The coolest animated gifs I've ever seen!

Just stumbled across these...

Graffiti GIFs, lettering by INKIE and backgrounds by INSA.



found at dvdp

Paris vs New York

A cute little comparison between Paris and New York.

Blog Rationale

When I received the brief I was a bit apprehensive as I had never written a blog before. Sharing my thoughts and opinions about pieces of design with the World was something new to me. However I was looking forward to the challenge and the prospect of broadening my mind and discovering things I would otherwise not have.

I started by setting up my account and following some established blogs on advertising, design and illustration on Blogger. I followed all of my coursemates' blogs so that I could comment on their posts and read about things that they had found or seen. I started visiting other blogs such as CR Blog, Fubiz and Coolhunter, I even commented on a few of their posts. I had also subscribed to Marketing magazine so I used that to help keep me up-to-date.

I found that writing my blog really opened my eyes. I was of course reading blogs and magazines by choice but I also found that even when I was just doing some shopping or watching TV I was much more critical of everything around me, taking note of interesting pieces of design that could “go in my blog”. I wanted to visit museums and exhibitions. I do not think there are many museums in Leeds I have not visited. I also went to London, York, Oxford and Paris. Having a camera on me all of the time helped me to get photos for my blog whenever I saw something interesting or worth sharing.

I discovered loads of new design works through conducting my blog. When I did an “Architectural Tour of Burley Road, Leeds” I was really surprised to find out that there was much more to the buildings along that road than meets the eye. I learnt about Brutalist architecture (Leeds International Pool, Roger Stevens building – seen on a poster), saw a completely solar panelled wall and spotted Charles Rennie Mackintosh inspired architecture (Leeds Magistrates Court). I discovered an appreciation for Salvador Dali's work. When I visited Espace Dali in Paris I was really intrigued with his work and decided to do a bit more research about him. I was surprised to find that a really like surrealist art. I managed to view original printing presses in Leeds Industrial Museum and the Museum of London. We had learnt about the printing press in lectures but it was great to see it for real. These are just a few examples of things I have found out that I doubt I would have had I not written a blog.

I started to read. When travelling to London everyday for one of my placements, I had half an hour free to read every morning and afternoon. I picked up Derren Brown's “Tricks of the Mind” first and rediscovered the joys of reading. I took on “A Clockwork Orange” by Anthony Burgess, this was a tough read but I was completely engrossed in it for two weeks. Since starting my reading for my dissertation I have posted about one of the books but I intend to write about more of them. That will not only give me a reference point in future years if I want to revisit a book from my dissertation but also show to visitors of my blog that I have been reading design-related books.

When picking what to post about I at first just posted things I liked but as I got more used to blogging I began to choose which pieces of inspiration I would write about. I started to form opinions and be much more critical of design works. I reviewed the “What the Flock?” campaign by Magpie Communications which was apparently forwarded to the agency, I hope my criticism was constructive!

I think as a designer it is a great asset to have a blog that is up-to-date and with lots of entries. I have a link to it on my website which means potential employers and clients can see that I am actively watching the design industry and always looking for inspiration. It shows that you are always looking for great design and making critical judgements. It is also an opportunity to showcase your most current pieces of work.

In terms of using the blog to support the research for my dissertation and final project I intend to use it more for this purpose in the coming weeks. I posted “Catch of the Day” on 2^nd May 2010 which, although I did not realise it at the time, became the inspiration for my one week brief and then for my dissertation. As I carry on my research I will use the blog to record books I have read and online videos or images that I find. Having an electronic scrapbook as well as a physical one is really vital now that research can be in the form of a short film on Vimeo for example.

In conclusion, I would recommend writing a blog to all designers, whether junior or experienced. As a young designer it becomes part of your portfolio and encouragement to get out there and actively looking for examples of intriguing design. As an experienced designer it keeps you up-to-date with current trends, alerts you what your competitors are doing and pushes you to work your ideas hard to produce better pieces of work. I have been visiting museums, reading books and blogs, observing architecture and watching films that I simply would not have had it not been for this project. I have become much more critical and analyse design from several points of view. I am going to carry on blogging, probably mainly in the advertising and online categories, because I really find it beneficial.

Ashmolian Museum of Art and Archaeology, Oxford

I visited the Ashmolean museum yesterday, it holds many antiques, coins, works of art, sculptures, textiles...

Above is a picture of some mini porcelain portraits along with a list of the subjects' names.

