[vimeo http://www.vimeo.com/59125130 w=500&h=281] Two fantastic videos that visualize the sound of a musical piece with motion graphics. The first, an intricate creation by Carlo Vega set to 'Gray Keys' by Chilly Gonzales. The second, an animation by Adrien M / Claire B that puts a creative spin on a familiar meme.
[vimeo http://www.vimeo.com/61085206 w=500&h=300]
It's 2013! A rainy morning in Amsterdam, the streets lined with the evidence of last night's firecracker extravaganza. Marcus and I are usually in Portland or Berlin for New Year's Eve and it was our first time celebrating in Amsterdam. In lieu of a party, we had a quiet celebration with cheese fondue, champagne, and an intense game of Scrabble. As the clock struck midnight, we stood together at the window, watching the fireworks bursting above and sang along with Sufjan Stevens' Auld Lang Syne.
And now, on to the New Year. If you're still looking for a calendar, I would recommend this one from aprons and birds, available in English and Spanish for the northern and southern hemispheres.
A beautiful art installation in the Portland International Airport by artist Sayuri Sasaki Hemann. Handmade jellyfish are suspended in a large-scale aquarium. The project aims to 'create a dialogue between viewers about context and displacement and about the unexpected.'
The jellyfish are styled after the Sky Jelly, A Midsummer's Night Dream (real name!), Portland Rain, Electric Moss Jellyfish, Magic Jelly, Moonlight Parade, and Sunset Jelly. I would love to unexpectedly come across this work while headed to a flight.
[vimeo vimeo.com/44358107 w=500&h=400]
Photos by The Weaver House
The Everywhere Project is a design collaboration initiated by designer and illustrator Adrian Walsh. Inspired by the song 'I've Been Everywhere', each of the 92 luggage labels represents one of the 92 locations listed in the song.
via Alyson Brown, the designer behind the Winslow, Arizona tag.
Dishes from the menu of London's Sketch restaurant, created by chef Pierre Gagnaire, were deconstructed and then reassembled as vertical sculptures by Dutch designers Raw Color. (via)
Re-turned birds by Norwegian designer Lars Beller Fjetland. These little creatures are created out of leftover or unused pieces of woods, giving them a new shot at life.
"I saw dumpsters on every street corner and started to wonder how much quality materials I could find on a single raid plundering these urban sawmills. A short trip gathering wood provided me with enough material to build at least 20 birds. This really opened my eyes to the fact that trash really is a misplaced resource."
Read the full interview with Lars Beller Fjetland on It's Nice That.
Since I was little, I have been fascinated with flags and the countries they represent. These 26 handpainted nautical flags by Best Made are based on the International Code of Signals, with each flag representing a letter in the alphabet. I love the designs and picked my favorite four (above) and then decided to choose four very sweet letters (below).
Six Word Story Every Day is 'a daily storytelling exploration through language and typography' by a collaboration of artists and designers. When I first saw the concept, it reminded me of Hint Fiction, with a design component. I was delighted to read in the About section that the inspiration was indeed the story which Ernest Hemingway regarded as his best: "For sale: baby shoes, never worn." The hint fiction genre was inspired by this story, challenging writers to compile a story in 25 words or less.
The stories compiled in SWSED utilize only six words, with plenty of support from visual elements. One of the requirements of hint fiction is that the story is complete in itself. It should ignite the imagination, but need no further explanation. Although many of the stories in SWSED are more of a phrase or slogan ('Say something that is worth saying'), the level of creativity makes it a joy to browse through the entries.
A great combination of strong designs and modified proverbs in Scott Wise's always remember: life lessons with lucidity (via wit + delight).
On Monday, we launched the new World Press Photo website. An intense and amazing project that I have been working on for the past year with fantastic colleagues and coworkers. From design and content strategy to IA and development, I walked through it all and am very proud of the result. A showcase for photojournalism in context. Below is a photo gallery overview page.
One of my favorite features is our collection of lectures, interviews, multimedia, and other productions, which share the insights of photojournalists and the work of our organization.
There is also a dedicated gallery for young, emerging photographers who have participated in the annual masterclass.
