Catfish Trailer 2010
BOMBAXEBABE
BOMBAXEBABE APPAREL® is inspired by women who are relentlessly desiring for a strong and edgy style for their everyday/night life. Above is a sneak peak of the brand that will be launching in 2011. Stay tune for more detail to come.
Multi Touch Light Table: Gregwerk
Multi Touch Light Table: GERGWERK from GERG WERK on Vimeo.
Big Boi - Shutterbugg ft. Cutty
Scott Albrecht
Converse - “All Summer” MV
Swedish House Mafia “ONE”
Puma The List Sky Hi+ “Repstile”
Look out for these in October 2010 at The Good Will Out and other premium Puma accounts.
Waterpark Skating
Calligraffiti
Nalden meets Niels ‘Shoe’ Meulman from Nalden on Vimeo.
Travie McCoy: Billionaire (LIVE ACOUSTIC)
V V Brown “L.O.V.E”
World’s largest open archive of graffiti motion data
old vitasoy bottle design
wtf of the day
Spectrum
iWatch
The design is from the Italian ADR Studio, and exists only in the world of Photoshop.
The World Cup predicted
2012 Lexus LFA
The Awesome World of Advertising
12oz in São Paulo
* balloons for peace
Sneak Peek of Banksy’s Exit Through The Gift Shop
APRIL 30th MINNEAPOLIS : LAGOON CINEMA
The state of the internet
JESS3 / The State of The Internet from JESS3 on Vimeo.
Robot High School
I am always intrigued by the bright colors of balloon, something about them just arouse my curiosity. Robot High School is a music video directed by Roel Wouters with music by My Robot Friend. It was shot in a single take in an abandoned warehouse in Amsterdam. The music video address the issues of how perspective can manipulate our view of reality.
check out more video at myrobotfriend
does niche marketing bring us closer to our inner self?
What’s better than making money doing something you love? Baking red velvet cupcakes with cream cheese filling, sewing tote bags out of recycled materials, building dog caskets for dog lovers, monks refilling soy ink cartridges as a way of serenity … the list goes on.
Since the downshifting of the global economy a couple of years ago, you probably know a few people who have been laid off. But where did they go? Maybe some of them are lining up at the unemployment office looking for jobs. But for some creative people, this is a time of opportunity to transform their business into something they have always dreamed of.
Change may not be so bad after all. Just a couple of days ago, I received a mysterious email from someone I didn’t know. Soon after I learned that this person is Baron Carr, former vice president at JPMorgan, Allianz and most recently head of marketing at Carlson Hotels Worldwide. He was looking for a designer to redesign his website for his new niche business. Baron explained that he felt unsatisfied in his previous position (even as a top executive) as time went on, so he resigned and started the b.carr group – helping people realize and reach their true potential through the practice of yoga.
Fascinating ideas. First you learned your neighbor is blogging about her favorite apple pie recipes, next thing you know she is making money by delivering pies to everyone’s door in the neighborhood. Now there are niche branding companies helping individuals like the pie lady to brand herself and her pies through yoga – I told you the list really goes on, right?
But what does that mean in the design world? As a designer now, it’s important to think about not only making something new for the sake of making something new, but making something that really serves its full purpose in this already polluted world. Maybe designers can be our philosophers or policy makers in the future. Is that a niche?
Does change and niche marketing bring us closer to our inner self ? I might have to stir up this conversation when I meet with Baron over some yoga moves.
I recommend you see two films: objectified and (coming soon) lemonade.
Fontplore
Fontplore Showreel from Mphasize on Vimeo.
This futuristic Fontplore is an interactive application designed for searching and exploring font databases. Fontplore helps you to easily find the right typeface for your project in a collection of several thousands of fonts. It lets you browse, preview, compare and print the fonts you are interested in.
And the clou is: It does all that on an interactive table, using tangible objects to navigate and control actions, so the workflow is easy to understand.
the helvetica movie
Below: Specimens of types by Erik Spiekermann.
wtf of the day
iMaxi - The Apple iPad Case with Protective Wings
When iPad first came out I was making fun of the name, now that Hip Handmaids made this iMaxi with Protective Wings put this whole thing on a different level - creepy.
