Plenty of videos in this weeks playlist but the majority are all pretty short - so you get a quick blast of humor. I am sure you'll enjoy.
"Let's Dance" - I don't want to spoil the surprise but lets just say that I'm indebted to Lee for the magic that is RockerClogger.
Coming Soon - Ferris Bueller 2? Some sort of Superbowl promotional something or other? I guess we find out Feb 5th.
Ball Boy Catch - nailed it. "Everybody's on their game."
No No Thom Yorke - you will never hear Radiohead the same again.
Kaylee Blowing out the Candle - basically it's the new David After Dentist but, who cares, it's adorable and hysterical. The entire time.
Kramer + Skrillex - whatever your thoughts on Skrillex are irrelevant because you can't deny how perfect this blend is.
Wastelander Panda Prologue - "The tale of the last remaining panda in a post-apocalyptic wasteland." This is actually the prologue to a legitimate TV series in development. Guess who'll be watching that one?
Romantic Saxophone (HD) - Crudely animated birds? Check. Terrible Water Ripple Effect? Check. Scantily clad woman playing a saxophone? Got it. Favorite thing ever? You betcha.
My buddy Blake recently served as Director of Photography on the short film The Arm - directed by Brie Larson, Sarah Ramos and Jessie Ennis. Not only was it accepted to Sundance but it won Best Comedic Direction in a Short. Now it's up for this Yahoo! Best of Sundance award. While I'm not usually one for caring much about online voting, this could do nothing but help out a friend and it's entertaining to watch. So, I'm asking you to head over here, watch the short and scroll down to vote it in to win.
ArcText.js - want your text to bend on a slight arc but don't want to use a PNG? Deploy ArcText javascript and you're good to go.
A better way to use icon fonts - I'm a big fan of the proliferation of Icon Fonts these days but Eric Eggert has some great insight into how to deploy them even better than what most are suggesting. It's even super friendly to screen readers. Score.
I am pleased to announce that today marks the official release of the first new music from Uncle Skeleton since his May 2010 record, Warm Under the Covers. This new track / single, "Sophisticuffs", is the first track from the forthcoming double-LP All Too Human - planned for release on my little label. You can snag the four tracks over on Bandcamp or just preview them with the player above.
Many thanks to Burgers for the remix, John Baldwin for the mastering and, of course, Ross for the music.
If you're in the Nashville area, please come out tonight to the Mercy Lounge to see ole Uncle Skeleton play.
You might think you've no interest in a commercial for Japanese department store Sunshine Sakae but when you hear that it's directed by Michel Gondry you will watch it immediately... and love it. His unmistakable style is perfect here.
I'm mystified by this photography set, Intersections, from Alessandro Puccinelli. Even though it is described as a work-in-progress collection I find myself poring over each image - the delineation between ocean and sky being incredibly difficult at times. Absolutely lovely.
Really enjoying these mosaic style works from Tim Biskup. He's actually got a nice variety of style throughout his portfolio but I like the "simplification" that's going on with the geometric pieces. Plus, he tackles pop cultureentities for some of his work; bonus!
Excellent 2011 Annual Report from the folks at Warby Parker. Aside from being a pleasant layout with simple sliding animations there's a dense amount of information packed into each page. I love the timeline along the bottom - keeping track of milestones (legitimate or ridiculous) is a practice we should all maintain.
Take a few minutes today to test your eye for color by playing through Color - a six step game that runs through Hue, Saturation, Complementary, Analogous, Ternary and Quaternary colors. If you're not familiar with some of those words then maybe this is a good place for you to start. There's even a Color Blind Assist mode if you're in the 7%.
Did you know that every second there is one hour of video uploaded to YouTube? If you're having trouble visualizing just how much video that is, check out One Hour Per Second; a little promotional site to put things in perspective. Even if you're not having a hard time wrapping your head around that idea, make sure to visit the site as it's a wonderfully illustrated, animated, impressive bit of non-Flash eyecandy.