"Green Marketing Manifesto" by John Grant

I am currently reading this book as part of my research for my dissertation and I thought I'd mention it because it is a really interesting take on a future direction of marketing. As consumers get more and more aware of environmental issues and have easier and easier access to companies (though twitter, facebook etc) companies are surely going to have to bear green issues in mind. John Grant's book lays out how to approach "green marketing" depending on whether it would be on a public, social or personal level and whether your company wants to be "green", "greener" or "greenest".

I think all designers should start opening their eyes to environmental (and ethical) issues and use their power as a designer to lessen the impact of their work.

"John Grant′s been so smart and percipient with his new masterwork...useful, readable and clever...out now, just when we need it." (Campaign, Friday 23rd November 2007)

Inside-out Architecture

The Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris, was designed by the Italian architect Renzo Piano, the British architect couple Richard Rogers and Su Rogers, Gianfranco Franchini, the British structural engineer Edmund Happold, and Irish structural engineer Peter Rice. It opened on 31 January 1977. It was designed in the style of high-tech architecture.

Inside-out architecture was innovative in having its services such as staircases, lifts, electrical power conduits and water pipes on the outside, leaving an uncluttered space inside.


The Lloyd's Building, London, was designed by architect Richard Rogers and built between 1978 and 1986. Bovis was the management contractor for the scheme. Modular in plan, each floor can be altered with the addition or removal of partitions and walls.

Ispiration
Both buildings were inspired by the work of Archigram in the 1950s and '60s. Plug-in-City is a mega-structure with no buildings, just a massive framework into which dwellings in the form of cells or standardised components could be slotted. The machine had taken over and people were the raw material being processed, the difference being that people are meant to enjoy the experience.

Insomnia Festival 2010

Insomnia Festival 2010 Titles from Toxic on Vimeo.

This is just a little bit cool.

Eek! I hope I'm in the right profession....

Conclusion: "What the flock?" Campaign

I think this was a smart campaign but it does have a few faults:
- the online survey "dragging" selection didn't work so i could only choose 1%...- the poll for where you found out about What the Flock? only let you choose one answer...
- the Research section was "coming soon...", how many people will actually visit the website again to find out the research?
However it has definitely proved to be a successful campaign and it was great to see a completely new approach to getting students talking about a boring/embarrassing/taboo subject.

My predictions...

So maybe the Magpie brief wasn't set by the Magpie I thought it was going to be, but I had read, and blogged about the Smashing Magazine article that Charlotte the client was talking about!

Say It LOUD: The one that got away...

My first (developed) idea was a viral campaign of pranks played my designers at the office. The idea of "Serious fun!" captured the spirit of working in the design industry with particular emphasis on how designers must design responsibly and sustainably in order to help save the environment...

Fashion Websites Trends

The great thing about fashion websites is that they have a licence to do pretty much whatever they want. They are about getting the visitor to experience the band, not to give them ease of navigation through to masses of pages. This article on SmashingMagazine.com highlights the current trends.

Tim Burton's Official Website

Tim Burton's website is really fantastic. To navigate through the site you have to use your arrow keys to walk "Stain Boy" around mysterious rooms and corridors. You are given the option of walking into either the Public Gallery or the Private Gallery, where you have to enter your email address to get in. A smart move that really works, even if most of us have a "spam email account".

Although navigation with arrow keys is nothing new, it worked really well in this case as it gives the user a real sense of walking around a gallery in a mysterious, Alice in Wonderland style building.

One Week Brief: Say it LOUD! - My inspiration

Seeing as you can't paste a video into a creative log, I thought I'd post it on here...
Click here to see the documentary that inspired me.

What the flock? (...by Magpie?)

Walking through Hyde Park to uni on (I think) monday, I was inundated with black, corriflute sheep hanging from trees, standing in flocks and painted on the floor with the strap line, "What the flock?" Although I thought it was pretty cool, I also thought it was a bit of a wasted opportunity as by the time I had waded my way through all the "flocking" sheep everywhere I was pretty ready to hear what it was all about...nothing.

Well I walked into uni again on tuesday at about 5pm and there where 3 students holding a giant banner saying that this "What the flock?" thing would be launch on 10.10.10.

A few minutes ago I was wasting time on facebook... and I saw one of my friends was following this "what the flock" campaign, intrigued, I checked it out. This then lead my curiosity to click on the website link http://www.whattheflock.org.uk/.


