Yes, it is an infomercial, but it is totally worth watching…Make My Logo Bigger!!! I know several coworkers that would buy this. Too bad they don’t have some Solar Flare Flakes in the package. Those would be a big hit too.

Oh behalf of Chad…

www.thelogocreator.com 

Make past logos present with your name!

ZAMZAR is a free online file conversion tool. It allows you to upload files as well as convert things from URLs. Use it for grabbing videos from Youtube and converting them to quicktime. You can also convert files like AVI, MP4, or DVIX to quicktime.

VECTOR MAGIC is a new online tool created by the good folks at Stanford. Works just like Adobe’s live trace tool, but much better and more accurate. It is definitely worth using.

I found this great web site called avoision. These two guys did a bunch of experiments which use art, mathmatics and music in somewhat interactive pieces.

I’m not sure, but at least to me this seems a little bit more fresh of an idea than what’s been around the block in the design world lately. It’s one thing to put music in the background of an animation or have an MTV video playing likened with some images and a pop song but I think this is the beginning of something greater. That link listed above opens to an interactive math oriented display using piano keys that you can play. Once you pick notes it “thinks” of how they would be played if they were pie. (I thought Jackie might like the math in this one).

Other videos are on the site, below that screen (there are nine) that are more musical. Some of these pieces play with text, having the text animate to what the words are or move with the beats of songs. I’m guessing the guy (although I couldn’t find an answer on his site) is some kind of computer programer as his day job (vs. an artist or graphic designer)… I get this impression because of the style of interactivity on the site and the fact that most of the fonts used in the animations look like some kind of san serif verdana standard code www option.

As far as artsy interactive code, this other site is very magical site, you have to download the “Four all Seasons” zip file once you get into the page and then you can read one of the four seasons (fall,winter,spring,summer) of the poem which then turns into an interactive scene with lettering. Check it out at…http://www.hahakid.net/forallseasons/forallseasons.html.

I ran across these two projects (one today and one a while back).

This first one is a post about the color schemes in movie posters, quite fascinating when it is broken down in this visual form. To read more about it go here: “Dark and Fleshy: The Color of Top Grossing Movies.”

The second project is a graduate student project from NC State University. It examines chickens. Again I am drawn to this breakdown of color and pattern found in chickens. Visit Jamie Gray’s site for more about the project.

Caution – Extreme Violent Content Warning

Watch this… pretty darn cool – Self carving pumpkin

its free all weekend. go there

This is pretty interesting… daily video logs!

 http://www.rocketboom.com/vlog/

I have always been a fan of Stefan Sagmeister’s work. As part of Adobe’s features of different artists/designers this short film was created to feature his work. He takes things to quite the extreme for his work, you can call it dedication or crazy. He has had interns carve his skin for a poster. He gained 23 pounds for another poster. No matter what, the work is good, thoughtful and worth a look.

As a side note to the films. Most of the films are done by Hillman Curtis. He is originally a new media/web designer, he applies several of the principals of compressing/creating new media for the web to this particular series of films. The idea is that you don’t have lots of movement, slow movements or shots where majority of the subject matter stays the same, allowing compression codecs to not have to constantly replace pixels (which equals more memory). All of the films are worth watching.

Honest
Josh Davis
Mark Romanek
Milton Glaser
Pentagram
Paula Scher
David Carson
James Victore

Some of you may have seen the trihexaflexagon I made last year in Ryan’s class. I found a great video that shows how this shape is made. For you inspired by math and science in art this may catch your fancy…

See an example of how my
trihexaflexagon was made. It’s a 3 faced (tri) hexagon shape. There are a series of these that you can look up as flexagons. At this link you can also view other 3d paper sculpture including a simple 3d snowflake for those of you who are ready to get into the winter spirit.