I am absolutely smitten (smitten I say) with the works of Mikko Walamies. Pieces such as I Phantasm or III Reverie are perfect in their appeals to my sensibilities. Diving just a little deeper into his offerings shows a wide range of styles.. so there's likely something just right for you as well.

via Brandonnn.

Incase recently announced their new Audio Collection - a series of headphones covering a range of styles - over ear, on ear and in ear. I'm partial to the Sonic over ear style but I'm impressed by the Capsule in-ear style too (on ear never did it for me).

via Arlo.

• Skeleton Boilerplate - similar to the Golden Grid system, Skeleton provides a foundation for responsive design with a focus on rapid development. In other words, they provide solid initial basics, you take it from there. Looks great! via Will
• Multiple IE Virtual Machines - if you run Virtual Box, don't mind tinkering around in the Terminal and can be patient through an 8 hour Microsoft download - you could have yourself legitimate versions of IE7, 8 and 9 for developmental purposes. The best part? It doesn't even require an additional copy of the Windows OS to go along with it!

German artist Frank Kunert spends a great deal of time painstakingly creating realistic miniatures for his exhibition entitled "Small Worlds." The photographs of the miniatures are absolutely believable, without hesitation, despite the fact that the configurations of the miniatures themselves are often absurd, surreal and maybe a bit melancholy. View more of them here or here... then seek more out on your own.

via Drew.

Darren Holt, aka Ned Kelly, has plenty to see up on his photostream. Aside from a load of great photographs, he is also sharing a number of his drawings. He is, without a doubt, an incredibly talented guy. If you need reminding of where you may have heard that name before - just check his Whiskerino archives.

Many thanks to Kate for the heads up on the new Damien Hirst work, Legend that debuted at the Sotheby's Chatsworth House. I'd love to see the other new works from Takashi Murakami as well but, for now, I'll be satisfied with this great piece from Hurst.

The concept behind Simple Desktops seems incredibly handy. You install their softwareand you gain access to a large volume of ever growing minimal desktops. It's a simple way to keep your desktop looking fresh without having to do a whole lot of searching for something new!

via Renaud.

• YouTube Founders Revamping Delicious - it's not new news that the YouTube founders, Chad Hurley and Steve Chen, purchased Delicious from Yahoo awhile back but I've not heard anything about their actual plans for it until now. A decent read for sure.
• Tea Party Ipsum - generate filler text from actual Tea Party quotes. I wish there was attribution to each quote but, regardless, it's crazy town.

I dunno how, or why, or what happened but my laptop is behaving in the most peculiar of ways. And by "peculiar" I mean, freezing every 30 seconds or so. Long story short, there's good reason this post isn't showing up until early afternoon. My apologies. The good news is, you can watch the videos on YouTube OR on VHX - since they just launched a beta playlist feature. Eventually, all Friday Videos will be through an embedded VHX player and we'll all thank them for it.

• 2011 Nike Mag - if somehow you missed the news, Nike is releasing a version of the Back to the Future shoe that Marty wore in the second movie. It's pretty damn close to the original with the exception of the fact that they don't self-lace. 2015 is right around the corner tho...
• Stairway to Stardom - you can watch 30 seconds of this and your day will be complete. Or you can watch the whole thing and improve your entire weekend.
• Hidden Camera Death - yes, this is from a super cheesy prank TV show.. but the gag is pretty morbid and, thus, much more amusing to me. Plus, I absolutely love the visual of a grim reaper - always a treat.
• The Never Ending Story - the perfect remix of an already adorable puppy video.
• Michel and Sven: Magic Trick - this works out incredibly well in a number of ways. Absolutely perfect.

Have a great weekend... time for me to format the ole computer...

A few years ago I stumbled upon the Boing Boing videogame blog Offworld. Unfortunately, as soon as I discovered it's greatness it was gone. For whatever reason the plug was pulled but I managed to start following author Brandon Boyer on Tumblr and Twitter. His coverage of videogames has been consistently focused on the world of indie games, extremely passionate and genuine in his interest on whatever subject he's tackling and just simply insightful into a creative world that deserves proper exploration.

Long story short, he's decided to start up a new videogame / culture site called Venus Patrol and he needs some Kickstarter help to get it going. His writeup on why you should assist him is perfect - he understands that donating money to run a blog seems ridiculous on the surface but proper immersion into any world of research takes time.. and time requires money. He's not messing around with being appreciative of your help either, the rewards for the donations are phenomenal.

Watch this video, check the rewards and throw some monetary help his way, I can guarantee it won't be a regretted experience.