I bet it's been awhile since you thought about anything LOMO related. With the widespread proliferation of cameras in phones, and the manipulation apps that come with them, it's easy to forget about the world of haphazard analog film that they created. Their latest foray back into your mind is the LomoKino; a 35mm powered movie maker and it's LomoKinoScope viewing buddy. The results it creates are pretty great - very much so in the style of what you'd expect from anything Lomography related and just outside the reach of what I've seen any apps capable of doing. Plus, you actually keep the results if your harddrive crashes. Doubtful that the $99 pricetag is going to make it something everyone runs out to obtain but it's nice to see that they're still fighting the good fight.
CodeKit - looks to be a pretty slick application for managing projects, compiling all sorts of nu-tech like Less or Coffeescript and optimizing images. Potentially a one-stop shop for getting a project underway. via Madrid.
OSX in CSS - while it doesn't do much you have to admit that this creation of OSX almost entirely with CSS3 is pretty impressive.
Bootstrap 2 on the horizon - the new version of the Twitter developed framework is on the horizon (Jan 31st). I'm committed to building at least one project with this finally; looks to be even better the second go around.
Looks like the folks at Vimeo have a new design and if you want to give it a test drive you just need to steer yourself over here and click the big button. You'll be signed up to the tester list and get a dose of screens showcasing the new pages.
Justin Ouellette is a man of many worthwhile projects. His blog points out that one such recent project was working on 'Robot and Frank' - the feature film debut from Jake Schreier. Justin designed all the fictional user interfaces that appear on screen - TV's, cellphones, tablets, etc. A dream job if there ever was one.
EW has an inside look at the film; including four clips that showcase the relationship between Frank and his new robot housekeeper (voiced by Peter Sarsgaard). The film looks great and will, hopefully, make its way to a theatre near us all soon.
I know I mentioned the photography work of Garmonique some time ago but if you haven't been following along, you've been missing out. Gems like this are hard not to immediately love but if that's not up your alley surely there is somethingyou'lllove tucked in there.
How Much Do Music And Movie Piracy Really Hurt The U.s. Economy?
Great article from Freaknomics about the truth behind piracy numbers. The whole SOPA/PIPA debate opens up some serious thought about piracy - a concept that you can't really debate is good. However, the supporters of the bill (and, esp. the lobbyists) make the claim that $250 billion per year is being lost to piracy; Freakonomics refutes that rather deftly. Apparently it's closer to $58 billion - not a minuscule amount by any means but a far cry from the proposed loss. It's a quick read and an excellent starting point for further discussion of the issue.
Comments: How Much Do Music And Movie Piracy Really Hurt The U.s. Economy?
Seems like there has been more than a little backlash when it comes to Google's new social results. So much backlash, in fact, that engineers from Twitter, Facebook and Myspace got together and made Focus on the User; a bookmarklet script that grabs the most pertinent social media information and replaces the, usually, irrelevant Google+ listings. The walkthrough video explains it with great simplicity. While I don't see myself actually using the tool I can't disagree with the point that they're making - there is a lot of trust when using Google to get the best results (and, usually, results are legit) but their pushing Google+ pages over more relevant results like Twitter or Facebook is not a good way to treat their enormous user base. Sure, it's their prerogative to do whatever they want with search results but if the benefit of the end user really is the end goal, they'd embrace true social results.
GridPak - handy tool to create responsive grids with break points as you see fit. Actually very well and useful if you're willing to put in the time to tinker with it.
HTML5 Please - ever wonder what new markup you can and can not use? Well, this insightful list should do the trick in answering all those questions. Box-Reflection is out for the time being and position: fixed seems like it's OK to implement. You'd be surprised at the number of tags listed here that you've never heard of.
If you haven't run across this article on io9 yet, take a moment to cruise over there and wholeheartedly agree with their headline statement: "This no-budget science fiction short looks better than most movies." Okay, maybe that's a bit much but Archetype does look incredibly good; especially for a project done in freetime. The creator, Aaron Sims, has a long history of working with special effects and plans to flesh the short out into a full-length. I'd watch it.
Famous Photographers Pose With Their Iconic Images
Check out this short-but-sweet gallery of images of Famous Photographers posing with their Iconic Images. It's always interesting to see the person behind the camera that is responsible for creating powerful images - often because they look exactly the opposite of what you'd expect (see: Karen Kuehn). It's a pleasant surprise and some worthwhile praise is due for those creating such impactful visions.
