California Ruling on Same-Sex Marriage Fuels a Battle, Rather Than Ending It - New York Times the 2nd paragraph in this article really soured me. why is some douchenozzle from florida funding a “let’s discriminate against the gays” act in California? if you wanna argue for states’ rights, fine, let’s have states’ rights. there ought to be a law that says that out-of-state groups can’t create or fund ballot initiatives that seek to monkey with a state’s constitution
Lux: multi-touch for OS X interesting interface giving macs similar functionality as the iphone ipod touch. although on a vertical wall, i think my arms might get tired. but it does give you a good idea of where we might be in 5-10 years computer wise.
Daring Fireball | Political Capital "Saudi Arabia Friday rebuffed President Bush?s request to immediately pump more oil to lower record prices, saying it does not see enough demand to increase production." check out the post for the kicker. GeeDub is such a putz.
Today's Most Influential Design - The Design 100 - TIME "Great design is no longer reserved solely for museum-worthy products, as multitasking designers turn their attention to everything from books to artisanal food, and from lighting to transportation"
Too Hard a Ball Right-Wing Radio yakker crashes and burns like the Hindenburg while trying to talk about appeasement … Holy Crap! keep diggin', jerk face.
Video: Rubies, "I Feel Electric" awesome song and video from Rubies, sonic sisters in the circle of awesomenss with Leslie Feist and Danielle Rubi. don't sleep!
TED | Talks | Mark Bittman: What's wrong with what we eat (video) awesome talk about how the western diet is totally unsustainable and dangerous to the planet. 10,000,000 cows, chickens, lambs and pigs born, raised, and killed every year. the take away? start eating more vegetables.
I posted about Isaiah Seret’s Hitler is Alive in Burma spot (starring Ellen Page) a few days ago, from the Burma Can’t Wait campaign. Now check out another spot of his entitled Voices (do yourself a favor and go watch it on YouTube and click on the High Quality version, unfortunately there’s no hard-link to the HQ). This spot goes completely in the opposite direction of the Hitler piece. I love it.
The music is by Vetiver - “You May Be Blue (Neighbors Remix)”
– I did the type cards on this one. nothing fancy. minimal, to the point.
Brooks: Neural Buddhists - International Herald Tribune Brooks is a bit of a wanker, but he has some pretty good points, chiefly that we are in the middle of a scientific revolution that’s going to have big cultural effects. this is an understatement of dramatic proportion. We are essentially headed for a new paradigm. and it’s going to happen faster than you and I think.
Blu's Latest Wall Animation - MUTO absolutely brilliant graffiti stop-motion animation done over the course of a few months. i'd love to see this in process.
CalArts homie Kevin Lyons has a new show Your Mom’s In My Business at the HVW8 Art+Design Gallery in Los Angeles, if you’re in the area and dig on hand-made design, go check out the show. Kevin is a heavyweight:
Printed Ephemera and New Works by Kevin Lyons
Opening Friday, May 9th, 6 - 10 pm, Show runs May 10th - June 15th
HVW8 Art+Design Gallery
661 N. Spaulding Ave
Los Angeles, CA 90036
Gallery open: Wed - Sat, 1- 5pm
Or by appointment:
323 655 4898
Kevin Lyons is a 1992 graduate of the Rhode Island School of Design where he received a degree in film. After working for Nickelodeon / MTV as an Associate Producer, he co-founded the NYC based design firm, stereo-type which for two years was responsible for much of the graphic look of the New York City underground Hip-Hop and Acid Jazz scene. This included the logo design for the long standing NYC based club, GIANT STEP. Stereo-type’s client list also included Soul Kitchen, 555 Soul and the LA-based, Brass Recordings. After receiving his masters degree from CalArts in 1998, Lyons has gone on to work for Nike, both in and out of house, was the former Art Director of Urban Outfitters on two separate occasions, and has been Art Director for filmmaker Spike Jonze’s Girl Skateboard Company. He was also the original US Art Director for TOKION Magazine and maintains long-standing freelance relationships with Nike, Jordan Brand, Adidas, Stussy and Stussy Japan, Beams Japan, HUF, Nieves Books, Stones Throw Records, Commonwealth Stacks, and long-time friend and collaborator NYC artist, SSUR.