A website rich in content, with much more to come in the next months. See more at www.worldpressphoto.org
A beautiful project by German designer Maria Fischer captures the mystery and intangibility of our dreams and their fleeting connections. Weaving thread throughout the pages, she links the words of literary, philosophical, psychological, and scientific texts on dream theory.
Her book Traumgedanken (Thoughts on Dreams) " is designed as a model of a dream about dreaming. Analogue to a dream, where pieces of reality are assembled to build a story, it brings different text excerpts together. They are connected by threads which tie in with certain key words. The threads visualise the confusion and fragileness of dreams."
A wonderful description of the project is here, via TOM.
With the world population now over 7 billion, it can be hard to comprehend just how many people share our planet. These infographics by Toby Ng Design try to make this just a bit more imaginable by presenting stats if the world were a village of 100 people. Here are a few favorites, see more here (via SG1).
The Move, a short film inspired by Amsterdam-style moving, illustrated with paper by artist Mandy Smith.
[vimeo vimeo.com/17712171 w=500&h=400]
This weekend I had the chance to enjoy two online magazines, Rue and Sweet Paul. By 'enjoy', I mean curled on the couch underneath a blanket with a cup of apple cider. Yes, it was even raining outside. Sweet Paul Magazine (above) focused its second issue on fall and is filled with 'easy and elegant recipes, fun and stylish crafts, entertaining tips' and more. The food sets and photography are beautiful and the falls recipes, inspiring. Rue Magazine (below), which premiered just last week, is an interiors and lifestyle publication. Not merely a translation of print virtues to online, Rue has video and links embedded within the magazine. Great editorial choices to embrace the medium. Looking forward to future issues!
I was thrilled when I read that the cover of The Mysterious Benedict Society, a wonderfully imaginative book, was illustrated by Carson Ellis. How could I not have known? Carson is best know to me for her amazing work on the albums and concert posters of The Decemberists. Her illustrations from another book, Dillweed's Revenge, are showing at Nationale gallery in Portland from 8 September - 3 October. If I were there, I would certainly stop by.
Ah, I want to live here. Most rental apartments in Amsterdam - like mine - come completely furnished, down to the teaspoons and bathroom towels. Kind of weird, eh? The sense of impermanence for foreigners in this city makes it hard to get the motivation to do a redesign. But if I did, this would be it (image via spaceships).
Fall has arrived in Amsterdam and it's time to write a few letters delayed by the summer weather. I posted the first one to my grandfather in Oregon yesterday - I hope the ink survived the rainy trip from my jacket pocket to the mailbox.
Plans for this weekend include helping a friend move to a new apartment (my first chance at the Dutch system of moving through the front window with a rope hanging from the rooftop - very exciting!), trying a new recipe with the fresh fish bought at Noordermarkt, Café Brecht tonight for 'a trip through German music history' and some Czech beer, reading from Dreaming in Hindi, camera shopping (Sarah recommended the Panasonic LX3. Any thoughts?) and writing a few letters, of course.
I'm loving the postcards and images by Blanca Gómez, a graphic designer and illustrator from Madrid, from her project cosas mínimas, which means 'little things' in Spanish (via elephantine).
Browsing the shelves of the bookstore this weekend, my eyes landed on Light Boxes by Shane Jones. A small book and the only copy in sight, I nearly missed it. Once I had seen the cover design, I was sold. Isn't it intriguing? Just like the description:
February is persecuting the townspeople. It has been winter for more than three hundred days. All forms of flight are banned and children have started to disappear, taken from their beds in the middle of the night. The town's priests hang ominous sheets of parchment on the trees, signed 'February'. And somewhere on the outskirts of the town lives February himself, with the girl who smells of honey and smoke...
Fascinating. And my post-purchase research tells me that Spike Jonze is making an adaptation.
My life the last week has revolved almost entirely around football and the World Cup. Posting photos and stories from South Africa on Twenty Ten, arranging the last-minute details for my flight to Johannesburg on Saturday morning and watching as many matches as I can handle. I enjoyed this artistic approach to the World Cup fever by Karen Horten. She gathered together vintage stamps from the countries: "Most of the postage stamps below are from between 1900 through the mid-1930s, with a few as recent as the early 1970s."
These are some of my favorites, but there are lots more here (via constantwanderlust: dailydesigndiscoveries)
Beautiful textured knitwear by 
