Smashing Magazine is running an interesting article on effective Twitter Backgrounds (Scroll down on their post for an impressive and inspiring collection of people’s custom backgrounds). Primary focus of their article is to explore various techniques to create unique, memorable and effective Twitter profile pages.
We Are The Friction is a book of illustration and short fiction created by 12 pairs of international writers and illustrators. It’s the second book edited, designed and published by Sing Statistics, the collaborative concern of Jez Burrows and Lizzy Stewart.
The book paired writers with illustrators, both established and emerging in their disciplines. Each then produced new work inspired by the work of their partner: stories from illustrations, and illustrations from stories. The result is an erratic, eclectic collection of work that takes in space travel, Japanese deities, monster husbandry, and the Marx Brothers.
Fantastic! Get one here.
Oh, The Temptation from Steve V on Vimeo.
(via ignant)
In 10 Common Typography Mistakes Brian Hoff lists 10 common mistakes used in type design/layout that can make a large impact in the effectiveness and appearance of your designs, in addition to saving you time and money when dealing with printers.
The Chalk Spinner is a 3-D cylindrical chalkboard. How fun!
Chris Glass did some ‘rhubarb’ wiki’ing and found these uncited tidbits about the stalky red vegetable:
It is or was common for a crowd of extras in acting to shout the word “rhubarb” repeatedly and in an unsynchronised manner, to cause the effect of general hubbub. As a result, the word “rhubarb” sometimes is used to mean “length of superfluous text in speaking or writing”, or a general term to refer to irrelevant chatter by chorus or extra actors. The American equivalent is walla. Stage actors in the United States also use word “rhubarb” repeated asynchronously in a low or murmured tone to provide background voice ambience in crowd or party scenes. A variation of this is the repetition of the phrase “peas and carrots”
– wiki : rhubarb
‘A meal without wine is like a day without sunshine‘. This pregnant woman fully agrees.
Thanks to Jennifer I discovered the Donut Potty, which is part of a new line of products by HopPop. Is that an awesome looking potty or what?
Osaka’s robot-run parking lots mixed with the Minneapolis lakefront; a musician’s fantasy metropolis. Article by David Byrne: A Talking Head Dreams of a Perfect City
“A city can’t be too small. Size guarantees anonymity—if you make an embarrassing mistake in a large city, and it’s not on the cover of the Post, you can probably try again. The generous attitude towards failure that big cities afford is invaluable—it’s how things get created. In a small town everyone knows about your failures, so you are more careful about what you might attempt. Every time I visit San Francisco I ask out loud “Why don’t I live here? Why do I choose to live in a place that is harder, tougher and, well, not as beautiful?” The locals often reply, “You don’t want to live here. It looks like a city, but it’s really a small village. Everyone knows what you’re doing” Oh, OK. If you say so. It’s still beautiful.”
Park(ing) Day is an international event that reclaims parking spots and transforms them into engaging, people-friendly public spaces for one day a year.
Park(ing) Day NYC is a New York City Streets Renaissance collaboration which supports the conversion of parking spots throughout New York City’s 5 boroughs into human-friendly places for a single day. These small, temporary public spaces provide a breath of relief from the auto-clogged reality of New York City, and aim to spark dialogue about our valuable public space and how we choose to use it.
This.is.the.coolest.thing.ever.
Typophile Film Festival 5 Opening Titles from Brent Barson on Vimeo.
(thank you reuben)
On/Off Magnet. Cool idea.
At today’s VeloCITY Salon Jason Hackenwerth managed to put a huge smile on my face. Jason happened to be working on his sculpture right next to our workshop, preparing for the Grand Rapids Art Price. I have never heard of Jason before but I am thrilled to now have him on my ‘art map’. Check out the video below. And here’s the picture I snapped of Jason, during our workshop, where he is taking his balloon sculpture for a spin.
Ken Yeang and Ross Lovegrove show how nature can inspire our living spaces and cities by fusing efficiency and beauty.
For the next two days, you will see me broadcast from Grand Rapids where I have the opportunity to partake in VELOCITY, a two day workshop made possible through CEO for Cities.
VELOCITY is a movement which strives to cultivate vital, productive and creative cities – and ultimately, to redefine the good life in America.
For two days, an impressive group of “Urban Change Agents” (Experts) and Storytellers are getting together to come up with a vision for the Good City Life. (I am honored to be one of the Urban Change Agents.)
