Design and digital culture NEWS // April 2008
Tokyocube mission
is to spread japanese design and they just relaunched their toy shop
mostly stacked with vinyl figures. This is one of my fav, this Mickey!
Not
hard to appraise what Kevin Cyr is
obsessing about: renditions of beat-up cars, vans, motorcycles and the
graffiti scene.
Andrew
Schoultz epic-like and clashing movements paintings.
Pimp
your walls! HomeStickHome offers
a large arrays of adhesive stickers to adorn just about any surface!
Although the site is en français, easy to browse anyway.
cool! Much easier than enterprising a DIY project.
GrowBots 
site
features a cast of lovable and unique plush characters and also features
limited edition silkscreen prints from Kenn Louis show titled “Anytime
After Now”.
Mike
Cerda is the editor of The Filmlot who published an interview
with Aaron Rose & Lenny Mesina makers of Beautiful
Losers. Reason I'm featuring this interview is because of the gruelling
steps and not too pretty behind the scenes pittfalls and problems that
are exposed, sometimes harshly. Secondly, because the topic of the film
which “celebrates the spirit behind one of the most influential
cultural movements of a generation. In the early 1990's a loose-knit
group of likeminded outsiders found common ground at a little NYC storefront
gallery.” is worth knowing about.
For any independent project we pursue — reminder we need sound
advices and the experience of others do that.
PixelFonts.co.uk.
A brand new font shopping website which features loads of pixel fonts.
There's a massive 50% special offer on a bulk purchase. Buy the lot for
half price. Hurry while this amazing offer lasts.
Another
mostly white interface for Welcometocloud,
website portfolio of Pierre Nguyen a graphic designer located in Paris,
France with an evident penchant for fat fonts and the color black.
Jesse
Kaczmarek is a designer and art director involved in branding projects.
Some of the output is pretty slick. Memorable navigation the up and
down arrows to scroll projects and the minimalist mostly white interface.
Solar,
with lyrics by Robert Hodgin aka Flight 404 who has been one of
the early flash adopter, now specializes in narrative and visual experiments
using proce55ing.
Not only is the video mesmerizing and stream to glue literally to bot
beat, music and lyrics, using music vizualization techniques.
The process behind is a must read.
More videos are available on his Vimeo
profile.
Ever
wonder who was the photagraph behind some of the Uniqlo campaigns who
have these joyful and bounciful lot of people in it? Munetaka
Tokuyama is. His inclination seems to be capturing models in movement
which adds to the photos a sculpture like fluidity.
I'm
always drawn to the fugitive world of children and as adults, to recapture
the essence and innocence can be altogether impossible. Not in this case,
introducing the stunning realistic 3d illustrations signed by Jacques
Despres.
Just wish there were more to see.
What
is Design For? A Discussion by Michael Beirut
“Have graphic designers shifted too much toward
being persuaders rather than communicators?”
The
2nd episode of the Happyness
Factory (produced by Psyop) is another jaw dropping animation with
tons of mind blowing motion graphics fx. Sometimes sequels don't pull
it - but this one won't disappoint!
If you're so inclined you can download the full HD
movie which is available for the iPod too.
Mika's
Marshmallow Train is a fantasy full little animation produced by
Pandapanther. Probably one of the most repeated dreams of our youth
would be living in a real candy land.
Spring
cleaning — we are ramping up for the new website that we intend
to launch sometimes late Autumn in celebratino of our 10th year anniversary.
Since there will be a HUGE migration process, we're cleaning up the information
architecture and deleting sections that are no longer relevent nor visited:
the museum of offline sites is rip and so are the events archives, current
remains; design forte reviews were transferred into the news archive.
Other sections are under scrutiny.
Don't mind the flux — it's temporary. In fact, we're almost finish.
It's definitely going to be sooooooo much better — we always feel lighter when
our desk/studio/flat is clean.
Oops talking of cleaning up — we LUV U for linking back — but
get really irked identified as netdriver.
10
Best Firefox Addons for Designers
It's
a wild-wild and ecclectic photographic world that Tomi
and Cherry is
capturing and delivering. Fashion has never had such a visually explosive
treatment.
From Argentina with luv.
via: NEW
synthesis
MTASC is
the first ActionScript 2 Open Source free compiler.
It can compile large number of .as class files in a very short time
and generate directly the corresponding SWF bytecode without relying
on Macromedia Flash or other tools.
London
based design duo, DixonBaxi have
garnered an impressive array of projects mostly oriented towards the
now crowd in entertainment and advertising and their responsibilities
are so vast, the only way to wrap it up is to see for yourself. Click
away!
Corporate
membership category broadens Icograda's voice for communication design.
