Dodgy images

I want to do a series of designs that both celebrate the dirty, neon lit, garbage strewn side of Hong Kong and reflect the reality of the people that live in these conditions (it's not just a Blade Runner set after all).

Here are a few concept images I've pulled together. They are a long way off what I want them to be, but it's a beginning.

A few good ideas

Kandle
I like the Kandle because it looks like the book light I had when I was a kid (which I later strapped to the top of my GameBoy).

Amazon Via Gizmodo

Pictionaire
Pictionaire looks like the kind of the product that should be released in 2010. As I understand it, Pictionaire, which is being developed by Microsoft and the University of California Berkeley, is an adaption of Microsoft's Surface technology. The Pictionaire table uses overhead cameras to make digitise physical objects, allowing users to manipulate the digitised copies. Take a look at the video below, it's much easier to understand than any description I could come up with.


New Scientist via Gizmodo

GNOP
There is not much to Gnop, but that doesn't stop it being cool. It's Pong, but you play as the ball. It's surprising that this hasn't been done before (well, not that I have come across). Give it a whirl.

Bit Battalion via Boing Boing

Cool stuff

Hong Kong Buildings

Hong Kong's older buildings have such a charming, unique appearance, which I think look great hand drawn. I'm going to print some t-shirts with some sort of hand drawn building motif on them, but I haven't got the design sorted yet. In the meantime, I've been looking for inspiration, which led me to Joel Prittie's fantastic urban monster art, in particular the image above. Check out Joel M. Prittie Awesome Blog.

Children's Books

On the subject of imagery that I think is inspiring, Sleepyanimal sent me a link to a wonderful collection of children's book covers. Above is an example, but I recommend checking out the whole set here (via Gawker).

Makers

Last, but certainly not least, I recommend that you add Cory Doctorow's Makers to your reading list. Although I haven't quite finished Makers (about 90% there according to my Kindle), I've thoroughly enjoyed the book so far. What I like most, is that Doctorow has imagined a future, not too distant from our own, and has filled it with exciting characters, interesting technological ideas and innovative and believable business models. Download it out here (by the way its free).

(Image via Tor.com)

Math + 3D Printer = Cool

Bathsheba Grossman's math inspired sculptures, which are produced using a 3D printer, are totally cool. I find 3D printing technology really fascinating. I recommend reading through the Bathsheba Sculpture website, as Grossman includes a lot of interesting information about how the sculpture concepts are developed and the 3D printing process used.

Via BoingBoing

Lord of the Logos

This is such a cool book, I love metal inspired typography. My desire to own this book is, no doubt, heightened by the fact I've been playing more Brutal Legend than is healthy.


The blurb for the book is:

This book is a collection of work by Christophe Szpajdel, an artist whose fans in the underground black metal community worship him as the Lord of the Logos. It includes hundreds of powerful logos, each of which captures the force of this musical genre anew. Through his surprising use of aesthetic influences such as art deco and nature, Szpajdel has brought a new dynamic into the gothic visuality of heavy metal. This publication, which is done in the style of a black prayerbook, shows not only how he has succeeded in leaving his own visual mark on this music, but how he has also expanded the canon of forms it uses.

Find out more about the book here.

Wonderful Messy Sketches

Check out Nebojsa Cvetkovic's wonderful messbook here.

Via Superpunch

Looking for inspiration

Here is a bunch of cool stuff I've come across over the past few days:

1. This interview with Will Wright, where he talks about expanding into the "play industry." I think the concept behind Wright's Stupid Fun Club is fantastic.

2. The music video for Justice’s remix of “Let Love Rule” by Lenny Kravitz, directed by Keith Schofield. It's a refreshingly quirky video.



3. I really like the comic-book style cover McFaul Studio did for Computer Arts Projects - Issue 128. I'm thinking about incorporating a comic-style theme in my design of Silights.


4. These cool skateboard designs by Emil Kozak for LAB Kindergarten. I like his bold clear patterns and the 'do you remember' theme.


5. I think I need one of these t-shirts. The design is aptly titled 'Refill Required'. Glennz Tees via Gizmodo

The Silights instrumentality project

I’ve decided that working during the day as a corporate drone is not enough self-punishment. To address this, I’m going to take on several side-projects, which I will work on in my spare time.

The real purpose of these side-projects is to try to expand and develop my skills and experience in more innovate pursuits, with an ultimate aim of working in a more innovative industry in the future.

The five projects I’ve decided on are:

1. Silights re-design. In fairness, Silights does not have a design, so ‘re-design’ is somewhat of a misnomer. My goal is to draw-up several ideas, decide on an interesting and unique look for my blog and implement it. This probably sounds pretty basic to most people, but as I have never done anything like this before, it will be a challenge for me.

2. Weekly post about casual games and iPhone apps. This idea came about because I really enjoy playing casual games and ‘collecting’ iPhone apps, but I want to develop more of a critical eye about what works and what doesn’t. To force myself to be more critical, I’m going to try to provide a weekly commentary on the games and apps I’ve come across and am playing/using.

