Crowd-Sourced Mapping [Bing]

I've been a fan of Photosynth since I first heard of it during a TED presentation. While traveling to Jordan, I made a synth of El-Dier Monastery in Petra (Transformer 2). With geotagging, this will help to create a visually stunning and detailed user experience.

To compete with Google Maps, Microsoft has laced photosynth technology to create Bing Maps. Competition is always good. Both Google and Microsoft have been making incredible improvements to their mapping technology.

You can read more about it at Fastcompany.

Pictures of Stats [Visualization]

"Artist Chris Jordan shows us an arresting view of what Western culture looks like. His supersized images picture some almost unimaginable statistics -- like the astonishing number of paper cups we use every single day."

In one of his pieces, he creates an fantastic image resembling pollution spewing out of a factor. When you get up close and personal, you realize that its actually made of lots of plastic cups. As a matter of fact, it includes 1 million cups, which is the number of plastic cups that are used on airline flights in the United States every six hours.

His work is a pretty cool intersection between art/design and infographics. You can check out his website here and his latest book here.

I have been typecast [Identity]

I AM Times New Roman.

Am I timeless or a snob? Or maybe both (MWF, TThSat, Sunday I rest). Take the quiz here to find out "What font are you?"

Ethnography and Design [Innovation]

It's been a great couple days here at Berkeley. I'm constantly inundated with new ideas. I've been truly amazed at the ad hoc conversations that occur within the interstitial time between meetings and classes.

One topic that has gotten me really excited is the concept of design thinking. As once an aspiring graphic designer, I have always been fascinated with design. It is the last mile between us and utility.

One core component of design thinking centers around tying cultural analysis and ethnographic observation to create big "I" insights. The following is a great short video on how design thinking was used to design the future of sustainable fishing:


Design Ethnography from Central

HT: Youngandbrilliant

Ideas should scale [Lessons]

Lesson#2: Insights do not scale. Ideas scale. Insights lend themselves to new ideas.  Build rapid prototype and explore the idea. Good ideas are not about specifications and therefore, scale.

From: 
Putting the People First: Human-Centered Poverty Alleviation.
Featured Speakers: Tim Brown, CEO, IDEO; Jacqueline Novogratz, CEO and Founder, Acumen Fund. Moderated by Stuart Davidson, Managing Partner, Labrador Ventures

Image Source: Tumitu Design

Convert Evolution [iPhone App Design]

Tap tap tap has a short video taking us through their design iteration process. It's amazing the number of little tweaks that result in a highly consumable product.  When thinking about your processes, how often do you tweak them? How often do you iterate?



Convert Design Evolution from tap tap tap on Vimeo.

More info about Convert is at taptaptap.com/convert

Online Marketplace for Directors [Online Film Festivals]

While living in DC, I was lucky to be part of a film festival. What continually amazes me is the depth and quality of amateur work out there. Given the high cost of making mass consumptive media (like movies and commercials), its no wonder that companies rarely bet on an unknown director.

Film festivals, especially the strappy small ones, seek to showcase emerging talent and their unique stories. For example, a Paris-based production company Mr. Hyde has launched The Hyde Tube, which provides an online venue for directors to have their work juried.

There are two things I like about the project:

• Creation of a Marketplace: Mr. Hyde, hopes that the Hyde Tube will becoming a marketplace where clients can find source new talent (and probably for a cheaper cost). In effect, Mr. Hyde is trying to remove the middlemen in the process--for a nice price"Clients will contact The Hyde Tube in order to pass on a project to a specific director, who is then free to decide whether or not to accept it. If accepted, the director will write a treatment or make an animated test within 3 to 5 days. For this work you will receive approximately 500€.

  If the client is happy with the treatment and decides that the director will make the film, The Hyde Tube will connect the director with the client, and Mr Hyde or one of its affiliate studios will oversee the production until the film delivery."

• Visualization of Content: With a reported 100 directors, I was deeply curious on how they were going to help clients scroll through all the content. The use of screenshots allow the clients to scan multiple aesthetics efficiently.
  

This post is a bit of promotion [Gallery 400 Exhibit]

On Wednesday, I will be attending the opening of Gallery 400. This will be K's first professionally curated show and from what I hear, it's going to be a doozy. There's been a lot of buzz around it and I hear the emerging artists are hot hot hot.  The likes include: Karl Erickson, Andrew Falkowski, Matt Hanner, Shana Lutker, Debora Warner, and Jordan Wolfson.