Effective 1 April 2008, Icograda (the International Council of Graphic
Design Associations) is introducing its first major new membership category
since 2003. Companies committed to the value and advancement of communication
design and who endorse Icograda’s professional best practices are
now eligible to apply for membership. The new category offers general
voting rights at the Council's biennial General Assembly.
Icograda is the world body for professional communication design.
Founded in 1963, it is a voluntary assembly of associations concerned
with graphic design, visual communication, design management, promotion,
education and journalism. Icograda promotes communication
designers' vital role in society and commerce and unifies the voices
of visual communicators worldwide.
The vision, mission and core values of the council are collectively
embodied in the statement 'leading creatively' and manifested through
our members' diverse activities to use design as a medium for progressive
change.
Mato
Atom is a director and designer and he's put together a funky load
of impressive and conceptually strong projects. He has collaborated
with top international studios before being represented as director
since may 2007.
Some of the spots are available on his website, enjoy!
What
would result in 500 hours worth of work spread over a two year period?
One of the early pixel based designer and flash developer aka drububu,
Arjan Westerdiep enterprised this massive art piece - The
ic-project!
Have a look. Watch the how to navigate movie which appears on the top
left hand side. As you will see, pretty cool functionalities are embedded
- like selecting a spot within the artwork just as you would with selection
tool in Photoshop and a little movie of the making of the area will appear
- or use the spacebar to have a zoomed in zone.
Hats off!
SIFON
DG is a multidisciplinary studio in Buenos Aires, Argentina and
do very nice projects in the fields of graphical design and animations.
Stand
by your values! Awesome concept! The
Rock is a recently completed project for a Church in Wellington,
New Zealand. Brief was to reach people in an engaging way, break some
conventions that dictate how churches should communicate. The website
is mostly flash, with full CMS (AJAX/PHP/SQL/XML) to support it. Also
a printed magazine is floating around the real world as well as the on-line
version.
Since
1989, Jonathan Hoefler and Tobias Frere-Jones have helped some of the
world's foremost publications, corporations, and institutions develop
their unique voice through typography. Their body of work includes some
of the world's most famous designs, typefaces marked by both high performance
and high style.
Add Hoefler & Frere-Jones to
your fonts bookmarks and more fonts resources are available in the toolbox.
Stefanie
Augustine is
an illustrator commissioned for mostly editorial projects with an evident
emphasis on world political issues which probably explains the consistency
of a darkish palette.
Equivocos is
a made in Brazil tshirts collection designed by Felipe Guga! Lovely and
extravagant bursting with vibrant colors! Really like the staging and
photography too.
Have
a look at this motion short by Amautalab who concepteptualize, directed
and produced it. A making
of (is available) of the NHK/RE-INVENTION project.
The
Freelancer’s Toolset: 100 web apps for everything you will
possibly need. Running a business for yourself means you have to be
inventive and always on the lookout for a new and better way to get
things done.
via: Fuel
Your Creativity
I
prefer is not only an apparel brand, but looking forward to creating
a platform for artists, designers and fashion workers. This seems to
be the new mantra for big corporations going hype-hype and away.
Pretty intense and long to download, but as an immersive experience,
definitely worth the wait. No navigation, mouseover + click to find your
way around.
NOT
TO SCALE is a collaborative agency of directors who specializes
in creating all types of animated, illustrated and designed content
for use across all platforms and media.
If you want to see great projects - check what they are showing. Recently
UBIK won a British Animation award for the MTV 3650 a short about global
warming.
MTV
Brasil meets Processing! If you don't know what is Processing “it
is an open source programming language and environment for people who
want to program images, animation, and interactions” which was
initiated by by Ben Fry and Casey
Reas.
BTW dmtr.org is looking for designers
and programmers.
Jody
Gaffney has for the past 2 years been lucky enough to work with
two indie music promoters in Dublin. He's gathered his favourite pieces
for the first time. Take a look.
For
grown-up kids, Jason Siu has become
a consumate master of toy design. You probably have seen his sound speaker
collection.
Shown one of his spectacular piece, complete with a velours outfit and
a smashing looking speaker system.
YO! Tiny
Hearthead 'Series One' toys designed by Tesselate - gotta luv the
keyboard keys for eyes! Smart!
Marius
Watz repertoriates and operates under Unlekker. “He
is an artist concerned with generative systems for creating visual form,
still, animated or realtime. His signature is a brand of visual hedonism,
marked by colourful organic shapes and a maximalist attitude. Most of
his works deal with drawing machines implemented in software, live visuals
for music or large-scale projections of plastic visual systems.”
Absolutely mind-dazzling projects - some comprise movies to view the
results! A must-see!
Have a look at his art from code Generator.x software
website too.
