Being in New York has exposed me to alot more hand painted signage and artists making their own creations in the same style. Long story short, I'm excited to watch this one.
I'm considering engaging with Vinyl Me, Please - an LP subscription service where you are bestowed a new record every month. I love the idea of a record club and the archive of releases is quite solid. It does take away from the whole Music Discovery aspect that comes with most vinyl aficionados but their track record does melt away my knee jerk towards it being pretentious.
This 135 slide presentation from Todd Parker on Leaving Pixels Behind may feel daunting at first but, as a developer, once you get a few pages deep you'll be hooked. The argument for SVG seems like a total no brainer. The possibilities are much brighter and potentially diverse with their usage. Also, lots of animated gif's sprinkled throughout, so there's that bonus.
It's certainly not an argument to forego bitmap entirely (that's insanity) but it is a rather compelling take on ditching whatever icon font you're currently using. I'm sold!
Many thanks to Kevin for the heads up on Dumb.domains. I just keep refreshing, wondering where my money will be worst spent. crap.center? pirate.house? pants.institute? Yes, that sounds good.
Related: Hipster Domain Finder - for all your awkwardly shortened domain needs mixed with obscure TLDs.
Glad the weekend is upon us. These work weeks are rather intense these days, huh? Amirite? Just kidding, work is great. Can't wait to show off some big new things. In the meantime, enjoy this playlist, as usual.
Cat Headshot - the feline depicted in this is, obviously, quite fine but I can't even comprehend how they managed to catch this and who decided it was a great idea to put it into the show. Ridiculous.
Mercury Mistress - this is an old SNL commercial that I managed to miss up until now. Obviously it's old news but I love Chris Parnell.
Webdriver Torso - I'm sorry. I've no idea what this channel is. Absolutely none. It's baffling but I'm mesmerized by its mystery. via John.
The Faint - Evil Voices - I wasn't sold on the new stuff I was hearing from The Faint until I ran across this. This is the Faint style I like best.
Shocking Family Feud Fast Money - heads up, this is not funny. You keep waiting for the funny but it never comes. Only sadness. Not that you feel genuine sadness for a family on a gameshow but, man, what a heartbreaking turn of events.
TMBG - Am I Awake fan video - Overall, They Might Be Giants hasn't put out a lot of stuff that I really love the past few years. However, this song was always great and this video is just the perfect level of creepy. Watch it twice, at least.
It's, admittedly, a little NSFW but this gallery of works showcasing Hungarian photographer Andre Kertesz are quite compelling. The images, part of his Distortion series from the 1930's depicts warped and distorted female nudes through a variety of mirror manipulations. The man's work spans a much wider timeline than just this collection but I'm finding it's an excellent entry point to discover more.
Baron Fig, maker of fine notebooks just recently launched an ongoing poster series. 100% of the proceeds go to the artists and silkscreeners and the designs are great. There's a bit of inspirational messaging involved but, when done right, it works well (as it is here).
Happy to see that the official video for Tipper Whore's latest offering - "Tipper Whore Party Program" - debuted over on the Nashville Cream. It's a fun performance video shot by Lance Conzett that captures the band in their best element - performing live.
The full album, Just the Tip, will be released May 30th. Have a sneak peek at the artwork here.
Kind of loving this How Wrong You Are site. Clean, easy to use design, compelling information and nice animations. Also, I wish I'd thought of it and used it for Ever In History. Despite my personal lamenting, it's actually educational to interact with as well. Plenty of facts in there that will surprise you.
I'm somewhat fascinated by this Verge article on Tumblr's war on the Internet's identity crisis. The gist is that Tumblr sees your Facebook, your Instagram and your other locked in social networks as an assault on your ability to express your personality. How this is coming from Tumblr that has a strict mobile view for all tumblogs (unless explicitly turned off) and a Dashboard that homogenizes all posts into one single stream is a little beyond me but the point is still fair - your Facebook "profile" really doesn't differentiate you from the other millions of people. This point about self expression on the web is pretty spot on:
Karp thinks that we’re not just the sum of the friends we’ve made, and of the pictures we’ve taken. We’re the frames we’ve chosen to put them in.