“With its durable vinyl outer layer and plush, quilted-cotton sleeve, the iMaxi helps keep your iPad clean and dry. Plus, the iMaxi’s Velcro-latched, advanced wing design wraps snugly around your device, so your iPad always stays where it should. Best of all, it shields it from all those unsightly and embarrassing data leaks that would make any motherboard worry!” -Hip Handmaids.
is new. is fresh. is haptic.
I am thrilled to have my friend that is excited to join me here on Design in Society. We have been wanting to do something collaborative and that conversation has been way over due. So I asked her today to join me here to write blog posts with me and maybe we can stir up that conversation with couple of beers. While Maggie’s website is being updated, check out what’s she doing through twitter or add her as a friend on facebook.
img of the day
die antwoord explosion
The first time I noticed their talent was on a friend’s link on Facebook. Next thing I knew, my lips puckered up, my head was bobbing and my heart was pumping as I watched their highly stylized videos. It was like Gummo-meets-rave-techno satisfying. I am talking about Die Antwoord, an Afrikaans zef rap-rave band from Cape Town, South Africa. The first video I laid my eyes on was Zef side:
Ninja, Yo-Landi and DJ Hi-Tek made all their music and music videos on their own with the help of some good friends. They have been bubbling under the media radar for a while, and it finally exploded on YouTube, Twitter and Facebook after the first week of February, when boing boing first blogged about them.
Die Antwoord claimed that they put a Puma logo on their website because Puma gives them free clothes and free shoes (Puma is not giving them money, way to go Puma!). Jagermeister also came across with some freebies — they are probably pouring shots in their mouths as we speak. But Die Antwoord is certainly putting these two well-known brands on the next level.
Die Antwoord began to get noticed after they launched their musik on wat ky kjy, the legendary Zef Afrikaans blog that became Die Antwoord’s home. Google helped, too. Their music videos are streamed by YouTube, and there’s a lot of discussion on Facebook and Twitter or bloggers and news websites.
Live Nation, the biggest events company in the world, wants to make a deal with them. There’s an international bidding war going on at the moment over who’s going to represent them. EMI Worldwide and Interscope Universal are bidding for their soul.
This is truly the music sensation of 2010 and I always love materials from the early stage of a musician’s career, when it’s fresh and it’s popping!
Check out one more video when they were jamming on the taxi:
Taxijam presents Die Antwoord from taxijam on Vimeo.
form & communication
Typography has always been fascinating to me, especially foreign languages for whose meaning I have no clue. By looking at the strokes or the way the words are spelled out, I sometimes can feel what it is trying to say. Or sometimes I just stare at it really hard, hoping I will know what it means eventually.
That idea inspired me for this experiment. I created a page filled with the word “typography” in Chinese. Although I can read in Chinese, the crowded page soon becomes unrecognizable, and the negative spaces start screaming loudly when they become forms.
After a long stare, I started seeing shapes that are recognizable again within the negative and positive spaces. That’s where I started punching out some of the shapes into an alphabet. I found the alphabet “A” at first — then, one after the other, soon I had the entire alphabet made out of these unrecognizable Chinese characters.
The alphabet cannot be recognized by itself without the other shapes that give form to the individual letters. Then I matched the discovered letters with some images that I found.
I love to compare the relationship between the unrecognizable shape of an alphabet letter with an out-of-context image. The relationship or the language between the two speak differently to different people. By combining the two forms together, an entire new form is being created.
I am not yet done making these forms into something transparent. So stay tuned for more of the form-making process. In the meantime, check out an experimental type design I created in the past. view
Master Piece from BLU & David Ellis
Put Blu and David Ellis in an old building for seven days and you have a great animation! It was made for the Italian Fame Festival.
COMBO a collaborative animation by Blu and David Ellis (2 times loop) from blu on Vimeo.
Hello From Earth
Humans are desperately seeking ways to extend our planet’s life and history, reproducing human in space, finding portals to other universes, or searching for earth-like planet. The truth is we might not be alone, right? Hello from earth is collecting messages that will be transmitted to Gliese 581d, a planet outside our Solar System which may support life.
