lauren {elycerose} on Flickr just pointed out that aluminum foil boxes have push in tabs for holding the roll in place. This is the most amazing thing I have learned all week and I can’t believe I never noticed it before. My life is now slightly easier.
Charmingwall is a site that serves as a museum and store for art prints. The prints are great, but it was the site’s design that really impressed me. Usually I grumble about flash and prefer minimal and efficient designs, but this one is actually good. It starts as an organic, hand drawn logo. The real magic happens when you click on the links. Each link starts off a different “growth” animation that paves the way for that page’s content to be displayed. The kicker is that when you navigate away, each of the growths disappear in their own unique way.
Via Design*Sponge
I thought these photographs of objects interacting with clouds were pretty clever. Unfortunately I can’t read the site that they are on, so I have no idea who made them or where they came from.
Colorado artist Anthony Cozzi has a small but fantastic collection of giclée prints sold under the moniker “Snowblinded”. I especially love the “Volcano” print as it reminds me of Asian woodblock prints. The rest of the prints feature great colors and texture as well in both photographic and graphic styles. The price is well above my budget, but they are still nice to gaze at from afar.
Susan Rudat has some lovely line work in her Moleskine ink drawings. I especially enjoyed the “Flora” set. She also has a blog that is worth checking out. I love the blurring of the line between sketches and finished art pieces that is happening these days, and a lot of it seems to be inspired by Moleskine notebooks. Check out the ’skin art blog for more artists like this.
I love the idea and execution behind Ulrika Erdes’ Public Embroidery. It’s like the type of graffiti a crafty housewife would leave on a bus seat if they were the type to do such things. It is amazing how a simple cross stitching can add such a sophisticated and subtle beauty to a typically sterile environment.
Via Dinosaurs and Robots
15 students from Shankar college in Israel traveled to China to participate in a workshop for designing bamboo toys. The toys are really cute, and of course, bamboo is super sustainable. I love the way the simple bright colors look with the light brown color of the bamboo.
“If possible, don’t take a picture of anything right away. Give yourself time to just experience. You need to do this to understand what you’re photographing. If it’s a landscape, walk around and soak up the sun, smell the dirt. If it’s fashion, feel the textures, the colors. If it’s a portrait, talk to the human in front of you and try to understand what’s in their head. If it’s combat reportage, get behind the video guy, he’s a good shield.”
I enjoyed reading this simple but effective list of photography advice for “baby photographers” (not photographers of babies). It’s just a random smattering of tips, but they are really good and surprisingly different from the usual advice given on these types of lists that I’ve heard over and over again. The writing style is simple and humorous, which makes for a very memorable read, which is important in these kinds of things.
Via Kitsune Noir
Chank has released a new font that was drawn in the snow. It was created by students and presenters that attended MSU Mankato ByDesign Student Conference in February. The event was hosted by the MSU Mankato AIGA chapter that I am a part of. It’s free for personal use, and there’s a little video of the process.
I was literally watching Juno (again) yesterday and found myself wondering how they created the animation sequence during the opening credits. I had guessed that they just lowered the frame count of an actual video and used some effect to give the frames a hand drawn look, but it looked too nice to be some software effect.
Well, today I found my answer without even looking, via Chris Glass’s ever so handy “recent surfing” section. He linked to a Flickr photo set that documents the process. I was so happy to learn that they actually made it by hand with drawings and paper cutouts. I’m sure the difference between doing something by hand, and faking it on a computer is subtle these days, but that subtle difference adds a world of personality.
