links for 2009-05-20
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coming in snow leopard
links for 2009-05-19
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Scientists In New York Unveil Fossil Of Lemur Monkey Hailed As Man's Earliest Ancestor
links for 2009-05-18
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design blog from under consideration
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and you think your garbage is overflowing?
links for 2009-05-15
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not since stagmeister's aiga poster, have me seen athopotype
links for 2009-05-11
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Sugar Stacks tells us
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photos of an abandoned nasa unit in california
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flickr stream of folk typography
MA Guide
These some spreads from the guidebook for Modern Atantla's Design is Human event. Find out more here.
This is the accumulation of a lot of work by a lot of good people. Hope to see you there.
links for 2009-05-05
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a self-organized library where the “self” is over 100 people who joined in an effort to bring together texts on art and to serve as a catalyst for critical discourse and creative exchange
links for 2009-05-03
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Once it was bad form to end a paragraph with an exclamation mark. Now it's borderline obligatory.
links for 2009-05-01
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changing the way sods machines work
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object in landscape
links for 2009-04-30
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who says bicycle riders cant have a fly helmet
links for 2009-04-29
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design inspiration now in print
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geometric abstraction gallery
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new southern style
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Made in Montreal, authentic since 1987
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drooling over this
MA09 / Design is Human / Event & Home Tour / May 12-17
MA is Modern Atlanta. 2009's modern home tour and week of design events is being held May 12-17. This year also includes some film screenings including Koolhaas Houselife and Gary Hustwit's Objectified. The launch event this year will be held at the new White Provision building in West Midtown. Check the full schedule of nightly events is found on the MA website. Hope to see you there!
links for 2009-04-24
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a staircase of books
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artist Heather Benning transformed an farm house into a life-size dollhouse
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you know who you are
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strange inspiring photography
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have a dslr that shoots hd video? a must.
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naz's photos of san fran
links for 2009-04-23
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without breaking the bank
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interview of an artist, film series by hillman curtis
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light bulbs with strange, soft and beautiful shapes.
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that's my brother
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did you even know you could have plugins for Safari?
links for 2009-04-22
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an everyday life interiors magazine
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in 2010 it will introduce the first fully compostable snack chip bag made from plant-based materials
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a reaction ot the colonisation of public places by billboards
links for 2009-04-21
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interactive posters that sound like what they show
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NASA's Cassini spacecraft is sending us more images
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Arkitip designs
Rabbit Ears and the Cutting of Our Cable
We turned off our cable last month. The day Comcast came by and got their HD/DVR box, we held a small farewell ceremony. Goodbye recorded TV shows. So long, fast-forwarding-through-the-commercials. We wore black and snacked alot that day.
We noticed over the years, our cable service had grown: first HBO, then On-Demand, then a DVR, then HD, then an HD-DVR. The feature list had evolved into one fat, slightly offish, monthly cable bill.
Our decision to cut came from a glance at our monthly household budget, which in turn made us think more critically about all of our services, and specifically our television watching habits. We kept up with some televisions shows regularly. While at other times it was more like a daily ritual. Television was just on during our mornings.
With an Apple TV we had gotten some time ago, we were more accustomed to downloaded shows & movies. Boxee brought Hulu to our media room. And then there was the modest DVD and Blu-ray collection. But none of these provided our local news.
The following day after the box was taken away, the look on Florrie's face was as if she had jumped in a cold lake. Mine too. It was not like the day we canceled Netflix at all. Instead it was a full-body, shock-to-the-system sort of shiver. Things would never be the same.
Until our saving grace appeared: A twenty dollar digital antenna. It picks up over-the-air channels, in HD mind you, all with no subscription cost. Evidently these "rabbit ears," as they call them, were quite popular back in the day. Atlanta's channel offering is quite great too. World News Tonight and the Today Show in 1080p? Sign us up!
links for 2009-04-17
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wandering the streets of London and Paris reordering found objects
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never look under your seats again
My secret love affair with the Frosty Clementine
- Ladies and Gentlemen, I present to you the fabU-lous, most delightful, Frosty Celementine.
(eh-hem, a round of applause here perhaps.)
This is the result of five years of research, study and intensive testing. Development and growth over this time, both formulaically and emotionally, contributed to this iteration, now release for public consumption.