FontStruct | Build, Share, Download Fonts Holy crapola! FontStruct is absolutely amazing! not only can you share and download fonts for free, but you can build your own with their fancy web app. pretty f'ing cool. now why isn't there a desktop app that makes the process of designing fonts this simple, effective and FUN. Mac OS X programmers: i’m looking in your direction
Schitz Popinov 2008 award for best name for a music blog. I gotta get that on a tshirt.
Second McCain aide quits over ties to Burmese Junta lobbying We're talking about lobbying on behalf of mass murdering war criminals here. The real question media outlets should be asking is when did McCain find out and how long has his campaign known about this. These are people that could have gone on to run our government (as the case with the 2nd guy - aides usually end up in the administration).
Peggy Noonan's article from WSJ on Obama's missing 2nd act actually a pretty good read. she says a lot of interesting things. the Obama 2nd act thing is *very* dead-on. He does need it. but then she brings up the whole Obama is an elitist thing, which is classic wingnut talking points.
More Obama: Obama Campaign Launches "Vote For Change" Voter Registration Drive Uber-wingnut Peggy Noonan declared that Obama would need a "second act" to keep his story going. Well, never one to disappoint, Obama unveils his second act. and this one is gonna be *huge*. I can hear Rove and Spakovsky drafting up their talking points.
surfblog1000: Hot Photo #1 amazing longboard photo by surf photog master Grannis. now this is the kind of photo that keeps me inspired. i love surf blogs for this very idea, showing the awesome.
The thing that I really like about Shutter Butter is that the photographer is given audio space to put context to the images. You’re not only seeing gorgeous imagery, you’re getting to know the photographer that captured the image.
I do believe that audio can be distracting and can unnecessarily “color” the images. Non-narrated slideshows, gallery shows, monographs etc… all have their proper space. But once in a while it’s nice to get behind the imagery to understand the process.
My homie Isaiah Seret gets a super-huge write-up in the New York Times for his work directing Ellen Page in a spot for the Burma Can’t Wait Campaign:
The spot is one of 30 produced for U.S. Campaign for Burma, starring celebrities like Will Ferrell and Jennifer Aniston. They will be distributed on Fanista.com, a social-networking and entertainment retail site, then passed along to sites like YouTube and Google Video every day for the next month. The goal of the campaign is to thrust the cause of human rights in Burma — now known as Myanmar — into the orbit of A-list activist causes, along with Tibet and Darfur, and to encourage international pressure on a government that activists say is one of the world’s most oppressive.
…
A story that is going to hold people’s interest also needs a villain. While General Shwe is a natural in the role, said Isaiah Seret, a 30-year-old music video director who was enlisted to write and direct the Ellen Page spot, the general also came with built-in drawbacks — his name lacked impact, his face was forgettable. The general, Mr. Seret said, lacked what is known in marketing vernacular as a “unique selling point” — like Hitler’s mustache. So the director attempted to turn the general’s blandness into a joke. In the spot, Ms. Page scribbles a Hitler mustache on a large photo of the general and declares, “Make no mistake about it, he is a professional dictator.”
Isaiah conceptualized, wrote and directed the Ellen Page piece (which debuts in the next few days - i think), as well as seven or eight others that will be released one-a-day for each of the 30 days of the campaign. I’m super excited to see Isaiah’s name up in print. I think he hit a home-run with this spot. Sometimes stars align and this is one of those times. He’s been working like mad on this campaign and it completely dove-tails with his personal voice. This guy is definitely an artist to watch. Each time I see new work of his, I’m amazed at his progression in style and form, without losing his personal voice. I’m callin’ it now: Dude is gonna be famous.
Elizabeth Warren | The Coming Collapse of the Middle Class Harvard Law School professor Elizabeth Warren speaks at UC Berkeley. America's crashing credit economy is directly responsible for the continued rise in bankruptcy among the middle-class. Reality: You probably know more people who will file for bankruptcy than for divorce (although they may not tell you they are/have filed for bankruptcy). Big picture? We’re basically talking about the end of capitalism here. no joke.
Banksy Unmasked? | Gawker great article claiming Banksy is really UK stencil artist Nick Walker. I don't know if it's true, but a good read.
Under Construction Redux | All Forces Instead of throwing up some dumb "we'll be right back" message, when you're updating your site, Melvin has designed a very user-friendly version with social networking links, flickr photos, latest tweets and last.fm covers.