I watched the little video which features students' reactions to a mystery question with the answer of "17".

Still intrigued to find out who was behind all of this, and being a bit of web geek, I checked out the source code of the site...

< name="author" content="Magpie Comms">

The agency we are about to receive a brief from, Magpie, seem to be involved in this crazy sheep campaign... well the brief is on the 8th Oct so we shall see what happens...!

About the website, I really like the design, it's very cute and appropriate for students. Students can share their impatience to find out what the flock it is all about on the message board and of course connect online through facebook and twitter. The only thing it lacks to me is a little favicon...but that's not a massive issue.

Leeds City Art Gallery: Sculpture and Tapestry Exhibitions

Emess is a Berlin-based graffiti artist who does work similar to that of Banksy. Stencil graffiti is a new style in the genre and can be seen more and more frequently as it is getting pretty fashionable.

"Sprayer" by Emess.

"Inlaid Patchwork Berlin" by textile artist, Ursel Arndt, 2008/09 is a patchwork of stencil graffiti art.

At first this sculpture did not seem very interesting, however when I read the little plaque it actually proved to be quite intriguing. Left to right: "Momento", "American Garamond", "Antique Olive" and "Orator", 2005, are scale enlargements of full-stops in the four fonts. They each have the same point size but the large scale shows the intricate details which exist within the apparently universal and uniform symbols.


"Artist's Formula for Success Chart: Aquarius" by Laurence Burt, 1970. I found it strange that someone would want to attempt to create a mathematical formula or flowchart to how to find success as an artist. This piece of art, or science(?), almost shows how "unlogical" art is but is juxtaposed with how it is itself a "successful work of art".

An extract of "Family Tree 1970-1981" by David Nash, 1985. This drawn work was appealing to me as it had been carefully hand drawn and showed lots of possibilities that a tree holds.


"A Work Between Two Insitutions" by Stephen Willats, 1987. This shows the relationship between a block of flat and a City Art Museum in a strange, electric-circuit-style diagram.

"Sign Elements III" by Matt Rugg, 1963. I'm not really sure what to think of this piece but I quite liked it...

"Untitled" Computer generated and screen printed by Darrel Viner, 2001. Darrel Viner produced a whole series of these 2D spheres for which he had written a computer program to create them. There is a debate as to whether computer generated works count as art, I personally feel that the computer is merely a medium, like a paint brush or pencil and that it is still the work of an artist.

"Extended Cube" by David Nash, 1996. The same artist who produced "Family Tree" has extended a wooden cube...for some reason...

"Acrobats" by Ian Hamilton Finlay, 1966. This is one of Finlay's "Concrete poems". The title is the main part of the work with the letters jumping and tumbling in mid-air.

"Faithful Servants (Marine)" by Edward Wadsworth, 1928. This piece was in the main art gallery rather than the sculpture exhibition. I particularly like surrealist art as to me it has more thought put into it as there is a meaning behind each object and its positioning.

The plaque reads: "Wadsworth served in the Royal Naval Volunteer Reserve as a gunner. After the war he made drawings of the Black Country and northern slag heaps that highlighted humanity's devastating impact on the landscape. They echoed Nash's scarred battlefields. In the late 1920s Wadsworth made a series of still lifes of nautical objects in marine settings. Often the objects were no longer in common use. The idyllic, other-worldy nature of these still lifes suggests a yearning for a pre-war era of peace and calm."

"A Clockwork Orange" directed by Stanley Kubrick (film)

I had read the book before I saw the film, for me I think this is the best way round as it allows you to imagine it all first before being shown someone else' idea of a book first.

The film was a lot more weird and surreal than I had ever imagines the book to be. Strange 70s fashion and decor. I was however impressed by Kubrick's take on the book as I think he captured the emotions of the youths well. He made up feel sorry of Alex at the end of the film despite all of his wrongdoings in the past.

A film well worth seeing, however read the book first!

"A Clockwork Orange" by Anthony Burgess (book)

I first picked up this book when I had time to kill taking the tube to my placement. After reading a few chapters I hated the book and decided to stop reading it. A friend told me to keep reading, get through the violence and then to discover just how good the book is.

I may not have read that many books so far but this book was by far the cleverest written of those I have read.

Anthony Burgess creates his own slang of Russian-style words which are never explained and are left to the reader to decipher for themselves. This added a level of intrigue into a book that I had not experienced before.

