Rest in Peace Steve….

The death of Steve Jobs is very sad, but we have his amazing products and his inspirational words. Like this, his 2005 Stanford commencement speech. Rest in peace Steve Jobs (1955-2011).

Digital Ephemera for Wednesday, October 5, 2011

Another Wednes­day has rolled around, so here’s my weekly col­lec­tion of inter­est­ing dig­i­tal ephemera I’ve found pok­ing around the vast Inter­net waste­land. Think of me as your guide through the eclec­tic dig­i­tal desert…

Today’s Menu

• Art & Design
• Motion Graphics & Video
• Marketing
• Social Media
• Something Cool
• Something Strange
• Something Terrible
• Three Sites Worth Checking Out (Chess Edition)

Art & Design

The Evolution of Baseball card Design 1887-2011
This is a fun collection of Baseball Cards from designer Stacy David Wallingford. Just like the players, I’d have to say that even the graphics seem to have beefed up dramatically. I’m guessing they’d test positive for PhotoShop.

Case Study: The Revenger’s Tragedy Initial Design
Okay a bit of a shameless plug for my own article, but it’s a nice post that exposes my design philosophy and methodology. Take a look at how I came up with a design for GreenStage’s production of The Revenger’s Tragedy.

Motion Graphics & Video

Teal and Orange – Hollywood, Please Stop the Madness
A great rant on the overuse of color correction from filmmaker Todd Miro on the desaturation of the palette in Hollywood films of late. I don’t totally agree, but it’s a great rant nonetheless.

L.A. Timelapse
This is beautiful, and as John Nack says: “Colin Rich has done the nearly impossible: He’s made me find Los Angeles beautiful.”

LA Light from Colin Rich on Vimeo.

Table 7
A very cute, clever and well executed short film. -via Neatorama

John Dies at the End
Okay, I don’t know what this is about even after reading this article. But I sure want to see it!

Marketing

Seth Godin’s Blog

Many people have heard of Seth Godin, if you haven’t you should! His daily missives on marketing, communications and humanity are not to me missed. A truly invaluable inspiration for those navigating the murky waters of modern marketing.

Social Media

What Was There?

This site is an experiment in collective history. Using google maps and user submitted photographs they aim to create build a visual history of the world. A worthy goal!

Something Cool

Digital Dead Sea Scrolls

After over 24 centuries, the work of archaeologists, scholars and historians the Dead Sea Scrolls will be accessible to everyone thanks to Google’s technology. Google and The Israel Museum, Jerusalem have teamed up and are celebrating the launch of the Dead Sea Scrolls online. As reported on Google’s Blog:

Now, anyone around the world can view, read and interact with five digitized Dead Sea Scrolls. The high resolution photographs, taken by Ardon Bar-Hama, are up to 1,200 megapixels, almost 200 times more than the average consumer camera, so viewers can see even the most minute details in the parchment. For example, zoom in on the Temple Scroll to get a feel for the animal skin it’s written on—only one-tenth of a millimeter thick.”

Something Strange

Cthulhu vs. the Sith (or the Carrot Monster Revenge)
A cute, if strange stop motion animation involving vegetables, legos and the unmentionable horror from beyond the stars.

Something Terrible

Worst Band Ever Butchers Pink Floyd
So bad, it’s almost good… almost!

Three Sites Worth Checking Out (Chess Edition)

• It’s Your Turn. My favorite online chess (and other board game) site. If you want to challenge me at chess challenge Ulysses 2004.
• The Chess Website YouTube Channel. Great video chess lessons and lectures.
• US Chess. The US Chess Federation official site.

Five Books Every Designer Should Own

At my home we have begun installing hard wood floors in our living room. The first part of this project, or any project for that matter, is the prep work. For this particular project we have to move things, tear out carpet and so on. During this process,we’ve boxed up most of the sundry flotsam and jetsam of modern life, i.e. furniture, electronics, books and Tiki mugs. The biggest problem has been the boxing and storing of our books, not because it is hard, but because every time I pull a book off the shelf I want to start reading it.

I realized there were some books that I just couldn’t store, even for a few weeks. These books I reference frequently, and it just doesn’t seem right to hide them away like an embarrassing relative. The following books I have found immensely helpful, interesting and thought provoking; they are books that every designer should have in their libraries.