Kottke's "When Obama wins," awesome twitter mashup. my personal favorite: "When Obama wins, God will literally bless America"
Mexico?s Disgusting Response to Shark Attack San Fran native Adrian ruiz was killed by a shark, surfing Troncones last week and in response the Mexican Navy has been trawling for sharks, killing anything that gets in their way. Horrible news.
Wild Coast / Costa Salvaje WiLDCOAST protects and preserves coastal ecosystems and wildlife in the Californias and Latin America by building grassroots support, conducting media campaigns and establishing protected areas.
Mårten Lange | The Sea Raul Gutierrez points us to the hypnotic horizontal sea photos of Mårten Lange. This series has more than a passing resemblance to my latest surfing-themed photos. amazing series, i’d love to see these huge.
Farewell Books awesome cheaply constructed photography books. very cool idea.
Neutra-Designed Strathmore Apartment condo for sale LA peoples, listen up, one of the legendary Nuetra Strathmore Apertments is for sale. $795,000. hefty price tag, but come on, it’s a Nuetra! Architecturally significant houses aren’t recession proof, but when the market goes up, it’ll go up more. good investment.
The Temas Blog "Musings about the Evolution of Consumer, Environmental & Health Policy in Latin America & the Caribbean". awesome english language blog on what's going on south of the US border. a great informational resource and very dialed-in.
Bio-Baby | Environment-Friendly Mexican Diapers? | The Temas Blog Interesting look at Bio-Baby diapers, made from organic cotton and polylactic acid (a biodegradable polymer). the diapers are made by 100% mexican owned Mabesa. we don't have any kids yet, but we're already trying to figure out what to do about diapers.
YouTube - Iron Man After Credits Iron Man was awesome. Robert Downey Junior was excellent. nearly perfect super hero movie, if not the GOAT. even Marcia really liked it. 2 thumbs up. don't bother to stay through the credits for the end scene, catch it on you tube.
Op's new "Open Road" summer marketing program is craptastic. c-list celebs in badly designed, cheaply made, slightly surf themed gear, make em drive a vw combi, do a pyramid in the sand and run around tackling each other and sell it at walmart. ok. would someone please shoot the person responsible for this?
video of people removing bot fly larvae from a guy's back absolutely disgusting but intensely intriguing video of people pulling huge bot fly larvae from some dude's back. totally insane how big they are. i'm gonna go throw up now. the duct tape FTW
Cheeseboard pizza in Berkeley has a twitter account! Now this is why the freaking internet/twitter was invented. So that I, in mexico, can get the Chesseboard's daily pizza ingredients pushed to twitterific. The Cheeseboard is a collective coop, whose pizza is different every day. perfect use of technology.
Nayarit surf forecast | Surfline the homies say the waves are huge at Burros and completely going off! i'm stuck at home with the visiting in-laws for the evening. waiting patiently for the early session tomorrow morning. i can't freaking wait.
Miley Cyrus Bare In Vanity Fair: Tells Fans She's "Embarrassed" ok, let’s all agree that this miley cyrus / vanity fair / annie lebowitz business is utter horse shit. Annie shoulda told Disney go fly a fucking kite. America is so puritanical, it’s scary. there’s absolutely nothing sexually suggestive about that image
Peeks at Mexico | great expat blog on living in mexico no rose-colored glasses. Michael's blog is the real deal. If I wrote strictly about my experiences living in mexico, they'd often sound like his. writing about it requires too much focus on the negative, i'm glad michael is holding it down.
Christian Patterson - Sound Affects a new photo book by Christian Patterson. Patterson has posted a video of his hand flipping through his book with an awesome funk track, i love the dirty grown at 45 secs. interesting way to tease your book. i'm taking notes.
Sleevefacing on Flickr latest and great flickrnomenon. I'm rummaging through my record collection as we speak.
The Year in Pictures: Weekend Video delightful break from the youtube norm. an apt spring-related video. nothing says spring like baby ducks flinging themselves out the nest and Richard Attenborough.
Speartalks: Aaron Rose - Josh Spear great interview with Aaron Rose, former Alleged Gallery owner and "Beautiful Losers" curator / book author / director. He talks about the new Beautiful Losers documentary. This guy is just as creative as the people whose work he's championed.
