Figured this site would be useful for those that made it through to the end. Their products really work, so make sure you buy the supporting bracelets.
a trustworthy review can be found here, scroll down to #1.
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It was a perverse pleasure toiling away for 6 hours every Saturday with you guys. Hopefully, most of you will still have the will to live, and possibly continue the program. Maybe we'll cross paths again. Good luck!
in August. Just thought I would let the 2 designers that still use it know it will soon be available. and apparently it will be like having InDesign CS3 without Photoshop or Illustrator and 3 years late. But hey, they try. Maybe this time Quark won't have to spend most of its time defending its plagiaristic logo practices.
I have Quark 7 at work, but I only use it for one project: an alumni magazine that hasn't been converted to InDesign. Maybe one day soon that will change.
when i have a leisure moment i enjoy skimming blog sites for upcoming movies. lately, they are helpful in determining what movies i will see, because i don't as much time any more. i also like spoilers, even though they almost always ruin the movie for me. a few of the general sites are Aint It Cool News, The Movie Blog, and Rotten Tomatoes.
My favorite, however, is /Film. I check this site at least 3 times a day. The writing is always funny and enlightening about upcoming movies, hollywood insider scoops into how the movies get made, and reviews of some of the better movies out. a definite must read for popcorn movie buffs.
My first collection as a child was Kirk Gibson baseball cards. I started casually buying packs of cards from a local card dealer when I was 7 or 8. He suggested I collect one individual player. I had no idea at the time who my favorite player should be, so he suggested Kirk Gibson, because we were both from Michigan. I followed Mr. Gibson's career through collecting his cards, I believe I have over 200. I even drew pictures and logos of the teams he played for (my first taste of graphic design.) I'm not sure where the collection is now, hopefully safe in my parent's attic.
This video from youtube reminded me of my collection. Its a recounting of the 1988 world series, game 1 using only baseball cards as visuals to the commentary. the game is most remembered for the game winning home run blasted by Mr. Gibson in the bottom of the 9th, 2 out, 1 on—and Mr. Gibson that evening was sick with the flu, and had two bum knees and could barely walk.
I will probably bring these into share, as they are the least embarrassing of my collections. I haven't actually collected much of anything since high school. Guess time and money are no longer on my side.
One thing I do collect is Wooden Books. These little tomes cover a wide variety of subjects, from math, science, art and astronomy. I particularly enjoy the geometry/pattern books. These are not rare by any means, but there are several to buy. I enjoy picking one up from amazon.com whenever I need something to get me over the $25 limit for super saver shipping. (books only cost $6-$8.)
The other day a few co-workers and I went to the UMD Art School's used book sale. They had a few nice titles, but it reminded my of Powell's Books. They are the amazon.com of used books, you can find almost anything there. However, amazon.com does sell used books now too, so there might be some competition.
a co-worker emailed this to me the other day: The Masdar Initiative. The initiative aims at creating a zero carbon city in the United Arab Emirates. This city boosts clean energy, sound infrastructure, and management of all resources to make the city fully sustainable. Check out the promotional video here.
The video is pretty creepy if you think about the level of control the city planners need to create this oasis in the desert. But it will be interesting to see if they succeed.
as cheesy as it sounds my daughter does inspire me. mostly she inspires me not to be a stay-at-home-spouse. i'm not sure how my wife does it :) i'll call this photo: the calm before the storm.
Stumbled on this resource the other day: Color Chart for Crayola Crayons. Includes crayon names and color codes for 120 distinct hues. Very useful for design, or just curiosity. Check it out!
I see this image all the time. The first graphic may be semi-useful, if the person's finger wasn't chopped off, and if the hand was near the actual button. The other graphic shows what to do with the device, because if you didn't know what the device was you could look at the graphic and know red death rays will attack your dismembered hands.
I also found this diaper graphic online. Not sure if it real, but as a parent I can tell you you don't need instructions to know how to check a diaper...
I was surprised how long the search was to find a package with narrative. The best I could find was the story/history of Stacy's pita chip company:
"I've always had a passion for good food and healthy living, even back in the days of owning a sandwich cart in downtown Boston. Back then, my partner and I made all the natural pita roll-up sandwiches and, as an incentive for customers to wait in line, we baked pita bread into different flavored chips. The chips because remarkably popular and before we knew it, Stacy's Pita Chip Company was born...."
Most items I found in my search started out telling a story, but quickly changed after the first sentence into a product description.
Unveiled a few weeks ago, the new British Coins of the Pound Sterling present a cohesive design to the seven coins. The design ingeniously divides the British Royal Shield into six sections on the back of six coins, and uses the pound coin as a reference to the shield's entirety. Design details can be found at the Royal Mint.
Maria's mention of Post-It Notes as wall art reminded me of the above image. Students from UCSC obviously have way too much time on their hands. It is an awesome display of dedication, planning, and perseverance to construct a monumental tribute to a video game icon. More images and a time lapsed video can be found at this site.
As you can probably tell, I have a love of information graphics. My favorite piece from Edward Tufte's book Envisioning Information is a hospital receipt documenting the slow death of Mrs. K. First published in Harper's in 1984, this graphic tells the story of 26 days in the hospital for one patient, the procedures that she underwent, and the mounting cost to save her life. In the end Mrs. K died and the information presented tells a different story: the staggering cost of health care and the expense incurred when trying to live. (The prices depicted are from the 1980s, today's figures would be much, much higher.)
Octavo Digital Rare Books scans historical texts and preserves them for future generations. Each book can be purchased and viewed on a hi-def DVD or browsed online. The topics range from Graphic Arts (Bodoni's Manuale Tipografico displayed above), to Mathematics, to Religion, and to Art.
Stop motion animation--hands down, the hardest form of animation, but when done right it can be used to tell awesome stories. The key is to have original stories to tell. Robot Chicken on the Cartoon Network uses action figures and pop-culture references. Showcasing hilarious takes on popular films/television from the 1980s-1990s, Robot Chicken grafts original narratives to already popular lore. Recently, Robot Chicken ran an entire episode dedicated to Star Wars. Re-imagining and telling new stories in that universe inspired me when thinking about how to craft the narrative to my film. What if I took a popular story and retold it through a different, original angle?
Rob Sheridan is currently the art director for Nine Inch Nails. His work ranges from photography for album covers, and typography for posters, to design of everything. His illustrations can be found at sketchblog, and more photography at flickr.
Kris Sowersby is a typographer based in New Zealand. I stumbled across his Feijoa typeface in Nick Felton's 2007 annual report. KLIMis an independent type foundry run by Kris, in conjunction with a few other well known type designers. He has only released a select few typefaces for public purchase. National is another outstanding face (based on pre-akzidenz grotesks--precursors to Helvetica). National, Feijoa, and his other commercial typefaces can be purchased at village. (Feijoa does have some problems with its kerning pairs, in large display sizes some letter spacing appears generous.)
The images above are from Kris's sketchbook, published here.