3. Make t-shirts. I’ve talked for years about making my own t-shirts, but have never actually done anything - but this is about to change. Once I move apartments (in the next few months), I’m going to pick-up a screen printing kit and print a few different t-shirt designs. I already have some ideas for prints and I’ve looking forward to seeing how they turn out. I envisage the first few attempts will be total disasters. I’ll make sure I take lots of photos, so you can all have a good laugh from the comfort of your browser windows.

4. Make an iPhone app. Similar to 2, my goal here is to draw up several ideas for iPhone apps and make them. I do not expect to make any commercially viable apps (though that would be nice), I just want to prove to myself that I can do it.

5. Make a simple computer game. I’m going to dream up, design, develop and create a simple 2D computer game. This project is the most ambitious because my programme skills are terrible (currently the only programming I do is designing excel macros in visual basic), but I also think it will be the most rewarding.

To force myself to be disciplined about recording my progress and for your entertainment, I will be posting a development diary for each of my projects. Don’t get too excited, as I have a somewhat onerous day job, I’m anticipating a long development time for these projects.

Great work Percula

The Craft of War: BLIND from percula on Vimeo.
Percula via Notcot

The Hajj and Eid al-Adha

The Big Picture is an amazing blog: the pictures are spectacular and the subject matter is interesting and thought provoking.

The latest post, titled The Hajj and Eid al-Adha, is a serries of pictures capturing moments from the Muslim festival Eid al-Adha, or "Feast of Sacrifice", which marks the end of the Hajj - the annual pilgrimage to Mecca.

Venice under water

This picture is amazing. Poor Venice. I hope the floods don't do too much damage.

(The Big Picture - ANDREA PATTARO/AFP PHOTO/AFP/Getty Images)

A Good Poem

My friend McConnell is an emo who likes poetry. He sent me 'A Good Poem' the other day. I really like it. The last line does it for me.

A Good Poem

I like a good poem
one with lots of fighting
in it. Blood, and the
clanging of armour. Poems

against Scotland are good,
and poems that defeat
the French with crossbows.
I don't like poems that

aren't about anything.
Sonnets are wet and
a waste of time.
Also poems that don't

know how to rhyme.
If I was a poem
I'd play football and
get picked for England.

Roger McGough

High above New Zealand

"High above New Zealand and Cook Strait, astronauts Robert L. Curbeam and Christer Fuglesang work to attach a new truss segment to the ISS and begin to upgrade the power grid on December 12th, 2006. (NASA)"

(Big Picture)

Jeff Bridges’ Iron Man Photo Diary

If you enjoyed Iron man us much as I did, then you will love Jeff Bridges' Iron Man Photo Diary. There are lots of great stuff - my personal favourites are the photos from the early production meetings and Gwyneth Paltrow's wardrobe test.

Check out the full album on JeffBridges.com.

(JeffBridges.com via /Film)

Will Goodan

I stumbled across Will Goodan's work while I was looking at NotCot. Goodan is a motion graphics designer based in Los Angeles. I really like his stuff.

Check out his video titled Unicron. Brilliant.

(Prime via NotCot)

High-rise construction in Dubai

Heavy fog rolls by high-rise constructions near the Dubai Marina in this November 21, 2007 file photo. (REUTERS/Steve Crisp)

(Big Picture)

I want to see an aurora one day

An aurora over the Elevated Station at Amundsen-Scott South Pole Station on July 16, 2008. (Keith Vanderlinde/National Science Foundation)

(Big Picture)

Glassdoor

Glassdoor is a site that gives insider reports on salaries and the zeitgeists of more than 11,000 companies.

Glassdoor's goal is simple: To make salary and workplace-quality information as public as possible. The service is free, but in order to get information users have to provide information. If a user wants to find out how much, say, a midlevel engineer at Microsoft makes, he or she has to provide information about his or her current job and company. It's anonymous, and Glassdoor screens information that seems bogus or plain-old axe-grinding.

It's a cool idea and is packaged in a user freidnly way. Check out the site here.

(Glassdoor)

Sustainable Clubbing

This is such a cool idea: Watt, a new dance club in Rotterdam, has a dance floor that harvests the energy generated by jumps and gyrations and transforms it into electricity. At Watt, which describes itself as the first sustainable dance club, that electricity is used to power the light show in and around the floor. "For this first club, we thought it was useful for people to see the results," said Michel Smit, an adviser on the project.

Watt is in large part the creation of the Sustainable Dance Club, a quirky company formed last year by a group of Dutch ecological inventors, engineers and investors now headed by Mr Smit. More than a year in the making, Watt is a huge performance space with not just the sustainable dance floor, but also rainwater-fed toilets and low-waste bars. Its heat is harvested in part from the bands’ amplifiers and other musical equipment.

"Our idea is that there’s enough energy in this world, you just have to use it the right way," Mr Smit said. "If you have a full dance club, there’s lots there, you just have to turn it into a usable product."

(NYTimes)

All Day I Dream About Sneakers

'All Day I Dream About Sneakers' is a new collaborative project from Adidas Originals and Lifelounge, inspired by the brand’s avid creeds of ‘Impossible Is Nothing’ and ‘Celebrate Originality’. The project showcases the story and kicks created by the world’s original sneaker freak, Herr Fritz Träumer – a mythical and enigmatic sneaker designer who dedicated his lifetime to constructing the most original range of sneakers ever seen.





Check out the full gallery at Lifelounge.