Goal of the two day Salon are to create and tell the predictive human story of ‘how people will want to live’, illustrate the context for that lifestyle in next generation cities and provide with human-centered guidelines for making that a reality.
Since the 1940’s Americans have pursued a vision of the good life that is spacious, expansive and utterly unsustainable. We know we can’t simply tell people that their ideal American Lifestyle isn’t good for them or society and expect them to change.
We must create a new, more compelling, more desirable vision of the good life. And cities are the place to do it. Cities offer positives like walk-ability, energy efficiencey, proximity to jobs and economic opportunity, creative inspiration and life long learning. Well designed cities help eople to value and aspire to city-living not because they have to, but because they truly want to. And that is good for all of us. Vital city cores anchor their surrounding metro-areas and the nation.
The VELOCITY salon is not just an isolated event. The outcomes of the salon work will extend to the broader community through crowd-sourcing and be broadcast across media platforms including Twitter, blogs and other traditional channels, engaging citizens in creating a new reality and desire for city-living. The salon work will also be published in the VELOCITY book, distributed globally to urban leaders, as well as presented at the CEOs for Cities National Urban Leaders Summit in Washington, D.C. on September 29-30 for mayors and other urban leaders to discuss how to urgently execute these ideas locally.
Here are a few of the 40 experts that I am truly excited about meeting tomorrow: Hunter Tura of 2×4, Marisa Belger (GreenDAY Blogger), Dana Cho (Designer and Architect IDEO), Zach Frechette (Editor-in-Chief GOOD Magazine), Mark Hamm (VP Innovation at FedEx), Polly Labarre (Author, Mavericks at Work, Fast Company Contributor) … and the list goes on.
Stay tuned for ‘Good Life Visions’ in the coming days. (I’ll probably be broadcasting a lot over on twitter.)
Wow, CLOCKTWO is now available as an iPhone version. Much more affordable than the original.
(thank you helen)
The swissifying of the web doesn’t stop, now I discovered Helvetimail, a minimalist Gmail skin.
Here it is, finally, the September announcement for next week’s CreativeMornings.
Our speaker at the CreativeMornings on September 18th, 2009, is much respected Hillman Curtis, a Brooklyn based filmmaker and designer. His company, hillmancurtis, inc. has designed sites for Yahoo, Adobe, Aquent, the American Institute of Graphic Design, Paramount and Fox Searchlight Pictures among others. His film work includes the popular documentary series “Artist Series”, as well as award winning short films.
Interested in attending? Make sure to r.s.v.p via email quickly as we usually fill up within a few hours. Please tell us your name and what industry you’re in. (Check your inbox for a confirmation email with all the details in the coming days!) CreativeMornings start at 8.30am, end at 10am and are FREE of charge. I am sorry but we’ve reached full capacity and we can no longer accept any r.s.v.p’s!
A big thank you to the Film Society of Lincoln Center for hosting our September CreativeMornings at the Frieda and Roy Furman Gallery. The organization has been a pioneer among film institutions and one of the film world’s most respected and influential arbiters of cinematic trends and discoveries. Learn more about the Film Society of Lincoln Center. And see what’s currently playing.
NEW: Follow CreativeMornings on twitter!
Check out pictures of previous CreativeMornings over at Flickr.
A big thank you to fabulous GenevaSound and Rebus Software for generously sponsoring Breakfast :
CreativeMornings? ‘CreativeMornings’ is a monthly morning gathering of creative types. Each event includes a 10 minute lecture, followed by a 20 minute group discussion. The gathering begins at 8:30am with the topic presentation starting at 9:00am. The whole thing closes down at 10am. The events are hosted at studios/gallery spaces in NYC. (We are always looking for potential hosts that are willing to accomodate 50+ people. Please email us if you’re interested in hosting or sponsoring one of our events!)
What was Manhattan like 400 years ago, before the first settlers arrived? Designed by Abbott Miller, the new exhibition Mannahatta/Manhattan: A Natural History of New York City at the Museum of the City of New York reconstructs the ecology of the small wooded island originally known as Mannahatta (“island of many hills” as the Lenape Indians called it) before it became one of the most densely built places on earth.
I can *not* wait to see this exhibit, designed by Pentagram.
I think I might need these inflatable boxing gloves to fight off scope creep with clients. :)
Here’s a video showcasing some of the future technologies dreamt up by telecommunications giant, Nokia:
(via unplggd)
