Monday, December 28, 2009

Littlesnapper review


Monday, November 23, 2009

Art Basel Miami Beach takes place December 3 - 6, 2009



Art Basel Miami Beach is the most important art show in the United States, a cultural and social highlight for the Americas. As the sister event of Switzerland's Art Basel, the most prestigious art show worldwide for the past 40 years, Art Basel Miami Beach combines an international selection of top galleries with an exciting program of special exhibitions, parties and crossover events featuring music, film, architecture and design. Exhibition sites are located in the city's beautiful Art Deco District, within walking distance of the beach and many hotels. An exclusive selection of more than 250 leading art galleries from North America, Latin America, Europe, Asia and Africa will exhibit 20th and 21st century artworks by over 2,000 artists. The exhibiting galleries are among the world's most respected art dealers, offering exceptional pieces by both renowned artists and cutting-edge newcomers. Special exhibition sections feature young galleries, performance art, public art projects and video art. The show will be a vital source for art lovers, allowing them to both discover new developments in contemporary art and experience rare museum-calibre artworks.

Thursday, November 19, 2009

Homage to Jeanne-Claude


http://www.christojeanneclaude.net/

Artist Jeanne-Claude (née Denat de Guillebo) died in New York Wednesday evening of complications from a brain aneurysm. Along with her husband and artistic partner Christo, whom she met in 1958, she undertook an international series of large-scale outdoor installations, modifying landscapes with industrial strength cloth ballooned, wrapped, and tied. In a tale that legends are made of, the pair were born on the same date, the 13th of June in 1935, and allegedly in the same hour. Of note is the fact that all of Christo and Jeanne-Claude’s projects are self-financed — meaning a pretty significant initial outlay for, say, 1.076 million square feet of aluminum-coated fabric to cover the entire façade of the Reichstag in Berlin. In honor of Jeanne-Claude’s legacy in the realm of environmental art, we’ve compiled a visual primer of the duo’s oeuvre after the jump.

As reported in the LA Times arts blog Culture Monster, Jeanne-Claude’s professed to keep no favorites among her many influential works: “We always say that each one of our projects is a child of ours, and a father and mother who have many children will never tell you which one is their favorite. If people insist that we have to have a favorite one, then we say, ‘Okay, you are right, we do have a favorite one and it’s always the next one.’”

Tuesday, October 27, 2009

Emigre No. 70 - The Look Back Issue




Emigre No. 70 - The Look Back Issue

Selections from Emigre Magazine #1 - #69
This 512-page book, designed and edited by Emigre co-founder and designer Rudy VanderLans, is a selection of reprints that traces Emigre’s development from its early bitmap design days in the mid 1980s through to the experimental layouts that defined the so-called “Legibility Wars” of the late 1990s, to the critical design writing of the early 2000s. Featuring interviews with, among others, The Designers Republic, Allen Hori, Rick Valicenti, Vaughan Oliver, Mr. Keedy, Ed Fella, and essays by Lorraine Wild, Anne Burdick, Zuzana Licko, Kenneth FitzGerald, Andrew Blauvelt, Kalle Lasn, Rick Poynor and many more.

Thursday, October 22, 2009

Geza M. Tot - KEDD Animation Studio

Géza M. Tóth

Born in 1970. Hungarian artist, animation filmmaker Geza M. Toth has been working also as a tutor at several animation film institutes such as the Animation Department of the Moholy-Nagy University of Art and Design, Budapest, the Royal College of Art, London, the National Institute of Design, Ahmedabad (India) and Filmakademie Baden-Württemberg, Ludwigsburg (Germany).

Founder and managing director of the KEDD Animation Studio. In the past years has created approx. 120 animation signals, commercials and short animation films. His productions were successfully screened at different international festivals all over the world. In 2007 his short film, 'Maestro' was nominated to the American Academy Awards in the Best Animated Short Film category.

Wednesday, October 7, 2009

Creative Industrial Design : Literalist Product Packaging


naoto fukasawa

was born in yamanashi prefecture, japan, in1956.
he graduated from tama art university's product
design department in art and 3D design in 1980.
until 1988, fukasawa worked as a designer at
seiko-epson corp.
in 1989, he left japan for the united states.
in san francisco he joined a small office that had
employed 15 persons - ‘ID two’, the predecessor
to ‘IDEO’, which now has 450 staff in san francisco,
palo alto, boston, chicago, london and munich.
after eight years fukasawa returned home.
in 1996, he helped set up ‘IDEO’ in japan - a team
of eight designers working mainly for the japanese
market. he stayed with it until december 2002.
naoto fukasawa he went independent and in
january 2003 he established ‘naoto fukasawa design
in tokyo. fukasawa joined the advisory board of the
japanese company ‘MUJI’.
Read more...

Tuesday, October 6, 2009

Optical Illusions in Advertising


(c) MACLAREN MCCANN CANADA INC. - Optical Illusions in Advertising


KINETIC ART : FROM PAINTING TO ARCHITECTONIC

Victor Vasarely is often perceived as the father of Op’art.