Comments: Famous Photographers Pose With Their Iconic Images
Pictos recently launched their own Font Server service - ala Typekit - that lets you take advantage of using their servers to bear the brunt of any server load that may come from using a custom @font-face look. However, they took it two steps further. One, no Javascript required. Two, the icon font they are offering has 650 icons that you can mix and match into any keyboard combination you want - excluding any extras that you know won't be needed. Given that icon fonts are only going to integrate their way into the standard of web deployment I can't see this as anything except a great idea.
Beating Borders: The Bane of Responsive Layout - great writeup on how to properly use borders in your CSS. Sure, you think it's as simple as making sure your math accounts for the proper width of the box + border but it gets, surprisingly, more in-depth than that. Very handy info to have in the ole noggin.
Better Tabs with Rounded Corners - really nice proof of concept using an unordered list and loads of psuedo elements to create a great looking tab navigation system. Could CSS Tricks be any better of a site? Answer: no.
A short and sweet playlist this week. I intentionally omitted the likes of afewcandidates because I assume you've already seen them.
Drunkest Drummer in the World - next time you feel a little inebriated remember that you're nowhere close to where this guy is at. He actually kind of pulls it together despite it all.. impressive.
Ackbar Practice - yea, this meme has worn out its welcome but I'm still amused by it and hadn't ever seen this compilation. Stupid but perfectly amusing.
Jaaam (Fresh Prince Mix) - typically I'd stray from anything Fresh Prince related but this Pogo mix just gets better and better the long you let it play. You will undoubtedly be singing a bassy "Jaaam" all weekend.
Hello - how about Lionel Richie song lyrics as remixed by movie quotes? Okay, yea, I'm into that.
Rave On - I'm convinced the Internet exists to bring us treats like this. You get to keep a safe distance but still fully enjoy every single moment of jaw-dropping absurdity.
Hartter: The Original Alternate Universe Movie Posters Gallery
The Alternate Universe Movie Poster Gallery is, without question, ridiculous. It's also surprisingly accurate in its execution of style for vintage movie posters. While not all of the entries are going to blow your mind there's such a huge repository of offerings available that you're sure to be impressed and/or chuckle at least a solid handful of times. The further down the page you go the more ridiculous the entries get but if you miss out on Liam Neeson in Pitfall! you're doing yourself a disservice.
Bullseye is a new podcast featuring interviews with a number of interesting people. You may recall when it used to be called The Sound of Young America but it's been renamed and reset the counter on episode numbers. If you're looking for a program with various pop culture figures, insights into media and discussions on topics like The Uncanny Valley - this is likely right up your alley. I was fascinated with the Chris Lilley interview as I've rarely heard him speak outside of character (you should be watching Angry Boys if you aren't already). The Lawrence Weschler interview covers robotics, our bias towards narrative and other seemingly cerebral topics worth pondering.
Long story short, it's a fine addition to your regularly scheduled podcast listens if you aren't already subscribed.
As you may recall, Caspar Newbolt, of Version Industries, has an ongoing column over at IFP. His latest entry, The Rules, is a discourse on the restrictions you should place on yourself to properly enjoy a film. Here's the three rule breakdown:
Rule 1. (to kill expectation)
Go into the film without having read or watched anything. Trailers are acceptable, as they are sometimes created by film directors themselves, though even that sometimes is questionable.
Rule 2. (to kill projection)
Assess what the film is trying to say or achieve within the realm of what kind of movie it is trying to be. Do not project your own expectations. Let the film dictate the level of expectation, be that tonally, narratively or conceptually.
Then, assess how well you think the film reaches whatever goals it set out to achieve.
Rule 3. (to kill hype)
Don’t talk about the film with anyone who has not seen it, except if you’re encouraging them to go see it. Only discuss the film with those that have seen it, and discuss it hard. That’s what it’s there for.
The majority of the article goes into explaining why Hype and Projection are killing your movie experience. It's a great article that uses a good bit of personal anecdote and critical analysis to explore the ideas set forth at the onset.
