8/31/07

New Type from Nick Shinn

I have a big love for typography. To many people (who will remain anonymous) typography is just a font; some lettering, nothing more. But to me, I admire the curves, justification, kerning, and points- it's artistic to me. So below, are some of my favorites from Nick Shinn. If you're interested in purchasing the types below or want to view some more of his work check out this site.

Enjoy!

Michelle Brown

8/30/07

Beneath the Beauty

It takes a lot of work to make someone look beautiful. Well, beautiful enough for billboards and magazines anyway. Take a look at how drastic the changes are below. Then for laughs, take a look at a parody of the original video. It's hilarious.

Alex Juel

8/29/07

Visual Lyrics

A Flickr generated movie; this shows a variety of photographs connecting to specific words of the song. It’s a little bit heavy to load, but well worth it. Enjoy!

Michelle Brown

8/28/07

Original Design Gangsta

Okay, so the title says it all. Here is a great amusing little video that pleases the graphic designer’s rap gangsta inside. (Makes my ‘gangsta’ face) The rhymes, I think, are pretty clever.

Hope you enjoy!

Michelle Brown

8/27/07

White Guy Singing Barry White

The saying ‘Don’t judge a book by its cover’ comes true to this man here. Super Bad Brad is an over weight, stringy hair-but balding white guy that sings R&B and Soul. Recently, Bad Brad got a chance to do his ‘thang’ on Showtime at the Apollo. What did Brad belt out? Homage to Barry White, Brad sang, “Let’s Get It On.”

Imagine you were there in the audience; what would you have thought seeing Brad walk onto stage? Shoving stereotypes aside, the R&B performer really did his thing and surprised the once skeptical audience. Witness Super Bad Brad for yourself.

Michelle Brown

8/24/07

Flip Your Words With Unicode

Alex Juel

8/23/07

Something Smells Phishy

With today's technology, it's very easy to obtain someone's personal information; especially through the internet. One way for scammers to do this is through "phishing."

We all shop and bank online, we even have numerous personal profiles that we relay private information on and these despicable, but clever scammers take advantage of that.

McAfee has a great quiz to test you phishing knowledge. I got a 7 out of 10 on my first try. I was surprise to see how easy it is to fool someone when we're not suspicious of anything; myspace, aol, amazon… When you're on your myspace account, do you even think to be suspicious of phishing?

Michelle Brown

8/22/07

Blow All You Want, This Nintendo Won't Work

Blythe Church is a very talented Canadian artist who works out a studio in Dartmouth, Nova Scotia. She took up sewing to keep herself busy after work and has created a bunch of really cool stuff. Since she recreated a Nintendo (pictured above) she has earned a new fan. Visit her site, Sewn by Blyth, to see some more of her work.

Alex Juel

8/21/07

Periodic Table of Internet Elements

For all you internet geeks out there, here's an interesting little site I staggered upon today during my morning routine of stumbling.

Some of these sites I've never even heard of like "Slashdot.org" or "orkut.com;" I guess I'm not as big as an internet geek as you... right?

Enjoy!

Michelle Brown

8/20/07

Awesomely Weird Art by Debra Hampton

Debra Hampton is an artist who was born an raised in Los Angeles, CA who received a B.A. in Art History from California State University. She then moved to New York where she is represented by Priska Juschka Fine Art and has her own studio in Long Island. Check out her website to learn more about her.

Alex Juel

8/17/07

Loser Lotto Ticket Art

So, many of us have tested our luck by playing the lottery. Any luck? No? Of course not. Neither I nor anyone I know have won the Jackpot...yet (keep your fingers crossed). What do you do with your loser lotto tickets?

Below are some great little doodles on lotto tickets.

Michelle Brown

8/16/07

The Kiss Book

Hope Larson has created a sketch book in which the drawing of one page would be kissing the drawing of the next. This was the idea of the book, but it ended quickly after being passed around. It doesn't matter anyway though, because it turned out pretty good. Probably a lot better than it would have turned out if everyone followed the rules. Check out the entire book here.

Alex Juel

8/15/07

Building Blocks of Reading


 If you read our

 blog entries in

this format, does it

 make it

easier for you to

 read, comprehend,

and retain?

A study shows that by breaking text into blocks, the brain comprehends and retains more of the written information. The assessment tested from elementary school kids to college students; many showing an evident increase of comprehension of what was read.

This study is of particular interest to both print and web designers. As a designer, one must think of the level of readability that the audience will encounter when viewing articles. Line length, leading, typeface/fonts, and margins all come into thought when designing something that is type heavy informing viewers of a particular topic.

The link above has examples of this form of innovative retention capacity. It drove me crazy clicking page to page every few words. You?