The notion of cinetic art appeared for the first time in 1964. It aspires to explore simple geometric elements and the physics of shape in order to create dynamic optical phenomenon that entice a spectator’s active observations.

The result of artistic research carried out simultaneously by Albers and Vasarely, Op’art was born in 1955. Their initial work on this new artistic movement was furthered by subsequent generations of artists including: Agam, Soto, Cruz Diez, Morellet, Yvaral, Le Parc, Sobrino…

A similar style had already appeared in works by Bauhaus masters: Moholy-Nagy, Klee, Kandinsky and Itten, as well as in creations by Malevitch, Sophie Tauber-Arp and Mondrian.

“Bauhaus” is an experimental didactic and artistic centre which was founded in Weimer in 1919 and that operated until 1933, when the Nazis took power. The adaptation of Art and Architecture to the new-born elements of the Industrial age began at the start of the 20th century. Following (aesthetic) experiments of the "Deutsche Werkbund", initiated by Muthesius in 1907, Walter Gropius establishes a new vision of teaching that is to unify artists and artisans in collective style and research projects. The main focus is the discovery of forms that facilitate the production of series’ of artwork.

Bauhaus, or “the house in which we build” designates not only a particular technique in the history of art itself, but an attempt to blur the borders drawn between various aspects of culture and society.

Its manifesto never seemed as pertinent as it does today :

"This is not about teachers and students, but about masters and apprentices; this is not about artists specialised in general or applied arts, but about creators who complete each other in order to serve a common goal" Read more...

Sunday, October 4, 2009

Homage to Mercedes Sosa

Grammy Winner Fused Folk Music With Social Justice

Volver A Los 17


Volver a los diecisiete despues de vivir un siglo
es como descifrar signos sin ser sabio competente,
volver a ser de repente tan frágil como un segundo
volver a sentir profundo como un niño frente a Dios
eso es lo que siento yo en este instante fecundo.

Se va enredando, enredando
como en el muro la hiedra
y va brotando, brotando
como el musguito en la piedra
como el musguito en la piedra, ay si, si, si.

Mi paso retrocedido cuando el de usted es avance
el arca de las alianzas ha penetrado en mi nido
con todo su colorido se ha paseado por mis venas
y hasta la dura cadena con que nos ata el destino
es como un diamante fino que alumbra mi alma serena.

Se va enredando, enredando
como en el muro la hiedra
y va brotando, brotando
como el musguito en la piedra
como el musguito en la piedra, ay si, si, si.

Lo que puede el sentimiento no lo ha podido el saber
ni el más claro proceder, ni el más ancho pensamiento
todo lo cambia al momento cual mago condescendiente
nos aleja dulcemente de rencores y violencias
solo el amor con su ciencia nos vuelve tan inocentes.

Se va enredando, enredando
como en el muro la hiedra
y va brotando, brotando
como el musguito en la piedra
como el musguito en la piedra, ay si, si, si.

El amor es torbellino de pureza original
hasta el feroz animal susurra su dulce trino
detiene a los peregrinos, libera a los prisioneros,
el amor con sus esmeros al viejo lo vuelve niño
y al malo sólo el cariño lo vuelve puro y sincero.

Se va enredando, enredando
como en el muro la hiedra
y va brotando, brotando
como el musguito en la piedra
como el musguito en la piedra, ay si, si, si.

De par en par la ventana se abrió como por encanto
entró el amor con su manto como una tibia mañana
al son de su bella diana hizo brotar el jazmín
colando cual serafín al cielo le puso aretes
mis años en diecisiete los convirtió el querubín.

Friday, October 2, 2009

Rio 2016 - Olympic Games - Master Plan‏


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5TCoqZNesnM&feature=related

The visual identity of the Rio de Janeiro candidature consists of a logo and a slogan, which are being applied in marketing moves during the campaign.[87] Designed by Ana Soter and selected among four finalists by a special jury, the logo was unveiled during the 2007 Brazilian Olympic Awards, held at the Municipal Theater of Rio de Janeiro, on December 17, 2007.[87][88][89] The
Sugarloaf Mountain was chosen as the symbol, representing the natural richness of Rio de Janeiro.[88] According to the Rio de Janeiro 2016 bid committee, the design as a whole conveys a heart shape, representing Brazilian passion and enthusiasm for sports.[88][90] Through its mirroring effect, the symbol also forms a stylized clover.[88] At midnight on January 1, 2009, Rio de Janeiro's Olympic slogan "Live your passion" was launched as part of the New Year's celebrations.[87][91][92] The slogan reflects the Brazilian people's way of getting passionately involved in whatever they do.[93] It was projected onto a Rio de Janeiro 2016-themed big wheel immediately after the ten-second countdown to the beginning of 2009.[94] The structure, purposedly erected at the Copacabana beach to promote the candidature,[95] is 36 m (118 ft 1 in) high, weighs 80 tonnes (180,000 lb) and has 24 gondolas with a capacity for 144 people.[96] Approximately two million people attended the official launch of Rio de Janeiro's bid slogan.

