Check out these hot scooters around Tokyo! I love Japan, and I really, really need to visit Tokyo and the countryside. I’d really like to spend some time living and working overseas before it’s too late.
In Japan, if it can be customized, it will be. And invariably it’s not just one or two bored school kids doing it in the garden shed. Subcultures grow and spread around the pimped up versions and the Big Scooter phenomenon is no exception. Here’s a look at some of Tokyo’s brightest, shiniest, blingiest scooters, that make the Vespa and its fans look oh so dull.
Hat tip Lech!
Malcolm Gladwell says that “talent is the desire to practice”, which I agree with, and after watching this I’m fairly certian Zapf probably spent close to 10,000 hours practicing.
The Art of Hermann Zapf from Johnny Dib on Vimeo.
Besides watching a masters hand at work, it’s enlightening to learn he was self taught and diligent at practice. From the article…
Mr. Zapf is a self taught typeface designer. It was during an exhibition in 1935 in honor of Rudolf Koch, when he got interested in calligraphy, so he purchased two books which introduced him to the art of calligraphy. Later he developed his craft with intensive periods of study at the Nuremberg City Library.
Cribbed from Parachute Fonts.
Via @quoo a reminder to not abide the usual and expand your expectations for font delivery. A well developed and considered Font Stack should be integral to a sites design.
Way cool. I’d like to use these as an accent on an outside wall.
13th Street "Stationery of Horror" (Design) on the Behance Network (Thanks, Fipi Lele!)
This shot of Steve McQueen posted by LIFE this week is the first image that has ever made me want to have a gun.
But really, I’d rather have his pad.
Found via Maury Postal
Directed by Edward Salier it is so good to have Massive Attack back on the scene its been about a minute since I was in a karmacoma.
Massive Attack-Splitting the Atom-directed by Edouard Salier from edouard salier on Vimeo.
Love the new iPad. Why do I feel like I am being asked to stand and be counted?
Yes, they will add multitasking, yes they will add a front facing camera. Google voice and the iPad anyone? Add bluetooth and we’re done. I see the possibility in the iPad and future revisions. This is the starting point for a new genre and way of using the internet. Notice I didn’t say computer. This is firmly an internet tablet. Most everything you would use it for would be connected to the internet or your file storage at home. This is primarily a content access device not a content creation device. That’s how to think of it. That’s the iPad.
Yes, I do like and have tried to champion OpenSource software. How can I square that with my love of Apple? I’m complicated. I’m a human being. I also believe in a mixed economy and mixed nuts. I love our National Health Service and the National Theatre, but I also love Fortnum and Mason’s and Hollywood movies. “Apple,” Steve Jobs said, “stands at the intersection of Technology and the Liberal Arts.” This statement confused non-Americans who are not familiar with the phrase Liberal Arts (you can look it up here) but I think shows the fundamental cultural seriousness of Jobs and Apple which in turn explains their huge success and impact. He might perhaps more accurately have said that Apple stands at the intersection of Technology, the Liberal Arts and Commerce.”
Stephen Fry succinctly quells the arguments with Apple.
I have been meaning to do a calendar for awhile and finally of off my duff to try something. Click through for a flattened version.
Just been listening to some Birdy Nam Nam for a bit and made this.
Scans from the seminal work of Emil Ruder Typography inside this flickr set of Sebastien Hayez.
See also:
ISO50 has a great post about his poster design.
www.designers-books.com for some excellent scans and photos of more great design books destined for your shelf.
People hailed the small hand held video recorder has the new revolution but the ability for photographers or ‘still cinematographers’ to interchange lenses relatively cheaply is the actual ‘revolution’. We are starting to see some amazing videos come from these photographers. Those people used to selective focus and lighting are the heralds of a new age of cinematography.
Verkostotunnistin / Social Networking from A. Siuvatti on Vimeo.
Don’t get me wrong there has been some amazing videos shot with these small portable ‘camcorders’ but the true visionaries have yet to take up their SLR cameras.
“Design is the exploration of the conceivable future” to paraphrase Will Evans at Semantic Foundry.
It seems that 2009 has been the year of the wireframe, searches reveal a sea of websites now devoted to the practice, SXSW panels were held on it, web based tools are being debated. In the end the how and materials used are meaningless and this cuts right to the chase, the ‘why’ of the wireframe.