However, with any practice, it probably could be learned to be used in a much more efficient manner if you were comfortable with this technique from the start.

Michelle Brown

8/14/07

Balloon Art

Here is another one of those stories where you feel like people have too much time on their hands. Maybe they don't have too much time, but maybe I have too little and I'm a little jealous. Well, either way, these people have a pretty cool hobby. Making crazy stuff with balloons. Check it out here.

Alex Juel

8/13/07

Wall Stickers

This German design site has some brilliant and different competitions for its users. Although they do have some clichéd and ordinary contests, they also have some incomparable contests in which you may participate in. Take, for example, the wall sticker competition. There are some pretty terrific entries. Check out my favorite artwork above and the rest of entries here.

Michelle Brown

8/10/07

Alphabet of Horror

There was a post similar to this one not too long ago, but I specifically wanted to point the readers of this site to this awesome alphebet. This person has created a themed alphabet after watching a bunch of horror movies, and I think they turned out pretty good. The letter is used to stand for something, usually evil or scary and there is a picture accompanying the letter which describes the letter. I'm a huge fan of horror movies and a huge fan of dark art, so I really enjoyed this.

Alex Juel

8/9/07

Art in the Shadows

It's really amazing what people do in their free time. You really need to see this. This site has a collection of photos of people who have piled up objects such as silverware, trash, and cooking ware in such a way they create a whole different object as a shadow on the wall. I'm honestly having a hard time believing if it's real or not, but check the site out and decide for yourself.

Alex Juel
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8/8/07

Helvetica vs. Arial

Another great fight between good ol' Helvetica and Arial. Take the role of Helvetica and show who's boss in the world of typography.

* Arial was greatly injured during the making and playing of this game.

Michelle Brown

8/7/07

Amazing Short Film

"Spin," the film below, is a short film that has been the official selection of over 60 film festivals and the winner of more than 35 film festivals. Check it out and you will see why. Awesome. Oh, and if you live in Colorado, you just may recognize the location this video was shot. Yup, good ol' Denver.

Alex Juel

8/6/07

Warp Your Room

Have you ever wanted something different from your wallpaper? You may want to reconsider the wallpaper you purchase the next time you decide to change the style of your house. The wallpaper featured on Surrealien doesn't let things like windows and doors disrupt the continuity off the patterns, but instead reacts with the disruptions. If you get all of the measurements and provide them to the company, they will send you wallpaper custom designed to your own house. Prices vary so you have to send them your requests and they will give you an offer.

Alex Juel

8/3/07

Landscape Photography...No Good

So, during my morning routine, I read my art blogs, design blogs, photo blogs, what have you. And in so doing, I came across an article that both bewildered and disappointed me. First off, let me say that I, in no way, think I am better, above, or finer than any fellow artist. I am just merely stating my opinion. (Which you are also more than welcome to do with this entry, perhaps take the challenge to make me think differently on the matter...)

Anyone that knows me knows that I hate... I detest landscape photography. On that note too, detest macro shots of flower pedals with the morning dew in the foreground and junk. It's not only over done, it's drab. Trite. Cliché. Very, and I mean very few landscape photography nowadays can contain some kind of minuscule of creativity to it. (Not including Ansel Adams... I can go off about his work as well, but it's another entry.)

Landscape photography, what is it good for?

At the beginning stage of my learning photography, I did start off with landscape. And it taught me a lot. It taught me my shutters and f stops, depth of field, lighting... But it's just that, landscape photography (and macro shots) is slightly under amateur at best. They make only mild interpretations in postcards and calendars. I much prefer the fine art of portraiture (no, not from Sears) over any kind of landscape photography, no matter who that artist is. It's story telling. It's inspirational. It's interesting. This is just my preferred taste in photography. You may think differently. I just needed to protest an article I read. So, there it is.

Michelle Brown

8/2/07

Chime TV

Do you ever have a hard time finding a video, but you just can't find it at YouTube or your favorite video site? Or are you obsessed with internet tv? If so, Chime TV was created just for you. Chime TV is a sort of video search engine that searches the web's best video sources and brings the video to your browser so you don't have to navigate through every site to find your favorite videos or download a bunch of crap to your computer. They also provide you with some Premium Channels containing some of the most popular content out there.

Alex Juel

8/1/07

Doll Face

We've all heard the diverse controversies of the effect that the media can have on us- particularly the effect of what our physical appearance should be of both men and women. Being a photographer and retoucher, I am also guilty of this. I photograph only models that I feel are physically attractive, then I retouch them to make them look even more (counterfeit-esque) beautiful...

This video is witness, in a more distinctive and individualistic way of representing all this.

Michelle Brown