BBC Radio has a great program called I Heart Milton Glaser that tells the story of the now iconic design. They interview Glaser himself and touch on the impact the logo had; revitalizing the city itself.. likely a first for graphic design.
I've been a fan of every single work from David OReilly that I've encountered thus far. Please Say Something and ????? are not to be missed. So, when I saw that he had posted his latest - The External World - to Vimeo, I was quite excited. I realize that 17 minutes may be a bit lengthy to drop everything and watch but I guarantee it's worth it. At the very least add it to your Watch Later queue and then spend some serious, full-attention, quality time with it when you have a chance. His style, character design, macabre humor and absurdity is fascinatingly unique.
Architect Ricardo Bofill lives within his own creation; a refurbished cement factory turned castle style residency. The giant open spaces mixed with the remains of the industrial foundation is executed incredibly well. This article has a load of photos of the place both inside and out, though they are a bit too small for my taste. Fortunately, the official writeup has a load of them at a respectable size.
This article regarding a restaurant in Japan with a monkey waitress sounds cutesy and amusing but the reality of it is vaguely terrifying. I'm pretty sure it's the mask and the wig that take it to a level of discomfort that no one should experience. So, because I had to see it, now you have to see it. We can all thank Falfa for bestowing this unsettling vision to us all.
When I saw Google Translate released for Android devices I must admit there was a twinge of jealousy. The Word Lens augmented reality app was neat but, on the whole, impractical. I wanted to try out an application that showed serious steps toward behaving like a legitimate Babel fish. Turns out, now I can! The app was released to the App Store and is a free download. I was trying it out last night and it seemed to work pretty well. The funniest part is that since I don't know the languages it is translating to I can neither confirm nor deny if the translations are all that accurate.
The official trailer for the forthcoming film Submarine by Richard Ayoade has hit the Internets and it's exactly what I'd expected. It's not a goofy comedy, it leans towards the melancholy and it's likely that without seeing the entire film it will seem kind of trite. All that aside, I am looking forward to it. I believe Ayoade has the ability to put out something that's subtle in its humor and heartfelt without being hokey. And the cast includes Noah Taylor, which I had forgotten, so that's a legitimate bonus. I'll just have to wait until March 18th to make my final decision...
The Invisible Cities project takes all sorts of real-time social data and aggregates it into a terrain based map. The more activity an area has, the more the terrain swells to indicate the hotbed of activity. This video gives a good introduction to the concept and shows off the beta execution. It's interesting to think of this sort of data being used in an area that isn't New York City - would the hotbeds of activity be more obvious? Would the terrain swells in your city be in the same place you predict? Lots of questions come to mind with this.. it's worth a bit of investigation and pondering.
Lotic Prattle from Nahnee Bori is an odd musical undertaking. It spawned from the mind of one Cody Uhler, half of the creative force behind Kindercastle - a band mostly known for their ELO style pop than for experimental soundscapes. The pop sensibilities are still in place but instead of culminating in hooks or string arrangements it degrades into glitch-y noises, ambient sprawl and a general destruction. It's rarely harsh on the ears but it is a challenging listen at times. Despite that, or maybe because of that, it's also quite rewarding. It's tough to take a portion of the record to give a feel for the entire thing - as it really is one big arching experience, so be sure to just grab the whole album.
The Manual is a, hopefully, forthcoming print magazine published three times a year that focuses on web design. Specifically, the technological challenges involved with it, outstanding examples of it and more. You know, like a magazine. It will be designed by Jez Burrows and the first issue will feature work from the likes of Frank Chimero, Simon Collison, Liz Danzico, The Web Standardistas, Jon Tan, Carolyn Wood and more.
On the whole, it looks promising and I'm quite interested to see an entire magazine designed by Mr. Burrows. So, with that in mind, I'm pushing you to hit up their Kickstarter and donate some dollars to get this thing made. They're a ways off from their goal at the moment but I'm sure they can get there.
Daniel pointed me in the direction of these Bokeh Brushes and I'm quite tempted to procure them. $5 really is a paltry sum but I need to rationalize at least one project where I know I would use them. Once that's set in stone, they're mine.