I went to see Another Earth last night, the directorial debut of Mike Cahill. If you haven't checked out the trailer before, do so now! Obviously it takes a hefty leap of faith to accept the 'science' involved with a fragmented Earth appearing in our sky but if you're willing to accept the sci-fi element of it and move forward, it's an interesting dramatic undertaking. As much as I enjoyed the faux science elements of the movie I did hit a wall with accepting the actions of Brit Marlings character. On the whole, it's worth a watch but be sure to go in expecting an indie drama about dealing with guilt.

I went to see Another Earth last night, the directorial debut of Mike Cahill. If you haven't checked out the trailer before, do so now! Obviously it takes a hefty leap of faith to accept the 'science' involved with a fragmented Earth appearing in our sky but if you're willing to accept the sci-fi element of it and move forward, it's an interesting dramatic undertaking. As much as I enjoyed the faux science elements of the movie I did hit a wall with accepting the actions of Brit Marlings character. On the whole, it's worth a watch but be sure to go in expecting an indie drama about dealing with guilt.

The above is an actual photo of a "guide star" being tested at the Allgau Public Observatory in Germany - the lightning is just a happy accident but, jeez, what a phenomenal photo.

via New Scientist

I got an email from Luisa Chillida Bergareche requesting that I check out the portfolio of works - with the potential to share it with you, my fine readers. So, I did and now I am. I'm a fan of the Sculptures in particular; lots of interesting wired work mixed with text. The Monotypes are quality too but I'd definitely say start with the Sculptures...

I finally got around to watching Art & Copy last night - the documentary about ad agencies, inspiration and the impact of advertising on our every day lives. As you likely know, it's a great watch - lots of phenomenal anecdotes from the likes of George Lois, Hal Riney, Jeff Goodby and loads more. What bugged me about it is that there is so much talk from all of the heavy hitters about changing the world with their work, doing more than just pushing a product, doing something artistic / clever, having a conversation with audience; not just trying to manipulate them. This is great talk but in reality once you're running an agency with hundreds of employees are you really going to be capable of doing massively artistic undertakings for each of your clients?

I'm comfortable with the role that the ad industry plays in our lives (though we all agree it's too omnipresent) but it's sad to think that these passionately creative folks just talk the talk; walking the walk isn't possible once you reach such a massive level of operation. I'd love to see each of the big agencies splinter up into companies no bigger than 20 people each and see what they can accomplish!

The fine folks at Protein have posted a nice interview with Vimeo's VP of Creative Development Blake Whitman. He speaks on new technology and digital filmmaking - both of which he speaks passionately and intelligently about. I've always loved hearing Vimeo employees speak of their jobs and think about the size of their company - and the quality they put out there - versus the size of their competitors and the quality they put out (Vimeo wins).

I've often posted about the great mixes found over on the Never Ending Internet Mix Tape and always enjoyed dropping by occasionally to pick up what they had to offer. Recently they redesigned the entire site and now give reason to visit much more frequently - as the two authors volley back and forth with musical reactions to prior picks. Every 15 songs they package it up into a downloadable mix but now you can follow along in the process. Just start at the bottom of the page and work your way up, I'm willing to bet you enjoy it.

It is no secret that Polish Film Posters were, historically, designed in a much more artistic and freely interpreted way than most of the US equivalents. Davis recently sent along a link to this Polish Film Poster Archive and it certainly confirms that idea. Even if you haven't heard of the specific title, you'd be hard pressed to imagine such an artistic undertaking as the main movie poster for anything these days. I'm partial to pieces like Far from the Maddening Crowd or 2 Weeks In September but the simple lines of New York, New York can't be denied either - albeit it for very different reasons.

Long story short, click just about anywhere in that repository and you'll find something inspiring.

• Yahoo "open" to sale - this is entirely rumor but every time I hear about Yahoo considering giving up the ghost I get a little lift that maybe that means they'll sell off Flickr to some passionate team and make it relevant again.
• CSS3 Rainbow Dividers - hilarious bit of advanced markup to make your pages look like 1997.

Last week I had the extreme pleasure of hanging out with one Miles Johnson - the man responsible for the works on They Make It In The Basement; a portfolio of works so strong its absolutely jealousy inducing. A quick look through his recent work shows his great attention to detail, simple color palettes and an ability to have a little chaos within the order of the design. It's definitely difficult to pick a favorite category of all the offerings he has at hand but, if forced to, I'd go with his poster work - mostly because I'm a fan of the format and he does it so well.

From a technical standpoint, the site is running on top of jquery / Galleria and it couldn't be a more effective way to present such a phenomenal collection of designs.