John Nack on Adobe

August 27, 2008

Recent infographic goodness

• Stefanie Posavec creates beautiful, sometimes abstract images from data in her "On the Map" project.
• The NYT renders Olympic medal counts by country, also enabling the user to navigate through time.  (Tossing it around too freely, I managed to blow up Safari.)
• "UFO sighting convincibility" is on the rise, thanks to Photoshop. [Via Rob Corell]
• xach.com offers a cool way to visualize 2008 box office results. [Via]
• I think I should chart my mood on a line stretching from "Earnest" to "Scurrilous*," as Vanity Fair does with the content of their Blogopticon. [Via Tom Hogarty]  It's similar to New York Mag's Approval Matrix.

*Defined as "grossly or obscenely abusive... characterized by or using low buffoonery; coarsely jocular or derisive."  Hells yeah.

August 25, 2008

iPhone GUI bits

• The guys at teehan+lax have created a slick, well organized iPhone GUI PSD file.  Geoff Teehan writes, "We created our own Photoshop file that has a fairly comprehensive library of assets – all fully editable."  Nicely done! [Via Joel Eby]
• Felix Sockwell offers a detailed walk-through of how he developed icons for the NY Times' iPhone app.
• Vaunted info-design expert Edward Tufte critiques iPhone interfaces in terms of their info-to-overhead ratio. [Via]

Marginally related at best, but too good not to share: the highly unique unboxing video for the Samsung Omnia. [Via Russell Williams]

August 23, 2008

Saturday drawerings, from Tron to rayguns

• I love the Chopping Block's Tron tee.  (Would the dog try to stick its head out the window of a lightcycle, too?)
• Going the other direction, Bibliodyssey points out this ancient tank design--from 1646. (Don't mistake it for a ThinkPad.) [Via]
• Illustrator-fu:
  • Veerle shows some great, simple applications of Illustrator's underused Make with Mesh command.
  • Chad Neuman has a cool idea--splashing real paint, then using Illustrator's Live Trace feature to vectorize it.
• In Little Chicken Growing Up, scientific illustrator Mieke Roth chronicled the growth of a baby chicken through a series of lovely drawings. [Via]
• Vintage:
  • Flickr features a huge mid-century illustration archive, grouped by illustrator. [Via]
  • Apropos of nothing, I stumbled upon a solid raygun illustration. [Via]

August 12, 2008

Tuesday Illustration: Iron Man, lasers, and more

• If you're feeling "cleared for weird," peep the intricate, disturbing paintings of Ryohei Hase, all painted in Photoshop.
• The UI Resource Center features a long and detailed interview with the team that designed Iron Man's heads-up display.

• Semi-political strangeness:
  • Politicians often serve as pincushions, but it's rare that they're actually made of pins, as in this Thumbtack Obama. [Via]
  • Gene Tempest's long but interesting essay covers the Posters of Paris '68, talking (among other things) about how the French artists played on memories of Nazi collaboration.
  • "Did United Artists doctor a photo of anti-Hitler plotter Claus von Stauffenberg to make him look more like the Top Gun actor?" asks the Guardian. [Via]  (Even weirder: My wife just glanced at the image and said, "I thought that was you for a second.")
• Designer Marian Bantjes has been producing great stuff lately:
  • Her Design Ignites Change is a limited-edition, laser-cut poster that dramatically changes appearance under different conditions.  Proceeds benefit kids orphaned by HIV/AIDS in Kenya. [Via]
  • In Love Stories she creates a riot of great type--some of it edible!

July 27, 2008

Killer animations o' the day

• Despite finding it some time ago, I've been avoiding blog The Art of the Title Sequence, knowing that it would likely take over my life.  Sure enough, it's loaded with good stuff.  Check out the beautiful titles for El Don, whipped up by Santiago artists Smog.  I saw motion graphics pioneer Kyle Cooper (SE7EN, etc.) speak years ago and remember him saying that every frame should hold up on its own as graphic design.  This piece aces that test.  (For unrelated goodness, see Smog's "monkey-headed dancing guy" (or whatever "un mono bailarín" is).)
• Motion artist PES creates incredible stop-motion films using found objects.  KaBoom and Western Spaghetti are particularly great (c'mon, Candy Corn as flames?).  Check out his work before People for the Ethical Treatment of Upholstery shut him down. [Via John Peterson & Maria Brenny, "Because (re: KaBoom) I know what you do in the desert"]
• My Drive Thru is a new stop-motion video for Converse, produced by the team at Psyop.  Behind the scenes, Pharrell Williams talks about rescuing Chuck Taylors from the taint of Punky Brewster, and Glossy interviews the Psyop crew while posting some high-res stills. [Via]
• Superfad has kicked out a trio of stylish ads for Sprint.  The Hurricane Katrina spot is particularly worth a look.  

July 22, 2008

*Real* Real-World Photoshop, Vitruvian Wookies, and more

• In his Tell a Lie project, Henry Hadlow "uses a camera to mimic common Photoshop effects."  Killer! [Via Paul McJones]
• Vader Crossing the Delaware: On Worth1000, P-shoppers mash up Star Wars with fine art.  Surveying a couple of the pieces, Bryan Hughes remarked, "Man, that is some seriously disturbing stuff. Sort of like Joe Satriani for the eyes ...which is to say that, yeah, I know there’s crazy talent there... but what a way to misuse it!" [Via Dave Dobish]
  

• Green Patriot Posters bring kick-ass poster art to the fight against climate change.  Nick Snyder writes, "Contributions from other designers will be featured in the coming months. In September, Green Patriot Posters will launch an online competition where participants may submit Green Patriot Poster designs, view other posters and vote on designs."

