Random train of thought for today

Read this today on 'The Independent' website:

 

Blood, rage & history: The world's first terrorists

 

Looks very interesting and think it would relate to what I think of repressed societys actions today. Also, if no-one has watched this yet please watch:

 

ZEITGEIST II ADDENDUM (FULL MOVIE!)

 

All very interesting but when I watched Zeitgeist II Addendum I didn't agree with the point on religion being the main cause of wars that have taken place through the centuries. The news article links to what I think. Oppression and force creates a rebellious opposition against the perpetrators. Some people are scared of the unknown and losing control and end up trying to control events unfolding around them using force and not just letting life play out and hoping that through education people make the right choices. You can't predict the future but certain actions guide people down certain pathways be it for good or bad.

Anyway, the point...  ummmm...

I guess it's that it's not religion or culture (or an answer as predictable as that) that cause these acts of terrorism or violence, it's this weird need some people have or needing everything to be similar because something different scares them. As human beings we have this natural need to belong to a group of people, to interact, to educate and be educated, to love, smile and laugh. When this gets disrupted it's un-natural and probably sub-consciencely scares us. Other cultures aren't bad, we just don't understand them, religion isn't bad we just don't understand other religions. All through history humans have tried to explain the way things are, the way things or people act and until proven otherwise it remains that way. When reading through old books describing other cultures that we know of and are in existence today you don't get an education on that other culture you get an education on the naivety of how people used to think of other cultures when they didn't understand them properly. I also think the way that we perceive other cultures today will in the future be seen as absolutely crazy and uneducated.

As it says in the news article, the countries that suffered the most from anarchy were the ones that used power and force to oppress and control the population they were elected to govern. If they had given the individual(s) more freedom they would have had less reason to rebel and cause havoc, their argument wouldn't have had as much solidity.

Anyway, Nancy Etcoff does an interesting talk for T.E.D. and a point she makes is the human need to belong:

Nancy Etcoff

The Fun Theory

...The experiments are being seeded through various channels and are live on rolighetsteorin.se, with English versions to appear soon on thefuntheory.com. A contest also encourages visitors to upload their own applications of The Fun Theory. A prize of 2500 Euros will go to the creator of the winning experiment, decided on by a panel Swedish experts in behavioral science and environmental issues.

As for the carmaker's own contribution, "Volkswagen's answer to the theory will be presented at a later stage on a separate website amongst other media," says Dahlqvist. "The site will display their whole range of environment technologies and cars—many, many fun ways to do something for the environment."...

Original entry here.

Bicycle Beats Helicopter

"The means of transportation chosen ranged from cars, bikes, motorbikes, and a helicopter to buses, metro, their own feet and even a wheelchair. Contrary to all forecasts, a biker won the challenge, with a total time of 22 minutes – more than 10 minutes faster than the person on the helicopter, who spent a total of 33 minutes and 30 seconds between going to the heliport, waiting for takeoff clearance, flying and landing.

The car came way behind, with a total time of 1:22– slower than the runner, who took 1:06, the bus (1:11) and just 10 minutes faster than the person who chose to walk the whole path (1:32)."

Original post here!

What a nice idea!

Kashiwa mystery cafe.

Stefan Sagmeister

Stefan Sagmeister talking on T.E.D.

Zeitgeist II ADDENDUM

Should have posted this ages ago.

New Movie

This looks sooooo good!

Sitting Around.

Have taken a part of an image I've been working on and wanted to see how a simple brush colours in Photoshop would look. Had around two minutes to spare and have been working on this image in vector format for ages but haven't had the time to finish it. Just wanted to post something up so thought this would do.

Anyway, terrible colours and blurry. When I get time I'm gonna work on the vector image. Hopefully will look good.

Beamvertising Guerrilla Projections

Beamvertising Guerrilla Projections! from Lumina Motion on Vimeo.

Percussion

Diego Stocco - Experibass from Diego Stocco on Vimeo.

Pretty sweet!

Design education.

Was just reading the latest post on Design Cultures (specific entry here) and was reminded of a video I watched recently. It keeps popping up and it's pretty old but very, very, very good!

More Drawings

Sketching's fun! ^-^

Cheesy but gotta love it..

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The Grand Prix TV winner from Spikes Asia
This ad for Thai Life Insurance took the top prize for TV at the Spikes Asia Awards. See more winners here.

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Graffiti vs. Education funding.

A case of actions now with no thought to the future?

Square piece of paper.

Found this lying around. Drawing of a random alien thing. Actually, gonna put up two images here. Randomly done, not really based on anything except using circles as the base.