After the final message has been collected on Sunday 23 August 2009, all the messages will be collected and exported as a text file and sent to NASA”S Jet Propulsion laboratory in California, where it will be encoded into binary code, packaged and tested before transmission.
The signal will reach the solar system of Gliese 581 around December 2029. Any response will need to travel the same way back, so unless Gliesans have improved communication technologies, the soonest we could hope to receive an answer would be in 42 years around 2051.
The chances are we will be hollering the question into the vastness of the universe for centuries to come. But that doesn’t mean that such cosmic calls are doomed to failure. In 1961, astronomer Frank Drake formulated an equation that predicted the likelihood of detecting other intelligent civilisations in our galaxy. In 2007, Drake told NASA’sAstrobiology Magazine that he estimates we’ll eventually find existing intelligent life in “one in ten million stars.”
Do you have a message to send? go to hellofromearth.net
Twitter Spread Iranian Defiance Online
When did any social network become something more than just communicating your everyday life? As the embattled government of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad appears to be trying to limit Internet access and communications in Iran, new kinds of social media are challenging those traditional levers of state media control and allowing Iranians to find novel ways around the restrictions.
Iranians are blogging, posting to Facebook and, most visibly, coordinating their protests on Twitter, the messaging service. Their activity has increased, not decreased, since the presidential election on Friday and ensuing attempts by the government to restrict or censor their online communications.
According to Twitter’s published statistics, reports and links to photos from a peaceful mass march through Tehran on Monday, along with accounts of street fighting and casualties around the country, have become the most popular topic on the service worldwide.
But Twitter is aware of the power of its service. Acknowledging its role on the global stage, the San Francisco-based company said Monday that it was delaying a planned shutdown for maintenance for a day, citing “the role Twitter is currently playing as an important communication tool in Iran.”
Some Twitter users were also going on the offensive. On Monday morning, an antigovernment activist using the Twitter account “DDOSIran” asked supporters to visit a Web site to participate in an online attack to try to crash government Web sites by overwhelming them with traffic.
By Monday afternoon, many of those sites were not accessible, though it was not clear if the attack was responsible — and the Twitter account behind the attack had been removed. A Twitter spokeswoman said the company had no connection to the deletion of the account.
Many Twitter users have been sharing ways to evade government snooping, such as programming their Web browsers to contact a proxy — or an Internet server that relays their connection through another country.
Austin Heap, a 25-year-old information technology consultant in San Francisco, is running his own private proxies to help Iranians, and is advertising them on Twitter. He said on Monday that his servers were providing the Internet connections for about 750 Iranians at any one moment.
“I think that cyber activism can be a way to empower people living under less than democratic governments around the world,” he said.
It is easy for Twitter feeds to be echoed everywhere else in the world. The qualities that make Twitter seem inane and half-baked are what make it so powerful.
First Gay Pride in China
June is the designated month of Gay Pride events all over the world, Shanghai showed its Pride last week by holding several events at Shanghai’s own, one-of-a-kind gay dance club/bar/motel multiplex, PinkHome.
Hundreds of LGBTs (lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender) and some curious straight folks packed the Cotton’s Xinhua Road club from 2 to 10 pm on Saturday, with a series of live events culminating in four same-sex weddings when gay marriage is still illegal in the country.
The festive crowds continued their party in the Glamour Bar on the Bund until the next day. On Sunday, the LGBT crowds celebrated their last-day party with singing, badminton and swimming contests.
For many LGBTs, it was the first time they felt like coming out of the closet in the country’s largest metropolis. It was their first grand party on the Chinese mainland.
Although China decriminalized gay sex in 1997 and no longer considers homosexuality as a mental disorder since 2001, discrimination against LGBTs is still prevalent. Some government officials still do not recognize and accept LGBTs as normal human beings, and deny them due dignity and equal rights.
During the week of Shanghai Pride, local government officials intervened to cancel several film screenings and the staging of a play. This is a truly shame for Shanghai, a city which claims to be open and progressive; a city of immigrants that is proud of its tradition of embracing different peoples and cultures.