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It demands it’s sacrifice! Via. Boing Boing.
Following up on my Bing post regarding Google design. It seems that others share my opinion that Google needs a visual refresh. Redesign Google and win a MacBook Air.
Really digging that tagline mask effect on Webmynds homepage.
Linkbait via TechCrunch.
Beautiful work from Italian designer Pierluigi Longo. You can also check out his Flickr.
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Sergey Maximishin Photography (Thanks, Josh!)
Ben Cosgrove says: "As Tuesday's the 70th anniversary of the start of WWII, I decided to put together a gallery of some of the most intense propaganda posters and flyers I could find, just to remind LIFE visitors that, whatever one thinks of the war itself, there's no denying that some of the graphic art that came out of it was AMAZING."
In war and in peace -- but especially in war -- governments everywhere resort to propaganda, which at its simplest and starkest often takes the form of outrageous posters: occasionally beautiful, sometimes racist, and often brutally jarring. This, for example, is how the Nazis wanted occupied Holland to see America and Americans in 1944 -- as a Frankenstein's monster of warmongering racists, jazz-crazed degenerates, and money-mad gangsters.Propaganda posters from WWII
I think google should be worried. Microsoft is going against googles whole design sense. They are thinking people want a change in whats become comfortable and sometimes comfortable can seem old. This is fresh its slightly like every other site users have visited.
Using the googlesque coloring is really a headfake towards the users. We’ve all been to sites that have used the google sear engine embedded results with their skin. This really looks like that.
I do like the related searches and search history. thats a nice feature to turn history on and off right from that section.
The whole layout means Microsoft is banking on drawing eyeballs to the left side of the page so they can sell ads in the All Results section.
The images results is really well done. Google’s page looks cluttered and haphazard in comparison. The thumbnail resizing is clean. this really is much nicer than googles.
Design will be the death of google.
The internet browser has been changed into an application to stream content to an individual. It’s all about the content. And so what does this do? Content, information, experiences, become a gathering place and slowly populations begin to be built. And just like when any other human existence has met they begin to grow and multiply.
And so the web will slowly retreat into groups of people to become ‘cities’ on the internet. Groups of users using paypal as banking, amazon as they’re local store, and then even more diverse as a specific car parts website. They are shared favorites that then become the standard in a category. These are your cities and suburbs by groups of liked interests rather than mere geography.
I think we can now start to plot out the tidal reach of the internet this organism that now starts to shape the lives of people.
I had an acquaintance that I know of, peripherally, that died recently. This person was a prolific blogger, ending in July of 2008 but starting way back in 2002. 6 years worth of journaling, an online diary of a persons life. Will this blog be deleted by the site that hosts it? (a well known blogging company) Will it be relegated to be the odd Google search result? This problem is what makes the Internet Archive pretty powerful. As much as possible a living, detailed history of the internet.
Thinking long term, 50 maybe 100 years what that information would b worth, how much it would contain. 100 years of records of behavior. Further, 1000 years of human interaction detailed on the internet. Emails, forum posts, audio, video, artwork from every form of man. What would we give to have as complete information of 1000 years in the past? A vast and complete archive of the internet and it’s traffic I think is important.
Funded in perpetuity, kept as public vault a record of humanity. That would provide countless answers to questions in the future. Knowing and understanding who we are, what we are. Which is what makes the internet such an important thing in the terms of mankind.
We’re going to see where we are as humanity the same reason that geographically remote areas have tribal groups we’ll see outliers to borrow a word. We’ll see some places where access will be restricted by religions that don’t want to corrupt they’re fundamentalist believers. Restricted by politick to keep citizens from learning anything other than the proscribed doctrine, and so we have this flow of access to the internet, this tide of humanity, pockets of civilizations not bound by geography but by shared belief, shared experiences and locales.
These will be the internets tribal groups and access to the internet is going to reshape the political and racial boundaries of peoples.
Trying out some designs for a possible brand of my freelance efforts as Grand Comrade.
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Created this as a Pulp Novel cover as I was inspired while going through the Flickr archives of the George Eastman House and seeing this photo of a woman in a cell, playing solitaire.
