Friday Freebie: Retro Mic Vector Graphic

For today’s Friday Freebie, an old school retro mic vector graphic. Lovingly crafted from an old magazine ad with Adobe Illustrator.
You know what to do, go rock the mic!

Click to download the file. Free to use for what ever…

Speaking of mics… take a page from the Beastie Boys and pass the mic!

Digital Ephemera for Wednesday, October 26, 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

Art & Design

Heather M. David’s Flickr Photostream.

If you are interested in mid-century modern design, Polynesian Pop or Googie. Do your self a favor and check out Heather M. David‘s flickr photostream. You will be treated to a cornucopia of mid-century ephemera including match book covers, gift wrap designs, signs and much more. It is really a treasure.

Nancy Duarte Interview

Check out this great interview with Presentation Designer extraordinaire, Nancy Duarte. She has a lot of great insights about communication, design and the presentation of information. I first learned about Ms. Duarte from reading the classic book Presentation Zen and blog by Garr Renyolds. If you haven’t listened to Duarte’s TED talk or read Garr’s book, you simply must, right now, I’m serious! My favorite line from the interview:

Most designers aren’t strong communicators. The investment in communications would help the entire design community. Many time the shy designers have the strongest concepts but don’t have the skills to explain their thought process.” – Nancy Duarte.

The perfect word when you don’t know what else to say!
Best.Graffiti. Ever. via Juxtapoz Magazine

Motion Graphics & Video

Retro School Videos
This is a really great site, it collects various mid-century educational films for your viewing pleasure. As they promote themselves on their website, “A free and fun way to support your classroom or homeschool curriculum using time-proven Educational Films, Newsreels, TV Shows,  PSAs, and Movies from the past.”

The only bummer about the site is it doesn’t allow you to embed the videos from their site. But since the films are in the public domain, it is easy to track them down on YouTube or Archive.org. Like I did for the following hilarious film, Law and Social Controls: Morals, Laws and Conformity in Parenting Theory Video (1949)

Bob
This is a great animation, very funny and clever. Make sure you watch the credits!

BOB from Jacob Frey on Vimeo.

Marketing

Guerrilla Marketing for the Digital Age: I Want To Draw A Cat For You
I read this great article on about the site “I Want to Draw a Cat for You” and  am amazed. Basically, for $9 Chicago-based comedian Steve Gadlin will draw a stick figure cat for you. Seriously, that’s it. Surprisingly it’s been fairly successful, recently Gadlin partnered with Groupon and sold 1,000 drawings in a single day.

The markeing video is clever for sure but, more importantly there is an interesting lesson to be learned in this case study. This example shows that non-traditional marketing channels can be used to launch a successful project, even if it is of dubious artistic merit. If you have a powerful and clever video or website that people will share with their social media networks and you can combine it with the rising power of coupon sites like Groupon then you have a great low-cost strategy for success.

via freelanceswitch.com

Social Media

Virtual Vandalism!

A new app that allows you to take a picture of a building, virtually vandalize it then share it! Pretty clever and property owners everywhere thank you!

Something Cool

Behind the Scenes: The Life and Death of Stars with Sean Austin and Sandeep Parikh.
Pretty funny video from the Spitzer Science Telescope.

Something Strange

Turkey Chases News Producer.
I am sure this has to have been featured on some “fail” type of site at one point or another.

Something Terrible

Splash Mountain Rap
In the late 80′s and early 90′s Rap Music hit the mainstream, so naturally marketers tried to capture the latest youth craze to promote their products to the youth of America. Just as naturally their ham-fisted approach created something very, very bad. So in that vein, I present to you, the Splash Mountain Rap.

Three Sites Worth Checking Out

• Lynda.com The best internet based video training site for learning graphic design software.
• bufferapp.com A handy site that let’s you set up a schedule for sending out tweets.
• shorpy.com Cool historical photo archive (though the actual images originally came from the US National Archives)

Frances Draws Her Rabbit (1961)

This is too fun not to share, Frances and Her Rabbit (1961). Learn to draw in this great retro educational film I found on the cool site TV Schoolhouse.

“Our Fonts, Our Friends”

If you love typography or the mid-century modern esthetic, you will love:  “Our Fonts, Our Friends.” It is a fantastically done, faux retro educational film about fonts from the stock image and font seller Veer. Naturally, it’s an ad, but it’s very clever and very well done. It looks like these videos will be a series and in this episode, the focus is on discusses font styles, choosing a font, and where to find an endless supply of affordable fonts, which just turns out to be Veer!

I find Veer a bit pricey for my taste, but they do have great stuff on their site, so I guess sometimes you get what you pay for. Also for some decent tips and tutorials Veer has a pretty good set of videos on their YouTube Channel.

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.

Friday Freebie: Vintage Hawaiian Map Wallpaper

Feeling the Aloha Spirit today, so I thought I’d pass along a little desktop wallpaper I created. I made it by mashing up a couple of images from a 1950′s United Airlines promotional brochure of Hawaii. Very mid-century modern. Mahalo!

• Large Wallpaper >>
• Small Wallpaper >>

Speaking of the Islands, I saw this again today, the late great Israel “IZ” Kamakawiwo’ole  performing “Somewhere Over the Rainbow.” Chokes me up every time. Rest in Peace IZ.

Mondo SHAG Interview

A nice little interview with my favorite living artist Josh Agle, a.k.a. SHAG discusses a once up and coming show back in the heady pre-Obama days of 2006, a time in the distant past, when the Seattle SuperSonics still existed.

Survivors get ready to RUMBLE!

Design Something Everyday 16/365

After reading the amazing tutorial “How to Creat a Retro Boxing Poster in Photoshop” from James Davies I was inspired to give it a whirl. I didn’t get quite as faux-vintage as James did, but went in my own direction. Turning it into a preview of some upcoming clashes in Survivor. If you’re a fan of the show you’ll get the gags.

Design Something Everyday: Retro Stephenie

Day 7 and still designing, though 2 days behind schedule in posting. Be that as it may, in honor of tonight’s premiere of Survivor Heroes vs Villains my design of the day is a little WPA inspired retro-esque poster in honor of one of my favorite players, Stephenie LaGrossa. Star of two previous incarnations of the show.

She was a contestant during seasons set in Guatemala and Palau. In Palau she was the last surviving member of her inital “tribe,” a first for Survivor. On Survivor: Guatemala she placed second and was robbed of victory by a petty and annoying jury. Hopefully, as in my digital doodle, Pallas Athena will be her aegis and like she did for clever Odysseus, guide her to victory. Survivors ready…

Survivors ready?

Tools: Adobe Illustrator

Links: Pallas Athena Clip Art via Arthur’s Clipart

Design Something Everyday Day 2: Retro Rupert

Day two and here is  a retro styled poster for Rupert Boneham, a contestant on the CBS reality show Survivor: Pearl Islands, Survivor All Stars & the upcoming Survivor Heroes vs Villains.

Tools: Adobe Illustrator, PhotoShop, Wacom Tablet.

Link: Rupert’s Kids, Survivor Contestant Rupert Boneham’s non-profit group to help at risk youth. A worthy cause.