Hello Bauldoff

I love this fantastical illustration work done for the Vimeo...

Fri, 13 Apr 2012 15:26:00 -0400

I love this fantastical illustration work done for the Vimeo home & login pages, by NYC artist Ian Higginbotham.

German furniture designer Florian Saul has developed the...

Wed, 11 Apr 2012 13:47:59 -0400

German furniture designer Florian Saul has developed the elegantly muted Servus clothing rack. Servus (Latin for servant) leans gracefully against a wall, carrying a leather bag to accommodate scarves, gloves, and other small items. If the need arises, two frames can be joined for twice the capacity (I assume that they are secured together, rather than just leaning against one another).

via NOTCOT

Remember the QLOCKTWO typographic clock by Biegert & Funk...

Wed, 11 Apr 2012 12:20:31 -0400

Remember the QLOCKTWO typographic clock by Biegert & Funk from almost three years ago? There is now a desktop/alarm incarnation, as well as a new wristwatch edition, which will be available Autumn 2012.

via NOTCOT

Caine’s Arcade is a short film about Caine Monroy, a...

Tue, 10 Apr 2012 12:19:00 -0400

Caine’s Arcade is a short film about Caine Monroy, a 9-year-old boy who, while spending his summer vacation at his father’s used auto parts shop in East LA, cleverly built an assortment of cardboard arcade games for store customers to play. Caine’s first eventual customer was filmmaker Nirvan Mullick, who (along with Caine’s father) decided that the boy’s ingenious summer venture deserved more attention. The result was Mullick organizing a flashmob event which had the arcade teeming with customers, all eager to partake in Caine’s cardboard vision.

The short film premiered at the DIY Days event in October 2011. You can donate to Caine’s scholarship fund through the film’s site.

Heard through John Schroter

Lavatory Self-Portraits in the Flemish Style, by American artist...

Fri, 06 Apr 2012 09:58:00 -0400

Lavatory Self-Portraits in the Flemish Style, by American artist Nina Katchadourian, from her Seat Assignment series. This is the kind of impulsive play that keeps us cognitively limber: seeing the unorthodox connections between objects, people, situations, and abstractions, no matter where you are, or how dull your surroundings.

As explained by the artist:

While in the lavatory on a domestic flight in March 2010, I spontaneously put a tissue paper toilet cover seat cover over my head and took a picture in the mirror. The image evoked 15th-century Flemish portraiture. I decided to add more images made in this mode and planned to take advantage of a long-haul flight from San Francisco to Auckland, guessing that there were likely to be long periods of time when no one was using the lavatory on the 14-hour flight. I made several forays to the bathroom from my aisle seat, and by the time we landed I had a large group of new photographs entitled Lavatory Self-Portraits in the Flemish Style. I was wearing a thin black scarf that I sometimes hung up on the wall behind me to create the deep black ground that is typical of these portraits. There is no special illumination in use other than the lavatory’s own lights and all the images are shot hand-held with the camera phone. At the Dunedin Public Art Gallery, the photos were framed in faux-historical frames and hung on a deep red wall reminiscent of the painting galleries in museums like the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

via @BibliOdyssey

Filmmaker Jeff Desom has meticulously stitched together scenes...

Tue, 03 Apr 2012 17:38:00 -0400

Filmmaker Jeff Desom has meticulously stitched together scenes from Hitchcock’s Rear Window to make a virtually seamless, tilt-shifted collage of events as seen from L. B. Jeffries’ apartment. The end result is a twenty-minute long “single take” loop (which has been sped up in the making-of video above) of all the goings on of Jeffries’ neighbors, which almost feels like something equally Will Wright as it is Alfred Hitchcock.

via yewknee’d, Will Jardine

Former coworker Barry Campbell recently finished this nicely...

Sun, 30 Oct 2011 22:31:00 -0400

Former coworker Barry Campbell recently finished this nicely detailed Steampunk Darth Vader mask and helmet. I’m not sure if this was a Halloween project or not, but posting this today seemed appropriate.