July 20, 2008

Walruses, Wolverine Monkeys, & mo'

• Animation:
  • In 1969, 14-year-old Jerry Levitan snuck into John Lennon's hotel room in Toronto and convinced him to do an interview.  38 years later, I Met The Walrus is the Oscar-nominated short film that resulted--5 minutes of fluid, often surreal images morphing into one another over the recording.  YouTube hosts the full piece in high quality.
  • I'm not sure what to say about the coffee-stirrer-based (?) Endless Not stick animation, but I can dig it. [Via]
• I love the crazy little characters made by Matthew Porter.  (His Dr. Wagner portrait is staring down at me now.).  Next time you need to commission a Wolverine monkey, you'll know where to turn. [Via Margot]
• Coca-Cola's very cool WE8 site brings together illustrators, musicians, and other artists from West & East in the spirt of friendship (well, that and of selling tasty sugar water).  The site features interactive 3D Flash versions of the packaging they've created, downloadable desktop images and more. [Via Terri Stone]
• Peep the charming skulls of Kristina Collantes desktop wallpapers.
• Public service:
  • Speed bump: $1500.  Drawing of a speed bump: $80.  Effectiveness: pretty comparable--at least until people catch on. [Via]
  • What do the "Safetymen" on signage do all day?  Signs of Life aims to shed light.

July 18, 2008

The Ocelot, in ink

Wow--now this you don't see every day: John Pischke, an Image Capture Manager at Quad/Graphics in Minneapolis, has used the "Ocelot Rampant" image from this blog in a tattoo on his arm. I furnished him with the original Illustrator file last year, and on Tuesday it was turned into ink. "You’ll be happy to know it was completely designed in Photoshop," writes John P. Nice!

Tangentially related surreality:

• Bleedin' for the 'Dobe
• My life as a CS3 icon

July 17, 2008

Great #$!@!'in Type

• What the %@^! does one call those "random non-alphabet characters to indicate cursing?"  Answer: Grawlix.  (Bonus cutting aside: "Is that the sound of a designer waiting for Adobe Updater to complete?"  Oh, from the top rope!) [Via]
• On Flickr, user "el estratografico" collects "retronomatopeya"--classic sound effects in cartoons.
• Batman may have gone all modern & hardcore, but "Las onomatopeyas o Batsigns" showcases the sound-effect renderings of his classic, corny past. [Via Rob Corell]
  

July 16, 2008

Wednesday Illustration: Cash money & Mo'

• Ducats:
  • Weird juxtapositions rule in these money/celebrities mash-ups.
  • "What Could Be More Unforgettable Than Dollar Bill Albert Einstein?"  Check out Cabel Sasser's fireworks packaging round-up.
• The Etch A Sketch has been reborn as an iPhone app!  (Shake the phone to clear the screen.)
• How do Californians perceive their fellow Americans?  Counterpoint: How New Yorkers see the rest of the world.  (This all reminds me of the Onion t-shirt "Stereotypes are a real time-saver.")
• Mordy Golding has a solid tutorial on embossing text in Illustrator. In it he produces a pretty convincing license plate.
• Posters:
  • Dig BLT's elegant new Batman poster.
  • "You'll gargle with fear!" I love the homage to classic poster styles in these Futurama illustrations

July 09, 2008

Wednesday Illustrations: Smoke, fire, and floods

• Put down the menthols & peep these beautifully rendered Brazilian anti-smoking ads.  (I wonder what illustrator Clement Hurd would think.)
• The Paper Version of the Web takes me back to my roots as a Web designer, sketching up pages for British Airways and others.  I always like being reminded that technology aside, it's the ideas that count. [Via]
• Flooded London "depicts imaginary scenes in London in 2090, when rising sea levels have inundated the city." [Via]
• Rat finks unite in this collection of Big Daddy Roth illustrations.
• Buy N' Large Wal-Mart is getting a new logo. [Via]  Here's a timeline of their designs.
• Laser-etched tattoos: hey, what's the worst that could happen...?

June 25, 2008

Wednesday Illustrations

• The Executive Coloring Book (from 1961) will really make you want to claw your way to middle management.
• I love the slamming, superheroic quality of Evgeny Parfenov's portraits.
• Yeondoo Jung does real-life recreations of children's drawings. [Via]
• Photoshop UI designer Julie Meridian loves to sneak these weird vintage magician bits into her interface mockups.

June 19, 2008

Infographic stylings: From bacon to Ludacris

• Love bacon, love the bacon flowchart.  "Are you wearing pants?"  (Evidently this will prove important.)
• Men's Vogue celebrates Massimo Vignelli's sleek 1972 New York subway map.
• The Boston Globe teaches you to nap. [Via]
• Stefanie Gray maps the area codes in which Ludacris claims to... uh, know ladies.  [Via]
• Mark Rabinowitz uses the graphical language of nutrition facts to illustrate some truths about prostitution.
• How many employees does Google have?  About this many.  [Via]
• It's tangentially related, maybe, but I dig these out-of-context small boat images. [Via]

June 18, 2008

The Color & the Shape, in PS & AI

• Dr. Woohoo has been creating some very cool images by driving Illustrator and Photoshop from Adobe AIR.  Check out Generative Painting in AI with 3D Symbols, as well as some good bits on Flickr.  "For this animation," says the Adobe Design Center, "Dr. Woohoo developed an AIR app that drives the colors, brushes, and animation timeline in Photoshop CS3 via a swfPanel in Illustrator CS3."
• Veerle Pieters talks about making simple organic shapes in Photoshop.  If that trips your trigger, you might also like her quick tutorials on creating a spiral ornament in Illustrator, and making light motion trails & glowing sparks in PS.
  

June 14, 2008

Random Saturday brilliance

Gold-plated vertically integrated batter-dipped Photoshop-rendered AJAX-flavored Flash/Flex 3D RIA workflow mash-ups: Impressive.

Also impressive: A Sharpie, a stove, and something to say.  (I wonder whether any dead people read my blog.) [Via]

Elsewhere: Willie Nelson in Kiss make-up (hey, why not?).