How we define ourselves. Too young to work, looking for a job now, I am a…, in Retirement and Out of work. What then does it mean to be Out of Work in a society arranged on work. What is work? Is it effort? Is it jobs? How are you a part of our society. How then do we interact?
As we continue to use the internet for buying goods and services these companies are starting a grassroots movement to only use email to communicate. More and more companies are eliminating telephone contact with their customers. Severing the face to face or being to being meeting. These companies are becoming almost wholly virtual. The entire medium of the transaction is digital. No paper trail. Bank accounts existing only digitally. We’re losing the need to establish a 1 to 1 physical relationship to gain their trust. Where once when you wanted to make a trade or deal with another person to do something there would follow an elaborate ritual between each other gauging what we each want and what is the best mutual decision. Our greed fighting someone else’s greed causes us to come to an unspoken agreement that there’s only so much I can get and I’ll have to sacrifice something. And that sacrifice is what we do as nations. We try to gauge what we as a civilization will have to sacrifice and what we will gain. And so our laws that govern us are almost wholly the same. Laws that have been proscribed have their mirrors among many countries, we are agreeing on morality or toleration of each other. What we will and won’t allow of each other. So my need to know where this companies good or service is based physically, who is running it doesn’t matter because the laws of commerce and business are dictating our tolerance. Don’t scam me and I don’t scam you.
We are becoming more and more like our email addresses. We are becoming our digital identities.
Doing custom letters or type treatments is that they are the basis of language and custom letters is the forefront of communication and the forefront of type. Why does a D have to look specifically D like? and how far can you push that type of thought I mean isn’t that really the basis for grafitti? Rather than the mundane thought of tagging. But the core of graffiti is type exploration and someone choosing a name to explore that type with.
Graphic design takes the thoughts and ideas from one person and using our skills to say here look at this i’ve used language and imagery to capture your idea. and i did it in this way and so we’re not really doing it to sell cans of tomatoes but to express ourselves in this way to be noticed.
Thereupon Micromegas uttered, “I see more clearly than ever that we should judge nothing by its apparent importance. O God, Who hast bestowed intelligence upon things which seemed so despicable, the infinitely little is as much Thy concern as the infinitely great; and, if it is possible that there should be living things smaller than these, they may be endowed with minds superior even to those of the magnificent creatures I have seen in the sky, who with one foot could cover this globe upon which I have alighted.”
- Voltaire, Micromégas, 1752
Main Entry: 1flour·ish
Pronunciation: \ˈflər-ish, ˈflə-rish\
Function: verb
Etymology: Middle English florisshen, from Anglo-French fluriss-, stem of flurir, florir, from Vulgar Latin *florire, alteration of Latin florēre, from flor-, flos flower
Date: 14th century
intransitive verb
1 : to grow luxuriantly : thrive
2 a : to achieve success : prosper (a flourishing business) b : to be in a state of activity or production (flourished around 1850) c : to reach a height of development or influence
3 : to make bold and sweeping gestures
A wanted to create a more fanciful logog for Gigantoid and ended up with some sort of storybook style.
You will create a book cover, using a fictitious title and an image from the LIFE photo archive.
Winner take all, no holds barred. May the best designer win.
This is your chance to stretch your type muscles on a weekly basis. You have one week to create and submit your entry. Anyone may submit a design response to the challenge. You may enter as often as you wish. Post anytime. Critiques and comments are welcome throughout the game, from participants and spectators alike. Smack talk is encouraged.
As with any street battle, there is no panel of judges and no prize — only the ability to call yourself the best on the block.
Link directly to this battle: http://www.typophile.com/battle32
Link to the battle directory: http://www.typophile.com/typebattles
Given the mission to redesign the Drudge Report as a friendly competition setup by Geoff Stearns.
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I think we’re seeing the rise of micro internet economies. I frequent a number of boards for all sorts of topics and each one has become a trusted source of second hand goods. As these forum communities become self policing trust builds in xxxxx.com as being a reliable place to buy or sell. The risks are understood as well as the remedies so commerce flows.
The Internet is going to bring another economic global boom just like the first one with the use of Exchanges arising in the late17th century.
I really liked watching how he uses Illustrator. I’m a firm believer there is an art to our interaction with the software akin to the brushstrokes of a painter. The way someone uses the software , I think, is part of the art. You see him pull and push the vector objects. Amazing.