Shanghai has embarked on an ambitious program to develop itself as an international financial and shipping hub. It is a city that is planning to host the World Expo in May 2010 when 239 countries and international organizations will showcase their technologies and unique cultures.
Yet, if Shanghai cannot even show acceptance, understanding and tolerance for LGBTs, how can it expect it to attract and respect the diverse people coming to visit the Expo and develop in future the working environment for a global financial and shipping center.
It’s quite disturbing to see the local authorities still adopt such a hostile attitude towards LGBTs and persist in trying to confine them to the closet in such a big city. While it’s unrealistic to expect a country like China, with a strong conservative tradition, to change overnight, cities like Shanghai should definitely take the lead.
The Future of Gaming
PROJECT NATAL - MOTION-SENSING GAME CONTROL
At the E3 video game conference in Los Angeles, Microsoft introduced “Project Natal,” a new gaming console that uses a sensor instead of a controller. It’s the world’s first console to combine an RGB camera, depth sensor, multi-array microphone and custom processor running proprietary software all in one device.
Microsoft showed a video demonstrating how the game system could be used to control games such as fighting or skateboarding games. You can scan your own skateboard into a game and then use it to ride on in a skateboarding game. The idea is to make people feel more connected to a game, said Peter Molyneux, head of Microsoft’s Lionhead game division. Molyneux showed a game dubbed Milo, where you can interact with a little boy, a virtual character, and explore a world with your own body movements.
The camera was surprisingly sensitive, able to pick up even subtle movements, like a nod of the head, a twist of a wrist, and a shake of the ankle, as well as bigger, bolder movements. Gestures were immediately replicated on-screen, with the smallest time-lag only occasionally noticeable.
Although Microsoft has declined to say how long it will take for Natal to make the leap from the laboratory to the living room, it’s clear that the technology has upped the ante as far as next-generation gaming is concerned.
Both Nintendo and Sony, who today announced their own innovations in motion-sensitive control, suddenly looked very old-fashioned when compared to the step-change in game control Natal represents. What Project Natal demonstrates is that a pure gaming experience, unencumbered by controllers or wires, can in fact prove one of the most enjoyable and intuitive ways of playing.
Can you catch up with the internet?
Can you catch up with the internet?
Be ready! Because we are about to take over by all the information in the internet. How much can we absorb? and what does it all mean? And Did you know…
Betel Nut Beauty
BETEL NUT BEAUTY ????
Recently a phenomenon seems to draw a lot of attention around the world to a common sight along roadsides in Taiwan: a young woman selling betel nuts and cigarettes from a brightly lit glass enclosure while wearing revealing clothing. At first glance, you might think that it is a hidden part of society.
The Mandarin term names the women after Xi Shi, the legendary beauty of imperial China’s Spring and Autumn Period. Though betel nuts are chewed in many regions of the Asia-Pacific, the betel nut beauty phenomenon is distinctly Taiwanese.
The original betel nut beauties were the “Shuangdong Girls” who, in the 1960s, brought glamour to the opening of the Shuangdong Betel Nut Stand in Guoxing Township. The success of the marketing strategy led competitors to follow suit, and by the end of the century betel nut beauties and their neon-topped kiosks were a trademark feature of Taiwan’s cities and countryside. The kiosks appear in urban, suburban and rural settings alike. They are most characteristically encountered along major highways where truck drivers–famously enthusiastic consumers of betel nuts–can easily find them.
Many of the women recruited by the booth owners are dropouts, single parents or runaways from lower socioeconomic backgrounds. The average age is 14 to 17. By 20, they are often too old. The businesses are legal, but many are owned by gangsters who bribe police to alert them of pending raids, allowing them to hide underage workers. Where women once faced pressure from heavy-handed owners, a commission system now puts more of the onus on the women to decide how they want to dress, allowing some to earn upward of $50,000 a year. This has prompted a debate in Taiwan’s academia over whether they are being empowered or exploited.
Truck drivers might think this is a cheap thrill, given that packages sell for a dollar or two. Nonetheless, this phenomenon of second largest corp in Taiwan gives photographer Masato Seto a chance to explore and tell us the lives of those young Taiwanese girls.