Off to eat BBQ,

J.

June 11, 2008

Dolla Dolla Bill, Mickey D's, and more

• "Change We Can Believe In": the typography.com guys compare the new currency designs of the UK & US.  (Honestly, the giant purple Helvetica "5" is a prank... right?) [Via]

• Vintage:
  • BibliOdyssey offers up a collection of knight attire.
  • Frank Chimero inserted a historic map of Europe, personifying the various countries, into his set.
• Packaging:
  • I really dig the skin of this Victorian-styled Mac Mini.  (Wish I could find a higher-res shot of it, though.) [Via]
  • Check out the great DVD packaging for Mad Men.
• The Smithsonian features an article about and small gallery of Afghan war rugs, featuring scenes of 9/11 and more. [Via]
• McDonald's channels David Carson*? [Via]  (Company spokesman R. McDonald responds with a violent outburst.)

*or "David Car-five-n," as an art director of mine used to call him due to his once-unorthodox method of substituting characters, e.g. "5" for "s"

June 10, 2008

Infographic goodness

The NYT has been kicking out the good infographic jams lately:

• Andrew Kuo created a funny, handsome infographic on why music festivals are worth skipping.  For more from Andrew, see his blog + previous.
• Matthew Bloch, Shan Carter and Amanda Cox have created an interesting Flash-based infographic that totes up "All of Inflation’s Little Parts."  I often find presentations like this dense, impenetrable, and/or over-designed, but this one's an exception.  [Via]
• Adobe XD guy Ethan Eismann points out a couple of video-based info presentations. In one of them, interactive voting is tied in with the content.

Elsewhere:

• Ben Terrett pulls together lots of interesting visualizations. [Via]

• Rorschach Economics: Japan's Phillips Curve looks like Japan; cigarette consumption looks like Virginia.
• It's been around a while, but I still dig Michal Migurski's flashy newsmap

June 09, 2008

Monday Illustrations: In Cars

• Frank Chimero renders the various United States as objects with similar shapes.  (Florida has been scrupulously omitted.) [Via]
• The cover of a recent Vice magazine featured a glowing, ghosted BMW illustration.
• Vehicular cruelty?:
  • "Flower Power" isn't just for aging first-gen iMacs anymore.  Check out this drawn-upon Bentley Continental.
  • "Pimped" doesn't begin to capture the illustrated, bejewelled craziness of these Pakistani custom vehicles.
• Game theories:
  • The Playstation blog talks about using Photoshop to Make Your Own PS3 Themes. [Via]
  • Not to be outdone, an Xbox blog talks about paint customization features in the NASCAR '09 game.  "The online connectivity of Paint Booth allows players to download a car template from easports.com and import it into editing programs, such as Photoshop, giving users a multitude of design options."

June 01, 2008

Sunday Illustration

• Jacqueline Pytyck produces some seriously foxy work with a nice sense of depth.  I especially like her self portrait. [Via]
• PingMag covers Steven Wilson's cool Psychedelia, made using Illustrator & Photoshop.
• Right 'round like a record:
  • What likes beyond The Wall?  Find out in a great design challenge to extending album art.
  • In Cover Stories, Old and New, Khoi Vinh surveys past & present album art from long-serving artists.
• Politcally themed:
  • "God Is a Graphic Designer?"  Chip Kidd plumbs the meaning of a curiously torn newspaper.  (This reminds me of when I returned to my laptop once and found the "Y" key missing from the keyboard.  I was convinced that my legitimately crazy and dangerous roommate was trying to send me a message.  Turned out to be the work of my cat, though... I think.)
  • Somewhere I stumbled upon a cool Obama illustration.
• Veerle Pieters has been featuring some great illustrators:
  • She interviews Alberto Seveso, creator of a really distinctive photo-illustration style.  (For a number of links to his work, see previous.)
  • Elsewhere she chats with the wonderfully talented Oksana Grivina.

May 24, 2008

Miscellaneous interestingness

New fatherhood -> sleep deprivation (yeah, still) -> abandoning any pretense of categorization.  That said, here are a few interesting bits I've seen lately:

• The New Yorker reports on the world of high-end retouching in "Pixel Perfect -- Pascal Dangin’s virtual reality." (Hey, someone uses the Smudge tool!) [Via Ivan Cavero Belaunde, Clare McLean, Gary Cosimini, Claiborne Brown, and seemingly everyone else I know ;-)]
• The Times Online features "Billion-pixel panoramas — from your own camera" [Via Jeffrey Warnock]
• As I've said before, Logo design = Bullet magnetism.  Now "OGC unveils new logo to red faces," says the Telegraph.  Er, um, yes.  (But hey, it's no worse than the "Lisa Simpson" London Olympics logo.)   [Via Lori Grunin]
• "Oh man... two words: Photoshop Filter," says Adobe's Chris Arkenberg.  Behold Man Babies.

May 21, 2008

Viva frilly bits

Who doesn't like the occasional dingbat & swash?

• Cameron Moll demonstrates great attention to detail with the little embellishments on his site.  In response to reader questions, he offers 25 resources for ornaments, fleurons, and "frilly bits."
• On a related note, Illene Strizver answers questions about typographic dingbats on CreativePro.com.
  

May 18, 2008

Illustration in motion

• The hallucinogenic visions of graffiti artist Blu play out across walls in Buenos Aires & Baden.  Fascinating.  For more from him, see previous. [Via]
• Chad Pugh wired his computer to take a screen capture every 5 seconds while he worked in Illustrator, resulting in this blistering condensation of a 40-hour process.  Photo-sensitive pre-teens need not watch.
• Jackie A-Go-O: Illustrator Chris Ware offers up a great animation for This American Life.
• The Etch-a-Sketch clock automatically redraws time.

May 12, 2008

I say "Adobe" you say...