Take a moment to watch this trailer for the movie Home from Yann Arthus-Bertrand. The cinematography is as gorgeous as the message within is dark - basically, says Yann, we're really messing up our planet and we've got the make a change. I'm not sure I entirely agree with that but I do like looking at the footage they've captured.
This AV Club interview with H Jon Benjamin is one of the most self-deprecating interviews I've encountered. If you're at all familiar with his work from Archer, Dr Katz or, the more recent, Bob's Burgers you can instantly hear his 'acting' style overlapping with this speaking style.. so maybe his self-deprecation isn't unfounded when it comes to not being much of an actor. Regardless, he's a funny guy and has a rather hilarious body of work.
I'm loving the look of the Noteslate - no fuss; just a blank page in which to scrawl notes out on, digitally. It even comes with special pen with eraser capabilities built right in. Is this superior to just writing with an actual pen/paper? Probably not. Do you really want another electronic device to carry around just to take notes? No way. But conference call and work time doodles would get a lot more interesting if you had this (especially if it had a Share functionality).
When it comes to uploading files via web interface I have, historically, gone for something along the lines of Uploadify - an easy to integrate and informative tool. However, with the rise of HTML5 there are some new tools - Keegan.
When I first saw the Chrome Web Store I was a bit agitated that it seems like these days everything has to be an App. It seems, to me, that a well designed site that is enhanced for mobile devices should be enough. Why do I need an additional icon stored inside my Chrome to access a website? But then I realized it's all about marketing and slowly cultivating a mindset that will get people using Apps in the browser, then migrating those apps to their phones, tablets and, soon enough, their Google OS powered laptops. It's a baby step forward into a much larger context. With that in mind, it is an easier pill to swallow.. but I still don't think apps are the be-all-end-all.
Work has been absolutely ridiculous this week so I haven't had any real browsing time to stumble upon the funny videos. I haven't even browsed Tumblr in four days! I'm going through withdrawals. Despite all that, I think you'll enjoy this somewhat shortened playlist.
Faerie Tale Theatre Montage - "Hello, I'm Shelly Duvall." At first, you think you don't like this.. and then you fall into it's hypnotizing trap. You can't stop watching. So bizarre.
The Most Illegal Thing In the History of Wrestling - I don't care much for wrestling but when they openly mock their own format. That being said, don't watch more than the first forty seconds of this, there's simply no need.
Exit Through the Pet Shop - this is mostly dumb, weird and very strange. Combining my enjoyment of Banksy and dumb cat videos this video couldn't help but succeed right off the bat.
Skittles Fists - This ongoing ad campaign for Skittles featuring the weirdest things ever never seems to get old.
The Party God - a clip from Adventure Time that combines the voice work of John DiMaggio and a riff on the Courage Wolf. Approved.
Veer posted a great new repository of type called TheFimotype Collection. The typefaces are culled from actual display alphabets from the 50's phototypesetting machine filmstrips and it shows, they look great. I'm loving some of the sans-serif choices and a good number of the script choices.
Great bit of insight here if you're looking to use Helvetica Neue Light as your main body typeface. You can also take the information presented and extrapolate it out for usage with other typefaces with various weights.. though the likelihood of most of your web visitors have Gotham Heavy seems like a stretch. Regardless, quite good information to know.
One of the great things about running a site such as this is that occasionally your posts reach people directly in charge of the subject you're speaking on. For example, I posted about Readernaut vs Goodreads and received insightful comments from a number of people - including a Shelfari employee and a GoodReads employee. What's most interesting is this quip he made:
As is evident by browsing our site, we don't employ a full time designer. I'm not sure how much longer we'll be able to manage, but that has definitly had a huge impact on our product.
If anyone has specific feedback on what we could do differently, we love making our site better, and would love to hear from you:
You'd think that after years and years of doing it that the La Blogotheque format might get tired or fall off in quality.. nope, it just gets better as times goes on. The Spoon Take Away Show is evidence of just that sort of quality improvement.