Wednesday, September 30, 2009

5 Ways to Grow as an Artist

Getting Back to the Spirit of Artists in Paris
Forget about exhibitions and juries, try these five ways to grow as an artist
From Jerry Fresia, for About.com

"I... must stick to my principles, our principles, which were, no jury, no medals, no awards.... Liberty is the first good in this world and to escape the tyranny of a jury is worth fighting for, surely no profession is so enslaved as ours." Mary Cassatt

"Think less of the success of the by-product and you will have more success with it. Keep living." Robert Henri

So how would a Cassatt or a Henri or Picasso approach painting differently than we do today? How might this heartfelt fear of others controlling our painting process impact our self-understanding as artists? Here are five possible answers:

1. Making a successful picture is not the goal.

2. The painting process is always a beginning.

3. Ignore non-artist authorities.

4. Get into a prolonged creative process.

5. Furnish the world with your beauty, let the world see, touch and feel who you are.

Tuesday, September 22, 2009

John Langdon: Ambigrams, Logos, Word Art



Wordsmith

A great Wordsmith ambigram designed by John Langdon.

“Ambigrams are the hottest trend in typography since Helvetica.” Wired Magazine 4.20.09

A Clever Collection of 40+ Inspiring Ambigrams

Sep 17th in Inspiration by Sonali Vora

An ambigram as defined by Wikipedia, "is a typographical design or artform that may be read as one or more words not only in its form as presented, but also from another viewpoint, direction, or orientation." To simply put, an ambigram is a typographical creation where the word reads the same when upside down, or flips to create a whole new word. Ambigrams are often very sophisticated and very imaginative typographical style of visual design.

So let's take a look at some delightful graphic logotypes that read the same when they are reversed or flipped upside-down.

Ambigram Artist and Drexel's John Langdon Behind Symbols Appearing in Angels & Demons
May 04, 2009

Philadelphia
All those symbols flashing in Web site promos and posters promoting Ron Howard’s new film “Angels & Demons,” based on the novel by Dan Brown, were created by a professor of typography at Drexel University. John Langdon, who, not by coincidence, shares the same last name as the film’s protagonist played by Tom Hanks, has been creating ambigrams — words that can be read from left to right, upside down or from multiple viewpoints — since the 1970s. The follow up to the international blockbuster “The DaVinci Code” features Langdon’s ambigrams, which were first seen by the public in Brown’s novel, Angels and Demons, published in 2000. Read more...

Wednesday, September 16, 2009

The Style & Design 100

The Design 100 by TIME

Good design is everywhere these days. Great design—the objects, places and ideas that fuse functionality and aesthetics and then push the boundaries a step further to capture the imagination—is more elusive. Take a look at the standouts.


designed by British design firm Pearlfisher

Friday, August 21, 2009

African and Oceanic Art From the Barbier-Mueller Museum, Geneva: A Legacy of Collecting

Published: June 5, 2009
This show, an unabashed masterpiece display, is a gold mine of historical data and a connoisseur’s delight.

Friday, August 14, 2009

Cuba Obscura - Pinhole Photographs



These are a collection of Pinhole Photographs taken in Cuba during December 2006 and January 2007 by Brian Barry. They were printed as Photo Intaglio etchings between September 2007 and January 2008 in Cork Printmakers.
Pinhole photography (or Camera Obscura) is photography stripped back to its rudimentary beginnings. Pinhole Camera consists solely of a light-tight box with a tiny pinhole at the front which acts as a lens, thus dispensing with roughly 150 years of innovation and technological advancement. Read more...

Friday, August 7, 2009

New Acropolis Museum, Athens


Opening Ceremony Video Projections directed by Athina Rachel Tsangari
"Reflections" -- Large-scale site-specific video projections accompanying the opening of the New Acropolis Museum in Athens, Greece, on June 19-23, 2009.

Conceived and directed by Athina Rachel Tsangari. Animations by: antidot design studio, HAOS Film, Nomint motion design, and Oval Image. Music by Stavros Gasparatos.

Tuesday, August 4, 2009

Greece: Parthenon (Room 18)


Playwright, author and British Museum trustee, Bonnie Greer celebrates the enduring beauty and humanity of the Parthenon Sculptures
447 – 432 BC

The Parthenon was built as a temple dedicated to the goddess Athena. It was the centrepiece of an ambitious building programme on the Acropolis of Athens. The temple’s great size and lavish use of white marble was intended to show off the city’s power and wealth at the height of its empire.

