31.5.08

Holy Fuck!

Drop everything, forget everything and watch Zeitgeist The Movie!

No Smoking (please).

Image via ffffound

Artist Daniel Eatock has an art and social exercise going on where he's asked readers to submit their own vectorized take on the No Smoking logo (usually a cigarette crossed out by a red circle and stripe). All designs can be downloaded now and used wherever you like and when he reaches 100 designs (he's not far off), he's going to make a poster. You may even see a couple designs done by my good self.

Incredible!

The mysterious people of the Envira region of the Brazilian-Peruvian frontier. They're thought to have NEVER made contact with civilization as we know it and to them, the strange craft hovering above could well be an Evil Spirit. More from Mail Online>>

Horror Frog.

I may have a sore neck and painful face from the stress of living but I can't break my own bones and puncture my own skin in order to defend myself. But this hairy and scary frog can! When under the risk of attack, the Trichobatrachus Robustus has the ability to go all X-Men on itself as a last ditch effort to stay alive.  More here>> 

30.5.08

Bottle-Ooooh.


I've been trying to locate this recycled bottle ceiling in downtown Rundle Mall over the last couple days, but without luck. However, thanks to this article I just discovered on Coolhunter, I'll at last be able to find it in the new Aesop store.

28.5.08

Bob Staake - Illustrator.

Bob Staake's site is worth taking a look at if you're into illustration and children's art. Bob's been in the game for a while - evidenced by his completion of some 42 books! And a little gem Bob has on his How Magazine rated site, and that appears to be expanding, are these little crops of some nice retro art. This is just a snippet of some favourites. 

Smarticles: A new theme post.

Image via RTW

Ten Reasons Gen Xers Are Unhappy at Work.
Corporations really need folks in their 30s to early 40s, but there is a tentative relationship at best between that cohort and Corporate America. View Article >>

1960's Braun Products Hold the Secrets to Apple's Future.
The year 2008 marks the 10th Anniversary of the iMac, the computer that changed everything at Apple, hailing a new design era spearheaded by design genius Jonathan Ive. What most people don't know is that there's another man whose products are at the heart of Ive's design philosophy, an influence that permeates every single product at Apple, from hardware to user-interface design. View Article>>

He Took a Polaroid Every Day, Until the Day He Died.
Yesterday I came across a slightly mysterious website — a collection of Polaroids, one per day, from March 31, 1979 through October 25, 1997. There’s no author listed, no contact info, and no other indication as to where these came from. So, naturally, I started looking through the photos. I was stunned by what I found. View Article>>

23.5.08

Pictures That Make Me Think.


Maybe good for when you need to eat at your office but what's wrong with normal cutlery? Pen's go missing too.


Breathe. Period.


I think I'd like to be buried in a bookshelf. 


Let Go. Period. And appropriate considering I'm listening to Frou Frou.


Garbage in. Garbage out.

 
Oh Speed!


Resourceful :)

22.5.08

Free Food!


Check out this great list of 40 FREE ICON SETS for the web, from Smashing Magazine. And if you look at the comments section, you'll see FAMFAMFAM is a pretty popular spot too!

21.5.08

Conscious Evolution.

Like a subtle fluid, space-time, having drowned our bodies, penetrates our soul. It fills it and impregnates it. It mingles with its powers, until the soul soon no longer knows how to distinguish space-time from its own thoughts. Nothing can escape this flux any longer, for those who know how to see....The human discovers that, in the striking words of Julian Huxley, we are nothing else than evolution become conscious of itself....Not only do we read the secret of its movement in our slightest acts, but to a fundamental extent we hold it in our own hands: responsible for its past and its future.
- Pierre Teilhard de Chardin
Philosopher and author of The Human Phenomenon

Rotating Sphere Lounger.


This garden structure from Ornate Garden would be perfect for games, drinks, parties, reading a book and sex. At a cool price of £6'700 why wouldn't you?

The Star.


Twenty days. Twenty thousand still images. A single message. Toronto Star photographer Lucas Oleniuk captures the issue of global warming in a video created entirely by using still images. Click here to see the film >>

17.5.08

Any suggestions?

I'm wanting to simplify this page and thus cull the number of website links shown in the Left and Right columns on this page, but still have the links accessible to others and update-able. Can anybody suggest a way of making the links invisible on the front page but still easily accessible? My thoughts are to offer specific lists of links within a handful of posts, and then make the link to these posts accessible via the Right column. ie. click on Design Sites in the Right column and it will take you to a post full of design links. Is this going to work? What would be the most efficient way do you think? Thanking you...

