May
Creative Graffiti
This landed in my inbox and I just had to post it. Thanks to graphic design blog.org for originally featuring these photos. Check it out
Apr
SleekSpeak: Wireless Speakers for Your Bike
This is a pretty cool product that's raising money on Kickstarter. I dig the bright color vibe and simple design. Now the question is, how do the jams sound on my cruiser?
Mar
Upside Down, Left to Right
A very well done short film about one of our oldest forms of mass production, letterpress. I love the shallow depth of field shots. Dig it. Thanks for sharing this with me Asha Tree!
Nov
Robot Riding a Fixie Bike
Robots are pretty cool and fixed gear bicycles are damn cool so combine them both and it's pretty damn cool. I happened upon this article on the Popular Science website and it made my day. The robot has the ability to correct its balance while riding. Anyway, now back to design stuff.
Nov
Sticky Thing
I found this random HTML5/JavaScript experiment on creativejs.com and it's totally cool. What's mostly cool is that this is done without Flash! I checked it out on my phone and it's just as fun to interact with. I'm really liking what this means for the direction of the Web in a non-flash, no plugins interactive way.
Oct
Info Graphic Overload
I happen to agree with a recent HOW Magazine article about the overuse—and often misuse—of info graphics but I have to admit that I really dig information design and graphic visualizations of complex data. If done well, info graphics are kick ass. There is definitely no shortage of info graphics on sites like Mashable! etc. but I say keep on keeping on... just do it well.
Mar
Google Art Project
Staying true to their mission –to organize the world‘s information and make it universally accessible and useful— Google recently launched Art Project. Using the same technology that powers Street View in Google Maps, you can now explore some of the world's top museums. There is an impressive online collection that let's you zoom way in to see the texture of the canvas on paintings hanging in Amsterdam, Paris, New York, Florence, etc.
Jan
The c60 music player from IDEO's Boston Office
Cool. This is one of the most creative uses of RFID tags that I've seen. The vinyl looking music table reads the song cards that have been dropped on it. Radio frequency antennas are angled and staggered within the table so that a song card can be read and played within about a second. Placing multiple song cards on the mix table plays each song clockwise from the first one placed. Wow.
Nov
The World Wide Web is Blue and Red
This is a good little color study on the top brands that we interface with on a daily bases. I'm not surprised by the dominance of blue but when you read into the reasons, it makes you want to start painting things orange and green and... well anything else to break it up some. I love the bit about Facebook being blue because the founder, Mark Zuckerberg, is "color blind, it's the only color [he] can see."
Oct
The Sandpit
Funny. This is totally the opposite of my post from February 2, Model Car Photography. I stumbled upon this video of New York City shot to look miniature. The water scenes are totally legit... makes the city look like a super detailed model. There's also a similar video of San Francisco called San Francisco: The Miniature City. Cool.
Sep
I'm Here by Spike Jonze
This latest project by director, creator, Spike Jonze caught my attention for a very savvy facebook integration. The website design and UX is clever and wouldn't you know, actually made me want to use that facebook thing. The movie looks good too! Check out the film's website or find out more at The Creators Project website
Jul
The Very Long History of Emoticons
Anne Trubek has recently put some good words down about our collective play on punctuation marks and where we're coming from. I have to admit, I'm with her on having, at one time, an anti-emoticon snobbery about the cutesy happy faces sprankeled amongst the gtalk blips and email missives that I respond to all day. Anyway, :)>- (peace out)
May
Some Old Skool Vocoder
Just came across a great feature about "How to Wreck a Nice Beach: The Vocoder from World War II to Hip-Hop, The Machine Speaks", the new book by Dave Tompkins about the history of the vocoder. Click on the photo for a nice little collection of rare vocoder tracks that got my Monday off the ground in a funky fresh way. Thanks as always Flavorwire!
Apr
Logorama
Now that the dust has settled after all of the Academy Award hoopla, I thought it was cool to finally catch up on some of the winning films of the 2010 Oscars. This one is a must see and makes you really think differently about all those strip malls and truck stop towns sprankled up and down the interstate. Thanks Jack for forwarding me this link. Check it.
Feb
Invisible Designs Part One: Vanni Pasca
In the 75 years that the Bialetti Moka has been in production, approximately 300 MILLION units have been sold. In that time there has only been one design revision—to add the logo etching and to change the plastic components. This "technical" object is so common in European homes that it is sometimes described as an invisible appliance. The design by Vanni Pasca is part of the permanent collection at the Triennale Design Museum in Milan.