Monday, August 3, 2009

MATCHING COLOR


by Steven Waxman
Entire books have been written on the subject of matching color. However, for now I’d like to throw out a few general rules to help start your discussion with your printer.
First of all, don’t choose color on your monitor. Color on a monitor is made up of red, green, and blue phosphors (light). Ink color, on the other hand, is made up of cyan, magenta, yellow, and black ink. The colors within the realm of light do not match the colors within the realm of ink.
That said, there are exceptions to every rule. If you can (rigidly) control the lighting conditions under which you observe color on the monitor, and if you have the money for color calibration software, you might be the exception, and you might come closer than most people to actually matching your monitor colors to the final printed colors. You would also need the time to calibrate your monitor on a regular basis. Color management from monitor to ink-jet proofer to offset press is possible with today’s technology. I just wouldn’t advise it unless you have a lot of extra time and money.
Instead, choose color using printed ink samples. Pantone color swatch books can be purchased online, and in graphic design and art supply stores. Sometimes they can be obtained for free from your printer. Some of these books show you the Pantone colors (PMS colors) next to their closest process color match. And they will probably even show you the percentages of cyan, magenta, yellow, and black that you will need to convey to your printer to reproduce these colors.
To be safe, provide a printed sample showing the exact color you want. If it’s a PMS swatch or process match swatch, or if it’s just a printed sample you’d like to match, the safest way to communicate color is with a physical example of the color.
This is particularly appropriate if you are trying to match the colors in a corporate logo. In this case it would be a catastrophe if the colors on the printed sheet didn’t match your company’s chosen logo colors exactly. Therefore, your printer can take the samples provided and read them with a color spectrophotometer. This device will analyze the hue (rather than the density, which is what a densitometer reads) and break the color down into its component percentages of C, M, Y, and K. Your offset printer can then advise you as to the proper percentages to enter into your image editing, drawing, or page composition art files. Once you have updated your art files with this color information, they will yield the color builds you want and expect, and there should not be any surprises with the final printed job.
In addition, your printer may advise you to add one or two PMS colors and avoid a color build altogether. If your printer is using a six-color press to print your four-color job, and if the fidelity of the logo colors is crucial, your several hundred dollar expenditure (more or less) to add PMS inks to the two unused units on the press might be a wise allocation of funds. After all, color does vary a bit throughout a 4-color press run—unless you substitute PMS match inks for the crucial process color builds.
One final thing to remember is that a color spectrophotometer is expensive and not every printer has one. So ask first. But in general, your printer is your best ally in matching color, and presenting him with a printed sample you like makes his job much, much easier.
*[Steven Waxman is a printing consultant. He teaches corporations how to save money buying printing, sells printing services, and teaches prepress techniques. Steven has been in the industry for twenty-five years, working as a writer, editor, photographer, graphic designer, art director, production manager, and print buyer.]

Sunday, August 2, 2009

Student Ideas - Raniel Dantic




This drawing was made for a postcard assignment made to mimic a style. I chose to mimic Art Nouveau, well John Dyer Baizley for the most part. He is a current artist whom I have solely recognized for his album art and poster design. I am interested in the way he collages beautiful imagery with gore. The idea of combining opposites is an obsession of mine. My drawings are just doodles in which some occassions become an elaborate composition. There is never a process or an idea. Along with most, I have recognized drawing to be a meditation and without the right mindset I find it impossible to draw a line.
the 'postcard' assignment
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v145/afrocentric/Poster.jpg?t=1248193300

revised for flyer
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v145/afrocentric/BuffClout2.jpg?t=1248193300

Raniel Dantic
canigetopen.blogspot.com

Saturday, August 1, 2009

New Logo Design: X-MEN




Check out the whole design process involved in Marvel's new X-MEN logo. Pretty straight forward. I was trying to anticipate what they'd WANT as opposed to what I thought would be the coolest. But I set out to come up with something that would run off the page. I like breaking the trim on covers for some reason. Blambot Comic Fonts & Lettering
NATE PIEKOS graduated with a Bachelor of Arts in Design from Rhode Island College in 1998. Since founding Blambot, he has lettered comic books for Marvel Comics, DC Comics, Oni Press and Dark Horse Comics as well as dozens of independent publishers. In 2001 he became type designer to Harvey Award Winner, Mike "Madman" Allred, and has had his designs licensed by such companies as Microsoft, Six Flags Amusement Parks, New Yorker Magazine, The Gap, and many more. Nate's work has not only been utilized in comics, but on television and in feature films as well.

Wednesday, July 29, 2009

Merce Cunningham, Dance Visionary, Dies


Merce Cunningham, the revolutionary American choreographer, died Sunday night at his home in Manhattan. He was 90.His death was announced by the Cunningham Dance Foundation.

Over a career of nearly seven decades, Mr. Cunningham went on posing “But” and “What if?” questions, making people rethink the essence of dance and choreography. He went on doing so almost to the last.

Until 1989, when he reached 70, he appeared in every single performance given by the Merce Cunningham Dance Company. In 1999, at 80, though frail and holding onto a barre, he danced a duet with Mikhail Baryshnikov at the New York State Theater in Lincoln Center. In April he observed his 90th birthday with the 90-minute “Nearly Ninety” at the Brooklyn Academy of Music.