However, can't you make the argument that the content of the picture is what is really key? Even if my Instagram profile or Flickr profile is structured like everyone else's, it's still my actual photos.
Maybe it's a heady conversation for a subject that really isn't that heady but I think the notion of self expression on the web, particularly through the lens of tools built by strangers, is worth a second or two of contemplation.
I'm not particularly shopping for a new code editor environment but Brackets certainly caught my eye. I love that it pushes changes to the code directly to the browser with no refresh, it's open source and built on Javascript. Also, this intro video features the most insane laptop cover I've seen in some time.
It gives me slight pause that it was founded by Adobe but as long as it stays open source and developed by a community, I can only see it getting better.
The photostream of Yulia Krivich occasionally dips into some NSFW territory but, on the whole, it's an interesting glimpse into the Ukraine, Poland and other countries of that ilk. There's a great selective portfolio of works on her official site and onslaught of inspiration and new work on her Tumblr. All well worth a full immersion.
I'm not even going to attempt to articulate what it is exactly that I love so much about this Masque series from Marie Rime. She has similar undertakings - like Armures or Symetrie de Pouvoir - each distinctly symmetrical, bizarre and appealing.
Is there a pre-warmed service out there for easily pairing GIF's with sound? I'm loving this Saskia Keultjes illustration, especially when mixed with sound but there's gotta be an easier way than a custom HTML page, right?
This requires a youtube link - there must be a better way!
"Funny" art is a tricky line to walk. The portfolio of Eric Yahnker is filled with technical goodness, intriguing gallery implementations and, most of all, amusing subject matter. I love this "Long Banged Series" but am on the fence about "Star of David Lee Roth". Is having an amusing angle somehow detrimental to the overall work? Is it considered less than just because it has a funny point of view?
I don't have the answer but, either way, "T-Rex on a Surfboard" is AOK by me.
Last week, Bryan clued me in to the first track from Will Stratton's latest album, "Gray Lodge Wisdom". I've been playing it obsessively and can't imagine like minded readers not doing the same.
The song, and accompanying album, are powerful stuff but they take an even more impactful note when you read this piece from Noisey, Will Stratton Beat Cancer And Wrote A Beautiful Record. Hearing a man sing about the futility of life knowing that he wrote it during a serious battle with cancer really gives it some extra weight.
As VHX continues to grow in the digital distribution department, the Community side gets neglected a little bit (officially, it's entirely unsupported). So, this weeks playlist looks a little short but that's just because I couldn't add some videos for whatever reason. Regardless, enjoy!
Tiny Hamsters Eating Tiny Burritos - uh, yes please! This is labeled as "Episode 1" so I really look forward to how this develops into more tiny foods.. or just more tiny burritos.
ZomBeavers Trailer - this is beyond dumb and it hits on every single mark that you would expect it to.
Drag Queen Entrance - I really don't care that this is a drag queen and I'm sure this is rather old hat for lots of you but it was new to me. The actual entrance is hilarious and unexpected.
Additively, you really should watch these:
Jackson Browne - Lawyers in Love - this video is weird. Period. I mean, it starts with a floating drummers arm and quickly transitions to youthful aliens visiting him at home. Very bizarre.
The Grand Budapest Hotel VFX Breakdown - call me ignorant (or optimistic) but I did not realize Anderson leaned so heavily on CG effects for set dressing and mood. He does a fine job of it but it's probably one of the clear differences between pre-Fantastic Fox Anderson and post.
How Bout We, the dating for singles OR for couples site, just launched their compelling new You & Me app. The app is quite polished in terms of design and interaction - lots of great and fun features. I'm actually surprised that I've not seen more sites in this space - activities for couples, not just single folk. There's something quite sweet about having an app that allows for some discrete interaction between significant others.
