Dodge Challenger commercial

I found this pretty funny. Another good one from Wieden+Kennedy (Creative directors: Aaron Allen and Joe Staples). This commercial spot aired during the World Cup match between the U.S. and England.

RGB

I saw this super-cool wallpaper on Creative Review blog. It was designed by Carnovsky, An Italian studio located in Milan, created specially for the shop of Janelli & Volpi during Milan Design Week. Janelli & Volpi is a brand of wallpaper. This particular kind can be viewed as different things depending on which colored light it is displayed under.

The theme was "metamorphosis intended as an unceasing transformation of shapes from a primigenial chaos", drawing inspiration from 16th-17th century engravings in European texts of natural history:

"A catalogue - it naturally includes also human - that does not have a taxonomic or scientific aim in the modern sense, but that wants to explore both the real and the fantastic, the true and the verisimilar in the way medieval bestiaries did."

New city.

Strategy and Creativity, the perfect blend

HOW magazine (September 2010) has a showcase of 107 award-winning promotional projects, and the Best of Show winner, Kenny Barela, caught my eye. He has a quirky, yet functional resume package bursting with the right measure of personality. His remarks about the economic difficulties in the article inspired me:

Barela admits that this piece is the result of looking for a change amid an economic downtown, during a stretch of time when finding work just sucked for many design professionals. Frustration turned from something incredibly dark into a spark for creative retooling that inspired him to create this standout selling tool that generated immediate interest. “Frustration can be a good thing when you leverage it to help you push the boundaries. I really do believe it can help you make it to the top of the pile. Remember, it’s you vs. everyone else,” Barela says.

(HOW magazine, 2010 Promotion Design Awards Best of Show)

How well can you judge color changes?

I found this interesting Color IQ test which I thought would be especially fun for painters to try. It takes a few minutes, so don't get impatient, and it may strain your eyes, but I wanted to see my results. The lower number you get, the better, and it tells you which hue(s) you have trouble correctly seeing. Make sure that your monitor is calibrated for optimum viewing!

I got a 4, with a particular weakness in greens.

Blacknuss Mag

Giorgio Di Salvo leads this collaborative project with several artists assembling a book with a unifying theme: darkness. A limited edition of 100 were hand made in Italy. Check it out here, and see more of the bookmaking process here. Even better, you can buy it online for €30.

Next time you're bored in class, try this!

I found this neat article on the Daily Heller this morning. I have respect for anyone that can sculpt an Elvis bust out of pencil lead, but when I saw his most well known work, Alphabet (which took 2.5 years to make), I was really impressed by Dalton Ghetti. This Brazilian-born artist lives in Bridgeport, UK and carves pencil lead using needles and x-acto blades. He started out in school carving a friend's name into a pencil and giving it to them as a present. Later, he began doing larger sculptures out of wood and stone, but progressed to smaller items such as soap, candles, and broom handles. See more about his process in the NY Daily News.

His recent exhibition, Meticulous Masterpieces: Contemporary Art by Dalton Ghetti, Les Lourigan, and Jennifer Maestre showed his pencils accompanied with a magnifying glass at the New Britain Museum of American Art. He is currently working on more, but won't divulge the subject matter in fear of jinxing it.

"When I'm inspired, I can sit down and things just flow. You can't force yourself to do those things. I do it just for fun, it's pretty much like a hobby, a kind of meditation work that I do."

Liquid Prismacolors!

I would really like to see this someday. I was amazed to see photos of the Grand Prismatic Spring in Yellowstone National Park, located in Wyoming. This is the largest hot spring in the park.

"Grand Prismatic sits upon a wide, spreading mound where water flows evenly on all sides forming a series of small, stair-step terraces. The Hayden Expedition in 1871 named this spring because of its beautiful coloration, and artist Thomas Moran made water-color sketches depicting its rainbow-like colors. The sketches seemed exaggerations and geologist A.C. Peale returned in 1878 to verify the colors" (yellowstonenationalpark.com).

The colors are caused by thermophilic bacteria and various temperature-specific algae species that change color as the water cools at the edge of the spring. The hottest part is the blue in the middle, which is 188 degrees Fahrenheit (too hot to support life).

For a panoramic view from the ground, check it out from here.

When clients want an overused font.

Erik Spiekermann tweeted this link today from Fontshop, and I thought it might be helpful someday.

I know I always groan when I see Papyrus used in everything from Italian menus to Christian merchandise to organic products, and I've insisted to any of my friends that are teachers not to use Comic Sans. I haven't used Comic Sans since AIM in 6th grade- in bright blue I might add. So what can a designer do when a client suggests an overused font?

It's good to have alternatives.