1. A History of Graphic Design by Philip B. Meggs

It is often said that if you don’t know where you’ve come from you don’t know were you are going. There is no finer book on the history of graphic design than late Philip B. Meggs’ magnum opus A History of Graphic Design. It is exhaustive and authoritatively details the history of Graphic Design from the scratchings of prehistoric petraglyps to the digital revolution. The book is curently in it’s fourth edition and was recently revamped and updated by the capable hands of Alston Purvis. The New York Times is right on the money when they called it, “A significant attempt at a comprehensive history of graphic design…it will be an eye-opener not only for general readers, but for designers who have been unaware of their legacy.”

2. The Elements of Typographic Style by Robert Bringhurst

As much a manifesto for beautiful typography as a handbook of best practices; Bringhurst’s book is arguably the most influential book on typography in the last 30 years. It is exhaustive, dense and a must read for anyone with an interest in typography and graphic design.

3. Becoming a Graphic Designer: A Guide to Careers in Design by Steven Heller and Teresa Fernades
It is really hard to pick only one book for this list from Steven Heller, the supreme living critic, proponent and cataloger of Graphic Design. This entire list could just as easily been nothing but his books. But proper decorum must prevail so I’ll include this book because it is definitely a must read for any level of designer. It is simply the best road map for navigating of the numerous career paths in the Graphic Design business.

4. Design Basic Index by Jim Krause
Can’t afford art school? Need a refresher course on the basics of design? Need to explain to your mother what Graphic Designers do?

Look no further than Jim Krause’s great book. This beautiful book copiously explains the principles and best practices of design. As an added bonus the book is full of exercises that give readers hands on experience in the basics of design.

5. The Cheese Monkeys: A Novel in Two Semesters by Chip Kidd
A funny and thought provoking fictional look into the world of art school in the late 1950’s. Chip Kidd is a masterful book jacket designer who is responsible for some of the most iconic book jackets in the last 20 years. In The Cheese Monkeys, his first novel, he proves in he can fill a book with as memorable literary images as memorable graphic images on the covers. For designers, the book is  a  must read if for nothing else than the lectures in design by Winter Sorbeck, who inspires and terrorizes his acolytes with his philosophy of Graphic Design. My favorite little design nugget (of which there are tons in the book):

A bazillion years ago, some poor son of a bitch Cro-Magnon scratched a drawing of a buffalo on to the wall of his cave. He didn’t do it because his muse had called to him, or to explore the texture of bauxite, or to start the neoprimitive-expressionist movment. He did it because he killed a goddamn buffalo and he wanted someone else to know about it, after he was gone. He had a specific, definable purpose for making a piece of visual information. The first one.”

This is in no way a definitive list of course. What are some design books you’d recommend to clutter up fellow designer’s night stands?

God Speed… An Ode to the Golden Age of Space Exploration…

This is totally amazing. Céline Desrumaux, a fantastic artist has created the stunning Countdown. It is a masterpiece that took her two years designing, directing, and animating it. The best and most inspirational part for me is that she did it all in her spare time. The short animation has great visual references to one of my favorite mid-century television programs, Man in Space on The Wonderful World of Disney. That film set up many of our expectations and hopes for the future, and Countdown captures that feeling perfectly, with a dash of Kubrick’s 2001 for fun.

Even though this is an ode to mid-century design and esthetic, I do feel a bit sad calling this the “golden age,” because our golden age of space exploration should really be now or in the future as we branch out to explore and colonize the stars.

Countdown – HD from Desrumaux Celine on Vimeo.

Twitter Weekly Updates for 2011-10-02

• “If it can be written, or thought, it can be filmed.”
  ? Stanley Kubrick #
• “You’re an idealist, and I pity you as I would the village idiot.”
  ? Stanley Kubrick #
• “Have no fear of perfection – you’ll never reach it.”
  ? Salvador Dalí # Read more >>

Preschool Prehistoric Art!

There are flutings of animals and crude outlines of faces

This is amazing! Evidence of children’s art from 13,000 years ago! Children are artists and have always been artists, creativity and creating art is as much an instinct for humans as breathing. More information on this discovery.

Some other good resources on prehistoric art:

• Art History Archive
• The Hermitage: Paleolithic Art
• 20 Fascinating Cave Paintings

Check Out My Daily Design Flickr Set

I’ve been creating daily designs made in 15 minutes or so and putting them up on special flickr set. I am using this as a way to experiment and hone my craft.  Check them out…