From the press release:

This Shadow is a Bit of Ideology, gathers a group of artists working against the darkness cast by a long, drawn-out war, a rancorous spirit in politics, a social landscape obscured by rampant information retrieval, and a crumbling economy. The artists in the exhibition do not turn their backs on current socio-political issues, but neither do they embrace propaganda. Rather, they harness anxieties—political, economic, personal—as productive generators for form. Introspection, reflective criticism, oblique commentary and cohabitation of past with present are just a few of the tactics by which these artists navigate progressively through the twilight.

With my sister is visiting from San Diego; and since she's a foodie, we have reservations after the opening to grab dinner at Alinea.

It's going to be night of multi-sensory exuberance. First sight and sound, and then taste and sight. All with 2 of 3 of my most fave women in the world.

i'm a momma's boy after all...

All Shoes Considered [Nike Considered]

Nike has launched a new initiative called Considered Design. When trying to develop a more sustainable product, Nike realized that instead of creating a new shoe, they came up with the idea of using old shoes to make new ones. Vanessa Farquharson writes:

It's a perfect example of "upcycling" -- a green trend in which an expired product is upgraded into a new, more superior product -- and it's just one aspect of Nike's new approach to sustainability, which the company calls Considered Design.

Some examples of Considered Design's objectives: - A closed-loop system, in which Nike designers and manufacturers use old material and scraps from the cutting room floor to make new shoes, in order to reduce excess waste at the outset and create less demand for virgin resources. - Mechanically locking soles, meaning no glue or solvents are required in the production process; plus, insertable booties, removable logos and other design features that make the shoes easy to dismantle for recycling. - Apparel made entirely from recycled polyester and organic cotton, with water-based adhesive techniques in place of toxic cement or VOCs. - Open-sourced technology, allowing other companies to share research and development and promote sustainability throughout the marketplace.

Read the article from National Post here.

Evolution of Logos

Best Ad has a post showing the evolution of a couple corporate logos. I found it interesting how much or little companies have evolved their logos over time.

For example, after a significant change between 1955 and 1957, the logo design has continually been tweaked.


Bryant, thanks for sharing!

Let's get Photo Synth-ical, Synth-ical

Since Blaise Aguera y Arcas first presented a demo of Photosynth at a TED conference back in 2007, I've been salivating at the opportunity to play with the technology.

Not too long ago, Microsoft made it available for the general public. Unfortunately, I've been completed swamped--the number of posts I make correlate directly with how much free time I have. (Yes, February in Chicago is freezing cold, there is not much else to do but blog!). I've been trying to find the right opportunity to test it out. I didn't want to create a photosynth of my apartment--too messy, or of a cup--too boring.

A couple weeks ago, when Tommy and Ashley came out from NY, I took the opportunity to grab my camera and get a couple shots in.

Tommy and Ashley walk behind the Lyric Opera

I took them on a 4 hour walk around Chicago. Starting from the intersection of Michigan Ave and Wacker, we followed the river until we ended up in Gallery 400, in Greek Town, where K was working. The exhibit, "Chances are, the comets in our future" was about to end. To immortalize it, I put together my first photosynth. Check it out:

Bonus: Try to find the first image in this blog post in the photosynth walkthrough.

The intersection of art and commercialism

A lot of fashion retailers are partnering with designers and artists to promote their brand. Nike has partnered with experimental theater director, Robert Wilson (whose art has appeared in the Guggenheim, Metropolitan Opera of New York, and the Centre Pompidou) to create video portraits for Nike store retail displays.

While not for all companies, I feel that this is a refreshing injection of perspective into a brand. While in Japan, K learned that Chanel's mobile art container. Chanel partnered with famed architect Zaha Hadid to create and curate an multi-media experience. The traveling exhibit launched in HK, made a pit stop in Harajuku, and will end in Paris. Luckily for us, the rush line was pretty short and we were able to get into the exhibit.


Upon entering the container, you're directed to sit down and wait while the all-black-outfitted workers set you up with a personalized mp3 audio guide. A melange of music, voice-overs, and sound effects direct you through the container, telling you to stand-up, look-up, and walk to the next exhibit. Controlling your movements allowed each of us to experience a personal connection with the narrator and art. The 20 different pieces reflected their impressions of chanel, handbags, and leather. I was surprised how edgy some of the content was.

The container lands in New York between October 20 and Nov 9. To read more about visiting it while in NY, check out the NY Times article here.

Gorillaz goes Monkey

Jamie Hewlett (Tank Girl and Gorillaz) and Damon Albarn (Blur and Gorillaz) are at it again. This time, they've collaborated to bring one of my favorite childhood stories to life.

