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Jul. 25th

Friday Videos - July 25th, 2014

This week may seem a little heavy on the music videos but I promise they offer some serious entertainment. Enjoy the videos and, moreso, enjoy the weekend. If you still need a little something more, hit up the Summer Mix Series, enjoy some music, get inspired, and make a mix this weekend! Thanks.

Jul. 25th

The Pattern Library

I've no clue what I would use them for but I'm just enjoying browsing through the offerings of The Pattern Library. I'm particularly into the illustrated pieces like this or this. Is there a Shared dropbox folder I can hook into that enables my desktop background to just randomly cycle through these?

Jul. 25th

Mondo goes Vinyl

Here's the deal: Austin, TX's Mondo has got it figured out. When it comes to delivering unique pieces of collectible art that appeal to a true, undying, fan. They have it nailed. Their posters are unbelievable, their album re-issues are out of this world and now they're doing vinyl toys. Including these Mousers and an Iron Giant to name but a few. You can see more on mastermind Justin Ishmael's Instagram. I promise there is nothing but the greatest fandom behind that link.

Jul. 24th

Exobiotanica

Makota Azuma managed to take the geeky phenomena of sending items to space with a large balloon and turn it into something a bit more artistic than the norm. Granted, Space Pizza is already pretty much the pinnacle of things you can send to space but his Exobiotanica project sends a variety of flowers and bonsai trees into the upper atmosphere.

There's also something lovely in the morbid nature of the flowers death - both in their being uprooted for the project and their plummet back down to the surface.

Read more here and here.

Jul. 23rd

Help Desk

VHX makes great usage out of a customer support service called Helpscout. It houses all of our inbound email from customers and content creators as well as houses our knowledge bases. Suffice to say, we like them a lot.

So, it was pretty flattering to be asked to be part of their recently relaunched site. You can watch the great profile they did on us under online services. I think it confirms the absolute nerdy sound of my own voice but I'm still pleased to see such great shots of our office, coworkers and, moreso, solidifying a nice relationship with such a solid company.

Jul. 23rd

Mythical Creatures By Gary Baseman

Gary Baseman is currently running a campaign to help fund a documentary entitled Mythical Creatures. The film would tell the tale of his father's exploits during World War II, escaping Poland, fighting Nazis, hunting men to avenge his family's death and moving to North America. The story itself sounds compelling but the idea that it will be told in Baseman style - a mixture of live action, animation, theater and whatever else may be rolling around in his head.

Jul. 22nd

Summer Mix Series 2014

The Summer Mix Series is back! I was a little hesitant at first as music discovery and compilations are largely fueled by new listening habits - namely Spotify and Rdio. So, it's surely going to be a bit different from the original undertaking because downloading large zip files and importing them into iTunes seems much less common.

However, just because habits have changed doesn't mean there isn't a time and place for finding new music. The first two mixes - Outlaws and Vintage Obscura 2014 are phenomenal. I would have never found this kind of music - especially not this well curated - from any of my streaming services. So, we're off to a good start.

As this may be the last iteration of the series, lets step up the submission game! I look forward to hearing what you've got to offer.

Jul. 22nd

Self - Runaway

Having been a fan since the earliest days, I think I can say that this new Self video for Runaway is their finest all around. Granted, So Low is a quintessential slice of late 90's fashion but that was damn near 20 years ago. The new video features cats - lots of them. Is it pandering? Probably. Is it cute enough to not matter? Absolutely.

The song's a catchy bit as well. Looking forward to the new EP release, Super Fake Nice, on July 29th but lets be real - the cats make the video.

Jul. 22nd

Greenhouse Political

The Greenhouse browser plugin does an excellent job of providing some additional context to any article in which you see a politicians name appear. By leveraging data from Open Secrets, the plugin highlights politicians names and provides additional insight on where their funding comes from. No matter what the political leaning - Far Left, Far Right, Red, Blue, Anything in Between - there's always a large chunk of influential money on the table. Maybe that's a bit pessimistic but it's seems realistic as well.

Pretty handy. Oh, and it was written by 16-year old from Seattle. He can't even vote which sort of makes it the cherry on top.

Jul. 21st

Dom Jacob

Really enjoying the ultra simple portfolio of Dom Jacob. It's deceptively sparse in its ability to showcase his work. I love the color palette, the shifting background colors and nod towards an overall small screen experience.

His Tumblr is pretty sweet too.

Jul. 21st

The Internet's Own Boy: The Story Of Aaron Swartz

Brian Knappenberger's latest, The Internet's Own Boy is a profile on Aaron Swartz, a name you may not know but have absolutely felt the presence of in your Internet life. At 14, he invented RSS. Yes, seriously. He also was a leading force in the stance against SOPA and helped to spearhead the ongoing battle with Net Neutrality. Oh, and he also co-founded Reddit. He was a masterful programmer, a thoughtful person and just a brilliant mind in general.