Martin + Osa - Shop By Outfit pretty interesting use of flash video to show different outfits and how they look in motion. great site design too. already great web design for a retailer. H&M / Gap / Inditex should be seriously paying attention to this.
History lesson. the best blog post i've read all day. If you always wondered where our weird customs and sayings come from, this post is for you. terms discussed: "chew the fat", "thresh hold", "raining cats n dogs", why we hold "wakes", why tomatos were considered poiso
File this under: who knew? | Thrasher Funds. a skate/surf/snow mutual fund securities investment firm trading under the "Thrasher" moniker and they trade primarily based on what they call the "Demographic Convergence Thesis" that seeks to capitalize on all things surf/skate/snow culture related.
pixpeep - Cross-Processing In Aperture (Musings) awesome detailed and well written tutorial on achieving xprocess looks in Aperture. very handy and the article teaches you have to use Aperture's quarter-tone functions in the Levels brick.
Athletics NYC gorgeous art-direction and web design. so simple layout and web-based typography. very tight
On a recent trip back to the homeland (NYC), my sister Mosbef hooked me up with It’s All Good by a syrbian photographer living in New York, that goes by the name Boogie. The book is published by powerHouse:
A gritty, graphic, and gripping exposé of the underworld and its inhabitants, It’s All Good, the first monograph by Boogie, presents the predators and the prey in the drug game today. Shot in New York City’s most notorious neighborhoods—Bushwick, Bedford-Stuyvesant, and Queensbridge—Boogie gained intimate access into a world few dare to venture, a world closed to outsiders, a world of crackheads, junkies, and gangsters. From the cops patrolling the project roofs to the addicts overdosing on the streets, It’s All Good chronicles ghetto life in stark, heart-stopping images and intense testimonials. Boogie brings us to a place few will leave and most will stay, a place where escape is one rock, one shot, one glock away.
The photos are intensely candid and close-up. The people being photographed know and confide in the photographer and you can see it in every image. Boogie spent a lot of time getting to know these people and gaining their trust. The book is really powerful and grim.
In photography books / monographs, the images always stand on their own. In the truest sense, the story is told through the images. Text and image don’t often collide. It’s all about the images and most of the time, rightly so.
In ‘It’s All Good’ the images appear one to a page, with an introductory text to each of the characters every few pages. In the back of the book, there is a glossary of images, each one with a comment, from the photographer, on the person being photographed or context that the photo was taken in.
I really enjoyed Boogie’s comments and although the book kinda takes the middle road (by displaying the images by themselves and then including the glossary), I gotta say that I spent a lot of time in the glossary section looking at the thumbnail images and reading the comments. The full size images are gorgeous and raw, but the comments really open the story up and provide the details and context that the photos sit in. I can’t help but wonder why they didn’t just include the text with the photos.
There’s definitely a conversation there, about the role of the image, versus the roll of image and text together. And the intention of the publisher/author to present the images versus the intent of the viewer to understand the context of the images. I’m not sure if my “art discourse” hat is fully on today, so I’ll leave it at that.
Montanaro Gallery in Newport Rhode Island, is having an art exhibition called Toward The Great Expanse that features the surf/water inspired work of Ty Williams and Julie Goldstein. The pieces are beautiful.
The Montanaro Gallery site has what looks like all of the pieces from the show, up on the site, in nice big jpegs. Very thoughtful of them, for us left-and-down-coasters. the name of the show couldn’t be more perfect for the flavor of art.
Vincent Skeltis was asked, informally, to re-design Foam (a surfing mag for girls). Skeltis has posted the brief, current/projected readers, the latest cover and a few of the covers from his re-design process. He’s asking people to comment on what he’s done so far (with the disclaimer that the logo is still very rough). Skeltis is letting us all in on his process, which is awesome. It can also be a double-edged sword, so in that sense he’s being very brave (and silently hoping no one skewers him, anonymously, in the comments).
Skeltis has some amazing photography and art-direction over at his portfolio site. I’m sure that whatever designs he ends up presenting, regardless of how they’re eventually implented (or not), his art-direction will be top-notch.
[via APE]
– Update: It seems that Foam had Skeltis pull down the blog entry. understandable. well, I guess i’ll leave this up for posterity sake.