Feb
Michael Paul Smith's Model Car Photography
This is a great slideshow on Flickr. The photographer / model builder, Michael Paul Smith, explains "what started out as an exercise in model building and photography, ended up as a dream-like reconstruction of the town [he] grew up in." Props to Flavorwire for posting in their daily dose.
Jan
Gabriel Orozco
Here's a good article about Gabriel Orozco —contemporary artist from Jalapa, Veracruz. I dig the way this guy breaks things down into accentuated forms. MoMA New York is featuring a retrospective of his work. That would be a good one to check out.
Dec
Ode to a typeface
Here's an awesome and somewhat uncomfortable parody. One part type design geek, 1 part awesome, 2 parts gaga. Thanks Jake!
Aug
Matt Sesow, Washington DC
Labeled as "naive style" or self thought, I like to think of this guys work as unabashed rapid-fire creativity. Producing one painting per day, Sesow just wrapped up his 6th annual "31 Days in July" project. I dig the irreverent, skewed regurgitation of July's current events.
May
Bike-In Breakfast
Not a bad way to start the day! This morning the whole team pulled together to serve breakfast for bicycle commuters in celebration of Bike Month, May 2009. Check out the happy campers by visiting our Flickr slideshow.
Mar
NIN | JA 2009
YES.
Mar
Twitter is over capacity.
Too many tweets! Please wait a moment and try again. HA!
Mar
yellow chair project
When all of your neighbors (whom you don't even know) start using your wi-fi connection without your permission, what do you do? You can lock it up with a password or you can put a sign and a chair out front, offer up your connection and meet the people sharing your electro waves. A refreshing "social" media experiment is seen with the yellow chair project; one that actually involves human interaction. Go figure.
Feb
cubecraft crafty craft
Here's a website dedicated to the cut and fold awesomeness that is CUBECRAFT. I'm gonna go get some scissors and paper RIGHT NOW. Check out the Rubee Cubee Project and Ninja Turtle cube heads.
Feb
siftables
I recently tuned in to this TED talk demonstration of tiny computer blocks. Basically built on the principle of simple learning mechanics, David Merrill of MIT has developed these toy-like computers that interact with each other. Very cool. This could push hands-on learning to new limits for sure. Filmed: February 2009
Feb
The Annotation Impulse: Graffiti and Social Media
I stumbled upon this very cool Web article about social commentary, graffiti, annotations, book marginalia, public texting and language in visual public spaces etc. I think we need a chalk board in our bathroom. That's a very good idea. Thanks Joanne (who ever you are) for posting this on tomorrowmuseum.com
Jan
super bowl logos
I was examining the super bowl logo yesterday with Missy and getting stuck on much it looks like the BofA logo which looks like the Amtrak logo which looks like the Sprint logo which looks like which looks like... I sound smug. Oh well, time to go innovate!
Dec
pimp my bike? umm, yes
According to their website, these guys consider themselves the A-Team of bike pimping. Cool. They've been getting some big exposure on the YouTube and what not. Check out their skillzz; Some of their bike frame designs are insane! Thanks Reggio of the UK for posting this on QBN
Nov
Joe Wigdahl Photography
I happened upon this guys website and found it to be chalked with tasty eye candy. Check out the ad campaign he worked on for Sears Kenmore. His photography of people and landscapes is very nice as well. Good design of a Word Press blog!
Nov
vote-tastic-ness 2008
I noticed that I was spending an inordinate amount of time on the NY TIMES website today. In all of the craze, I found there to be some pretty good photos of the polling madness. Check them out! Photo by Shannon Stapleton/Reuters.
Oct
super pursuit
I just saw this posted on the New York Times website; SWEET! This Italian highway patrol car is a replacement for the outdated (pssst. it only had 62,000 miles on it) Lamborghini. The new Gallardo LP560-4 has 560 horse power and has been clocked at 203 mph. (according to nytimes.com) Click on the photo to check out more pics of automotive design at it's best.
Oct
fresh t-shirt sister
The design team was sporting the illest of the ill FRESH t-shirts in the studio today. Um. Was that even a sentence? It's okay, it's Phriday and the vibe was Phat!
Oct
giant poo pulverizes power lines before plopping down ... um... kind of.
Installation art gone awry in Switzerland. According to The Guardian, guardian.co.uk, "the exhibit, entitled Complex Sh*t, is the size of a house. It has a safety system that is supposed to deflate it in bad weather, but it did not work on this occasion." The turd caught a gust of wind and flew 200 meters through the air outside of the museum. Anyway, I'm going to get back to work now.
Oct
what do you do with your old car hood?