I tend to agree completely with the notion that anticipation and expectation will alter your enjoyment of any given work of art. I don't think you can remove your personal experience with the work when reflecting upon its impact but it would certainly be easier to do so if you followed The Rules.
There's a rather long, but quite interesting, article over at N+1 regarding The History of Pitchfork. However, it's not just a historical retelling of the founding and rise-to-success of the site. The article goes into a great bit of detail to describe the musical landscape in general that helped create the atmosphere for Pitchfork to thrive. There's a portion of the piece that gets into the "commercialization" of the site; the slow evolution format change from passionate, sometimes amateurish, writing explorations to more formulaic non-offensive straightforward style.
There's a long discourse that can occur between anyone that's followed Pitchfork from its no-budget beginning to its enormous Music Empire status that it has now and this article touches on all the worthwhile points... though I think it's probably best if you get together with your music nerd friends and discuss them in greater depth.
Web To Text Chrome Extension - do you find yourself wanting to text your phone snippets of text from the web? I can't imagine why.. but if you do, there's an extension for that. Since I didn't install it I can't say if it's let you text any number or just a verified, configured, number of your own but if the former is true then you may just have a great new Prank Text Tool in your midst.
After long last, the entirety of the crowdsourced Star Wars Uncut project is available online. Sure, you may not have 2 hours to spend right now watching it but add it to your respective video watching queues and partake at your earliest convenience. If you don't know the story behind the project, here's a quick rundown:
Thousands of Internet users remade “Star Wars: A New Hope” into a fan film in 2009, 15 seconds at a time.
Contributors were asked to recreate scenes from Star Wars however they wanted. Within just a few months SWU grew into a wild success. The creativity that poured into the project was unimaginable.
SWU has been featured in documentaries, news features and conferences around the world for its unique appeal. In 2010 we won a Primetime Emmy for Outstanding Creative Achievement In Interactive Media.
The scope and scale of this undertaking still blows my mind. Watch it.
Words fail to describe how much I love this image of the Palazzo Toschi Mosca inner court. Davide Filippini has a slew of great photos in his photostream.. but you probably knew that already just from one glance at the above image.
The photostream of Every Day Dude is a slice of life collection of photography hailing from the West Coast. There's no shortage of graffiti and train images - two subjects I rarely tire of - and the occasional longexposure that hits just the right spot.
Thanks to Austin I can continue pursuing my latest obsession with symbol fonts via Modern Pictograms; a typeface designed for use on the web. It's quite a bit more fun than the Web Symbols but I like that personality it brings to the table.
Would it be wrong to dive into any of these fonts with Glyphs Mini and combine them into one super typeface? Even if the answer is yes I may still have to do it...
yk mix: 2011: A Semi-complete Vague Retrospective Mix
My pal Jed does a curious thing every year, he posts a Best Of Music list for the previous year. So, at the end of December 2011 he posted his Best of 2010 list. This may seem odd but it allows him some distance and perspective on a particular years releases to see what actually had staying power. I respect this tactic but have not embraced it for my 2011 Retrospective.
My selections were made based on creating a decent flow to the mix and selecting songs that caught my ear in one way or another. That being said, I definitely had to cut a load of quality releases from the running that could easily make a Volume 2 of goods (i.e. Tristen, Frank LoCrasto, Toro y Moi, countless others). Despite all of that, I think it's a strong mix and a good representation of the year. I hope when December 2011 comes along I feel the same way (I will).
You may know Keith Davis Young for his strong photography portfolio but he's also got a load of great design work up his sleeve. He's showcasing a selection of it over at the freshly relaunched Live to Make. I love his use of typography and his identity marks are right up my alley.
There's a diversity of work from Sasha Kurmaz that you gotta appreciate. There are plenty of incrediblyclean setups, Street Art, some captivating, yet NSFW, Lifestyle imagery and plenty more. His official site is a bit more thematically organized than the photostream but both should be browsed completely as they contain different bits of work.
The cruiseship Costa Concordia wreck is a devastating piece of news. One horrible decision leading to the death of, at least, eleven people with many more missing. It's horrible, period. However, I must admit that the photogalleries documenting the wreck are fascinating (particularly this satellite photo). The size of these ships is hard to comprehend and the thought of them being able to sink at all is even harder to wrap your brain around.