A Search for Habitable Planets
KEPLER MISSION
In just 4 days on March 6 2009 at 10:48 EST, NASA will be launching the first capable of finding Earth-size planets mission - Kepler. The scientific goal of the Kepler Mission is to explore the structure and diversity of planetary systems, with a special emphasis on the detection of Earth-size planets. It will survey the extended solar neighborhood to detect and characterize hundreds of terrestrial and larger planets in or near the “habitable zone,” defined by scientists as the distance from a star where liquid water can exist on a planet’s surface. The results will yield a broad understanding of planetary formation, the frequency of formation, the structure of individual planetary systems, and the generic characteristics of stars with terrestrial planets.
Kepler is using the Transit Method of detecting extrasolar planets - when a planet crosses in front of its star as viewed by an observer, the event is call a transit. Transits by terrestrial planets produce a small change in a star’s brightness of about 1/10,000 (100 parts per million, ppm), lasting for 2 to 16 hours. This change must be absolutely periodic if it is caused by a planet. In addition, all transits produced by the same planet must be of the same change in brightness and last the same amount of time, thus providing a highly repeatable signal and robust detection method.
Once detected, the planet’s orbital size can be calculated from the period (how long it takes the planet to orbit once around the star) and the mass of the star using Kepler’s Third Law of planetary motion. The size of the planet is found from the depth of the transit (how much the brightness of the star drops) and the size of the star. From the orbital size and the temperature of the star, the planet’s characteristic temperature can be calculated. From this the question of whether or not the planet is habitable (not necessarily inhabited) can be answered. Watch Kepler in action.
Barbie Turning 50
Barbie 50th Anniversary
2009 marks the 50th birthday for one the world’s most iconic doll.
Barbie, the classic Mattel doll, turns 50 on March 9. Generations of girls have cherished the beloved doll, who has modeled countless looks and had more than 100 careers.
The co-founders of Mattel - Ruth and Elliot Handler - realized that their daughter prefers playing with an adult doll they wanted to create a female adult doll for their company. at first the idea was rejected from the all-male committee of mattel, but then the idea of an adult female doll, rather than the typical infant representation was an intriguing one. the first barbie doll by mattel was introduced at the ‘american toy fair’ in new york city, 1959.
Under some criticism, Barbie’s body offering girls unrealistic expectations of womanhood, and even for inspiring eating disorders and related pathologies. None the less, those beloved doll do look fabulous under the spotlight.
Less than two weeks ago in NY fashion week, Barbie’s very first runway show hit the stage in Bryant Park. For this history-making occasion, over 50 designers from Diane von Furstenberg to Calvin Klein to Vera Wang created couture tributes to highlight the timelessness of fashion’s most fabulous icon.
The show was divided into three thrilling acts: Barbie’s past fashions reinterpreted, Barbie’s current look as seen through the designers’ lens, and the future of fashion imagined.
Water-Powered Jet Pack
Water-Powered Jet Pack
JetLev has just make your dream come true. Raymond Li, a Chinese Canadian living in St. John’s, Newfoundland, developed the Jetlev (abbreviated from the words Jet Levitation) concept in 2000.
John Myers, Raymond Li, and Frazier Grandison became the first three persons in history to take off with the Jetlev. Since then, three jetpack prototypes, four boat unit prototypes, 26 test pilots, over200 flights and hundreds of revisions later, They successfully completed their pre-production prototype and concluded shakedown tests in August 2008.
Jetlev Sports Inc. has licensed MS Watersports GmbH of Germany to produce the first Jetlev model. The JETLEV-FLYER is now undergoing final testing and preparations for production. The first model with 155 HP engine will retail for 99,000 Euros. Production volume will be limited. Demo flights will be available and orders will be accepted by Jetlev Sports Inc. in Florida starting in April 2009. Orders are expected to ship commencing June 2009 with an approximately three-month lead time.
Facebook’s about-face
Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy
The First Tuition-Free University
UNIVERSITY OF THE PEOPLE
UoP is the world’s first tuition-free, online academic institution and will open its virtue doors in April 2009. Founder and President Shai Reshef established UoP to combat the discrepancy between unprecedented access to the Internet, dropping technology costs and rising tuitions worldwide. UoP promises to revolutionize higher education by providing universal access to college studies-even in the poorest parts of the world.