The top right character on the bottom image is supposed to be a turtle. Wish you could colour in with your mind, would make things so much quicker and easier. Maybe I should stop being so lazy though.

^-^

Would we pay more for the label?

sebastien bouchard: c'est la crise - crisis time

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Link

Ha ha ha!

Link

Crazy good!

Saw a video on EpicFu of some guy doing this kinda thing but was just one song, not a good few. This is awesome!

Light Graffiti Sweetness!

Nice!

Random new drawing...

Did this while hanging out with Tuesday & eating cupcakes! Bliss!!!

Hyper-Efficient Refrigerator Uses Less Electricity than a Light Bulb

Gotta love the Ozzies!

Solar Energy

Good times!

Snowboard that was lying about!

Have a random snowboard in the sitting room... also had a black permanent marker on me as well. Not much else was going to happen. Wish I had lots and lots of money so I could do this to lots of different snowboards.

When I'm back in Dundee I think I'll buy some skateboard decks to draw on. They'll be cheaper at least!

Now just need to get that lottery win!

Some Random Sketches

Wanted to draw stuff with the idea of spray painting them on the walls of Wellington Massey Uni. Went a few days ago and did a random little graphic... maybe I have it somewhere on my computer.

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Good fun times. Gonna work on making the drawing vectors but would be cool if I get time (and money for sprays) to put them on a wall. Need to make them better basic drawings with pen though, a bit rubbish just now but I'll keep working on them to make them better.

Oh yeh, that spray on the wall was my first freestyle one. Have done a couple of stencils before which was cool but would love to be able to just spray straight onto a wall. Really envy people who can do that!

--- added note ---

Yeh, forgot to mention the top two drawings trying to get across a dark and sinister feel and a happy feeling all the the same time. The smiling faces of both pieces can either be pure joy or sinister. Quite like a single image having two different qualities.

When something bad becomes something great!

This looks good!

The Temper Trap

Nice sound.

Official.

Myspace.

Run A Good Ideas Salon In Your City!

This is great, joining people together to inspire.

Good Brands Report

Link.

Earth Hour

Would this have been possible without internet, blogging, social networking sites, etc? Love what we could possibly achieve in this age!!!

We just need to take the first step... everything will lead on from there!

^-^

Water is...

EVERYONE CHECK IT OUT!

It's nice  ^-^

-link-

water is...

Designers Against Human Rights Abuse (DAHRA)

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"3 Minutes is the second publication from non-profit organisation Designers Against Human Rights Abuse (DAHRA) and the second collaboration between DAHRA and Tibet Relief Fund.

The premise of the book is to show the full extent of the Tibetan conflict through 10 diverse and extremely powerful 3-minute interviews, each describing the 3 minutes that changed their lives. This idea is reflected in the covers of each booklet, which separately make beautiful abstract covers but together form to make a ‘3’.

Contributors were asked to translate these minute interviews into 16 printed page booklets using primarily typography. The result is a book made up of 10 beautifully designed booklets from some of the world’s best designers showcasing considered and stunning typography.

The book is available for £10 + p&p worldwide with all proceeds going to Tibet Relief Fund and being distributed by Subism

The contributors to this project are Bibliotheque, Brighten the Corners, Stefan Gandl (NeubauBerlin), Alex Haigh (Thinkdust / HypeforType), Nick Hard (Research Studios), Jeff Knowles (Research Studios), Abbott Miller (Pentagram), Si Scott, Paul Skerm, Un.titled"

3minutes.dahra.org

Buy the Book Here

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Comments

Have just figured out that I can have notifications sent to my e-mail if a comment is left on a post... that didn't take long at all!!!

...hope I did it right..

Some environmental stuff.

Floating apartments...

Car...

Toilet roll holder thing...

Art Deco Bike

Could imagine this in a film like 'Casshern'...  loved that movie!

But anyway, nice looking bike.

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Link here.

The Typography Manual

This looks well good!

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"The typography manual is a brand new app for all type freaks who want to know everything about type and how to use it. It is a pocket resource for typography, with more than 60 pages of type tutorials, type history, guides and info for setting type, type anatomy and terminology that shows you every thing about type, as well as latest typographic news. It even has a ruler to count the text size on a magazine you read… What more do want from an app? This has it all."

Got it from here...

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Main page here!

Now I just need an iPhone!  ^~^

Wellington Uni. Type Project.

The first Type project I had for Uni. here in Wellinton. Had to design a poster for the 'Young & Hungry' festival.

Final poster is really terrible but can't change it now. Damn it!

