I was fortunate enough to see one iteration of the Fauna Friends series hanging up in a coffee shop around town but didn't realize there were multiple iterations of it until now. The series take a handful of designers, have them design among a theme (Japanimals, Monster Friends). There's a great consistency among them but without losing that sacred chalace of variety. If you're looking for some great new, fun, prints - this is a great first stop.
It feels like it's been a good long while since I've been sucked into a fully Flash powered site for all its bells and whistles. The portfolio of Ben Hantoot fills that void. The page transitions, the overall animation and the immersive experience of it all is impressive and engaging. I almost forgot all the little animation tweaks that can happen within a Flash site that get put aside for HTML, CSS3, Javascript hybrids. Be sure to dig into one of the inner sections.. the radial wipe is easily my favorite.
iCloud Custom Thumb - apparently in Safari if iCloud is one of your top sites you get a custom icon displayed instead of a preview of the site. While I understand why they did this I also think it kind of defeats the purpose of the preview. Regardless, this snippet may help you recreate the same effect.. possibly worth investigating.
iPhone Text Expansion - if you've upgraded to iOS5 and haven't checked out the text expansion feature please do so right now. Granted, it's probably a feature that should have been in place for awhile but now that it is there, it seems like the kind of thing you shouldn't live without.
Contact Specific Vibrations - iOS5 can also, apparently, do specific vibrations for particular contacts. I find this to be amusing and ridiculous but also worth sharing.
My friend Alanna has started a new Portrait-a-Day project. Obviously, the concept is simple - post a new portrait every day. So far, so good. And I mean that - she's only fourteen days in at the time of this posting and I'm smitten with several of theshots. I highly recommend following along.
Holy Flying Circus is a BBC series that attempts to re-imagine the controversy surrounding the Monty Python Life of Brian film. I've not actually seen the show so I've no opinion on its quality. However, Jim le Fevre posted his insight, notes and process regarding the Making of the Title Sequence - which is one enormous Zoetrope. He refers to it as a Phonotrope because his first dabblings in the technique involved a record player. Regardless of what you call it - it's impressive. The actual sequence gets going about 2 minutes in - don't miss it.
Bandcamp just recently launched their Facebook App and I highly suggest anyone that is in a band (or anyone you know in a band) get their act together and implement it into their Fan Page. There are other alternatives out there that have similar functionality but I've always been a huge proponent of Bandcamp since it benefits the artists the most directly, monetarily especially. It may not have all the bells and whistles of some of the competition but I enjoy that your best bet for selling music can now also be directly tied into your Facebook page - fewer hoops to jump through is always a good thing.
In the Alpine regions, the Krampus is represented by an incubus demon in company of Saint Nicholas. Traditionally, young men dress up as the Krampus in December and roam the streets frightening children and women with chains and bells. Their costumes include masks and full-body attire, which resemble a cross between a devil and goat. While the young men do inspire fear – be it real or pretend – in the villagers, the purpose of the Krampus is to frighten the malevolent spirits in an effort to drive evil away and to protect the village.
If you've never done an image search on the term, you're in for a treat.
But I digress. Bartl is a proposed documentary exploring the history of Krampus, the ancient tradition of mask carving and the costumes that the villagers wear to drive out the evil spirits. It's a fairly bizarre subject to tackle but, for me, certainly a worthy one to explore. Watch the video and then donate a couple bucks.. they've got a long way to go and every little bit could help.
This video showing off a brilliant new "conductive ink" that allows the user to draw circuits is fascinating for the first minute and a half.. then it dives into the actual recipe and process for making the ink and goes entirely over my head. Sure, it's interesting and shows how insightful the creators are but I'll be damned if it didn't make me feel dumb!
Completely Unrelated but Equally Fascinating New Science: Quantum Levitation.
Thanks to a proper heads up from Justin I've been enjoying his new soul mix - Shake & Slide. It's a compact 33 minutes of undeniably upbeat tunes. If you somehow find yourself not enjoying "Are You A Turtle (Yes I Am)" (the backstory makes it even better) then I feel for you. Go get it.
Take some time in the next few days to read this Forbes article on Dropbox: The Inside Story (or at least send it off to your Instapaper). While there is plenty to learn from their tactics it's definitely worth checking out for the anecdote regarding Dropbox founder Drew Houston and his meeting with Steve Jobs in the early days of the company - namely his ballsy move to refuse any amount of money to be procured by Apple. There's also a video interview to go along with the article but, unsurprisingly, it doesn't have quite as many insights into the whole company as the written version.
If you ever find yourself yearning for more apps - well designed apps at that - then head over to Pointed.co (or Follow them on Tumblr). At the very least you may find some inspiration there for something you're working on.
I can only assume that since Teenage Mutant Ninja Noses really hit the Internet yesterday that you've already seen it, had a good chuckle and moved on. Just in case you haven't, please take a moment to check out the stupidly brilliant creation. I suggest starting at the beginning and working backwards... you don't want to miss the perfection of this or this.
I typically enjoy just about every episode of Radiolab but there was a segment of the latest episode, Loops, that really caught my ear. The portion regarding Christine and Mary Sue Campbell dealing with Transiest Global Amnesia is absolutely not to be missed but I've relistened to the piece regarding experimental musician William Basinski multiple times. The portion of the episode has to do with the tape loops that Basinski creates and their eroding nature he encountered one time when converting them from analog to digital. It's not often that you get to hear music of this variety and I can't recommend checking it out enough. Now I just have to decide where to dive in with his massive discography.
Granted, it's a subjective take but this list of 11 of the Funniest Stories Told by Comedians actually has some rather amusing moments. I suggest going straight for the Bret Kreischer story - it's ridiculous, unbelievable and entirely engaging. Oh, and Louis CK rarely disappoints.
Nice writeup of a recent speech given by Chris Poole (aka moot) at the latest Web 2.0 conference. His basic talking points being that who you are online is not who you are offline, anonymity should not be considered a dark and mysterious way of representing yourself and that Facebook and Google+ haven't figured it out quite like Twitter has. Its not something he hasn't said before but it's an idea that bears repeating.
Without getting into any of the actual politics of Occupy Wallstreet I would like to point out this Occupy George project - which aims to spread a message through defacing dollar bills. It seems like a pretty ineffective way to get the message across (and, technically, is illegal) but at least they're well designed and visually interesting! At the very least, the engaging website gets people thinking even if they don't encounter the actual bills themselves and that's worth a lot.
Loving these illustrations from Kagan McLeod - not just for the technique and style of it all but the subject matter runs an incredibly wide gamut. There are lots of pieces promoting various TV shows, a few celebrity portraits, article illustrations and a Barney comic strip that you really shouldn't miss.
After watching QI this weekend I started doing a little bit of cursory research (read: Wikipedia) into Edward Bernays, a man regarded as one of the most influential pioneers in the advertising world. He "invented" the Bacon & Eggs breakfast by popularizing it through physicians recommendation (5,000 doctors agree) and also managed to convince women that smoking was empowering, not disgusting. His story, and techniques, are pretty fascinating. I suggest doing a little reading up and thinking about how far his influence has stretched... and potentially how awful of a trend he helped to begin through the power of marketing.