Let Joel Hester make a coffee table out of it. These tables look TOUGH! I like the Caddy Emblem stamped into the corner of the table from slide two. Check it out.
Sep
ashley learns the bicycle
The iiiDESiGN team recently pulled a surprise bicycle training session on Ashley —who somehow managed to make it this far without learning how to ride. The entire design team cut out early one day and hit the road on bikes. View the happening at our Flickr page.
Sep
speaking of Thomas Campbell
I previously mentioned that the main stage at Outside Lands Festival featured the art of Thomas Campbell and it reminded me to check in on that guy. Good to see that he's finally got a website up.
Sep
radiohead at golden gate park
It's already been two weeks since seeing radiohead at the Outside Lands Festival in SF and I'm still blown away. At times it was like watching a UFO take off; the lighting design was amazing. The stage featured the art of Thomas Campbell AKA T MoHair Mokka Mokka. Check out the photo gallery from the Outside Lands website.
Aug
plaid nation band wagon plows through slo
I've been letting this percolate in my head for a few days and realized that these PLAID guys are executing on a very good strategy. Social Media mavens, Plaid, out of Danbury CT joined us at our studio last Tuesday as part of their west coast tour. We rapped, they listened; they dropped knowledge, we soaked it up. These guys are on top of their game and we sent them home just that much fresher!
Jul
holiday moving extravaganza
Well the 4th of July holiday weekend was a blast. Besides BBQ and brew, iii DESiGN moved to the new digs. The relaxing was balanced by some hard work getting the new studio space together. In celebration of this new phase of development for our design group, I'm linking to this website showing photos from the Golden Nights International Pyrotechnic Festival in Bucharest, Romania, on July 5, 2008.
Jul
Poolga Designs
For all those gear junkies out there that are loosing sleep over the much anticipated 3G version of the iPhone coming July 11th, here's a website that offers up nice design for a more customized iPhone experience. The "Pianos" design is pretty sweet for a wallpaper.
Jun
Edward Burtynsky's Manufactured Landscapes
I recently saw this documentary, Manufactured Landscapes, about Edward Burtynsky's photography of our industrialized human impact on the globe. As a designer that sends print and other packaging jobs to China, I was intrigued by the scale and impact that manufacturing plants have. Eye opening for sure. I really dig the way he designs his shots. Check out the documentary and his website!
Jun
paris based graphic designer
Another graphic designer spawned from the grit and grime of Parisian streets. Drawing from graf art days of yore, Ludovic, AKA iLK, shows some nice work in a creative way. Check out his site.
May
unusual bathroom signs
Kind of random but these designs are pretty funny. Look for the bathroom signs made out of rope... hilarious! We'll have to design our own bathroom sign for the studio now. Thanks OFF BEAT EARTH.
Apr
World's tallest man gets new bike
I'm not exactly sure what else to say about this. Click on the photo to see the full scoop about the 8 foot 4 inches tall Ukrainian, Leonid Stadnyk, and his new specially made bicycle. Bikes are cool.
Mar
Cai Guo-Qiang at the Guggenheim Museum
"Cai Guo-Qiang: I Want to Believe" is a current featured exhibit at the Guggenheim in New York. This installation artist has transformed the rotunda into a LED light show with his car bomb piece called "Inopportune: Stage One". An online feature is available through the Guggenheim website.
Feb
design and the elastic mind at moma
Superlatives sound when our society experiences the fusion of design and science. An excellent exhibit is currently showing at MoMA, Design and the Elastic Mind, but you and I can see it on the web. Here's Philips' Ambient Experience Design for low-stress medical scans... a nod to the famous Soylent Green scene.
Feb
L.A.S.E.R. TAG
I first saw early development of this at the Pompidou Art Museum, Paris France, in 2005; the exhibit was a L.A.S.E.R. spray can that you could tag the walls with. Graffiti Research Lab has amped this to a whole new level. Graffiti writing is now at a monumental scale. Video of their performances is currently on display at MoMA.
Feb
Got Milk?
This interactive online campaign from Summer '07 is a well executed microsite put out by the California Milk Processor Board. Designed and produced primarily by the art director students of Hyper Island in Stockholm, Sweden.
Jan
Human Tetris
Guillaume REYMOND (NOTsoNOISY creative agency)has created a design project for the web wherein some old video game favorites are creatively simulated using people in theater spaces. This version of Tetris features some awesome voice dubs too. Posted by a iii DESiGN favorite, Thy. Thanks Thy!
Jan
Happy New Year!
Sand artist Sudarsan Patnaik creates a sand sculpture of the Taj Mahal on New Year's Eve at a beach in Puri, close to the eastern Indian city of Bhubaneshwar, on December 31, 2007. Posted by ACTIVATE, my favorite "cultural stimuli" news compilation. Published by Flavorpill.