Excerpt
from the book Transcending
CSS. The fine art of web design by Andy Clarke
“CSS is not designer friendly.. One factor is that as a technology
built to help solve design problems, CSS is not very designer friendly
largely because it was created for designers by technologists rather
than by other designers.”
This statement reinforces the fact that integrators must
be at the service of designers in order to render the interface and validates,
why so much crappy websites exists. It also renders void that preconceived
idea that a web developer may have the intrinsic habitility to really
understand design. As far as I know, it will work only when there is
a willing collaboration, humility and flexibility.
Stefan
Lucut has got his mind and talent all over the place: print, identity,
web, poster, illustrations. Original grid and interface for his website
too.
If
you're a designer — like me — you're always looking for new
fonts - and you will no doubt appreciate what's in Reserves
(rsrvs).
Need more? Check the toolbox.
What
is the difference between
a brain cell and the universe?
via: The
Strange Attractor
Chris
Gloag is a veteran photographer whose first review appeared on
Netdiver in 2003. Since then, he has deepen his skills and delivers
compelling pictures. Still think his portraits are by far his best
work.
Also, he is still using his name has a tiling watermark giving his
flash portfolio a deconstructed effect and some edge.
Luigi
Bussolati had done this photographic experiment of shooting staged
interior spaces from the ceiling giving us, the viewers, a way to appreciate
a totally different perspective. Pick the design section to
view.
Pretty cool!
Victoriana
meets pop in Susan Burghart illustrations,
and it's all about the work! She started out as a graphic designer who
could draw, after completing her master degree, she decided on being
a full-time illustrator.
Nice website interface too.
Jeremiah
Ketner is the brilliant mind behind sMallandRounNd and
has been building a solid reputation as a visual artist. He draws inspiration
from Japanese aesthetics, packaging design, magazine ads and urban graffiti.
Just found his Piko Toys collection which are available for purchase
(as well as other sweet artificats such as skins for iPhone).
They're sooo yummy and huggable!
Gotta
luv this! Nameless is a web
design Bristol, London, Glasgow, Cardiff, digital media creatives, usability,
accessibility, SEO agency and their website is sports a simple interface
with fun captions... like stating they are not just web monkeys!
They've delivered a roster of projects - one of their most recent being
a flash website using smart icons for navigation for Gloster.
Sonni is
located in Argentina and designs and illustrates cute critters and all
sorts of projects as well as street art and exhibitions. Gotta luv the
many signatures he designed around his name which are constantly rotating.
Jean-Philippe
Delhomme is an illustrator that works for mostly high fashion and
upscale retail outlets and hotels. He was commissioned to work with
many fashion magazines and has he states — he catches the ironic
captions depicting the snubbery and attitudes of the fashion addicted.
Lee
Woodgate is an xtra talented València based British illustrator
who just relaunched his portfolio website. Graduated BA Illustration
UEA annex, UK 1994. Over 10 years experience as freelance illustrator.
Département
Féminin is an online boutique that uses a travelling flash
interface with drawn line arts all black and white with legs walking
(guess right, they are in the shoes and related accessories business)
around reproducing the actual interior of the boutique.
Slickier
than slick, the new Un.titled website!
The agency specializes in design and art direction and as you will see,
they know how to deliver compelling results.
Chose this screen capture as a tongue-in-cheek play on their company
name — so often modern artists have series of Untitled canvas.
Peter
Richardson is an up and rising star animator operating as Fake (Studios)
interesting play on words! Rarely for me to include two URLs from the
same studio but really, you can't miss his Hersheys
Peanuts dance duo — do pay attention to the shadows and reflection
on the foil. Aren't the moves believable?
You must absolutely watch the Tlingit
vs. Haida animation! It's pure visual 3D fluidity of movements...
with gorgeously painted characters whose surfaces replicate frame after
frame.
Peter and I were introduced through mutual friends recently while attending
SXSW. We discussed the difficulties and superlative joys of animation.
Expressive
illustrations by Jens Bonnke which
squarely challenges some of the social assumptions of the day using minimal
elements.
In
pod we trust - Gestalten now
offers all of their filmed interviews and documentations as real podcasts and
will cover all areas of contemporary visual culture, including graphic
design and typography, product and furniture design, architecture, photography,
art and more. The podcasts will offer a broad range of documentaries,
interviews and features individuals, projects and companies that are
vanguards of visual culture.
Boompje
studios create original artwork and graphic design by revisiting
the 45 degree angles, deconstructed objects and layered forms giving
life to out of this world staging to set forth the message of their
projects.
Look
at me Design is
the online portfolio of Sara Haraigue who is a graphic designer based
in Paris. With such a domain name - how can I say this - it does ant
up expectations and you, should make sure to deliver.