The ad is inspired the Ming Dynasty book Journey to the West (西遊記), which one of the Four Great Classic Novels (四大名著). As a kid, I was fascinated with mythology and lore. Beyond reading all I could about the Greek mythology, my dad went Chinese on me and bought vividly colored books about Monkey King's escapades to India during the Táng dynasty in order to obtain Buddhist religious texts called sutras. In fact, I built a tiny diorama based on the Monkey King's escapades. If only we had digital cameras back then. Oh, the craft I could expose you to.

Through time, I've seen permuations of the character crop up all over the place:

• Cartoon
  
• Musical
  
• TV Miniseries
  
• 2006 National Book Awards Winner: American Born Chinese
  

OK, enough talk, check out the clip via BBC's Olympic site here.

The Art of Cleaning

Speaking of corporations and their PR marketing campaigns. Green Works, a Clorox Company and maker of "natural cleaners," worked with Paul "Moose" Curtis on a graffiti art project.

Using Green Works products, created "reverse graffiti" by cleaning dirt off walls.



Like my last post, I'm on the fence. Conceptually, I like what the idea of "reverse graffiti," and its ephemeral qualities, and I'm a big fan of the director, Doug Pray (Scratch, and Infamy).

It's just...

I'm just not sure how to feel when street art goes corporate.

Source: Blogthousand!

Street Art Globalization

The Tate Modern in London recently launched a street art exhibition including artists from all over the world. Creativity Online interviews Will Gompertz, director of Tate Media, about the exhibit.

Read it here.

Brooklyn Science (Nihongo Style)

The past few weeks I was back in DC working at my company's headquarters. Over the Memorial Day weekend, I went up to NY to visit K. Sunday morning, we went to go check out the much talked about Brooklyn Flea.

What does one do at the Brooklyn flea? EAT! After waiting for just about an hour for Popusa's from Red Hook, we browsed the wares at the flea market. I gotta admit, I am a self-acknowledged geek. I bought a t-shrit--the print below. Can you guess what it is? It's taken from a Japanese science textbook for children:

If you guessed anthropomorphized water, you were right! To see more of Kari's work check out her etsy site.

Nano Phone, by Nokia

Nokia and the University of Cambridge's Nanoscience Centre is showcasing a nano-technology-based concept phone at the upcoming "Design and the Elastic Mind" exhibit at the Museum of Modern Art in New York City.

Here are some initial features that aren't available on your current phone:

• Flex and stretch shape
• Self-cleaning surfaces
• Transparent electronics
• Solar charging
• Ability to wrap around your wrist

I was always a big fan of snap on bracelets. We could be seeing a resurgence. Too bad the phone is seven years out.

Thanks core77 for the lead.

rorrim kcalb

I've previously blogged about the awesome site Arcade Fire put together some time ago, and it looks like they're at it again. To promote their latest single, "Black Mirror," they've launched a completely new site.

The Melvillesque story invites you to add or strip down the core layers of the songs. Whether its taking out the drums or voices, it's another multimedia extravaganza.

Korean is for design

In a recent FT article, Tatiana Boncompagni, predicts that Korean or Korean-Americans may be the future of fashion. In the recent Gen Art Fresh Faces catwalk, four of the eight designers were of Korean heritage. In fact, 29 percent of the student population enrolled in The New School for Design at Parsons are Korean. The article goes into profiling prominent and up-and-coming Korean fashion designers.

Why Korean, not other emerging arts countries like China? Well, according to Grace Sun:

I was born in Korea but I conduct business in China a lot and I’ve realised that Chinese culture is very much focused on food and culinary experiences. Koreans focus more on appearances and therefore fashion is a bigger part of the culture.

Yes, I do love my food.

What's the deal with helvetica?

So I recently watched Helvetica on my laptop (I love streaming movies from netflix). It's a documentary about the ubiquitious font type we all come to know. After watching the film, I couldn't stop seeing the font type screaming into my face. It's like when K pointed out the arrow in FedEx (in Helvetica, btw)--that's all that I could see.

I started to look at fonts a different way when I visited the Design Museum London back in 2006. Not only did I get to see the original Times New Roman font, but they also had an exhibit on redesign of the Guardian. Then and there I learned that fonts can help you convey meaning--like a well laid soundtrack in a film.

To that end, I was really excited to check out the film...The Chicagoist and a lot of the reviews went crazy over the film... It went broke box office records at the Gene Siskel Film Center here in Chicago... But honestly, I don't see what the fuss is all about

Don't get me wrong, it's a solid film--the structure and composition of the documentary explored not only the history of the sans-serif font, but it carefully showed the cyclical nature of society's embrace and rebellion against ideas and philosophies--but it didn't rattle me to the core like I expected. A great documentary reveals and changes your frame of thinking as the story develops. This film tried to give you all sides of the story, but didn't lead the viewer to discover the paradigm shift but rather told us another point of view.

Rating:(3/5)