Stephan Zirwes is a German photographer who specializes in aerial shots. His photos are so beautiful. Part of their beauty is that they are shot directly downward. The other part is the subjects of the photos. Stephan shoots football fields, airfields, industrial complexes, construction zones, leisure areas, and competitions in progress. Wunderbar.
My friend Mike Roller wrote this interesting post on the Four Essential Members of a Great Design Team. He concludes that a successful design team needs to be diverse in its leadership skills, its creativity, its sense of reality, and its types of analytical thinkers. He calls the four essential types of members the Evangelist, the Conductor, the Dreamer and the Surgeon. The Evangelist is a high level design strategist that pushes the limits. The Conductor is an analytical thinking that turns all the little ideas into something harmonious. The Dreamer is a blue sky free thinker with wild ideas. And the Surgeon is the one who perfects the details.
Synchronous Objects is a super interesting collaboration between choreographer William Forsythe and Ohio State University's Advanced Computing Center for the Arts and Design. It is a series of projects is to explore the art of dance from a scientific and data visualization perspective.
One of the sub projects, entitled Cued Annotations, visualizes a dance where each of the dancers starts their part upon a specific cue from one of their fellow dancers. You can watch the dancers preform the dance from a front or above stage view, and then re-watch the choreography with all the cues and their effects annotated. The project creators were "interested in the intensity and integrity of the dancers' attention to one another, the rapid exchange of information, and the different qualities of motion in each cue response". I can't wait to see more
I'm a sucker for a cheesy pun. They always make me giggle. So, I got a lot of enjoyment out of these pun-tastic food celebrity postcards from Harvey Nichols. The graphics were designed by Ruan Milborrow and Mark Nightingale of Mr.H. Above are just a few examples, there are so many more. (Found through Creative Review)
Ari Versluis and Ellie Uyttenbroek are a German photographer and profiler, who have spent the last 15 years studying the dress codes of social groups. They have published a book and website featuring their photographs and findings, called Exactitudes (Exact + Attitude).
Members of the same social group are photographed in similar poses. Juxtaposing their similarity with their desire for individuality. Providing "an almost scientific, anthropological record of people's attempts to distinguish themselves from others by assuming a group identity".
Oh, joyful, joyful. The Dork Yearbook.
I know Tweenbots has been on every blog in the past couple days, but I love the idea too much to not add it to my collection as well. Tweenbots is an art experiment by Kacie Kinzer that looks at how robots and humans interact. Tweenbots are cute little cardboard robots which try to navigate the streets of New York. These robots are unique because they are human defendant. They only have the ability to go in a straight line and rely on human interaction to navigate complicated routes. The website has some great video of a Tweenbot trying to navigate its way through Washington Square Park. It gets stuck under benches, and in potholes... but people consistently come to its rescue. The trek apparently only took 42 minutes and 29 human interventions.
I love this project for so many reasons. Partially, I just enjoy the idea that people would help inanimate objects with a task. Mostly, I like this project because it challenges the typical thinking about robots. Robots are not necessarily going to take over the Earth, we can live peacefully together... they might just need our help. Let the robots contribute what they are good at, and let the people contribute what they are good at. I love crowdsourcing.
If you are an appreciator of the Keep Calm and Carry On posters, then don't miss the Keep Calm Flickr pool. It features all sorts of variations on the poster. Two of my favorites are shown above.
Baker Tweet is like a hip new interpretation of the Krispy Kreme sign (when it's on, they are making fresh doughnuts). Baker Tweet is a tweeting machine, aimed at bakeries. It twitters about what you have fresh and warm out of the oven, and people come running. The Baker Tweet has programmable settings for the different types of baked goods (bread, pain au chocolate, etc). Bakers just turn the dial and press the button. A Tweet is automatically sent out. I would subscribe. Created by Poke.
The FWA recently launched a daily photos site, FWAphoto.com. They have a neatly designed, minimalist website, that features a new photo ever day. So far, they have featured some beautiful photographs. The content is also available as an iPhone app or a Lightboxer screensaver.