In case you’re interested, Barry is selling this item, and is also taking orders for custom projects. Contact him here.

I really like the concept and the sentiment behind Nathalie...

Thu, 27 Oct 2011 12:47:00 -0400

I really like the concept and the sentiment behind Nathalie Stämpfli’s Soap Flakes, a bath device that easily dispenses shavings from soap bars. Stämpfli developed a wall-mounted version (pictured), as well as a pepper-grater-esque hand-held version.

I always love to hear the designer’s individual stories and rationale behind interesting inventions like this. Among her motives for creating Soap Flakes, Stämpfli has a personal dislike for the “weird slippery” sensory experience of handling bar soap, yet she prefers the ecological efficiency of it to liquid soap. She explains further on the project page.

I also recommend browsing through Nathalie Stämpfli’s other design explorations.

This is how the world changes for the better: individuals taking experimental steps to extinguish their own personal annoyances and sharing their results. Mankind ends up reaping the benefits.

via Designspiration

Twenty-six years ago, I was an odd little eight-year-old,...

Thu, 06 Oct 2011 08:05:00 -0400

Twenty-six years ago, I was an odd little eight-year-old, experiencing my first run-in with digital-aided art & design, the Helvetica typeface, and a strange little exotic input device called a “mouse.” All of these first encounters, I owe to Steve Jobs.

So early on, I was smitten by the realization that I had access to these tools, all within my own home, that could help me build creative projects that emulated the professionally-executed media that I admired out in the world… books, animations, logos, posters, songs, motion work, games, apps, and on, and on, and on… all thanks to our family Macintosh.

Not withholding any gravitas or sentimentality, it was directly because of Steve Jobs and his team of innovators at Apple (Bill Atkinson, Jef Raskin, et al.) that I was able to get a VERY early start on my creative education, and was able to explore my love of creativity in so many facets from such a young age. I was in grade school, designing and programming, with no comprehension that these experiences would benefit me greatly as an adult. Today, I see my children expressing their creativity through the technology that they have access to, and I’m filled with such gratitude that they have such advanced tools available to them; tools that have been marinating and fermenting sweetly in the years that have passed since I was their age, sitting in front of my family Mac’s black-and-white 9-inch screen, building and manifesting and learning and growing. Without Mr. Jobs, I would not have the professional experience and knowledge that I have today. Without Mr. Jobs, I would not so easily vent all the expressive runoff that has been spilling over within me since childhood. Without Mr. Jobs, I would not have that “I got this” confidence I feel when sitting down at my desk to start a new project.

For all of this, I am so very very thankful.

My sincerest condolences go out to Steve’s family, friends, and coworkers.

1982 photograph of Steve Jobs at home by Diana Walker

“Everything was beautiful. Nothing hurt.” Noticed Kurt...

Thu, 08 Sep 2011 20:26:58 -0400

“Everything was beautiful. Nothing hurt.” Noticed Kurt Vonnegut’s desired epitaph chalked upon this wall organizer near the end of Gary Hustwit’s Objectified.

The Fukushima Plate, a concept by German designer Nils Ferber,...

Fri, 02 Sep 2011 11:40:00 -0400

The Fukushima Plate, a concept by German designer Nils Ferber, is a kitchen plate with a built-in radioactive meter, visualizing your food’s level of contamination by lighting three OLED rings (representing three user-customized levels of radioactivity).

via Blonde Redhead

Matthew Ebisu of Cupertino, CA, modified a Game Boy Color (and...

Sat, 13 Aug 2011 20:36:00 -0400

Matthew Ebisu of Cupertino, CA, modified a Game Boy Color (and some Gamecube bits) to build a working replica of the adorable Adventure Time character Beemo. Matthew shares a step-by-step guide and an expansive Flickr set on his process.

Note: this Beemo is NOT camera.

via Frederator Studios

Remember Oona, the little “Aphex Twin girl” from a few years...

