of Western Australia in Perth, she had the nutrients to the cells stopped.

Though she has said "I felt cruel when I turned it off," [Senior Curator] Ms. Antonelli said in the more recent interview that it was, essentially, a simple decision tinged with a bit of regret. "It was the only piece in the show that was alive," she said. "It really was an amazing piece."

In a move that's of no real surprise to anyone, the final Venetian Hotel-based Guggenheim museum ("The Hermitage") will be closing in Las Vegas this Sunday. Following the two others closed in 2003 after abysmal attendance, this will be the final nail in the coffin for the Rem Koolhaas-designed museums in that steamy city of debauchery. But, like we said, we can't imagine that this is coming as a shock to anyone -- building a genuine museum in Las Vegas, not one built upon a strong foundation of irony, is like building a learning annex right next to a water park and a free candy store. Here's a bit:

Most residents and tourists will barely register the loss of the museum, which drew 1.1 million visitors over nearly seven years. The Venetian will simply morph, with the menacing ease of a comic-book villain, into its latest, post-Koolhaas incarnation. The Jewel Box is reportedly set to become a sizable Louis Vuitton boutique. Still, the Guggenheim foray does offer some lessons, particularly when it comes to differentiating between spectacle as defined by leading architects and as it exists in Las Vegas.

For Koolhaas -- and for his Rotterdam-based firm, Office for Metropolitan Architecture -- the Vegas closure has to sting. Certainly it's a reminder of a fact we all forgot for a time in the glow of his triumphant 2004 Seattle Public Library -- that on the whole OMA's attempts to build in the U.S., plagued by misjudgments as well as plain bad timing, have not gone well.

The Jell-O Gallery has a large new exhibit that reflects Bill Cosby's influence over 30 years. Also, listen to entertainers Kate Smith, Jack Benny, Lucile [sic] Ball as they promoted the Jell-O product over the radio air waves. See television personalities Andy Griffith and Gomer Pyle along with Bill Cosby as they pitch your favorite dessert, Jell-O.

A matter of hours after we stood at Sotheby's enraptured by Robert Rauschenberg's "Embark [Anagrams]," the extraordinary 1995 vegetable dye transfer on paper that goes on the block Thursday morning, comes news that the 82-year-old artist has died of heart failure at his Florida home. We'll remember the puckish Rauschenberg as a sparkly-eyed master who once told an interviewer that he had long stopped offering visitors to his home and studio gifts of his work, because he found it terribly depressing when they would inevitably depart having forgotten to take the pieces with them.

As the Michael Kimmelman-penned obituary in The New York Times suggests, Rauschenberg's predilection for pop imagery was fueled by a sentiment to which many designers can relate:

"I really feel sorry for people who think things like soap dishes or mirrors or Coke bottles are ugly," he once said, "because they're surrounded by things like that all day long, and it must make them miserable."

The remark reflected the optimism and generosity of spirit that Mr. Rauschenberg became known for. His work was likened to a St. Bernard: uninhibited and mostly good-natured. He could be the same way in person.

Later this summer, jeweler, educator, writer, and provocateur Bruce Metcalf and crafty graphic designer and artist Chanel Kennebrew will chat about the complicated relationships between the broad spectrum of craft makers. Come September, things get political, when Murketing's Rob Walker leads a conversation with makers Sabrina Gschwandtner and Liz Collins on craft's relationship to politics, strange bedfellows to be sure, but beneath a lovingly hand-embroidered duvet. The talks, and the wine and (we suspect) artisanal cheese receptions that follow them are free, but you've got to RSVP, and fast. American Craft editor-in-chief Andrew Wagner tells us that spots are going fast.

Not entirely a positive, but we're sure you'll be happy for anything with a brighter outlook than our last couple of real downer posts. Sir John Sorrell, chairman of the London Design Festival was speaking last week to partners in the festival and asked that everyone involved in the design industry keep a stiff upper lip and how the creative fields would be the thing that would lift us all out of economic chaos. Granted, Sorrell probably has to say that, given that the Design Festival launches late this summer and it's kind of a bummer having a big event like that, in any field, not just design, while everyone's getting laid off or finding jobs with tiny salaries; so you sort of have to say, "Look! I promise! We're going to matter! Honest!" But here's to really, really, really hoping that he's right. Here's a bit:

"I believe that the greatest creativity happens in adversity," he says. "And I believe creativity in adversity is the key to success. I believe in the power of design to solve problems and [foster] innovation."

He continues, "Design for me is the powerhouse of the creative industries. It is the catalyst that restarts the economic engines of nations."

Well, we never make promises around here for always keeping things sunshine and rainbows, so here's another downer of a post. Architectural Record has just put up information on a just released AIA report saying that, along with the art market, the architecture world is also getting hit really hard; some are saying the billings are down to a low point at the same extent as financial crises from previous decades, if not well beyond. Here's a bit:

The Architectural Billings Index (ABI), a key measure of the market for architectural services compiled by the American Institute of Architects (AIA), opened the year with a three-month skid, ending the first quarter at the lowest point in its 13-year history. March's anemic ABI score of 39.7 -- a number over 50 indicates an increase in billing activity and below 50, a decrease -- marks a 15-point drop from December's 55.

While some firms are still reporting high volumes of work, even the most optimistic are girding for hard times. The ABI is a reliable predictor of construction activity nine months to one year out, suggesting that the remainder of 2008 and early 2009 will see comparatively little building, according to AIA analysts.

So we're guessing all of this means that you should enjoy your new building openings now, while you still have the time, because you might be in for a very long dry spell.

After reading in our dentist's office last week, the not very positive outlook for the art world as foretold in this really great piece about Lawrence Salander's fall from grace in Men's Vogue, we weren't surprised at all when we found, by way of Art Info, that Sotheby's, the biggest of the big in all art dealings, is posting big loses and not faring very well at all in this current economic free fall. And it doesn't seem like just a little hiccup, as Bloomberg reports that their stock has fallen by half in just a year, which is never a good sign for both the company and the art market as a whole. Here's a bit:

Chief Executive Officer Bill Ruprecht said in a conference call with analysts that amid the U.S. credit crunch, the company reduced its own risk by cutting guarantees it offers to sellers.

To continue to compete against rival Christie's International and win consignments, its profit on auction sales fell as it remitted to sellers part of the commissions it charges buyers, Chief Financial Officer William Sheridan said.

"We tempered some of our opportunities, which resulted in lower margins," Ruprecht said in the conference call.

Commission revenues for every $100 in auction sales declined from $16.60 to $13.60, Sotheby's said.

No designer or design-friendly person enjoys seeing a logo go away. Such is the case that came with the news that Warner Brothers is folding their Warner Independent Pictures side arm. This, of course, means that the logo will sink along with the ship. Although it isn't the world's finest piece of branding ever, we always thought it was clever and interesting to look at. Michael Walker, who was a bit harder hit than we were, apparently, was kind enough to send us over his lamenting over its loss and why he enjoyed it so much. Here's a bit:

It's an outstanding example of how to tap the equity of a parent brand (the "W" from the "WB") while creating a fresh identity with the simplest of strokes: notch the middle fork of the "W" to create the "i" in Independent then reinforce the connection with a splash of scarlet. Too bad it was for naught.

Presumably, the logo will live on in DVD packaging and in the title cards of Warner Independent films already released, which include George Clooney's Academy Award-nomination magnet Good Night and Good Luck and the documentary March of the Penguins.

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