Science Machine from Chad Pugh on Vimeo.
The internet is the global meeting place for the planet. It’s everywhere. It just is. The Internet is something wholly new in the World. It’s more than webpages with sports scores, it’s the cellphone network which has mated with the web, it’s the GPS satellites which we can use to track our specific loction on the planet in relation to everyone else on the internet. It’s the satellites who transfer our transmissions of data, entertainment and information to each other. It’s the ability for us to use the Internet to transcend our borders to explore each other, to explore our world. To know one another. It is where Children in Tokyo go to get to the latest American Pop Idol’s presence on the informational data stream. To know that theres someone over here singing and dancing and doing something. For a man to tap into the global information stream to contact his wife across town instantly via audio, video, text message, email to know if he was supposed to pickup the blue or the pink pillow. He can send her a picture to which she can call and talk to confirm. It’s where businessmen in Dubai are looking to find buyers on the planet who want silks and linens. Where a hotel purchasing agent is looking to supply her chain with fancy linens and finds sellers across the planet. A man in Sweden takes photographs and post’s his photos for everyone else on the planet to see what he sees. To show his world as he see’s it. For him to buy the Camera from a seller in Korea and a lens from a fellow photographer in Argentina who he met on a forum.
The internet is no less than the interconnectedness of humanity. Our etherial tether to each other. Communication, the exchange of ideas, information. The internetwork of humanity is communication. For us to transcend our borders mentally to expand our awareness of whats around us. Not just physically through government use of exploration to take new territories like an evergrowing ant mound. But socially through communication. With communication we can share our understanding of life around us. To realize we are together.
Although it looks more like a High School sports logo, this was redrawn from a Bohemian Club napkin. I got wrapped up in these images taken from 1906–1909 for club meetings at a place called Bohemian Grove.
So this has become an increasing concern of mine. It first started for me with “The New York Times”. Someone would link to an article I would blindly click it to only be confronted with a logon screen to read the goddamn news. It’s now happeneing with increasing regularity. I use Google News to get a snapshot of whats going on and many more Newspapers are requiring registration and not just the large ones. The most recent was “The Austin American Statesman” for an article on the police action at SXSW linked by Abstract Dynamics.
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Made for Humhum.
Wow, 1000 skies has given us all something beautiful. When outside I’m always looking at clouds and the sky.
WaVE, or rather Walk-through Virtual Environments are displayed upon fog. Yeah you read that right…
“The basic components of the screen are a laminar, non-turbulent airflow, and a thin fog screen (or any particles) injected into and inside a laminar flow. Created this way, the fog screen is an internal part of the laminar airflow, and remains thin, crisp, and protected from turbulence. When the screen is formed, images can be either rear– or front-projected onto it. The screen can be translucent (as in the images below) or fully opaque. Our current fog screen prototype already proves the operating principle with excellent results. “
Joshua Davis, aka. Maruto, praystation, once-upon-a-forest has updated his site with a new piece entitled A firebird began to visit the garden. And it’s about time. The design community has needed a shot in the arm and in my opinion has been aimless and needs a leader or leaders to step up and represent. The same people that inspired us during the late 90’s and the dot.kizzom boom should do the same now.
It feels like we’ve been in the dark ages the last couple of years without an influence. Seeing and working with creative people leads to innovation and inspiration. Without that there is no impetus for companies to replace what they have unless they see a cultural change. If we want to expand our markets and get more business the key is to create a buzz and awareness of what we as graphic designers can do. I firmly believe that creativity doesn’t evolve in a vacuum but requires collaboration.
ArsTechnica is having a discussion about fixed vs. variable width website layouts. They have a poll that is currently showing a wide margin in favor of variable width. After reading through the forum postings thus far there are some very vitriol ridden opinions for variable width that mostly center around the viewer having ultimate control over what they see. Some posts made cases for fixed width designs that centered around showing content appropriately and allowing experience control.
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There are certain things that most good designers know and often complain about around the sushi bar whilst guzzling gin and tonics to beat the heat. However my new best friend for the week Wil Harris has decided to take some affirmative action and annotate the bugaboos we all have in “How to (and not to) work with a designer”. there’s excellent advice in there not only for potential clients but also designers who may not know the right questions to ask.
