the insignificant ramblings of a disturbed graphic designer
Thursday, September 04, 2008
Thursday Top 5
The sinister 4 a.m. conspiracy: Uncovered!
Google Chrome Comics artist Scott McCloud helps the Google team de-tech-ify the company’s open source browser project. www.google.com/googlebooks/chrome
FuturamaMath.com Dr. Sarah J. Greenwald teaches math at NC’s Appalachian State University, and gives the couch potatoes-cum-mathletes a few things to ponder. www.FuturamaMath.com
Get Crafty! Episode 6 Scrapblog gets creative in the videos they produce to show people how their site works. The results are way funnier than the normal how-to screencast. www.youtube.com/watch?v=a5LNHmwb1fw
Posted by espd at 4:48 PM |
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Tuesday, September 02, 2008
Seattle
We went to Seattle last weekend to attend the wedding of our friends Patty and Rich, who met in Seattle but actually live in the Bay Area now. We stayed with our friends Chris and Jana, who used to live in the Bay Area but have since relocated to Seattle (Wedgwood, actually). Are you confused yet?
The wedding was an opportunity for Velma to see some old college friends she doesn’t get to see very often. Rich was one of Velma’s best friends in college, and they were part of the swing dancing scene in St. Louis, and later in the Bay Area.
Velma and I used to work in the same building as Jana, and Chris and Jana asked us to be the photographers for their wedding a few years back, in a park in the South Bay. They’ve since relocated to Seattle (Wedgwood), and were kind enough to put us up and show us around a bit too (I haven’t been to Seattle in over a decade). Not to mention picking us up and dropping us off at the airport! Friends can be awesome, can’t they?
We spent most of our time in the Fremont District and Queen Anne, and Jana and Velma spent a solid chunk of time in World Spice downtown, behind Pike Place.
Here are a few of the places/things I enjoyed in/around Seattle:
Eat Local A cool organic café and grocery on Queen Anne Avenue N. They use local ingredients and make small batches that are perfect for couples or individuals to pick up on their way home. They also brew Stumptown Coffee.
Nikki McClure Nikki McClure makes extraordinarily beautiful papercut illustrations in a woodcut-like style. You may have seen her calendars or notecards, or recognize her work from books or magazines. We came across a whole bunch of her work (including a few framed originals, which are fascinating to look at up close) in the above-mentioned Eat Local shop, since she illustrated all their product labels.
Destee Nation Shirt Company Chris took us to his favorite T-shirt shop. I really liked several of the designs, but since my travel bags were pretty stuffed and I didn’t want to spend much money on this trip, I decided I’d wait and maybe purchase from their website later.
Revival Ink I saw this artist’s tees and hoodies at a boutique in Queen Anne and at the Fremont Sunday Market too. I liked two or three of the prints a lot, and would’ve bought one of the hoodies, but while they’re a more earth-friendly 70% bamboo and 30% organic cotton, they have those terribly cheap zippers that seem to jam within a month of use.
Chocolopolis Another of Chris’s faves, this shop features some exquisite artisan chocolates from around the world, and has free samples out all day.
Hollywood Schoolhouse This is where the wedding was held, a lovely but slightly quirky historical building. The 1912 brick structure hosts lots of weddings and banquets, and has some interesting decorations.
Gas Works Park This 19-acre park is on the site of a former coal-powered gas and oil plant, acquired by the city in the ’60s and opened to the public in 1975. Right on Lake Union, in the middle of Seattle, the park features stunning vistas of downtown and the lakeside portions of the city (Velma, Jana, and Chris pictured above, enjoying the view).
Lenin Since we were only a block away, we simply had to stop and see the 16-foot bronze statue of Lenin in the Fremont. Olya had told me about this (appropriately enough) a couple years ago; I hadn’t seen it when I visited Seattle my first time. If you have a spare quarter-million bucks, you can buy Comrade Lenin for your yard. He’s for sale.
The Fremont Troll The other thing I hadn’t seen last time was the famous Troll. Somehow Holly and I entirely missed the Fremont neighborhood, although we squeezed in practically everything else in our three-day vacation about a decade ago.
World Spice Merchants This popular spot behind Pike Place Market occupied Velma and Jana so long I had to walk around outside because the strong smells were becoming too much for my allergies. Most interesting to me was the Mongolian tea brick, actual bricks of tea which in the past were broken up to use as currency.
io9 was doing an article Russian science fiction book cover artwork and must’ve seen the book cover I posted to my Flickr group Heinleinia.