...what, exactly?  That's what Noah Brier's fun Brand Tags project asks, and here's what people have said so far.  It's kind of fun to read the small print, too: "arcane awesome bastards... stucco structure... techy teepee telefónica terrorists..."  (Too bad Adobe doesn't make people think "hot cyclone action," like Dyson does.)  You can play your own word association game on the main page, and you can go backwards, playing name that brand based on what people say. [Via Mark Baltzegar & John Dowdell]

May 10, 2008

Calef Brown rocks

Having a wee man in the house certainly cuts into the time I'd otherwise put into scouring the Web for good bits to share; hence the dearth of illustration, photography, and type links lately.  On the other hand, it exposes me to books and illustrations I'd never otherwise see (not, y'know, being in the typical Pat the Bunny demographic).

My wife Margot turned me on to the works of the wonderful Calef Brown, poet & illustrator extraordinare.  Both the text and the art are hilariously loopy.  Check out some samples from Polkabats and Octopus Slacks to see what I mean.

Of course, it's fun to revisit the classics as well--Goodnight Moon especially.  Each night as I read it aloud, I try to amuse Margot by sneaking in some new reference to illustrator Clement Hurd's smoking habit--a penchant now hidden through Photoshop.  A little Googling reveals that other Photoshoppers couldn't leave that news alone, staging a "What Is Clement Holding?" contest.  (Keep kids off the Soloflex!)

Next up, I need to prevail on my folks to send us my old & very well-loved set of Mercer Mayer's A Boy, A Dog, and a Frog books--totally wonderful.

April 18, 2008

Strange Photochops

• From the "Why Do It To Yourself?" chronicles:
  • Why choose when you can have a Hillary/Barack hybrid?
  • Freaking News started a Photoshop contest to replace celebrities' eyes with their own mouths.  Bleaugh. [Via]
• Photoshop + pro wrestling + the South = "Nipplegate."
• People looooove the Hitler History Channel and its endless exploration of WWII.  Did the Germans really have an Überschwerer Kampfschreitpanzer (Superheavy Armored Walking Tank)?  Scroll down to view the evidence. [Via]
• Copyright this: Adobe's Serge Jespers reports on a Belgian exhibitor looking for 100 Photoshoppers to remove a famous building from all their images. Bizarre. [Via]
• I really have no business passing this along, but knowing that our product helped land a giant Mr. T Cabbage Patch doll on SF brings a tear of pride to my eye.

April 15, 2008

Lasers, Orwell, and Mad Magazine

New illustrated biz:

• The NYT offers a great interactive presentation of Al Jaffee's Mad Magazine fold-ins.
• "Putting the king back in stalking." Big ups to Barska binoculars for breaking some new ground with their ads. "I prefer to think of myself as a 'stranger enthusiast'..." [Via]
• Art nerds who really want wedgies can opt for this laser-etched Moleskine unicorn notebook.  I wonder whether you can read it from inside the darkened locker where you've been stuffed.  [Via]
• Shout-outs to the Eastern Bloc:
  • Shepard Fairey does George Orwell, via covers for Nineteen Eighty Four and Animal Farm.
  • Peep some crisp label designs for Lovejoy Vodka [Via]
• Logos:
  • Toyota offers Scion users the ability to roll their own logos.
  • Apple vs. the Big Apple: Mom, Dad, don't fight!
  • The logo for the Al Gore's Alliance for Climate Protection is a crafty little ambigram.
  • I Could Tell You but Then You Would Have to Be Destroyed by Me: The NYT features a slideshow of the logos of secret US military programs, along with an accompanying article.  Trevor Paglen's book of the logos is here.

April 12, 2008

Adventures in album artwork

• Nikolay Saveliev's rad Pop Matters project consists of "Vinyl record sleeves with 2-sided insert featuring faux-academic material on pop music and the state of the record industry... Snuck onto used& new record store shelves."  Personal fave: "Nickelback: The Recursiveness of Professional Mediocrity."
• Pitchfork picks The Worst Album Covers of 2007.
• Listropolis has translated the artwork for Rolling Stone’s Top 20 Albums into color palettes. [Via]
• Should classic album covers be redesigned every few years?  Ben Wardle makes that case, with examples. [Via]
  

March 22, 2008

Logo trends, past and future

• The mid-70's book The World of Logotypes features hundreds of vintage logos, now scanned and presented on Flickr. [Via Durin Gleaves]
• The peace symbol has turned 50.  Apparently the shape incorporates the semaphore letters N(uclear) and D(isarmament).  Here's a brief history. [Update: More good details from the BBC.] [Via]
• Are "waves the new swooshes"?  Yes, says Logorange, in predicting 10 trends that will define logo design in 2008.
• Jon Hicks, creator of the Firefox logo, provides a quick walk-through of his icon design process.
• I dig this logotype for Big Boss, as well as the little color chips of Dreamscape Design.
  

March 18, 2008

New Illustrated Hotness

• Goofing on cartoons:
  • Garfield Minus Garfield is totally weirdly brilliant. [Via]
  • Some Old Man Still Churning Out Marmaduke, reports The Onion. "'I love what I do,' said the elderly cartoonist, his body and mind crippled by an endless and repetitive stream of doodles featuring the Great Dane."
• Know your history:
  • Billboard's got the 25 Best Rock Posters of All Time. [Via]
  • Pay up, suckers!  Gene Gable finds cool vintage artwork for shaking the money tree.  Reminds me of Jesse James's palm (clearer view).
  • Worth1000 features excellent vintage ads for modern products. [Via]
  • Fancy a Victorian DeLorean?  Peep Silhouette Masterpiece Theater. [Via]
• Chroma police:
  • "PixelPastry oozes fresh flavours, tastes that entice tastebuds and well fed clients." I'm inclined to agree. [Via]
• Pablo Bisoglio's work vibrates with color.  I dig this dragon in particular. [Via]
• Pedro Franz sings the eyeball electric.  (Okay, that doesn't mean anything.  But you try coming up with 50 unique ways to say, "Hey, here's a cool site I think you'll like." ;-P)
• The Bible has been reimagined as a graphic novel.
• Dig this well crafted bit of digital imaging for San Patrignano. [Via]
  