Cory Aquino

Cory Aquino, the woman who beat a dictator, dies...

Is it stupid to judge?

So I'm currently In Long Beach, L.A. and looking around the place with Tuesday my classmate before heading off to New Zealand to study for a semester. It's a great experience to see the sights and just walk and cycle around. Have been to a couple of beaches and got sunburnt yesterday at Huntington beach...  haven't been sunburnt for ages! Not much chance of it in Scotland.

Anyway, the point of this little entry is how people judge and perceive other people. This isn't really an American bashing entry though. It's kinda the opposite, and mainly due to the comments and outlook of a European traveller we've met.

So...

A lot of people say that Americans are stupid. Why? They are as intelligent as you and I. It's all how well educated we are. Some people that I know get annoyed about Americans not knowing anything about Europe or the rest of the world, but I have to actually ask, apart from MTV and what we see in the Media, how much do we (Europeans) know about the U.S.A, the rest of the Americas, Africa, Asia and Australasia?

Great Britain is linked heavily to America in Politics, Music, Humour, Diet, etc that we expect that Americans must know as much about us as we know about them...    but why is that? Maybe we have a self-righteous need, an elitist mindset that expects other cultures/peoples/countries to know about our own peoples and culture.

People also complain that people in the USA think they're the best society in the world. You can't really blame the people from the USA if they think this as this is what's portrayed in the media; We only know as much as we are taught.

Also, saying that America is all the same is a totally crazy mindset. The country is huge and diverse. If you live in America you don't actually need a passport to experience another world as there is a diverse range of peoples and cultures. Chinese, Italians, Spanish, French, Japanese, Lebanese, Filipino, Australian, the list goes on and on. You're not in the original place but communities have come together and settled, created their own world inside America that American people can experience. The landscapes of America are different throughout the country; snowy mountains, vast deserts, gigantic forests, sprawling urban landscapes, etc. In terms of McDonalds, Starbucks, Nike and all the huge brand names then I agree, they have a structure to them that will be constant throughout the world, but then we have: Tesco, Fedex, HSBC, Costa Coffee, New Look, TopShop, and loads of others, all sticking to a specific structure, all promoting their own same image.

There's also little (or big) things like walking down the streets in Long Beach, CA. Ok, so this is a small part of America, but all the buildings are different. The streets are set out into a grid structure but the buildings are all unique. In most of the places I've been in the UK, most of the buildings are the same, or are the same in an area, but the streets are all unique. This might not be the case in other parts of America but I know which option I'd rather have.

I think Long Beach has a massively Mexican influence and by visiting Spain I can see a resemblance in the cities and towns I've visited so maybe the more north you go in America, the more like Britain the cities become in terms of architecture.

Anyway, I know there's a lot wrong with American politics and education, health care, etc, but it really annoys me when people jump on the bandwagon of 'hating' America. Sometimes it feels as if people like to make themselves feel better by blaming other people and countries. People like to feel superior and this is an easy way to do it. Judging others is not intelligent and highly disrespectful if you judge them on knowledge and actions you know and they don't but assume what they know is inconsequential.

Not sure if that made sense. 

I think an example would be saying Americans are stupid for not knowing where countries in 

Europe are but then not knowing where each state in America is... something like that.

Anyway, it's around 1.30am/2.30am (don't have a watch) and I've 

written most of this when I'm tired so not sure if it 

makes sense.

more drawings

These have been sitting around for a while... so thought I'd put them up. Not sure why I haven't yet. The drawings on coloured paper where done at the '3rd Pictoplasma Conference' in Berlin, March of this year.

The three drawings on white paper where randomly done sometime this year. Can't remember if it was before or after the conference that I did the big cute circle character. Think it was before.

The line drawings is something I want to take further...   but will have to work on them to make them any good:

yay!!! ^-^

website links

just read struan's blog and decided to put up some websites that i like:

http://www.psfk.com/ http://idressmyself.co.uk/ http://www.nextnewnetworks.com/ http://www.behance.net/ http://www.planetphotoshop.com/ http://www.phunkstudio.com http://www.artless.co.jp/ http://make.pingmag.jp/ http://www.tokyoplastic.com/ http://www.byroglyphics.com/ http://www.aeiko.net/ http://www.mariscal.com/ http://www.facebook.com/ ^-^

book design - hell

ok, so here's an entry about my book i designed for the 2nd semester at the Duncan of Jordanstone college for 2nd year.

we were given a random 'utopian' place that we had to create a book for. my place was hell. got a few ideas when we first got handed the brief. the cute character illustration was one of my original ideas that i stuck with. i went through thinking of doing the book on past events with illustration done in my cute character style. from there i looked at the different levels of dante's inferno.