The book in question (pictured here) has always been a bit of a mystery to me. It’s a Russian edition of Stranger in a Strange Land published in 2003, but because most of the text is in Russian, I can’t get much information from the title and copyright pages. I found the book for sale on eBay last year.
One of the commenters on io9’s post noted that the cover of the Heinlein book features a painting by Donato Giancola, which was a nice find. Giancola’s produced some great work in his portfolio. Though I’ve never been able to figure out why this particular piece was chosen for the Heinlein book, as it bears no resemblance to anything in the story.
Posted by espd at 2:44 PM |
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Sunday, July 20, 2008
Tor.com finally relaunches
The science fiction and fantasy publisher has been teasing people for months with free desktops and even full-length book downloads, in anticipation of the relaunch of their website. It went live today, and they've linked to all the previous free downloads for one final week. Hop on over if you like John Scalzi, Charles Wilson, Harry Turtledove, Peter David, et al.
Posted by espd at 8:00 AM |
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Friday, June 20, 2008
FreakAngels
FreakAngels is a new web comic about a flooded, post-apocalyptic London inhabited by the 12 telepaths who caused the world to end. It’s written by the excellent Warren Ellis, and illustrated by the exceptional Paul Duffield.
Ynnej turned me on to this comic a week or two ago, but I didn’t bother to read it until tonight, and now I'm jonesin’ for the next installment.
WineLibraryTV.com This Gary guy is nuts about wine. And just generally a little nuts. Check out his popular podcasts on WineLibraryTV.com. And here he is on Conan. WineLibraryTV.com is a pretty cool site, as is its sister site, Corkd.com.
Tag Galaxy An entertaining way to browse Flickr tags. www.taggalaxy.de
30 minutes of '80s cartoon openings Wow. The cartoons of the 1980s really were terrible (except Inspector Gadget, he was awesome). www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bto7l3cKhvk
Posted by espd at 6:53 AM |
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Monday, June 16, 2008
Updated an old post about Alternative Press Expo
I had done the first half of this post, but hadn't completed the second half. So here it is, if you're into art, design, comics and such niftiness. The update starts about half-way down the page.
Jyoti, the smallest girl in the world She stands just 1ft 11in tall and the average two-year-old would tower over her. But Jyoti Amge is 14 years old. www.sundaymirror.co.uk/news/sunday/2008/04/06/
The Big Picture The Boston Globe's website, Boston.com, has started a new photoblog with amazing, large-size news photos from around the world. So much better than the tiny front-page photos you see on most news sites. www.boston.com/bigpicture
Didn't happen. This Sunday I spent most of my afternoon at the old Hunters Point Shipyard looking at the work of artists whom I'd never seen before at all, either because they were new tenants, they hadn't opened their studios the past times I'd attended (not everyone participates every time), or they were borrowing space from other resident artists who weren't showing this spring.
Here's a sampling of the new art I really liked...
Sharon Beals I really liked her nest series, which you can see on Flickr. The small pictures are great but don't do justice to seeing the truly stunning large-format prints she was displaying in her studio. www.sharonbeals.com www.flickr.com/photos/planetcitizen
Zabrina Tipton Zabrina's San Francisco Urbanscapes appealed to me both because of the familiar hometown sights and because the saturated colors and posterized look evoked some of the 1970s pop art I grew up looking at in magazines. sfguild.exposuremanager.com www.zabrinatipton.com
Rebecca Haseltine Haseltine makes her “pourings” using pigments and water, achieving an interesting effect on a translucent mylar that's almost incandescent when displayed in front of a window. www.rebeccahaseltine.com
Leslie Lowenger I liked a couple of the prints by this artist, especially the one pictured above. www.leslielowinger.com
Alan Mazzetti I usually prefer abstract painters to strictly representational, and Alan Mazzetti's didn't disappoint. I especially enjoyed his Foils series, inspired by wine, and talked with him about the interesting characteristics of viewpoint and motion exhibited in his Probabilities series. www.amazzetti.net
David Goldberg I talked with David about traditional photography and his adept use of multiple exposures. I couldn't find him on the web, though.
Kathryn Kain I may have mentioned Kain before, but she was displaying two large pink works from 2006 (I think) that were stupendous. Since they were predominantly pink, it was amazing that I loved them so much, since that's my least favorite color. Unfortunately they're not on her website, and there's nothing else featured there that I particularly like. www.kathrynkain.com
I also saw jewelry by two artists I really liked, which is rare since I'm not interested in most jewelry. Many of the pictures on their respective websites don't really do justice to their work, but in person they were fabulous. Josie Adele – www.fluidance.com www.claudiakussano.com
Even though I've mentioned them before, I'm going to feature these two artists whose work continues to blow me away.