The beginning is very violent and the teenagers in the story enjoy every second of it, "then out comes the blood, my brothers, real beautiful", the main character, and narrator, Alex says. Alex speaks to the reader as if they are another member of the gang by using the words "my brothers".

The book is written in 3 parts: The first tells of his violent life as a teenager, committing terrible crimes with his gang of friends, the second his is in prison for killing an old lady as he is trying to rob her. He is keen to get out and get back to his old ways. He hears about the new Ludovic Technique which can "rehabilitate" prisoners and allow them to be set free over a matter of weeks. He is very keen and embarks on the new treatment, little does he know that he will be a changed man when it has finished. The third part sees Alex released from prison but the thought of violence makes him feel physically ill.

The book tackles an interesting, fictional argument concerning the treatment and human rights.

I would highly recommend reading this book, persevere through the violence and you will discover a fantastic book.

"Art Direction Explained, At Last!" by Steven Heller and Veronique Vienne

This is a book I picked up from a cute little art and design book shop near Old Street, Artwords Book Shop, in London.

This book explains exactly what being an Art Director entails by speaking industry professionals across Photography, Typography, Illustration and Editing. It covers lots of tips and theories for creating a successful advert or interesting piece of work.

The book is very stylishly put together, as most boos aimed at designers are, and includes lots of little things to keep your interest or to allow you to dip in and out of the book including a comic, a few quizzes and lots of pictures!

It is well written and gives you lots of help with how to face/work with/understand clients including a dictionary of clients' terms such as "We're looking at something in the style of (X)." = "Here's a fresh supply of tracing paper. Now get to it."

Super mignon !

I love this little animation about how the French love a "petit café".

Stock Photo Rights

Copyright for images is a minefield and up til now, stock imagery sites have not helped us to understand how it works. Check out www.stockphotorights.com to help get your head around it. Basically remember these 3 things to watch out for: Models, marks and designs.

Inception

Whoa!

This film blew me away. It is the story of a time when the technology exists to enter people's dreams allowing thieves to extract secret information from people's subconscious minds eg, the combination to a safe... Dom Cobb (Leonardo DiCaprio), a successful theif, is asked by the owner of an energy company (Saito) to complete a mission in order to grant him entry to America to see his children again. Saito's main business competitor is an old man who is very sick, and his son is about to take over his father's company. Saito wants the son to break up his father's empire. Cobb agrees out of desperation to see his children again.

However instead of performing 'extraction' (getting information out of someone's head) he needs to perform 'inception' - the planting of an idea into someone's mind. This requires a team of people and creating dreams within dreams. As time passes much quicker in dreamstate than in normal life, this creates a multiplying effect - 5 mins asleep = 1hr in a dream, 1hr of a dram within a dream = 1 week etc.

The creators had really thought everything through very very carefully. One interesting aspect was that as they fall of a bridge, whilst asleep and dreaming, this affects the dream - there's no gravity!

The ending is very smart. It is a cliffhanger, but because of that it encourages you to really think hard over what you have just seen in order to fathom out the answer to the question left hanging.

How can I sum it up? "Watch it!"



Links: IMDB, Inception website

Gorillaz.com

I have just finished reading an article about the redesign of the band Gorillaz' website and although I'm impressed with the site, all the games you can play, features etc etc I can't help but feel that the website homepage doesn't have a "Gorillaz feel". It's a bit too "websitey". Gorillaz to me is hand drawn, telling a story about the characters, if you look at the header bar (in white at the top) it's just boring and manufactured.


The homepage is pretty good aside from the header bar, however as you navigate through the rest of the site there's next to nothing hand drawn. Maybe it's a good thing as it gives a bit of space and tidiness from the characters, I can't make up my mind! Any thoughts?


Links: Gorillaz website, Mike Robinson, Ben Sims

Design Society Website

I have been working on the new Leed University, Design Society website recently and I'm interested to hear what people think of it. The target audience is of course the School of Design students but also the tutors and potential employers of Leeds Uni graduates/students.

There are a few aims for the site:
- to give advice to School of Design students, advice written by students, not lecturers.
- to let our members (and non-members) know about what's going on in the society, socials etc.
- to help put University of Leeds design graduates firmly on the employee wish-list!

So please let me know what you think!

Student life: how to make an alternative income

I have been lucky enough to win quite a lot of freelance projects from websites such as freelancer.co.uk and studentgems.com. My contact details got passed onto the Guardian to be interviewed for an article published today: "Student life: how to make an alternative income"