March 10, 2008

From D&D to decapitations, in infographics & maps

• Sam Potts has created a hilarious infographic for Sunday's NY Times, part of their sendoff for D&D creator Gary Gygax.
• The NYT has been posting other interesting graphics lately, including How Americans Spend Their Money and the Flash-enabled Ebb & Flow of Movies.
• In Rudimentum Novitiorum, Bibliodyssey surveys maps & other infographics of antiquity.
• With a more modern spin, Colourlovers talks about the use of color in transit maps, offering a number of cool examples.
• How about a world map made from musical notes? [Via]
• What does an hour's worth of movement in front of the TV look like?  One Flickr user endeavored to find out, using a video camera & a grid of masking tape to plot the positions of dad, kids, and cat. [Via]
• For the greater good:
  • Easier voting through graphic design: Marcia Lausen is "determined to apply the highest possible standards of information design to make [voting systems] clear, accessible, easy to use and the results accurate." [Via]
  • John Emerson's Visualizing Information for Advocacy: An Introduction to Information Design offers a guide for NGOs, non-profits and advocacy groups. [Via]
• If you can't go another day without knowing how to stage a realistic decapitation, well, consult these graphics.
  

March 01, 2008

Now showing: The original Photoshop icons

With Photoshop recently having celebrated a birthday, it's fun to stumble across the original Photoshop icons.  Make that "PhotoShop," as the big S was present when the application was briefly bundled by BarneyScan, before it became an Adobe product*.  The original product icon, designed by Photoshop co-creator John Knoll, was replaced by the eye that served from 1990-2003.  John added his perspective in the blog post's comments. [Via]

If this is up your alley, you might also enjoy:

• Photoshop splash screens and toolbars through time
• Derrick Story's brief history of Photoshop (as of 2000, anyway)
• Jeff Schewe's very deep history of the first 10 years (PDF)
• A ppodcast interview with Brett Wickens of MetaDesign, who worked on the CS/CS2 icons and packaging

*Until recently, however, the spellchecker in MS Office insisted on inserting the capital S--completely annoying.  I filed a bug with Microsoft, but I don't know whether the change made it into Office '07.

February 26, 2008

Fun with physics-based drawing

The great thing about computer-based drawing and painting tools is that they do exactly what you expect, over and over [reliability => productivity.]. That's also what kind of sucks about them, though: happy accidents can be hard to come by.

Taking a different spin on things, Umeå University's Phun is "an educational, entertaining and somewhat addictive piece of software for designing and exploring 2D multi-physics simulations in a cartoony fashion."  Although it's not a drawing tool per se, Phun mixes literalness with a measure of unpredictability.  Check out this video of it in action. [Via Jerry Harris & Jim Geduldick]

If that's up your alley, take a look at Nelson Chu's amazing MoXi watercolor simulation (details).  Computer power (GPU power in particular) is starting to enable sophisticated simulations on every desktop.  Look at the way an app like Little Big Planet leverages a great physics engine and redefines the process of computer-based creation (in this case using a PlayStation, but so what?).

It seems like every other day I read about some app or other using the Flash platform to partially emulate old versions of Photoshop.  That's all fine, but I'm much more excited about harnessing the platform to build much richer, more immersive, and (optionally) less predictable creation experiences.  We can have the best of both worlds, and that's what keeps me amped & in the game.

February 25, 2008

Poster Flava: eBoy on AIR & more

• Today Adobe launches Adobe AIR (read about it, I dunno, everywhere), and the always wonderful eBoy collective has created a poster for the AIR launch. [Via]
• Veerle Pieters recently kicked off a "What Is Graphic Design?" poster contest, and now she's posted the excellent winners.  (I, of course, have a soft spot for this one.)
• Steven Heller offers a brief survey of US political posters. [Via]
• Film poster John Alvin, creator of pieces for everything from Blazing Saddles to Lord of the Rings, has passed away at age 59.  The NYT offers a short rememberance.  (I wonder what he thought of Trajan.)
  

February 24, 2008

Naked saunas, 3D Flash globes, and other infographic goodness

• My wife and I are nervously quizzing each other on these expert (and very funny) baby care instructions (boosted wholesale, it would seem, from David Sopp's Safe Baby Handling Tips). [Via]
• Wable is "a coffee table that displays a user's web activity via physical bar graphing."  Yes, I remember pining for such a thing not ever. (Are Venn-diagram kiddie pools next?)
• Maps:
  • Concentric circles are coming for us!!  The Onion has fun with news infographics.
  • Seeking to place events into geographical context, Yahoo has created a 3D NewsGlobe using Adobe Flex.  ComputerWorld's got background on the project. [Via]
  • In similar vein of "Learning America Smarter," check out the naked saunas, black metal, and ass-beating of Scandinavia. (And you thought it was all chilling out with MDF.)  [Via]
  • The Gough Map is said to be the oldest accurate map of Britain, dating from around 1360.
• Signage:
  • My little brother Ted let me ride along last month as he drove his garbage truck.  This safeyman image (somewhat dodgy iPhone-cam quality, sorry) I snapped in his cab shows the truck really putting the "screw" back in "screw of Archimedes."
  • "Do not iron while wearing shirt (on an iron-on decal)": more good advice from the safetyman chronicles. [Via]
  • I can get behind this "Faith healing sign" at Disneyland, not to mention Serbian children escaping a triangle.[Via]
• Blogging software has made self-publishing seem simple, but beneath the covers, a whole lot's going on.  Wired has a Flash-based diagram showing what all happens when one hits "Publish." [Via]