A nod of my monkeypox laden head to Charlie Park for the link.
And you thought you made logo’s…Raymond Loewy
‘between two products equal in price, function, and quality, the better looking will outsell the other.’ he proved that the success of a product is as dependent on aesthetics as function. ‘the goal of design is to sell,’ he said. ‘and to drive the point home, he added, ‘the loveliest curve I know is the sales curve.’
courtesy //designboom.com
“Artbots: The Robot Talent Show is an international art exhibition for robotic art and art-making robots.”
“Now in its second year, ArtBots: The Robot Talent Show will take place on July 12th and 13th from noon to 6:00pm at Eyebeam Gallery in Manhattan’s Chelsea art district. Featuring the work of 23 artists and groups from six countries, the show is a hybrid combining aspects of both a juried art exhibition and a traditional talent show. Participants include robots that draw, paint, sculpt, sing, dance, and play musical instruments, as well as many with talents that are a bit harder to pin down; you might call them robotic sculpture or even cybernetic performance artists!”
Since seeing the graffiti painting robot Hektor this style of art has intrigued me only in part by the outcome but more so the expansion of technology as art. Hektor is a beautifully simple and elegant design and is compelling to watch in action.
I just recently was signing up for an account on a major corporations website (Apple) and the form could not have been simpler and quick to use. However.
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Jonathan Ive has been named as Designer of the Year by the London Design Museum for his work at Apple over the past year but is more like recognition for the past 6. As a non Mac user I envy the design and style of the Apple systems, but not the price. The iMac and Cube are actual things of beauty that will definitely end up in museums as well as modern art galleries. At only 36 he has sealed his reputation as a designer to be respected and admired. It’s a shame that the cube is no longer available, if it had the processing power the pc’s had there’s no doubt it would still be on the market. Perhaps with the upcoming chip change to the IBM PowerPC 970 we’ll see a revival.
While perusing the news aggregator at Harvard I ran across The Zen Garden on Don Park’s blog.
The intent of CSS is to give a site cross browser compatibility and platform independence. They seem to be having some discussion on the useability of the designs shown, and that can be argued. However the primary reason of the site as I see it is to show the ability of having the same rich design and imagery with a CSS based layout engine rather than the quick and dirty Table based ones we all started out making.
Useability is a tricky subject to discuss amongst small groups of people, very few will agree that a site is easily navigable and the colors are appropriate and what not. Creating a useable website isn’t a bullseye shot, rather it’s the attempt at getting a concensus, and useability can vary in the target audience of the site. I wouldn’t impose the same style standards of Microsofts site to a personal blog. I think we should tackle the technical standards by which the layperson can and should create their sites with first and hopefully show good design choices along the way.
Tools such as Moveable Type and others that provide “out of the box” CSS and XHTML compatability are the first step, sites like The Zen Garden allow us to further our quest for great sites.
Like most Nigerians, you’re probably finding that it’s increasingly difficult to earn a decent living from email. That’s why you need to attend The 3rd Annual Nigerian EMail Conference
…found on Jeremy Zawodney’s blog.
Tired of friends? Have too many people hanging around asking you to do stuff or hangout? Well have these people got a solution for you.
“Fiendster is an online community that connects people through networks of fiends who are into boring the pants of each other or who want to make new fiends fast.”
Joshua Ellis of MarginWalker has written an essay on Mindjack about what he refers to as ‘Taste Tribes’. In my opinion what he is referring to are the same as Fan Clubs with a fancy new name for the Millenium. What I think the difference he is pointing out is the speed with which we can join and form these associations and the ease with which we influence each other.
I can more readily form a group of like-minded people on the internet than in meatspace. I would also more readily associate with people that I may not otherwise. Friends and aquaintances form when we find something in common. Be it something we do or like. What is truly different is that I can move in between tribes with ease and share our tastes without the same fear of repercussions. We can even leave these tribes with no trouble.
“But what happens when these tribes become non-localized when they spread their tendrils out along the lattice of the Web? This growth has interesting ramifications, not only for the relationship between media creators and consumers, but for the way that people form online relationships.”
So what does this mean? With the speed with which we can now share our likes and dislikes the media creators, or more importantly their advertisers, have to work overtime to stem the tide of popular opinion. Media creators are more informed by what their tribes feel about the latest book, movie or album. It also means that they are influenced more by their fans than ever before.