Read more...

http://www.merce.org/

Wednesday, July 22, 2009

Average Community, Documentary by Zara Brothers




The first public showing of Average Community will be on Sunday August 30th at 12:30pm at the Enzian Theater in Maitland, Florida. www.enzian.org. Save the date!

More info at www.AverageCommunity.com

About the film

Welcome to Trenton, New Jersey, a post-industrial wasteland of abandoned factories, neglected row houses and urban decay. Trenton is a relic of America’s once-thriving manufacturing economy, the kind of city most of us have long since forgotten. But for Fred Zara, a 30-something family man living an average suburban life near downtown Orlando, it’s not so easy a place to forget.

Growing up in Trenton in the mid-1980s, Fred went by the name of Fred Fatal, played drums in a punk-rock band called Prisoners of War, and was filled with so much teen angst that he managed to get himself kicked out of high school before reaching the 10th grade.

“Average Community” follows Fred on a 900-mile journey back to his hometown to confront his troubled past, and the troubled people in it, in the hopes of understanding how the person he was made him into the person he is. Fred is joined by his two older brothers, one a disheartened New York journalist, the other a free-spirited Seattle musician, as he reunites with old friends, revisits painful memories and tries to make sense of what it meant to grow up in a dying city.

Tuesday, July 14, 2009

10 Principles of Beautiful Photography



by Trey Ratcliff – note: this article appeared in Smashing Magazine in February of 2009.

A camera does not work like an eye; memory does not work like film.

There is a fine line between a photo that is quite nice and one that is quite breathtaking. At some undefined point, a photo can cross the Rubicon and be forever a piece of beautiful art. That hinterland between a regular photo and evocative art is a moving target from person to person and taste to taste. However, that zone of wonderment can be narrowed a bit once you start to consider about the way the brain stores memories and emotions.

And, yes, it gets a bit touchy-feely here to determine if you have been able to cross that line. With rigorous practice and peer feedback, you can start to appreciate where that zone is and consequently improve your hit ratio.

The good news is that it does not require rune rites of scapulimancy to divine your way to a more beautiful photo. There are some basic things and mantras to keep in mind as you practice and fail then practice and succeed then practice and fail and then rinse and repeat. I’ll detail a few of these below. Read more...

Thursday, June 25, 2009


"It's about reacting to what you see, hopefully without preconception. You can find pictures anywhere. It's simply a matter of noticing things and organizing them. You just have to care about what's around you and have a concern with humanity and the human comedy."

Elliott Erwitt joined Magnum Photos in 1953 and became a full Member in 1954.

Friday, June 19, 2009

"Typeface," Kartemquin Films' new documentary


Typeface focuses on a rural Midwestern museum and print shop where international artists meet retired craftsmen and together navigate the convergence of modern design and traditional technique.

It’s a Thursday afternoon and all is quiet in Two Rivers, Wisconsin. Main Street is virtually empty, and there are “for rent” signs in several shop windows. In the last few years, the un-employment rate has been consistently on the rise in the region. Factories are leaving the heartland for cheaper locales and the little town of Two Rivers is struggling to re-invent itself. Jim VanLanen, one of the town’s most industrious entrepreneurs, began developing small museums as a way to bring tourists and industry to the area.

A few blocks off the main drag, in a section of the old cavernous Hamilton printing factory, a lone employee waits in the most popular of these museums for visitors to come. A couple of individuals straggle in every few days and then, come Friday, the museum fills with life. Machines hum, presses print, artists buzz about. One weekend each month, the quiet of Two Rivers is interrupted as carloads of artisans drive in from across the Midwest. The place comes alive as printmaking workshops led by, and filled with, some of the region’s top creative talent descend on the sleepy enclave. The museum is significant to the town’s history, but more importantly, its existence is critical to the worldwide design community who are passionate about the history of their craft and its function in the contemporary field. They believe the future of their industry may lie in the past.

Typeface, Kartemquin’s latest documentary in progress, will bring this fascinating junction of historical and contemporary, as well as rural and urban America together for enjoyment and contemplation. This film will be of interest to art and graphic design enthusiasts, to teachers as an educational resource, and to anyone looking for a film about perseverance and preservation in the heart of America.

Thursday, June 18, 2009

Film critics from Synecdoche, New York DVD



Rainbeau Creative
Synecdoche, New York, my favorite film of 2008, is now available on DVD and Blu-Ray. On the disc's Special Feature "Infectious Diseases in Cattle: Bloggers' Round Table", I talk about the film's merits with other film critics.