February 19, 2008

A history of logos, great desktops, and more

• Logos:
  • Neatorama features a history of tech company logos, from Adobe to Xerox.  Who knew about the 1,000-armed Canon, or Nokia and the fish?
  • Google invites kids to "Doodle 4 Google."  The winner gets a $10,000 college scholarship and a $25,000 technology grant for his/her school.
  • Tap some taproot with the cute Jacobs & Sons Carrots logo (diggable).  I also enjoy the efficiency of the Colorado Conservation Trust mark.
• Having grown up with the illustrated genius Richard Scarry, and having just gotten some of his books at a baby shower, I'm especially charmed by this Beastie Boys Sure Shot remix. [Via Marc Pawliger]
• Veerle has posted a bunch of lovely patterns, plus plenty of links you can use for further pattern research/inspiration.
• Smashing Magazine offers up some "(Really) Stunning Desktop Wallpapers."
• Concept art:
  • io9 features a gallery of movie concept art. [Via]
  • Besides being a hilarious mofo, Shaddy Safadi is a talented digital artist who's been working on Neopets, Drake's Fortune, and other popular video games.
• Vintage
  • There's plenty of 50's art and illustration on Plan59.com
  • For related goodness, see the I Love My Electric Appliance!! Flickr pool.  "Lots of overjoyed women leaning on stuff," notes Core77.
  • Vanity Fair hosts a slideshow of classic Hollywood lobby cards from the late screenwriter Leonard Schrader's collection.
  • The Hatch Gallery offers up a sample of contemporary letterpress work. [Via]
  • I enjoy the Art Deco stylings (not to mention the writing) in 1930's The World in 2030. [Via]
  • Also from the Thirties, you might like these Colliers ads and illustrations. [Via]
• Talk about dedication to a (suddenly) losing cause: a guy gets a Pats tat on the head. [Via, of all things, Wait Wait Don't Tell Me]
  

February 18, 2008

Meet Adobe Illustrator (1987)

As promised a couple of weeks ago, I've uploaded a copy of the VHS tape that shipped in the box with Illustrator 1.0, hosted by company co-founder/president/Illustrator developer John Warnock:

Many thanks to Andrew Keith Strauss for digitizing the tape. Of the video Dr. Warnock writes, "That video demo tape was shot live, with no editing. We didn't have video production tools at that time, and we didn’t want to pay for a professional to do it, so I did the demonstration." It's fun to contrast this tape with the Illustrator 88 video made just a year later.

February 15, 2008

Fun & clever recent infographics

I'm endlessly fascinated with how people display information visually.  Here are some cool recent examples:

• JamPhat features a hilarious (and huge!) collection of hip hop-inspired infographics.  Images are helpfully linked to YouTube vids of the related songs. It was a good day...
• Fun with Venn diagrams: I love the simplicity of this clever music elitism t-shirt. (Compare to Wu-Tang Clan.) [Via]
• What if we regarded flags as info visualizations?  That's what Brazilian designer Icaro Doria did for the magazine Grande Reportagem.  [Via]
• Call it "Most Inscrutable. Karaoke Interface. Ever."  Or just call it pretty.  Robert from Flight404 (see previous) has used Processing to create the lovely video Solar, incorporating lyrics from Goldfrapp. [Via]
• HistoryShots sells prints of really cool infographics. 
• ArmsFlow presents global arms transactions, visualized in an interactive map.  Clicking individual countries shows their import/export flow for a given year.  Interesting concept, but the lines overlap so densely that it's hard to see what's happening.  I'd love to see the whole thing taken further.  [Via]
• Knowing things Biblically:
  • Chris Harrison pours ancient texts through graphical filters in his Visualizing the Bible project. [Via]
  • In the early 20th century Clarence Larkin turned his scriptural knowledge into Biblical infographics. [Via]
• Virtual China features a Chinese diagram on how to cook chicken with beer.  [Via]
  

February 07, 2008

Shat Shat Revolution, car cutaways, and more

"Some creators love a great sunset; some have in mind my bloodshot eyes..."  So says William Shatner of The Shatner Show, a gallery presentation and now book of artwork inspired by the man, rendered in every conceivable medium (including Lego).  B to the zzare.  The project reminds me a bit of Naoki Mitsuse's Elvis Paintings.  (I have a particular soft spot for Tiny Elvis.)

In other illustration news:

• Juan Francisco Casas creates large-format artwork using just a ballpoint pen.  In looking at the images, I could swear I just smelled that sticky, sickly Bic scent. [Via]
• The Periodic Table of Elements Printmaking Project brought together 96 artists "to produce 118 prints in any medium; woodcut, linocut, monotype, etching, lithograph, silkscreen, or any combination."  Etsy hosts an interview with the organizers. (Apparently my blog is Hassium-powered.) [Via Petra]
• 8-bit jams:
  • Jimi Benedict has made a rather great Super Mario portrait.  He's also made some obligatory Obama artwork (quite the little cottage industry these days).  Oh, and his riot of death-rod imagery makes me think of the recruiting poster my old friend Adam Symons created for AGENCY.COM back in the day (simply ripping off remixing a Pietasters album cover, I believe). [Via]
  • On a Mario-related note, peep Sam Mullins's Super Mario sleeve tattoo.
• Automotive:
  • General Motors CEO Bob Lutz gets into the digital manipulation game, posting a "photochopped" Corvette police car design.  And if that's up your alley check out Rafael Reston's Chrysler 'Cuda mockup.
  • Cartype features a huge gallery of car cutaways. [Via]
• Logos:
  • Get ready for 5000 Web Apps in 333 Seconds. (If you watch for more than a few seconds, try not to swallow your tongue.) [Via]
  • Genius steals?  Behold these Automotive logo ripoffs. [Via]
  • Wilhelm Deffke was a trailblazing German identity designer.  I'm guessing there's one work he'd like to omit from his portfolio, however.
• Musical Notes
  • Play "Connect the Notes" with the Berliner Philharmoniker.
  • This ad seem to say, "Our jazz radio makes people puke!"