Dec
phonophone by Tristan Zimmermann
"While details are scarce at this point, Tristan will confirm that 2 of his product designs (phonofone II and park planters) have been licensed to a major foreign design concern and are poised for commercial re-release as soon as spring 2008. As a result the current edition of designer made Phonofone II’s is being reduced from 200 to 75 units while the production of Park Planters faces immediate suspension. Plastidermy production will also be put on hiatus until spring 2008."
Dec
anygivenname.org
is Interdisciplinary, Subjective, Quaint, Up-to-date, Modernist, about Contstructed-reality, Self-/Ironical, Conceptual, Artsy, Fashionable, Existential, Sculptural, graphical, Curious, Post-modernist, Retro-Avantgardistic, Ascetical, Puristic, Functional, Scrupulous, Didactic, Decorative, Cosmopolitan, Networked, Hypercurated …
Dec
red hot chilli pipers
ummm. no words. you'd just have to see these YouTube videos to appreciate the bag rock chaos.
Dec
beat bikes
"Mr. Samaroo's sturdy Mongoose supports a system with four 12-inch speakers that can handle the 5,000 watts. He's co-owner of a business called Legal Intentionz that mounts steroes on bikes." See more of these bikes posted by NY TIMES
Nov
Graphic Design on the radio
It would take a bit of time to listen to all of these radio programs but these chaps talk about some interesting stuff while attempting to de-mystify the profession we call "graphic design". The importance that music has on the creative process definitely resonates with us here at iiidesign. enjoy.
Nov
great resource for corporate identities
Go here for the ultimate index of corporate sites. The catalog includes a list of corporate identity resources.
Oct
JON'S BLOG
If I had a blog roll, delicious:thoughts would be on it! Anyway this will be my way of checking in on how the delicious:designer flash app is doing. Check out Jon Beebe's unit circle trig model that he's action scripting. We look forward to working with these guys on some website productions very soon. Keep up the good work Jon and Ken. PS nice cherries!
Oct
VIDEO BACKGROUNDS
The video background effect has definitely taken off in website designs. I guess now it's officially a trend but it works well when used correctly. See also, www.burnkit.com for a contrast of this skate company's design.
Sep
Brian dettmer: book autopsies
wow. pretty cool! I really want to see these up close. This guy has a good thing going with these book sculptures. wow.
Sep
ARCHITECTURE AND FLASH. MMMM
Smart and organized flash site for this New York based architect, Jonathan Schloss. It takes a while to view all the images but well worth it.
Sep
REMEMBER TYPE SPECIMEN BOOKS?
Thank you :nike for putting these photos up on Flickr. As a fellow typography junkie, it's good to know that someone is sharing photos of these. Awesome use of type. True inspirado.
Sep
CRUDE AWAKENING - WATCH IT BURN
The brains behind the tallest structure ever built at Burning Man [planned] to produce the tallest fire ever seen at the event as well -- a 1,000-foot column of flame, primed by 900 gallons of jet fuel and fed by 2,000 gallons of liquid propane. Its creators [hoped] this massive flame will send a powerful message about the oil economy. The piece is called Crude Awakening. It's the brainchild of Bay Area artists Dan Das Mann and Karen Cusolito. Its collaborative execution brings together eight different artists and involved the help of 180 different people.
Aug
ECO-SCREENPRINTING
T.S. Designs, a screenprinting company, has created an eco-effective method of screenprinting, called "Rehance". Screenprinters commonly use "Plastisol" ink which contains PVC. Plastisol creates a plasticky shell that sits separate from the fabric and becomes crusty after repeated washings. By contrast, Rehance changes the cotton at the molecular level, and allows the fiber to remain breathable after printing. It also stretches with the fabric, so it is less prone to cracking.
Jul
IT'S LIKE AN ONLINE GARAGE SALE
Ready Made meets Saturday morning garage sales. This site has myriad ways of searching categories ie. you can search for all things orange. Nice flash elements too!
Jul
VEER GETS FLASHY FLASH
This is a pretty cool spin on using typography graphically. The flash movie takes a while to load but the navigation and illustrations are very well done.
Jul
BANKSY BRUSHED UNDER THE RUG
What's up with this guy any more. I guess the rock star status is getting to his head. His collection of London sidewalk hits is still ill though.
Jul
IS THIS THING ON?
Here's an image bookmark page featuring all kinds of eye candy. Cool thing is you can see how many people saved the images to their computer and how recently.