Screenhead
Picture this: you find yourself at Blockbuster talking to the employee (probably called a companion or a facilitator) about favorite movies. The first word out of their mouth is Glitter. You feel the bile rising up your throat, and you run away as fast as you can to your friend. Your friend who shares your obsession for Fight Club, or your unhealthy obsession with the Godfather. We are that friend. We are fellow ScreenHeads.

film freak central
Now and zen I think about life and stuff.
Roman Polanski's character in The Tenant asks his beatnik girlfriend a great philosophical question, which I'll paraphrase here: If I cut off my arms, I say, "This is me, and these are my arms." If I cut off my legs, I say, "This is me, and these are my legs." But if I cut off my head, do I say, "This is me, and this is my body," or "This is me, and this is my head."? What right does my head have to say it's me?
I know how I'd answer that question.
I love to write. I love to watch movies. I love to read. Film Freak Central is for people who share these passions.
This is me, and this is my website.
-Bill Chambers, Editor-in-Chief


SpoutBlog
SpoutBlog is here to discover and digest everything worth knowing in movies each day.

For anyone with more than a fleeting interest in movies, the landscape of film is changing drastically. A movie lover’s passion for film doesn’t recognize boundaries between Hollywood blockbusters, unsung independent achievements and viral clips from YouTube.

Wherever the under hyped piece of genius or over hyped piece of not-so-genius comes from, chances are we’re writing about it here. And when there’s a film festival to attend, we’ll probably be there treasure hunting for movies and interviewing filmmakers on the bleeding edge of the Industry.

Wednesday, June 17, 2009

Consumers will drive sustainable packaging design


Dorothy Mackenzie, packagingnews.co.uk, 10 June 2009
Dorothy Mackenzie, chairman of creative agency Dragon Rouge, argues that consumers' desire for more sustainable packaging should prompt a new wave of manufacturer-led product and pack innovation. 

Consumers, particularly in the UK, have expressed concern about packaging waste – to a level often disproportionate to the real impact of packaging and at the expense of concern about other aspects of products' sustainability performance. This has encouraged retailers to launch a packaging crusade with commitments, such as Wal-Mart's target to reduce packaging by 5% over the next four years.  
Retailers grabbed the initiative on packaging, leaving many manufacturers standing on the sidelines trying to deal with conflicting retailer agendas, such as weight reduction versus recyclabilty or use of recylcate versus biodegradability. It has appeared as though retailers were calling all the shots, exhorting manufacturer's brands into minor packaging changes that may have offered some incremental improvements, but which were largely missed by consumers.  
Some companies – notably Unilever – have been introducing innovative consumer packaging with a noticeably better environmental footprint, but many others have been slow to act in a way that consumers recognise, although they may have been achieving worthwhile changes in transport or outer packaging. This represents a missed opportunity for building positive engagement with consumers. Consumers are likely to be positively influenced by innovative packaging that delivers environmental benefits, provided of course, that it also offers convenience and other performance benefits.  
In some areas, the need for consumers to modify their behaviour, to adapt to the new packaging format, can offer a good platform for interaction and dialogue. It provides some interesting new content for brand communication and some opportunities for inspiring on-pack messaging.  Refill packs are being explored again, for example by Dairy Crest, and while this will be far from an automatic and easy switch for consumer, it does add some interest and excitement to an otherwise generic and routine purchase – and something to talk about.  
To achieve significant improvements, however, it will often be necessary to consider the product and pack together, rather than focus simply on changing the pack around the existing product. We have already seen examples of this with concentrate detergents and there will be more. The desire to reduce the impact of the packaging stimulates a "why does it have to be like this?" review of the product as well. This could be a more productive starting point for innovation than focusing on packaging alone.  
This more holistic approach, considering product and packaging together, also gives manufacturers an opportunity to take a step beyond where retailers can go by building sustainability into the brand and product itself, rather than just looking for amendments to existing systems. This approach will require a close partnership with the packaging and product supply chain, to unleash their deep levels of knowledge to speed up the innovation process. It will also demand a good understanding of consumer insights to know what is possible. 
Dragon Rouge has joined forces with Cook Business Consulting to deliver new product and packaging ideas, for brand owners and retailers, that are more sustainable and commercially attractive.

MSU wins $400,000 from Coca-Cola Company to create packaging innovation, sustainability center

Published: Jan. 23, 2009 
EAST LANSING, Mich. — Improving the global sustainability of product packaging took a meaningful step forward with a new collaboration proposed by The Coca-Cola Company and Michigan State University. Coca-Cola awarded $400,000 to MSU’s College of Agriculture and Natural Resources to help establish a new Center for Packaging Innovation and Sustainability.

The planned center, to be housed in the MSU School of Packaging, will serve as a think tank for packaging innovation and sustainability and a research and education hub to measure and reduce packaging’s environmental impact. The Coca-Cola grant represents the initiating gift in a campaign to establish the global center.

"The Coca-Cola Company is honored to collaborate with Michigan State University in its quest to bring corporate, academic and packaging professionals together to foster new ideas in sustainable packaging,” said Ingrid Saunders Jones, senior vice president of global community connections for The Coca-Cola Company.

“Our company has set ambitious environmental goals to not only deliver quality products, but to also have minimal impact on the environment. Research and work generated through this collaboration with MSU will assist us in reaching our goals,” she said.

Read more...