With the ever increasing bandwidth of really personal feelings being put on the web in the form of blogs and the means to index and search for these feelings it will bring more power and experiences to the people. A far cry from the first feelings that the internet would divide and sperate it’s users from the real world.
Just learned that Edward Tufte is coming to Atlanta for his conference June 25, and 26. I’d love to attend this conference I’ve admired the work in his books for some time. For me the most important part of Graphic Design is not how your deisgn looks but how it’s interpretted and understood. I’ve always been very middle brained. Walking the path of both visual and contextual information. To tell the truth I’ve never been any good at maths or been extremely creative. My forte has always been the value of both. Walking the knifes edge of duality I will argue any side of a conversation and usually take a contrary position since usually it’s very hard for me to make a firm stance on any issue. I see both sides.
So there has always been that certain something of the cover of Tufte’s “Visual Explanations” book that’s captured my imagination. Firstly the lovely cloud formation trailing over the land like the Starship Enterprise guiding through space. Then there’s the quanititative analysis of that cloud formation that perfectly expresses the information. Brilliant.
In my previous incarnation at a small company called PresentationPro we struggled, and they probably continue to do so after my departure, with the ‘is it a service’ or ‘is it a product’.
Prior to Macromedia’s aquisition of presedia and they’re PowerPoint to Flash converter we we’re working and actually shipped to market one first.
Our converter as a product allowed you to convert a PowerPoint presentation into a SWF file for distribution via the web, email or giving online presentation.
At it’s base it’s a product that does a very specific function but the key is what it does FOR you that matters. And therein we crossed into the service area by adding the service of embedding and sending those SWF files in email or allowing you to host the SWF and give your presentation live to people over the web.
In my experience with this it is easier to describe and sell a product since there really isn’t any equivocation in what it does, but when you try to convey the emotional, social or business impact of a product you cross the line into service. What is a benefit to one person really doesn’t matter to another. Our primary selling vehicle was/is the internet so invariably we had to break it down into business roles or foci and let the viewer choose what was important to them by looking at benefits to salesman or presenters or travel managers and so on.
I’m still not sure what we learned, although it’s my belief that it’s much more powerful to sell a solution than anything else.
The first smiley has been found just in time for it’s 20th anniversary Sept.19,2002.
In 1927 Professor Thomas Purnell of Queensland University started an experiment on the fluidity of everyday things. He has seeled pitch into an airtight container at room temperature to see how it flows over time. Since the experiment began 8 drops have fallen and the ninth is forming now. This is an amazing testament to long term experiments.
Clean Flicks of Colorado file suit for the right to censor movies they rent to customers. Apparently they plan on using the 1st ammendment right to freedom of speech as a primary argument with little regard to the creators copyright which explicitly limits the authority to the creator alone to do so or to waive those rights.
What happened to dealspree.com? Have they gone under and just not taken down the site. They haven’t updated in over a month now and I need my deals damnit!
Scenario: Your leisurely working on your company’s secret plans for ruling the universe at the Airport when you get called to the ticket agent to confirm your seats. When you get back your laptop’s gone and all your company’s critical data as well as your pr0n collection are gone. Vanished. At least you don’t have to worry about the data because you’ve got this!
:courtest //newscientist.com
“Hope and optimism in South Africa’s urban landscape” Shack Chic
Latest book…“Digital Color and Type” by Rob Carter.
Latest Magazine…Metropolis
XHTML 2.0 working draft has been released. Peep ‘em here. Here’s a working XHTML 2.0 working page.
The NYT reports about the growing spread of l337 h4ck3r sp34k growing in the classroom. Due to the widespread use of IM tools such as AIM, MSN Messenger, Trillian and ICQ as well as on IRC children in grade school are peppering their papers with this jargon. I’ve always been interested in how language would evolve in the future and wether or not we would understand if we visited from today. Overtime our writing style has grown to be less formal and perhaps this is the next phase in that evolution. the interesting thing is can it even be stopped. This is a global phenomenon with regard to the English language. People all over the world are learning to shortcut their speech in this manner. With that much force behind it I imagine the language changing very rapidly within the next 25 years as the children grow up and are accustomed to it’s usage.
Made for fun.