January 30, 2008

Recent illustrated goodness

• Obey Giant creator Shepard Fairey is backing Obama through his iconic posters. [Via] (I'm not trying to make this blog political, btw; just passing along interesting intersections of design & campaigning.)
• In the vein of posters and street art, Phelyx's got a how-to on bleach-stenciling a shirt. [Via]
• Russian designer Melamed cranks out powerful work.  Love these gym promotions in particular. [Via]
• Design Observer pointed out a really interesting piece on the many covers of JG Ballards' Crash. [Via]
• "Every time I see the new [Coke] can, I cry," says Mac developer Cabel Sasser. "It took Cola-Balls..." [Via]
• The New Yorker's been running a contest to redesign Eustace Tilly (the monocle-wielding mascot). [Via]
• Sleeveface is all about overlaying record sleeve art on the real world.  SF gate's got the story. [Via Jackie Lincoln-Owyang]
• On a related note, how about overlaying currency illustrations with celebrity photos? [Via]
• Apparently Spike Jonze is making Where The Wild Things Are, and a couple of stills from it have emerged. [Via]
• I love the simplicity of this Heinz volcano cutaway .

January 28, 2008

Back to the Future with Illustrator 88

Pass the banana clips and fire up Less Than Zero: It's time to visit the late 80's with the promotional video for Adobe Illustrator 88.  It's fun to see all that was possible even then, and to hear that the marketing message of "do more, and more easily, so you can focus on being creative" is eternal.  Now I shudder at visions of a besweatered James Spader dropping the French curves and grabbing a mouse.  [Via]

The timing is kind of spooky: for nearly a year I've been meaning to upload a copy of the John Warnock-hosted VHS tape that shipped in the Illustrator 1.0 box, and just last week I got serious about doing so.  Of the work Dr. Warnock says, "That video demo tape was shot live, with no editing. We didn't have video production tools at that time, and we didn’t want to pay for a professional to do it, so I did the demonstration."  Pretty cool that the company co-founder and CEO was not only one of four names on the product splash screen, but also the main demo man.  ("Everyone sweeps the floor around here," said Chuck Geschke of that time.)

This posting lights a fire under me, so look for the Warnock video soon. [Interim bonus retro fun: the 1987 Apple Knowledge Navigator video. Everything old is new again, and self-serious yuppies will always be with us.]

January 23, 2008

Logos a Go-Go & mo'

• "Che Guevara meets Jesus": Proving that the corporate world can cheapen any coin, the ad campaign for the new Rambo movie features spray-painted graffiti. [Via]
• Logos:
  • On the revolutionary tip, I love the RVLTN logo.
  • Soothing tasteless clients everywhere, it's Make My Logo Bigger Cream. [Via]
  • Rock Band Logos is an entire blog devoted to the iconography of Black Flag, Bad Religion, and hundreds of others. [Via]
  • Corey Holms has constructed a cool visual taxonomy of animals and plants used as corporate logos. [Via]
  • The NYT covers the new Xerox logo.  On the same topic, Armin at Brand New discusses the logo & its history. [Via]
  • Bibliodyssey features Anton van Dalen's funky logo mashups.
• Wham-O co-founder Richard Knerr recently passed away, prompting Boing Boing to post some cool old Superball packaging.  Also cool and barely related: Aimee Mann's rockin' Superball.
• Guerrilla artist James Clar's efforts to draw a smiley face on a Dubai tower have been ground down by The Man.
• Jesse Kaczmarek's portfolio is loaded with strong work, and the refreshingly clean, simple, and understated Flash UI doesn't get in the way.
  

January 20, 2008

Sunday Illustrations: From snowboards to Wonderbras

• Kottke proclaims Minority Kart "possibly the GAGOAT (greatest animated GIF of all time)."
• I love the beautiful simplicity of this snowboarding poster.
• It's not often that a Web design strikes me as particularly fresh, but the punchy, hand-illustrated intro for Fray.com makes a good go of it.
• From the vaults:
  • Irony & good cheer come together in this set of Old Soviet Christmas cards. [Via]
  • Flickr hosts a set of classic posters. [Via]
  • Yes, it's always illegal to kill a woman: the Daily Mail hosts a collection of outrageously politically incorrect advertisements from years past.  As might be said on Conan, "Not cool, Zeus--not cool." [Via]
• Wacom's new 12" Cintiq tablet/monitor gets some serious love from Gizmodo (a four-minute video demo followed by detailed text). [Via]  Adobe evangelist Terry White loves it, too.
• Life imitates art:
  • Wooster Collective has made a thought balloon for the real world. [Via]
  • xkcd covers the phenomenon of "Insisting that real-life objects are Photoshopped." [Via Rob Corell]
• Speaking of real-life objects, Saatchi & Saatchi makes excellent use of "The Wonderbra Hills."
• Mosaics:
  • Dig these icon mosaics for Teknograd Mac Support.  (They just wouldn't be the same using the blah-looking folder icons from Leopard.)
  • Michael Sporn talks about those in the New York subway.  For more on that subject, see the book Along the Way: MTA Arts for Transit.  I always really dug the Irresistible Romance of Travel at Grand Army Plaza.  [Via]
    

January 11, 2008

It's not the size of your brush...

Cue "It's In The Way That You Use It" (and good luck getting that out of your head):  Illustrator Bob Stakke uses Photoshop 3.0 (no, not CS3--the one from '94) to create some great-looking characters.  In a tech-saturated, next-next-next-oriented world, it's nice to be reminded that creativity comes from people, not from machines and other tools.