Well I admire her guts and her talent, which she has plenty no doubt.
Especially like her print designs work of vinyl/dvd sleeves as well as
posters.
Julien
Pacaud is another collage and mix media illustrator whose work
has been published in many high profile magazines.
When
my laptop hard disk died down around Chrismas time having delayed buying
a new one for - hoping that the lifecycle would break another record..
You know, for a small miracle.. well right smack in the midst of a tel
conf with a client - it was kaput! So I scrambled to buy another one
and spent about 2 weeks with a friend geek - to boot out Vista. Don't
wish this on anyone - although we succeeded, it was a nightmare!
JF found this article and I urge you to read and act upon it!
Save
Windows XP! The clock is ticking by InfoWorld
“Microsoft plans to end most sales of Windows XP on June 30, despite
a deep reluctance by many business and individuals about moving to Vista.
InfoWorld believes such an expensive, time-consuming shift with problematic
benefits should not be forced on Windows users, so we have decided to
rally XP users to demand that XP be kept available indefinitely.”
Join the 101,434 people so far who have signed the online
petition.
Seth
Rieder is an interactive designer hailing from Minneapolis, Minnesota
who just recently graduated. Well since all his pieces are kind of
mumbling jumbling over each other the unusual navigation — granted
it's a system scrolling horizontally — ads a sense of perspective
and makes for a cool layout. Nice touch with the mouseover captions
- you get just enough information.
Wonder when pop-ups will disappear though .. sigh-sigh ..
David
Capra was recently named one of Australia top 25 artists under
the age of 25. His style is based on randomness and thirst of discoveries
rumaging his grandma cupboard, kindergarden sketches to build the collages.
His website has an irky wall that displays exactly that.
Gracia
+ Louise is
the collaboration between an illustrator and mix media artist whose
combined styles make for sweet victorian-retro like projects.
Hudson-Powell developed
this piece for “Kitty’s Secret House” exhibition in
Hong Kong. Using ARToolKit Augmented
Reality software they tracked 3d shapes and faces onto realtime footage,
letting the viewer see themselves with various abstract heads on a screen
in front of them.
otoshimono meaning
lost and found in Japanese and serves as a metaphor for the mind of talented
illustrator, Andrea Innocent, who is a self-confessed nipponophile. She
tells her stories of the bizarre and quirky through detailed digital
illustration and her current work is an ongoing exploration, in a contemporary
context, of aspects of Japanese popular culture from an Australian perspective.
I had already been quite impressed by her poster for the Fantasia festival
- although at the time - did not know it was her work.
Gi
Mayo is
a fashion illustrator who was on assignment for some of the biggest
shows, recently covering the Fashion Week.
She claims having traveled a lot and studied in many different schools
in different countries. Everything she have seen and learnt grew to be
her influences and inspirations.
Getting
Real is the business, design, programming, and marketing philosophies
of 37signals — a developer
of web-based software used by over 1 million people and businesses
in 70 countries.
Here are the 16 chapters and 91 essays that make up the book free to
read online. You can buy the .pdf or paperback too.
Jason Fried is a brilliant entrepreneur and an eloquent and articulate
presenter communicating simply, complex issues.
1,000
True Fans by Kevin Kelly
“The long tail is famously good news for two classes of people;
a few lucky aggregators, such as Amazon and Netflix, and 6 billion consumers.
Of those two, I think consumers earn the greater reward from the wealth
hidden in infinite niches..
..A creator, such as an artist, musician, photographer, craftsperson,
performer, animator, designer, videomaker, or author - in other words,
anyone producing works of art - needs to acquire only 1,000 True Fans
to make a living.”
Sydney
based artist Lang Leav uses
pastels and pixels to weave the enchanting world of art, fashion and
books named Akina. Since its inception,
the illustration based fashion label has established a cult following
worldwide.
Gotta
luv these! Finest/Magma website
is just what I think works best for any online portfolio. Nice white
space with the upper section filled with visuals of their projects.
Why it works so well? Because - and as you will see the site is available
in german only - you don't really need to be able to read. Seeing is
enough. You get it. They're good and versatile.
Slick, elegant and simple! Must see!
TAXI
is everywhere — well at least, at 100 issues later! From
the 100 Quotes by 100 Designers, I picked these that resonate:
Today, I think it’s hard for even graphic designers themselves
to draw the line between graphic design and art. — Laurence Ng
Globalisation means more than merely a bigger market place for designers. — Linda
Fu
Without the media, design awareness will not exist. — Song Kee
Hong
The best advice I can give to an ambitious designer is: stop talking
and start listening. — Michael Beirut
-> more news
^