Have you been reading Lions and Vultures? You should be - loads of quality content on a regular basis. Including this mix, Cold Hands that is comprised of a majority of artists I've never heard of. Fortunately, I know we happen to have similar taste so I'm downloading it with wild abandon and suggest you do the same.
These images look like they could easily be the latest creation from Presstube but they are, in reality, topographic maps from NASA and the US Geological Survey depicting the surface of the Moon. More maps in this style are stored over on the projects homepage - Mercury, Venus, Mars and more are among the choices. The site is a bit archaic in its presentation but sometimes you gotta dig to find the gold.
Many thanks to Jeremy for the heads up on Adrian Ghenie; super large scale oil painter. I'm quite partial to the "Pie Fight Study 2" image shown above but there's something great about all of them - loads of dark tones and something odd happening in every image. Would love to see these in person...
Remember when I told you about the trailer for the forthcoming NES tribute game Abobo's Big Adventure? Well, you can now play the game and realize how well it delivers on mashing up so many games into one. 8-bit nerds will know they're in the right place from the moment the loading screen kicks in. Play it.
Every year I post a heads up about remembering Martin Luther King, Jr and this year is no different. I find it fascinating that such a person existed with such clarity of purpose and ability to inspire so many people - a rarity in any generation but, seemingly, especially so these days. So, take some time to read his words and ponder their application to today's landscape.. it's what the day is meant for.
Fraser Davidson has no shortage of great motion graphics pieces to check out in his portfolio but I suggest starting with this Bill Maher piece. Even if you don't agree with Maher's political fueled ranting (and some NSFW language) you should enjoy the animation style. After that, hit up the Zappar, Lucky Guy and Tim Key. Entertainment!
The video experiments compiled over at Self Control Freak are pretty ridiculous. It's lo-fi, silly and oddly engaging. It's borderline the kind of experiment you'd expect someone deeply entrenched in the art world would think was really pushing some boundaries but it's easy to see this wasn't done with that mentality - it's just a repository of goofy experiments that you can't resist clicking through each one.
Take some time today to browse the photostream of Kid Lion as there is a wide variety of pleasant images to discover. I was locked in once I stumbled past this Musk Ox but it's pretty easy to be captivated by the likes of this refinery, some outdoorsygoods or some quality bokeh.
For the most part, I think grassroots movements to show unity against a particular issue on Capitol Hill as expressed through the likes of the web, twitter, facebook, etc are fairly pointless. Sure, changing your avatar may create unity among like-minded friends or, potentially, spread the word to others about a particular issue but it doesn't have any actual impact on changing whatever it is the person may be trying to expose. So, with that in mind, I am a little hesitant to embrace this Stop SOPA Javascript that displays a pop-over on any site it is added to for the duration of January 18th (this Wednesday). SOPA is a quite important but Tweeting about it isn't going to do much - but contacting your representative may.
Long story short, awareness of SOPA is trying to reach the next level via this script. Consider implementation on your own.
Hatchi - do you yearn for the days of the Tamagotchi but can't bear to carry around another device? Well, Hatchi's got your covered.. as it appears to be the modern day iOS equivalent. I'll admit I know better but I'm pretty tempted to try it out.
Flexbox CSS - CSS3 has a lot of forthcoming specs for handling box model displays and Flexbox is right there on the cutting edge of being tried out. Basically it's a way to beat the drudgery of float: left. I'm not sure when this will be widely (or even semi-widely) adopted but it seems like a good thing to familiarize yourself with. via Madrid.
Comments: Distraction and Learning (Hatchi and Flexbox)
yewknee: yoo·ne: n. a. imaginary word with absolutely no literal meaning but an extremely nerdy etymology.
b. Personal website of Nashville resident Michael Eades; freelance web designer and developer, record label experimenter, We Own This Town curator and a man with his hand in many pies.
Currently: RT @arlojamrog: Hilarious slightly NSFW commercial parody. Anyone in ads or tech will appreciate. http://t.co/8CSSr3aj
Comments: Friday Videos - Jan 27th, 2012