Gretchen Nash has been putting letters into a suitcase since she was a child. She has written a book based on the 187 letters. The book, Dear Gretchen, not only features the letters and reflections about their senders, but more interestingly analyzes and graphs trends amongst the letters. All of the graphs are visualized using crazy paper cut outs. Some of the analyzed information is priceless, like animal mentions (top = cat), or name calling (top = freak). It is a lovely little glimpse into the social life of a young girl.
Traces of an Imaginary Affair is a conceptual design by Bjorn Franke and Jonas Unger. It is a project that I find really intriguing, but I'm sure others would find it absurd, if not offensive. The design is a set of tools to aid in faking an affair. The tools can replicate bite marks, fingernail scratches, carpet burns, smells of perfume and more. As described by the designer:
"The project broaches the issue of intentionally instigated jealousy in relationships, which often serves to bolster self-esteem or to test the strength of partnerships. It was inspired by stories of people who used fake evidence of victimization or illnesses to receive attention from others."
An interesting study out of Columbia University's Spatial Information Design Lab, tries to map art, music and fashion events in New York. They mapped the buzz using geotagged images of events from Getty Images.
Perhaps not the most scientifically sound way of doing it, but an interesting point of view. This reminds me a bit of San Francisco's City Sense.
Branislav Kropilak photographs pretty much the dullest things you can think of; garages, factories, billboards. He somehow manages to breath life into incredibly static subject matter. The billboards are my favorite. I've never seen billboards look as beautiful. (Found through Pan-Dan).
Come on designers, you know you judge a book by its cover. But just how accurate are you? Test your skills on Judgeby.com, a website that allows you to guess a book's Amazon rating just by looking at its cover.
I was pretty actuate at this. Which makes me think one of two things: A well designed cover reflects well on a book OR people who write good books are smart enough to appreciate a well designed cover. More thoughts? (Found through A Collective Knot).
Is This Your Luggage is a website which documents lost luggage, and its contents, through photographs. The luggage is bought through auction (after the airline diligently tries to find its rightful owner - of course), the contents are photographed, and the posted on the website. My favorite part of the site is this justification for collecting lost luggage - "It's a little odd, but not as odd as stamp collecting, just a little harder to find storage space." - Ha.
I wish I had thought of this idea.
The Office of Blame Accountability... because sometimes you just need to get if off your chest.
The Office of Blame Accountability is a street art project by Geoff Cunningham and Carla Repice. It allows users to fill out a blame form or record an audio conversation with someone that they hold accountable for something. Since 2007 they have collected hundreds of accountabilities. They describe themselves as "A collaboration with the American public that follows a growing need for art that sees the viewer as a producer and participant".
Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs was one of my very favorite books as a kid. I say as a kid, to be honest, it's still one of my favorite books. So I was excited to hear that they are turning it into a movie.
I just finished watching the trailer. It looks like they have expanded the story to include a lot of cartoon cheesiness. But I'm happy to see that some of Ron Barrett's iconic illustrations are still incorporated into the animation. I will reserve judgment until I see it.
Popularity Dialer is the best fake phone call application yet. The basic idea behind any fake call app is that you can force an incoming call to your phone to get yourself out of a situation (i.e. dull meeting, bad date, looking like a loner). Popularity Dialer has gone a step further to provide you with a fake conversation on the other end of the line (in case anyone overhears, or you are just bad at making up fake conversation). They provide a choice of fake calls. My favorite is The Boss Call. Which goes something like this... "Hey, this is Mr Johnson, calling from the office. Did you complete that thing... about a month ago... that photocopy training" Ha! Uhhh, my boss is calling. I gotta take this.
Photographer Jason Powell has started a Flickr Group that features photographs of current locations with a picture of how they looked in the past, held over top. The group is called Looking Into The Past.
I think this is such a lovely, low-tech way of honoring the past in the present. I like the care and attention each photographer has put into placing and holding the historical photo in place. I look forward to more. (Found through Double Takes).