Lev Yilmaz uses a great low-budget animation technique: He films himself drawing his cartoons in realtime, but from underneath, through a glass pane. So he has to write all the dialog in backward letters. It's an effective technique, and it must speed up the animation process tenfold or more (no stop-frame necessary).
But it wouldn't be worth a lick if the narratives themselves weren't downright funny, and Lev's certainly are. You can see more of his work at Ingredient X, or all his videos on his YouTube page.
Note: Most of them are clean but a few contain "strong language." This one's clean:
Posted by espd at 1:13 AM |
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Thursday, February 21, 2008
Thursday Top 5
Time-lapse video: Making a digital portrait of Thom Yorke
How to make bread lol! I like this comment: "Add baking to the list of typical hobbies for gay, white, disco ninjas." www.poetv.com/video.php?vid=24479
Declaration of Romantic Intent When you truly (euphemism for attraction) someone, nothing says it like a form letter. bureauofcommunication.com
iminta My pal Aaron Newton launched his new site a little over a week ago, and it's garnering some good reviews. It's a social-web aggregator allowing you to keep track of you and your friends' activity on a bunch of services like Yelp, Digg, Twitter, and YouTube, but do it all in one place. I helped Aaron a bit with some graphic advice early on. www.iminta.com
Clark and Michael I don't know how to describe these webisodes. They're just funny. You might recognize Michael Cera from Juno or "Arrested Development." You gotta start at Episode 1 though. www.clarkandmichael.com
Jasper Morello and the Lost Airship is the first of four shorts in an Australian animated series titled The Mysterious Geographic Explorations of Jasper Morello. The animation style is at once creepy and deeply beautiful. I'd really like to buy the DVD of the whole series, because they're so wonderful looking (for a teaser of better-quality video than YouTube offers, watch the trailer on the official website), but for some reason the DVD is not sold in the USA or Europe.
Posted by espd at 5:44 PM |
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Monday, January 28, 2008
Thomas Allen, Uncovered
I can't remember where I heard about Thomas Allen's book, Uncovered, but I mentioned it to Jason the other day and I thought I'd post it for others as well.
Allen's photographs breathe new life into vintage books and magazines by literally liberating some of the heroes and heroines from the pages, sometimes (as in the example above) creating a new pretext in the story.
111 nude SF women on couches A book (premiered last week at 111 Minna) by Merkley??? (sic – his name includes the ???). Note: Not exactly safe for work or small chill’n. www.threequestionmarks.com I also like his take on "photographers."
Jim Houser interview A typically conversational Fecal Face interview with illustrator Jim Houser. The best part is the ton of pictures of his home/workspace. www.fecalface.com/SF/
The Small Stakes I have this Death Cab for Cutie shirt I really like, and it was designed by Jason Munn, who has churned out some amazing posters and designs over the past five years from his Oakland studio. www.thesmallstakes.com
Consumer Consequences An interactive game that asks, "What would the world look like if everyone lived like me?" You may have played games like this before (sometimes it's more like a quiz), but this one is notable in that it allows you to compare your answers at the end to other people's, including some American Public Media personalities. Thanks to Ynnej for the link. sustainability.publicradio.org
The Superest An ongoing character illustration battle between Kevin Cornell, Matthew Sutter, and occasional guest artists. www.thesuperest.com
WGA Strike: A Love Story The Writer Guild strike continues, but the writers keep writing, while the networks give you reruns and game shows. youtube.com/watch?v=EodzF_orJQY
Watch your (fo)odometer How many miles does your food travel from field to fork? Presented in an interestingly animated fashion. youtube.com/watch?v=p4RCyxgz97g
Posted by espd at 9:00 PM |
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Thursday, November 22, 2007
Thursday Top 5
Microsoft's Seadragon/Photosynth Blaise Aguera y Arcas of Microsoft Live Labs demos Seadragon/Photosynth, some incredible software that's capable of assembling static photos into zoomable, navigatable spaces.