The Year in Pictures hips us to these awesome posters created by Brazilian graphic designer Daniel Molin. The Google Machine™ has never heard of Molin (unless he’s the same guy creating massive amounts of sci-fi fantasy art - which i doubt). That’s a shame. Regardless of your political leanings, these are beautiful pieces of design.
I’m really diggin’ on Zoo York’s new artist series boards done by Mark and Matt Owens (Matt of VolumeOne fame). The art-direction is pure 70s NY mashup. Equal parts Massimo Vignelli, Milton Glaser, Paul Rand and Lance Weyman mixed with a slight case of Monty Python. Great designs! Having grown up in NY in the 70s-80s my childhood is filled with the kind of iconography that this is derived from. Athletics. has the lickable larger versions.
btw - nice Athletics site, right?! talk about clean and beautiful layout and typography. gorgeous stuff. i’m taking notes. Athletics is Matt and Mark Owen, Samia Saleem, James Ellis, Jason Gnewikow, David Ahuja and Wes Duvall. wow, very cool.
OneLessDesk? :: Heckler Design perhaps the coolest desk i've ever seen. a lil expensive, but the design is so bad-ass. love the computer cable hidingness. [via joshspear.com]
Hotel Habita in Mexico City gets a makeover Hotel Habita is part of the Design Hotel collection, it's faces tot he street are pure glass, recently a team of artists covered the entire hotel surface in black and white graffiti, as a commissioned art piece. very cool, but I don't know if it'd make me wanna stay there
Barry McGee on VBS.TV Barry McGee has a 2 part series on VBS.tv. with Aaron Rose. They actually gave McGee the interview and he created animated characters for it. it's an art piece abut an interview about an artist. meta cool.
I’ve been meaning to link to this for awhile, but since it’s Earth Day, there’s no better time than the now (not now, but right now). My dad has a wicked photographic essay called Where Has All The Plastic Gone? The photographs feature trash found at the beach here in Mexico. Trash is a common sight on the beaches and along the roads, so much so that it begins to become invisible to the people that live here. The essay feels like a visual archaelogical survey, recorded for whoever might inhabit earth, long after we’re gone and all that’s left are bits of oddly shaped, brightly colored plastic.
On a similar tangent: there’s been an awful lot of talk about plastic building up in the environment and being around forever. My hope is that long after we’re gone (assumably the plastic by-products killed us off), maybe there’s some kind of bacteria that somehow evolves or makes it to earth aboard some large meteor and uses the plastic (and toxic chemicals it amasses), as a food source. Similar to the way bacteria feed off the toxic chemicals emitted from deep-ocean vents. The dinosaurs gave us oil to drive our vehicles, maybe our gift to future inhabitants is, well, food. Or more likely we’ll just decompose and become oil for future inhabitants’ automobile equivalents.
Thalia Surf Shop | Leguna Beach CA these guys carry some wicked boards. i have total board lust. they're all ridable art and top notch boards by The Campbell Brothers Surfboards, Gato Heroi, Mandala, Rainbow Surfboards, Rich Pavel, Malcom Campbell, Michel Junod, The Swift Movement.
Buenos Aires Independent Film Festival promo brilliant promo video. a meditation on the finer points of having a mustache re: latin america's storied infatuation with upper-lip hair. hilarious and slightly creepy. the ending is genius.
Shine | Yahoo! shine uses the YUI ImageLoader, inspiration for LazyLoader Plugin. watch how the iamges load when you scroll. this is gonna be huge for the blog format, which really breaks down, when it comes to t
Lazy Load Plugin for jQuery absolutely ingenious tool for loading images above the fold first, and loading below the fold images on an "as needed" basis. the opposite of preloading images, for web pages with heavy image content. really useful jscript. apple is using this, yahoo's sh
8106 | QUIERO CLUB: SHOWTIME i'm digging on "Quiero Club" a nu-rave band from Monterrey Mexico. awesome song. I love the hand-drawn typography steez on the image.
I’ve posted about floating garbage island before and i’m sure if you ask any politician, they’d say it’s an urban myth hyped by Boing! Boing! conspiracy theorists. But it’s not! The folks at Vice sent a crew of people with video cameras out to the patch. Their verdict? Not only are the reports true, but it’s worse than they expected. There’s no patch and no island. Nothing that can be cleaned up easily. It’s a galactic mess of floating pieces slowly photodegrading into even tinier toxic, digestible pieces. everywhere and nowhere. a gigantic floating toxic stew. and it’s twice the size of Texas.