His story is sad one, as he took his own life at the age of 26 due to legal battles involving his procurement of a lot of academic journals. Not distribution mind you, just procurement. It goes without saying, it's sad. However, it's also equally inspiring. Doing something with an impact on the world is possible, you just have to do it.

The movie is available for free (legally) on archive.org as Swartz was one of the minds that helped shaped Creative Commons.

Jul. 21st

Last Chance High

VICE does a great job of covering a lot of news. Like, a lot of news. I think in that deluge sometimes some of their smaller stories get lost in the shuffle. Over the weekend I finished watching through Last Chance High - an eight part series profiling Chicago's Moses Montefiore Academy - a school for the city's "most at-risk youth."

It is, without a doubt, a great micro-profile on a macro-level problem. It manages to touch on just about everything - illegal drugs, troubled youth, absent parents, imprisoned parents, legal drugs (which may be as much of a problem as the illegal sort) and an underlying rage within the kids that they don't have the mental tools to cope with. Maybe not the most uplifting series but it's got moments of real heart and, hopefully, is a way to properly contemplate some of the larger social issues at play out in the world.

via Becky

Jul. 18th

Friday Videos - July 18th, 2014

The term for this weeks playlist is "Grab Bag." I mean, it's probably that term for every week as well but this week feels particularly all over the place. Enjoy! Have a great weekend!

Jul. 18th

Memory Hole

The bizarre creation that is Memory Hole defies description. Sure, you could say it's a 1997 style gallery of borderline disturbing yet still oddly hilarious videos but that's not doing it justice. It's filled with imagery that I can't articulate and I'm completely content with that.

via Paul.

Jul. 17th

The AirBNB mark

If you are unaware, AirBNB launched a new mark. The idea behind it is that it creates a more recognizable brand and takes on a form that anyone can draw. The broad, artsy, rational being that those that rent their spaces out can be part of the "safety" that comes with the brand and those that occupy those spaces know they aren't staying in a hovel. Just watch this video to get the big pitch. It is, without question, a little bit too much in terms of being about the Belonging of Humanity but if you don't believe in your own brand to the highest degree, who will?

Of course, there is some controversy. It looks remarkably like this logo as well as some other things (NSFW on that one) but if you go through the DesignStudio deck, it's hard not to like it. Are you going to love it? Probably not but you can at least appreciate it for the improvement over the word mark and the mission statement they are striving for.

On the whole, I'm not sure I really understand the instant backlash of all things change. Isn't the Internet all about progress and moving forward and embracing new things? Seems like Having an Opinion and Being Right are no longer distinct headspaces.

Jul. 17th

Panda Inspiration

Despite the name, no actual Panda's are involved in the inspiration destination Panda. It's a combination of Hacker News, Designer News, Dribbble and Behance all dropped into one interface. As of recently I've been using The News as my source for this kind of information as it is a very simple way to take it all in but I can see Panda being a nice alternative if you want to see some actual designs and creative choices without having to click very far.

Jul. 16th

Lunar Mayor

When Instagram launched video support I think Vine died a little bit. Not completely by any means but it certainly became less of a place to post strange little video snippets of your day. However, in the wake of that departure of users there seems to be a rising of far more artistic undertakings. Take Lunar Mayor - a very bizarre character doing very intense stop motion animations that follow him from other worldly locations into an eyeball filled kitchen. It's got somewhat of a linear storyline if you start at the bottom and work your way up and it's unlike anything I'm seeing on Instagram.

Long story short, check this guy out check out some of his friends as well - there's a load of charming weirdness going on.

Jul. 16th

Schnapps

This Schnapps program takes the fuss out of creating timelapse videos of your designs. Personally, I think I'd feel way too self concious to ever share such a thing but there are a number of amazing designers and illustrators out there that I'd love to see this kind of documentation from. The best part is that it only creates a frame when you save your document - so the flubs you may experience along the way probably won't make it to the final product since you likely aren't saving on such a thing anyway.

Jul. 15th

The Creativity Bundle

Please take a moment to give the Creativity Bundle a serious bit of contemplation. Four phenomenal movies - Indie Game: The Movie, Helvetica, Sign Painters and Beauty Is Embarassing - all available together for a very limited time at an unreal price point. You can pay $5, $10, $15 or whatever you'd like for that matter. Call it a helluva good deal. Call it an experiment. Call it an empowered undertaking by a group of forward thinking filmmakers. It's all those things! The deal expires in 5 days, so get to it.