The University of the People promises to open the gates of higher education to anyone in the world interested in attending college. They believe that education at a very minimal cost is a basic right for all suitable applicants, not just for a privileged few.
The University of the People is based on the premise that education is crucial to the advancement of individuals and of society at large. There are millions of people around the world, especially in developing countries, who are excluded from higher education for various reasons: some live far away from academic institutions, others cannot afford the admission fee and tuition for the local university.
Comprised of students from around the world, the student body will learn through peer-to-peer teaching with the curriculum and support of respected scholars. Within the online study communities, students will share resources, exchange ideas, discuss weekly topics, submit assignments and take exams. The curriculum will be supported by respected scholars. A community of educators, comprised of active and retired professors, master level students and other professionals, will participate and oversee the assessment process. They will also develop ongoing procedures for curriculum evaluation and development.
Although this is a tuition-free institution, there are some admission fee and exam fees depends on which country the students are from. For more detail please go to The University of the People website.
Sex In Space
SEX IN SPACE
As orbital vacations become more affordable in the space tourism business, space tourists will include couples who want to experience space and weightlessness together. Sex in Space is the demand that will transform space tourism into a mega business. Making love with a view of the Earth below may be the ultimate aphrodisiac for space buffs. But, let’s think about the implications of space-based sex for a moment. The sex in space revolution is about to begin!
The topic has been hotly disputed to clarify its potential impact on human beings in the isolated, confined, and hazardous environment of space. Experts such as Princeton astrophysics professor Dr. J. Richard Gott consider humanity’s expansion into space crucial to survival, but it was considered taboo for decades of space faring exploration history.
Based on animal experiments, we know that fetal development is affected in space. Bones, muscles (including the heart), and neurology, will simply not develop properly without Earth gravity. We also know that human hormones and even sperm motility are affected by the lack of gravity. Radiation is a serous problem too, even in Earth orbit where our magnetic field protects us somewhat.
The discussion was made public with the publication of Sex in Space, by science journalist Laura S. Woodmansee (Apogee books, 2006), and popularized globally with the invention of the 2Suit, a flight suit that stabilizes human proximity in microgravity. In December 2008, a documentary about the topic premiered on the History Channel.
Disposable Culture
DISPOSABLE CULTURE
The word “new” is become a product in our society.
Something can only be new once. Are designers running out of inspiration? Are we facing design deficiency? Is there any meaning in a trend anymore? Is internet pushing us into a disposable culture? Would this be our last visual trend? Please read the Trend Ender articles.
Matt Mattus has led design team at Hasbro, Inc. for over 20 years. His book Beyond Trend, is available now from How books.Now that marketers have discovered the important role design plays in their branding strategies, their demands on your creativity will intensify and you’ll be consistently called upon to deliver hot, new looks and designs. Though no one can predict the next big trend, this book offers new ideas for combining influences that can lead to breakthrough designs and new ways of innovating. Features include trend-creating tips, a thorough analysis of the current trend landscape, and lots of visual examples of cutting edge design.
Thumb Time
Timex TX54
As a part of Timex’s global design competition, a state-of-the-artwatch concept was presented that looks like the latest in spy gadgetry. TX54 is a disposable timepiece that is worn on the user’s thumbnail. While its translucency makes it blend seamlessly with the hand, a selection of text color options and a glow feature that activates on command make it easy to read.
One is Too Couture
ROGER VIVIER’S ONE IS TOO COUTURE COLLECTION
Ladies! Recession shopping is all about getting the most bang from your buck. At least, that’s what Bruno Frisoni is hoping with his latest shoe and bag collection, ‘One is Too’ at Roger Vivier. Each gorgeous hand-made pair is dripping in excess, from 24ct gold coated mesh to silk chiffon and diamente. But more importantly, each shoe can be transformed from platform to stiletto heel, based on a ‘patten’ from the Middle Ages.
They are available for order at the boutique, but you’ll have to wait a few months for them to arrive.