Stevey originally turned me on to the series a few weeks ago and I’ve been meaning to repost. With Earth Day tomorrow (Apr22), I thought I put the word out. The documentary is intense, horrifying and urgent. Special props to the Vice team for such engaging content. When watching it, you get the feeling that they didn’t quite know what they were getting in to and the narrator/host Thomas Morton keeps it interesting with an increasing use of curse words as they get further in to the garbage patch. Justifiable considering the horror show they encounter.
Relatedly: Check out this interview, Thomas Morton’s take on traditional (read: neo-hippy) environmentalism as he interviews the authors of Break Through, a book that calls for the “Death of Environmentalism” (or at least its current 60s era mentality). Morton can be a bit harsh and irreverent, but he makes some valid points.
whats the jackanory ?: An answer to a question ? Andrew Hetherington on Terry Richardson's shooting style. Terry only uses consumer point-n-shoot film cameras the Contax G2 and Yashica T5 (well, most of the time), great read.
SuperTouch | visual culture blog i just happened upon Super Touch. killer street art blog. started by jamie O'Shea formerly of Juxtapoz. tons of editors, tons of content. lots of nice posts on artists i haven't seen posted in other places. very hip. rss reader worthy.
A Photo Editor - Single Most Annoying Web 2.0 Feature For Photographers an interesting post on photographers that use unique ids in email send-outs to track photo editors viewing their sites. an ok technique, but when you use it as "come on" line when contacted said editor, that is *creepy*. the post's comments end up in tast
Surfy Surfy: Single Fins! i find myself spending increasingly more time casing Surfy Surfy and Moonlight Glassing. i have severe board-lust. this is a link to some modern single fins. looking really appetizing.
Google News | loathing ABC News' handling of the debates further proof that ABC News' questions were fucking awful. straight out of Karl "turd blossom" Rove's talking points play book. These guys should be demoted if not fired. jerk wads.
Found Footage: Tips for Dating an Apple Coder from Mahalo Daily. this can be applied to dating graphic designers, coders, photogs. anyone who sits in front of computer for rediculously too long periods of time.
I was grubbing through my mint stats when I happened up on The City Loves You, a multi-editor spanish/english-language blog about the street art scenes and its intersections with gallery, fashion, music and commercial art with an emphasis on mexico-based artists and international collaboration projects. Each editor essentially has their own blog sections in the City Hotel section, with all entries appearing on the front page. Editors cover their home town scenes from all over Mexico. I’m particularly interested in the Guadalajara section, as I travel to the GDL frequently and I’m always keeping my ear out for good art/music shows.
It’s nice to see a highly visible blog-style website dedicated to street culture in Mexico. I haven’t come across very many information resources that are as accessible and consistently updated. If you wanna know what’s happening in Mexico’s street art scene give The City Loves You a look.
Re:vision Camera Cuffs recycled jewelery for photographers. actually some nice pieces, i'll take the DoF one. $180 though. too steep for this fashion conscious rural mexico dweller. killer header graphic/logo on their website. [via Cool Hunting]
Yale Daily News - For senior, abortion a medium for art, political discourse "Beginning next Tuesday, Shvarts will be displaying her senior art project, a documentation of a nine-month process during which she artificially inseminated herself "as often as possible" while periodically taking abortifacient drugs to induce miscarriag
Architecture and fashion | guardian.co.uk The Guardian UK has a slideshow of 9 architects and their fashion sense. great slideshow. Libeskin gets a thumbs down. I like Mike Davies' all red thing and Zaha Hadid dresses like her sculptures.
Hi, my name is Ed Fladung, I'm a recovering web-designer who moved to Mexico about 4 years ago. Learned to surf, got married and bought a nice camera. This is my weblog/photoblog. It covers broad subjects like becoming an ex-pat, surfing, photography, graphic design, music, art, architecture, living in mexico, all things Apple and WordPress related, etc... You can find more about me here. I hope you enjoy.
Powered by WordPress and my own home-rolled flavor of the Qwilm! theme. I call it the QPwilm! theme and you can download it if you'd like. This is my 4th iteration past the publicly available QPwilm! theme.