16.5.08

15.5.08

Oh, it's all too true!

I query the source but if anyone knows, please let me know too.

On design.

Via ffffound>>

Oh yes, I know all about this.

Busting Ads.

A year ago, I saw my first Adbusters Magazine and I really had no idea what it was all about. I consider myself pretty socially aware but for some reason, Adbusters confused me and it actually bored me. I wonder whether I had been so indoctrinated by media advertising that to pick up a magazine that opposes it and has no advertising in it whatsoever was somehow so completely foreign that it actually shook me out of my indoctrinated state and into a new but strange state of awareness? Or maybe the guys at Adbusters have simply managed to sharpen up their message and make things clearer now? Anyway, I'm just reading the latest addition now and it all makes perfect sense. I recommend this magazine to anyone interested in beating down socially irresponsible and environmentally polluting advertising. And as a designer, I'm trying to become more aware of how I can have a positive impact through design and not put myself in a position where I'm part of the destructive force of the media either. Interestingly, the Adbusters crew are also starting their own Blackspot Coffee Shop, set to rival Starbucks but rooted in authentic, local culture. 

 

13.5.08

Hubba Bubba!



11.5.08

Tissue Regeneration - a fingers tip away.

I think that within ten years we will have strategies that will re-grow the bones, and promote the growth of functional tissue around those bones.
Dr Stephen Badylak - University of Pittsburgh.

In every town in every part of this sprawling country you can find a faceless sprawling strip mall in which to do the shopping. Rarely though would you expect to find a medical miracle working behind the counter of the mall's hobby shop. That however is what Lee Spievak considers himself to be. "I put my finger in," Mr Spievak says, pointing towards the propeller of a model aeroplane, "and that's when I sliced my finger off." It took the end right off, down to the bone, about half an inch. "We don't know where the piece went." The photos of his severed finger tip are pretty graphic. You can understand why doctors said he'd lost it for good. Today though, you wouldn't know it. Mr Spievak, who is 69 years old, shows off his finger, and it's all there, tissue, nerves, nail, skin, even his finger print. View article and film here >>

Perverted Powers of Ten.

A couple of years back I was in melbourne and happened to get to see the Eames exhibition.  As part of this exhibition they showcased an interesting photo gallery and film by Charles and Ray Eames called Powers of Ten. Here is the film in its original format:



And here is a somewhat disturbing parody by John Cheese:

7.5.08

More pictures that make me think.

Is a good brand a comfort or a curse?


Somebody had a sense of humour. Or great foresight!

WWF - Providing a platform for the animals to fight back!


Everybody needs wheatgrass.


If only trees and technology COULD exist in harmony.


They just make me feel good. That's all.


D.I.Y Furniture.


How can concrete be both warming AND sterile?


Colours have feelings too. 

Images sourced via ffffound>>

6.5.08

Inflation Bubbles.

I had this weird dream last night where petrol was about $1.80 a litre and milk was no longer being produced anymore because of high costs to the land as well as the cattle owner. And today I came across a nice little interactive graph that shows average consumer spending in America Vs changes in prices and it conveys this pretty well. I'd like to see one for Australia too please! View the online interactivity here>>

This is Steampunk!

I've loved this type of stuff since I can remember but I never really knew that it had a name - Steampunk. Steampunk basically depicts a different age, perhaps sci-fi or fantasy or even an alternate history where steam power (and not electricity) prevails. It's often set in Victorian England or in worlds that might reference Victorian elements. As a genre, Steampunk started some time in the 80's. But as our global interest in alternate energy sources and different ways of being in the world grows, so too is the rise of interest in Steampunk. Here's a few more examples of Steampunk you may or may not have seen. Beautiful stuff.


Steampunk - an anthology of Steampunk fiction.

 
A PC all blinged out in Steamy Punkness

.
This cover from the comic strip but also made into a not-too-high rating film.


The Film - The Mysterious Geographic Explorations of Jasper Morrello 


Steamboy - a Japanese animated film by the director of Akira, Katsuhiro Otomo. 


Steampunk Star Wars figures by Sillof, makers of all things steampunk. Chewy looks completely bitchin'.