Thu, 28 Jul 2011 14:13:14 -0400

Remember Oona, the little “Aphex Twin girl” from a few years back? Above is her second video published this past March, about three years since her debut. Just as cute. Just as twitchy.

Photographer Sacha Goldberger (probably best known for his...

Mon, 25 Jul 2011 16:35:53 -0400

Photographer Sacha Goldberger (probably best known for his superhero Mamika series) constructed an outdoor set in Bois de Boulogne park, Paris. There, he asked random joggers to pose immediately after an exhausting sprint. One week later, these same joggers arrived at Goldberger’s studio to pose the same way they had before, under the same lighting, sans the running fatigue. The resulting collection demonstrates an interesting physical contrast, showing both raw and unruffled extremes found within each individual.

Goldberger says, “I wanted to show the difference between our natural and brute side versus how we represent ourselves to society. The difference was very surprising.”

via @rands

I am in awe. Motion designer/director Chris Abbas used...

Fri, 10 Jun 2011 14:13:48 -0400

I am in awe. Motion designer/director Chris Abbas used photography from NASA’s Cassini-Huygens spacecraft to create an absolutely beautiful, meditative short film of Saturn, her rings, and her moons, building motion from the publicly available archive of sequenced stills.

Interesting note: Vimeo user Hynee explains that the streaking star trails seen near the end and throughout are “navigation system calibration runs; the spacecraft uses spinning wheels to stabilize itself, and [they need] to be checked on.”

The music is 2 Ghosts I from Nine Inch Nails’ Ghosts I–IV album.

via @AlwaysWithHonor

Despite the painterly color and uncanny composition,...

Tue, 17 May 2011 17:16:17 -0400

Despite the painterly color and uncanny composition, the National Geographic Photo of the Day is, indeed, a photograph.

Photographer Franz Lanting captured this scene in Namib-Naukluft National Park, Namibia. The bright orange background is a large sand dune, illuminated by the morning light. Camel thorn trees line the foreground, in the shadow of another dune.

via @nopattern

Camera lenses sliced down the middle, here & here. The...

Mon, 16 May 2011 00:03:38 -0400

Camera lenses sliced down the middle, here & here. The engineering revealed inside is fascinating.

You can purchase the top-pictured Lecia Tri-Elmar-M cutaway model on ebay for $995US.

via notcot

Design 101: Putting Contrast in Context. For the Studiobanks...

Fri, 06 May 2011 00:08:00 -0400

Design 101: Putting Contrast in Context. For the Studiobanks blog, I wrote this broad, abstractionist introduction to contrast in graphic design. While I’m a little concerned that this is merely the subconscious result of one too many make-the-logo-bigger’s in my life, I enjoyed writing it. I attempted to be informative to readers who are not in advertising or graphic design, and maybe also a bit therapeutic for those professionals who are “beyond” such elementary principles.

As a child, I was fascinated by what would occur in that...

Tue, 26 Apr 2011 18:00:00 -0400

As a child, I was fascinated by what would occur in that split-second after shutting off a tube television. While watching the screen, I would often catch a fleeting glimpse of such beautiful abstract colors and shapes; before my mind could even register what I had seen, they were gone. Immediately, I would turn the TV on and off again, trying to recreate the event with little success.

The imagery above, Luminant Point Arrays, is a series of work by photographer Stephan Tillmans, who has captured these very moments as the television picture dissipates. Tillmans describes his series as the following:

The television picture breaks down and creates a structure of light. The pictures refuse external reference and broach the issue of the difference between abstraction and concretion in photography. The breakdown of the television picture discribes the breakdown of the reference. The product is self-referential photography.

via swissmiss, but does it float

Some very captivating photography found in the 1970 book,...

Tue, 26 Apr 2011 09:00:00 -0400

Some very captivating photography found in the 1970 book, Living Architecture: Islamic Indian, by Andreas Volwahsen.

via Designspiration