Mat Giordano - IDEA II

Come and listen to one of our very own graduate Mat Giordano, Senior Designer for IDEA II. Also in attendance will be Jeannette Sanders, the Creative Director of IDEA II. They will both be speaking this Thursday, January 31, 2008 at 2 PM - 3 PM, FS3B-131.

Mat Giordano, Senior Designer
A relatively fresh addition to the artist team at Idea, Mat, a 2006 graduate of the Digital Arts and Design Bachelor's program at Full Sail, brings a broad skill set with an even broader sense of general design sensibility giving him the capability to jump across multiple platforms of new media and interactive projects. A solid stronghold in conceptual problem solving with the ability to make the solution a reality across a number of applications for clients such as HP, Microsoft, and Sony has made coupling design and technological innovation inseparable within his work. Along with Mat's other interests in industrial design, architecture, and B-movie cinema, he is a Frank Zappa fanatic with a love for travel and suffers from a fervent video game obsession.

"IDEA II is a specialized group within Idea Integration, which is a business unit of MPS Group (NYSE: MPS). We conceive and execute interactive solutions from our Houston and New York City offices, which are among the nine national offices that comprise Idea Integration.

IDEA II provides a broad range of services for medium to large companies nationwide, including several Fortune 500 clients. We've been named by Adweek and BtoB magazines as one of top 50 interactive agencies in the nation, and we're ranked among the top five in Texas."

NRDC - Natural Resources Defense Council

"The Natural Resources Defense Council's purpose is to safeguard the Earth: its people, its plants and animals and the natural systems on which all life depends.

We work to restore the integrity of the elements that sustain life -- air, land and water -- and to defend endangered natural places.

We seek to establish sustainability and good stewardship of the Earth as central ethical imperatives of human society. NRDC affirms the integral place of human beings in the environment.

We strive to protect nature in ways that advance the long-term welfare of present and future generations.

We work to foster the fundamental right of all people to have a voice in decisions that affect their environment. We seek to break down the pattern of disproportionate environmental burdens borne by people of color and others who face social or economic inequities. Ultimately, NRDC strives to help create a new way of life for humankind, one that can be sustained indefinitely without fouling or depleting the resources that support all life on Earth."

Student Ideas - Jerry Martin

"Im from a small town north of Houston on Lake Conroe. I have been into fine arts, mainly sketching all my life. Since coming to Florida I found the ways of photography. when im not taking pictures im usually skating, or playing my guitar. I learned from my roomate on an old Minolta film camera and was given a canon xti for my birthday last year. since then I have basically self taught myself messing with things like tilt/shift, HDR and flash and lighting techniques. recenty I got a Holga 120 and am starting to play aorund with medium format film. When done with Full Sail I plan on moving out to Austin, Texas somewhat near my home on Texas's large scale. oh, and a common misconception is that flickr is a stock photography site...which it is not. it's a site photographers and just normal people use to upload and share their pictures personally."

http://flickr.com/photos/almostred/ <----my flickr page

http://bridge.thegluenetwork.com/TheBridge.aspx?mid=2515 <----Bridge Network

What is the Bridge? Why are there 24,902 miles?
The goal of this website is to build a virtual bridge around the planet connecting people who want to make a difference in the world. The distance around the world is 24,902 miles and we are asking 24,902 people to add miles to create this virtual bridge. For each mile created, funds will be given to the charity selected. The goal is to raise $24,902 for people in need.

Student Ideas - Teddy Pieper

"This last Sunday at The Social there was a great show featuring Another Day Late, Danger Radio, Envy On The Coast, and The Audition. All the bands put on a kick ass show, it was well worth the journey out! None of my pictures of Another Day Late Came out but, let me know what you think of the pictures that I did capture." -----Read more: Ted's blog and portfolio

Sonja Mueller has lived in berlin since 2000. She spent 8 years previously living and working in london and munich. Sonja’s mission is to continue to grow and develop as artist and person, using her photography in all genres - fashion, advertising, portraiture and landscape- as a medium for inspiration and a means to understand the world.
She has no desire for self-aggrandisement. If you want to know more, just ask.

British Library Images Online

"The British Library is the national library of the United Kingdom and offers unparalleled access to the world's largest and most comprehensive research collection. The British Library's collections include 150 million items from every era of written human history beginning with Chinese oracle bones dating from 300 BC, right up to today's newspapers.

Images Online gives you instant access to thousands of the greatest images from the British Library's collections which include manuscripts, rare books, musical texts and maps spanning almost 3000 years. The range of images available include illustrations, drawings, paintings and photographs.

The British Library holds a vast array of “Treasures” including Shakespeare’s First Folio, the manuscript of Charlotte Bronte’s Jane Eyre and Thomas Hardy’s Tess of the D'Urbervilles, Leonardo da Vinci’s Notebook , Handel’s Messiah, Lewis Carrolls’s Alice's Adventures Under Ground [in Wonderland] as well as sacred texts such as the Sultan Baybars’ Qur’an, the Lindisfarne Gospels, the Golden Haggadah. Images related to all these texts are available to license via Images Online."

XEROX - Rebranding

Contrary to other logos, like AT&T or UPS, the old Xerox wordmark was not necessarily good or looked as a paragon of our profession, so its demise is not mourned. The short-lived digitized X on the other hand was incredibly communicative and expressive of the place that Xerox occupied at the moment — bridging new and old technologies and processes — but at the same time, despite nostalgia, the pixelation effect was probably as clichéd then as these electric bugaloos are today. The Xerox wordmark was in serious need of an update and, letter for letter (except for the "r"), this new wordmark does an amazing job. Those "x"s are to die for. A wise move would have been to simply move forward with the wordmark, placing emphasis and importance on the word Xerox, which has plenty of equity. But instead we had to be graced with the introduction of this furious marble that is downright abominable and meaningless but come to think of it, it does take my mind off of "the copier company". Just not with good thoughts. Read more: Underconsideration

posted by Brian Ashe

Student Ideas - Michael Jay Yap

"Michael Jay Yap

New Jersey Native

I am Japanese, Chinese, Malaysion, Filipino

21 years old born on October 30,1986 in New Jersey

I've been collecting designer toys/urban vinyl and plastic since 2003 and collecting sneakers since 2005.