UCSD educator artfully elevates eccentricity



Professor Ernest Silva wants aspiring artists and dabblers alike to dive in, 'get dirty'
By David Coddon 2:00 a.m. May 24, 2009

An admittedly “eccentric interview style” helped artist Ernest Silva get his job teaching in the Visual Art Department at UCSD.

How eccentric? He brought a garment bag with him to the Washington, D.C., interview for a one-year position. Inside: a selection of men's suits he had painted. One of his interviewers that day, UCSD faculty member and artist Eleanor Antin, “saw it as a sort of mini-performance,” Silva recalled with a smile. Not long afterward, the Providence, R.I.-born Silva – who'd received his BFA from the University of Rhode Island and MFA from Temple University's Tyler School of Art – found himself in San Diego, joining a prestigious faculty that included not only Antin, but also the likes of Manny Farber, Patricia Patterson and Allan Kaprow. “An incredibly diverse and exciting group,” Silva said. Read more...

Tuesday, June 9, 2009

Designer Renato P. Lotfi - Saatchi Australia


My name is Renato Lotfi. I'm a designer and this is a brief introduction to my work since I started back in "98. Enjoy.

Monday, June 8, 2009

Networking - Mark Monlux Illustrations


Business Tip: Mark Monlux’s History of Social Networking
In this short 8 minute video, Mark Monlux talks about his personal approach to using social networking tools for attract business as an independent professional illustrator. From a May 27, 2009 panel at the Seattle Graphic Artists Guild.
This entry was posted on Sunday, June 7th, 2009 at 9:09 am

Friday, June 5, 2009

CONNECTIONS NYC


The date is set, over 2000 guests are on their way, the champagne is being chilled, and the time to connect is only a few weeks away...From high end clients ranging from Apple, Armani, Coty, Calvin Klein, Donna Karan, Estee Lauder, L'Oreal, Nike, Nordstrom's, LVMH, etc - to international advertising agencies ranging from Euro, RSCG, Grey, JWT, Leo Burnett, Ogilvy, Publicis, Saatchi, Y&R - top decision makers from the world over have registered to attend CONNECTIONS, to review talent and develop new relationships. LE BOOK presents CONNECTIONS NYC

Wednesday, June 17th + Thursday, June 18th at the Chelsea Art Museum (556 West 22nd Street)

CONNECTIONS Schedule - Wednesday/Thursday, June 17th and 18th:

* Noon to 6pm - Portfolio Viewing open to all CONNECTIONS guests from the international creative community

* 6pm to 9pm - open wine tasting and creative mingling during Portfolio Viewing

The Time To Connect Is Now.

artists: www.lebook.com/connections

Sunday, May 31, 2009

Student Ideas - Caitlin Barber




From childhood, I have had a passion for creativity and artistic expression. I started playing with Photoshop at my dad's advertising firm by the time I was in elementary school and was always sure to pack my class schedule with a variety of art classes. By high school, I knew I had a love for graphic design and spent much of my time learning the Adobe Creative Suite and playing with blog/website layouts and graphics. Upon graduating, I moved from my small town in Colorado to attend Full Sail University. I am currently working on an associates degree in graphic design and plan on combining it with my passion for people and communication to pursue a career I will truly love every minute of.

Saturday, May 30, 2009

Collaboration: Brazilian Currency Design


Vitorio Benedetti
This project turned to be one of the greatest experiences of
team work I have ever been on. From the start, although the
group members had established individual tasks and goals,
the design was done in such a collaborative way that we are
not able to distinguish where the ideas or even the graphic
expression came from. Group project with Marcelo Damm;
mentoring by professor João de Souza Leite.

About me:

I believe in poetry, I believe that there's beauty in every corner, and in everything. Beauty is indeed in the eye
of the beholder and it is up to us, everyone to design the world we want to live in.

People don't need products or services. People need music and laughter and a warm harm from a fellow human.
Let us design ways that these are never scarce. I don't believe in borders or papers stating identities. Identity
comes from people's hearts. And no technology will ever change this.

My main ambition in design is to spread the human centered approach, applying practice and research,
developing projects that interesting and meaningful for the public.


Specialties:

graphic expertise in complex data visualization, graphic user interfaces (from user studies to pixel pushing
- desktop and mobile); multicultural and also multidisciplinary team work abilities; Human-centered design.

Thursday, May 28, 2009

User Experience - UX

by Dirk Knemeyer and Eric Svoboda
"User Experience", often abbreviated "UX", is the quality of experience a person has when interacting with a specific design.
Originally used in reference to human-computer interactions – and still largely associated with those disciplines – the term is now used to refer to any specific human-design interaction, ranging from a digital device, to a sales process, to an entire conference. Perhaps due to its organic development and lack of formalization, "User Experience" may be defined by, and the responsibility of, very different departments from organization to organization: in some organizations, it is owned by marketing; in others, it falls under information technology (IT). Then, from a solutions perspective, some organizations base their "User Experiences" around the research and academic-based approaches of human-computer interaction (HCI); others treat interface and/or product design as the source for "User Experience," while still others let marketing or IT drive it.
Read more...