Donate to Wikimedia Foundation Okay, the close-up on the eyes and the creepy hand-wringing is weird, but the rest of this video is good. I'm going to talk with Velma about adding the Wikimedia Foundation to our giving list. And if you've ever used Wikipedia for anything at all, you might consider a donation too. wikimediafoundation.org
Also Also is a really cool design company with a really cool site. Jason will probably like this one. I think he should redesign his site something like this — using Flash to tell an amusing story that's also the site's navigation itself. www.also-online.com
Julia Rothman Julia is a partner in Also (mentioned above) and does all their illustrations. She also does really cool pattern and surface design independently of Also. And if that wasn't enough alsos, she also runs this great blog called Book By Its Cover covering artful books about comics, design, etc. (below). www.juliarothman.com
"Happy" A short animation from Vancouver Film School. This one's for Sage and Dakota. x D
The Russian Avante-Garde Book: 1910–1934 An online exhibit from the MoMA (New York). This one's for Olya and any people who appreciate historical art, design, and typography. www.moma.org/exhibitions/2002/russian/
Carrier Pigeon A well-done video podcast about all kinds of stuff, from designer Dave Werner. minorstudios.com Never heard of Dave Werner? He's a somewhat recent grad of the Porfolio Center. Check out his absolutely exceptional portfolio: okaydave.com
Barista Brat The rants and raves of a Starbucks Barista. Fun and even informative. This link's for Jenny, who recently got a job at a small coffee place in San Francisco. baristabrat.blogspot.com
Last Sunday I went to Hunters Point Open Studios with Aaron Zonka and Olya Milenkaya. As usual, I enjoyed it a lot. I always get inspired, and usually I see a few new artists whose work I've never seen before.
Aaron and Olya, both artists, seemed to like some of the work, but their general comment was something like "I didn't see anything that really blew me away."
Remind me not to go to Open Studios with artists anymore.
Anyway, here are most of my favorite artists from this year. Of course, these little images can't do justice to seeing the real thing in three dimensions. Most of these are really tactile and the subtleties are absolutely lost when photographed and shrunken.
Hunters Point Open Studios SF artists' studios are open on weekends from Oct 13 through November 4, but the one I look forward to every year is Hunters Point (Nov 3 and 4). Multiple buildings filled with every imaginable kind of artist. Last year I discovered a blind sculptor, among other wonderful work. Frankly, I don't think the images on this page are terribly indicative of the breadth of quality art on display, but here are some samples: www.mesart.com/openstudios_SanFrancisco.jsp
Buy a decommissioned missile base Only $1.5 million, and it comes with 57 acres of land, 16 underground buildings, and thousands of feet of connecting tunnels. Near Spokane, WA. "Honey — can we, can we, can we?" tinyurl.com/2ynfvm
Posted by espd at 7:09 PM |
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Thursday, August 30, 2007
Thursday top 5
Greg Morgan I love this guy's collage work. If you've ever picked up one of the brochures in Starbucks while you were waiting for your mocha, you've probably seen his work too. www.lillarogers.com/artists/greg/
kin-dza-dza This is such an interesting photo, but I need one of my Russian peeps to translate the text so I can know wtf. www.panoramio.com/photo/97671
Guitar Hero 2: Rush "YYZ" on Expert "What's up, Internet?" lol! This guy's damn good on GH2, though. Now if they'd just make a Drum Hero...I'd like to see this guy try to be Neil Peart. www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ua3hZXfNZOE
How to take a product-shot photo on a white background A pretty simple method. I tried it out the other night, and while it's a little harder to get a really good result than it might first seem from this tutorial, it works pretty well. www.sxc.hu/blog/post/133
My Gap photo used alongside an article on NowPublic
Kaitlin posted an article on NowPublic, a social media site, about Gap founder Donald Fisher's intention to open an art museum in San Francisco's Presidio. She found my photo on Flickr and asked if she could use it along with the article. Thank bog some people ask.
Chow.com's new Obsessives feature The first series of videos is a barista from Blue Bottle Coffee telling you all kinds of great stuff about how to make truly great coffee. And he only gets a tad too snarky and holier-than-thou about two-thirds of the way through the videos. www.chow.com/stories/10625
Zack Kim The Simpsons theme, and other stuff, played by one guy with two guitars. I think "Prelude No.3 in C# major" is my fave. youtube.com/watch?v=GFqTd-CEjHM
Painted rooms Local artists have painted the walls (and sometimes the fixtures and ceilings) of a bunch of rooms in this hotel. It's pretty cool. I wanna go see it. www.sfhoteldesarts.com/pr201kellytunstall.php
The wedding was an opportunity for Velma to see some old college friends she doesn’t get to see very often. Rich was one of Velma’s best friends in college, and they were part of the swing dancing scene in St. Louis, and later in the Bay Area.