I started doodling characters and street art in 2004 after going to an art show of artist, Furtura. After that i went to many I guess you could say mixed media and designer toy shows making new friends and learning new things as i came and went.I get my inspiration for my characters from all the cartoons i watched as a kid, my dreams, and the designer toys I collect. I love color and there is so much color spread through the designer toy world and sneakers. I hope one day i can travel around the world to meet or work for and with people who have the same passion as me."

>http://www.magic-pony.com/
> http://www.vinylpulse.com/
> http://rotofugi.com/Merchant2/merchant.mvc
> http://strangeco.com/index_home.php
> http://www.sket-one.com/
> http://toyqube.com/
> http://www.vinylabuse.com/
> http://www.plasticandplush.com/
> http://www.huckgee.com/
> http://www.fkozik.com/
> http://www.timbiskup.com/index.html
> http://myplasticheart.com/
> http://www.munkyking.com/
> http://www.jeremyville.com/
> http://www.dvrb.jp/
> http://apakstudio.com/
> http://critterbox.com/
> http://www.monsterism.net/
> http://candykiller.com/
> www.colette.fr
> www.bonustoyz.com
> http://www.sillypinkbunnies.com/
> http://www.joeledbetter.com/
> www.fafi.net
> www.spanofsunset.com

Project Ideas - Spot the Trends

Spend enough time looking at design and new-product Web sites, with their endless cavalcades of aesthetically appealing objects, and it’s easy to spot recurring themes. One of the most interesting is things that look like other things: a vase that looks like a paper bag, a tape dispenser that looks like a cassette, a drink coaster that looks like a chocolate bar, even bars of soap that look like tiny hands. Read more:
Imitation of Life
By ROB WALKER
Published: January 13, 2008
How soaps that look like little hands connect with the contradictory attractions of novelty and familiarity.

Project ideas: Toy Company

Thunderdog is a Creative Agency and Toy Company world-renowned for experimental design, creative exhibitioning and Fine Art based product.

Founded by Tristan Eaton in 2003, THUNDERDOG currently resides in D.U.M.B.O. Brooklyn and continues to strive for Pop Art excellence in everything they do.
Thunderdog believes that art is defined by it’s maker.
Tristan Eaton, Graffiti Artist, Illustrator & Toy Designer

XLR8R - music, culture, style, and technology in Seattle

XLR8R (pronounced "accelerator") is a magazine and website that covers music, culture, style, and technology. It was founded as a newsprint ‘zine in 1993 by publisher Andrew Smith in Seattle; the magazine currently has offices in San Francisco and New York. While XLR8R’s initial focus was on electronic music, it has over the years widened its scope to include indie rock, hip-hop, and reggae/ dancehall music as well as related trends in style, art, fashion, and technology.

Frieze Magazine

frieze magazine is Europe’s leading magazine of contemporary art and culture. frieze is published eight times a year and includes essays, reviews, columns and listings by the most forward-thinking writers.

Frieze Art Fair takes place every October in Regent’s Park, London. It features over 150 of the most exciting contemporary art galleries in the world. The fair also includes specially commissioned artists’ projects, a prestigious talks programme and an artist-led education schedule.

Frieze Foundation is a non-profit organization responsible for the curated programme at Frieze Art Fair, comprising artist commissions, talks, films, music and education. The Foundation is funded by the European Commission and Arts Council England.

Get Started Collecting Comic Art

Comic book art can be a daunting thing to get into. It is expensive, hard to come buy, and you don't know who to trust in getting what you pay for. Take a look at some surefire ways to get comic art easily and on the cheap. These are some great tips to getting started in collecting comic book art. From Aaron Albert

The Medium

"About The Medium - With television and the Internet converging at last, who's going to watch all this here-goes-nothing online video? Everything from political propaganda videos to pseudo-candid celebrity rants seems to expect an audience. "The Medium" will find, review and make sense of all those senseless new images: web video, viral video, user-driven video, custom interactive video, embedded video ads, web-based VOD, broadband television, diavlogs, vcasts, vlogs, video podcasts, mobisodes, webisodes, mashups and more."

Blaise Aguera y Arcas: Photosynth demo

Using photos of oft-snapped subjects (like Notre Dame) scraped from around the Web, Photosynth creates breathtaking multidimensional spaces with zoom and navigation features that outstrip all expectation. Its architect, Blaise Aguera y Arcas, shows it off in this standing-ovation demo. Curious about that speck in corner? Dive into a freefall and watch as the speck becomes a gargoyle. With an unpleasant grimace. And an ant-sized chip in its lower left molar. "Perhaps the most amazing demo I've seen this year," wrote Ethan Zuckerman, after TED2007. Indeed, Photosynth might utterly transform the way we manipulate and experience digital images.

"The Photosynth Technology Preview is a taste of the newest - and, we hope, most exciting - way to view photos on a computer. Our software takes a large collection of photos of a place or an object, analyzes them for similarities, and then displays the photos in a reconstructed three-dimensional space, showing you how each one relates to the next.

In our collections, you can access gigabytes of photos in seconds, view a scene from nearly any angle, find similar photos with a single click, and zoom in to make the smallest detail as big as your monitor."