Want to learn more about User Experience?

Being an emergent discipline, User Experience does not yet have a strong, formal body of knowledge. Formal books that include the term in their title often cover only subgroups of user experience. Here are some online resources to get you started:

www.uxnet.org - local and cross-disciplinary resources on UX

www.informationdesign.org - despite its label, the pre-eminent daily UX resource

www.functioningform.com - a consistently strong resource on the UX design process

www.nathan.com/resources/index.html - an enormous collection of UX- related resources


Designing Interactions is a book and a DVD as well as this website.

You can browse by chapter as well as by interview. When you choose an interview, a small version of the segment from the DVD plays. You can also download (free) the chapter of the week together with the relevant interview segments from the DVD.

In the Book Bill Moggridge introduces us to 40 influential designers who have shaped our interaction with technology. The introduction and final chapter combine to describe the approach to designing interactions that has evolved at IDEO. The 800 page book is illustrated with 700 color images. With the book is a DVD of 37 interviews, intercut with examples of interactions.

Sunday, May 24, 2009

Student Ideas - Tyson Junkers





I have always been able to come up with creative ideas, but never knew what to do with them. A few years ago I got my hands on a copy of Photoshop and my ideas came to life. Since then, I have been creating designs every day. Most of them end up in the trash, but the only way you'll ever know if somethings good or bad is by trying. I am now a Digital Arts & Design Student at Full Sail University. So far, I have learned more than I could have ever expected. I can no longer pick up a pen without designing a concept for something, which is why I plan on being a designer the rest of my life; it's in everything I do.

TJunkers.com

Tuesday, May 19, 2009

Stock Photos,Textures, and Free Webdesign Platform








Color Scheme Designer


ColorSchemeDesigner.com

Online application for creating color schemes, complete solution by Petr Staníček (Pixy)

Professional designer and developer, amateur musician and bardling, dropout typographer, happy father of two beautiful daughters, mathemagician, lazy linguistician, almost professional cook and about 6'5 tall fool. At your service.

Saturday, May 16, 2009

The Daily Script

Welcome to the Daily Script, a collection of movie scripts and screenplays to serve as a resource for writers and actors and those who simply enjoy reading movie scripts. The movie scripts are presented in proper script format (for the most part) and where possible, multiple drafts are presented. A movie script will be featured daily, (hence the name Daily Script). If the daily script doesn't pique your interest, check out the SCRIPTS section for a selection of other movie scripts.

These are for Educational Purposes only. If you can't find what you are looking for, please visit the LINKS section under Downloadable Movie Scripts and I am sure that you will find what you are looking for.

You've Got Mail by Nora Ephron & Delia Ephron
Based on: The Shop Around The corner by Nikolaus Laszlo

FADE IN ON:

CYBERSPACE

We have a sense of cyberspace-travel as we hurtle through a
sky that's just beginning to get light. There are a few
stars but they fade and the sky turns a milky blue and a big
computer sun starts to rise.

We continue hurtling through space and see that we're heading
over a computer version of the New York City skyline. We
move over Central Park. It's fall and the leaves are
glorious reds and yellows.

We reach the West Side of Manhattan and move swiftly down
Broadway with its stores and gyms and movies theatres and
turn onto a street in the West 80s.

Hold in front of a New York brownstone.

At the bottom of the screen a small rectangle appears and the
words:

ADDING ART

As the rectangle starts to fill with color, we see a percentage
increase from 0% to 100%. When it hits 100% the image pops and
we are in real life.

Thursday, May 14, 2009

Goethe Theory of Colours


Knowing is not enough; we must apply. Willing is not enough; we must do. Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Goethe is considered by many to be the most important writer in the German language and one of the most important thinkers in Western culture as well. Early in his career, however, he wondered whether painting might not be his true vocation; late in his life, he expressed the expectation that he would ultimately be remembered above all for his work on colour.
Scanned copy of English translation as a Google book

Wednesday, May 13, 2009

Searchology event


More Search Options and other updates from our Searchology event

5/12/2009 12:15:00 PM
Today we are hosting our second Searchology event, to update our users, partners, and customers on the progress we have made in search and tell them about new features. Our first Searchology was two years ago, when we were excited to launch Universal Search, a feature that blended results of different types (web pages, images, videos, books, etc.) on the results page. Since then Universal Search has grown quite a bit, adding new types of results, expanding to new countries, and triggering on ten times as many queries as it did when we launched it.

But as people get more sophisticated at search they are coming to us to solve more complex problems. To stay on top of this, we have spent a lot of time looking at how we can better understand the wide range of information that's on the web and quickly connect people to just the nuggets they need at that moment. We want to help our users find more useful information, and do more useful things with it.

Our first announcement today is a new set of features that we call Search Options, which are a collection of tools that let you slice and dice your results and generate different views to find what you need faster and easier. Search Options helps solve a problem that can be vexing: what query should I ask? Read more...