***before i go on, i really need to remember to add tags to my entries 'cos keep forgetting!!! 0_0

yeh, so was gonna base my design on that, but the descriptions i could find were a bit vague and quite open so i kept searching while working on this idea when i came across the chinese hell - diyu.

the different levels/stages were a lot more specific and i found easier to work with. this also fitted in with my idea of illustration as my influence for these characters comes from the far east. characters like:

pucca
hello kitty (*did not know this was used as a rebellious symbol in japan!!!)
and characters that :phunk studio do. wouldn't mind working for these people.

and stuff like that. and then wanted to make it clean for reason i'll say later but yeh, really really like this site/these artists and want to make a website as clean and nice as this, so another reason for making a book with clean graphics.

artless!!!!!!!! < (this) = (equals) <3>

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so yeh...   ummm....  points > ...

* i didn't want to use colours as this assumes hell has colour, that we know what that colour would be if colour did exist and also didn't want to do the stereotypical idea of fire, lots of red, etc.

* i didn't want to use characters that looked human because if hell exists how do we know we get there in human form? also, to portray the levels as i wanted, using human characters would have probably started to become borderline offensive, sick and way more unacceptable to the reader. by using cute characters it takes away this problem. i felt i could illustrate these characters with whatever happening to them and it was ok to do so as it is far removed from the human form we can very much associate with.

      - i went to pictoplasma this year with my sister and the talks by different artist from around the world was amazing. one that related to, and influenced my book piece was a talk by 'Marek Michalowski'. he did a talk on 'Keepon' (which everyone should watch!!!!!) which was created for autistic children for them to interact with. a design they had before was a more realistic robot, the the children found it unapproachable and couldn't relate well with it so they re-thought their design and came up with a cute, cuddle and none offensive character that was very approachable not just to autistic children, but everyone who came in contact with this character. another speaker talked about an experiment they did were they had a robot who was very realistically modeled on the scientist who invented the robot. an interesting discovery they observed was that people who came in contact with the robot and then the scientist found that the robot was intimidating and unapproachable.

                                     - this relates to my idea for the book as i wanted to show the extremity of some of the levels without being really offensive to the viewer and by making the characters cute and non-human the viewer is hopefully more engaged. i feel they would have not been if i had used realistic brutal images as they would have had an instant block in their head due to the extreme nature of the images. i feel that the messages portrayed in each scene isn't lost as people can see exactly what is going on.

- maaaaaan, this is turning into a major long post!!! -

* i also didn't want to produce a book that had the usual bind down one side of the book to keep everything together. this is because when i think of books i normally associate the word to pieces of material joined together on one side with loads of text you read left to right or right to left and is also unchangeable. the reasons i did it the way i did was to create layers that people had to unwrap to get to the content and also each level/page/pullout doesn't have to go back in the same order; you can re-arrange them how you want. each page has the chinese characters of each level on the top left so you know which page goes with which.

ooooooh, yeh, a reason for my use of lots of white was because when we try to imagine what hell is like we base it on our own personal experiences that we have had through life. i think this is what we do when trying to imagine something we have never experienced which i think makes the thought slightly innocent/naive. since we have never experienced hell, our thoughts and imaginations of it are essentially innocent and naive and to truly know what it is like we would have to go their ourselves to find out. so yeh, the clean look and the massive amounts of white used in the book is because of our inexperience of the place.

- can't believe i almost forgot the last point as it was one of my original reasons for doing the book the way it is. the innocent/naive understanding of hell is also one of the reasons i went with cute characters. cute characters are associated with children, and children are associated with innocence and naivety and there you have a link.

well, that's definitely enough writing!

some more skate

got a random break from work 'cos was dead so came home this afternoon to work on more skate graphics. have been finishing them off just now.

the second board is from the entry before, but with some background on it to bring it out a bit...   not really what i was thinking but there you go. i'll work on it later. top one is my omni:studios character. bottom two are from a graphic i did at the metropolitan college in glasgow. that college is actually really good. oh yeh, got taught by tom from yield creative who was a really really good tutor and also jinty, but don't know if she has a website so can't put up a link to here :(

anyway, awesome tutors.

uhhhhhh.....  not sure if i had anything else to put on here...  ooooooh, yeh, was writing an entry this morning about a book project i was doing at college but ran out of time and had to go to work and then when i came back on my random break everything that i had written was wiped 'cos my computer was randomly off...   power cut? so yeh, i'm gonna put that in a separate entry after this one....