Shakespeare could have rocked out in WordStar, and heck, you can draw Scarlett Johansson using MS Paint if you'd like.  That's not to say that new tools don't enable tons of new things, of course, and hopefully let creativity flow more freely.  It's just a reminder that a car is nothing without its driver.  [Via Doug Nelson]

Speaking of Photoshop demos, "You Suck At Photoshop" returns with volume 2 of its depresso-funny PS stylings.  No "shaggin' wagon" this time, but there is some territory-marking. [Via Clare McLean]

January 07, 2008

War and rebirth, in photos & illustration

• When not driving between continents & documenting the experience, German-born, Brooklyn-dwelling photographer Christoph Bangert produces gripping photojournalism in Iraq, Darfur, and elsewhere.  You can find his Iraq effort reviewed here, and on the NYT site Christoph narrates over a selection of his photos.
• Offering a different take on Iraq, Shooting War is a graphic novel written by Anthony Lappe & illustrated by Dan Goldman.  You can find background & a review on MotherJones.com.  According to that site, "To layer drawings and shading on top of photos, Goldman drew everything directly onto a 21-inch touch screen using an electronic, wireless pen, Adobe Illustrator, and Photoshop. Everything combined, this is a slick-looking book."
• On a rather brighter note, the NYT features a slideshow on kite flying in Kabul--a colorful pastime banned under the Taliban.  See related article, with video.
  

December 27, 2007

Zeppelin inspires art

Given all the iconic images that Led Zeppelin has inspired over the years, a chance to add to that legacy sounds like a dream commission:

• A few weeks back I saw Led Zeppelin's complete works being advertised on iTunes, and the graphic up top struck me as in the vein of Obey Giant auteur Shepard Fairey.  Sure enough--he was asked to do the work.
• UK-based illustrator/animator Steve Scott got the nod to create an animation that would accompany the band's recent reunion concert.  "So after four weeks of hard work there I was watching Led Zeppelin play Kashmir live in front of the world's largest monitor--a 28 x 12 meter giant--and 20,000 screaming fans."  Here's the result (B.Y.O. contact high); screenshots are on the main page of his site.  See also The Society of Victorian Mutants & other solid illustrations on his site. [Via]
  

December 21, 2007

I got yer brains, *right here*...

The ol' noggin provides endless inspiration for artists:

• Russian site Advertka features a neat photo composite featuring a brain made of arms.
• Cycling Australia depicts fragility via brains as vegetables.
• Artist Jun Takita has sculpted bioluminescent algae into the shape of a brain.

In other skullduggery:

• Brawndo "will make you wonder why you haven't ever crushed a human skull with your bare hands!!"  Delicious!!  (I need to order a case of this stuff for the Photoshop team.)
• The Skull-a-Day blog provides just that. [Via]
• For next Halloween (or, just to be weird, maybe Valentine's, or Arbor Day), you might hang onto these pumpkin skull templates. [Via]  I still think they'd have a time beating my wife's Dia De Los Muertos-inspired doppel-pumpkin.
• If this stuff is up your alley, see previous for lots more.

December 20, 2007

Old-school Star Wars, Lego graffiti, & more

Mo' betta illustration:

• Star Wars goes old old school Euro in Baroque Wars. (Dig that crazy Death Star.)  [Via]  Coincidentally I just stumbled across this Wikipedia-hosted rendering of similar-looking Landsknechte mercenaries.
• If, like me, you're a no-good, non-gift-buying slacker, you can try to compensate by banging out festive imagery for loved ones.  These Photoshop brushes could help. [Via]   (I'm doing a mid-day mall sprint after publishing this; hopefully my boss isn't keeping up on the blog. ;-P)
• Street art :
  • A graffiti artist has found Jesus in the urban landscape. [Via]
  • Legos visit the Summer of Sam era with some stop-motion train-tagging.  (In light of recent world history, I wouldn't be tossing around the phrase "train bombing" myself.)
• Tyskie Beer commissioned some crafty flag renderings using its packaging as raw materials.
• Kavel Rafferty offers "A reference for vinyl geeks and graphic artists" in Record Envelope--a whole blog devoted to record sleeve art.  I like the big-mouthed Knäppupp in particular. [Via]
• The opening of Mark Ovenden's Transit Maps of the World features a groovy subway map of the world.  (I take a weird pleasure in San José appearing (with accent!) on the map, but SF getting shut out.) [Via]
• Hire An Illustrator will help you... um... bury people in Grant's Tomb?  (Maybe it'll just help you hire an illustrator.)
• Edward Hann's Internally Displaced People '06 attempts "to demonstrate the scale of humanitarian crisis in Western Darfur and Eastern Chad," and a quarter of the profits from its sale go to Amnesty International. [Via]  It's too bad that the Web presentation makes it hard to see the work in detail, as I can't really assess how it's tackling the problem.
  

December 14, 2007

Friday Illustrations: Japanese cuteness, Grand Theft Auto, and more

• Illustrator Justin Gerard offers what looks like a nice set of Photoshop tools.  Here you can see him putting them into action.
• Michal Tatarkiewicz creates cool life-sized subway drawings. [Via]
• Rockstar Games commissioned four mural artists to create a large version of the new Grand Theft Auto box art, hosted in a Brooklyn warehouse.  Here's a timelapse video of the 31-hour creation process. [Via]
• Logos:
  • PingMag surveys cute Japanese logos for transportation companies.
  • On CreativePro, Malcolm Grear reveals how to create memorable logos (featuring some cool examples).
  • The Comcast logotype has undergone some rework.  Blink and you'll miss the changes, but what do you want to bet they paid a million bucks for the privilege?
• Historic bits:
  • The Getty features a long, folding photomontage from master El Lissitzky. [Via]
  • Cornell is hosting a gallery of some crazy historic illustrations. [Via]
  • Somewhat similarly, the Trade Card Place features galleries of Victorian trade cards. [Via]
  • Word to the wise: Don't send your kids onto railroad tracks.  Limb-shedding badness will ensue. [Via]
  • Here's a nice collection of Roman funerary portrait art. [Via]