There's a few secret variations I will share with you one day. For now, please give the basic recipe a chilly will good time: frostyclementine.com
Please note that a snowball is not crucial. Crushed ice works just as well as snow. (But I mean, WOW have you made the drink with a bona-fide snowball? omgbbq.) Also, only a few bartenders know the drink by name upon order. One is in Estes Park, Colorado, by the name of Terrance.
CHIRP for spring
Grab the latest CHIRP mix here: http://chirp.byrdhouse.com
Covert art by Drew Dominey.
Slapping the Cowboy
We just launched a new site celebrating the yellow-clad hero of pressure treated pine: YellaFella, Yellawood's ambassador of quality building products. Be sure to check out the "Fight the Bad Guy" part if you're having a tough week and need someone to take it out on. YellaFella launched his first series of commercials about his Adventures in Rotwood. We produced the website over a few short months, working with actors, musicians, cowboys, animators and the 3d effects gurus- The Westside Collective. I helped with art direction and the flash. Aaron did the front-end design work. Check out YellaFella.com
Portraits on Black
Check out this group of portraits of my co-workers at Armchair.
Inspiration from Matt Hutchinson, original concept by Olan MIlls.
I have some work at MOCA GA Jan 31-Mar 21
I am part of a group show at MOCA GA running JAN 31-MAR 21 2009 The exhibit salutes "the rising movers and shakers of the Georgia Art Scene."
The opening is on Saturday JAN 31 from 6-9. I will be showing some pieces from the NOT•A•CLOCK series, including this one.
Directions to MOCA
Snuggie vs. Slanket: The Ultimate Consumer Products Death Match
Round one of this gift giving season are two marvelous 19.95 products as seen on television: the Snuggie, a monk-red blanket with sleeves (also sold in wizard-blue), and the unfortunately named challenger, the Slanket.
Gladiator, ready? Challenger, ready? *whistle
Who do you think will win?
UPDATE: So as it turns out, the Snuggie is actually a rip-off of the Slanket. The Slanket was created by Gary Clegg in 1998 when he was a freshman in college. VIA
CHIRP Holiday Edition 2008
Grab the easy-touch listening tunes of this specially released edition of CHIRP for the holidays. Perfect for any flight or long drive to see family. CHIRP Holiday 2008 mix
The Art Ad of Bob Marley on Krog Street
I generally stay away from discussions on street art, but I pass by Krog Street each morning on my way in and thought this was worth mentioning. The Bob Marley (I thought first it was Whoopi Goldberg) mural was recently painted over. And not with typical replacement, but a blatant defacement that reads "Art Ad." The Krog Street Tunnel's history has always had the spirit of a public art space in Atlanta, so I had always questioned the "mini advertisement" that accompanied the airbrushed portrait. But wow, this slap in the face could be heard from the other end of the tunnel.
Holiday Bonus
Byrdhouse and Weight Watchers would like to offer you this special gift during the holiday season: 250 FlexPoints. These can be used to splurge (in moderation of course) on special treats, parties or dining out. Please don't tell Weight Watchers.
Top Ten Top Tens
These are the Top Ten reasons why I'll click on a link that has a Top Ten anything:
- Turns Out: I'm a reasonably intelligent person that loves pop culture.
- Paris Hilton (or not. pick your favorite celebretard and we'll go with that)
- Best Game Ever? Fight amongst yourselves.
- I Love Cracked.
- I Want to Bitch About How Their Top Ten Wasn't Knowledgeable Enough. (Welcome to the Club)
- Vh1 Has Brainwashed Me Into Oblivion.
- I Am Very Interested in That Field.
- I Have No Life.
- I Wanna See What's the Best.
- I Love the Mystique.
Let the Right One In
The Swedish director of this haunting vampire tale replies to news of an American remake in the works by Cloverfield director Matt Reeves and sci-fi producer JJ Abrams:
Remakes should be made of movies that aren’t very good, that gives you the chance to fix whatever has gone wrong. I’m very proud of my movie and think it’s great, but the Americans might be of an other opinion. The saddest thing for me would be to see that beautiful story made into something mainstream. I don’t like to whine, but of course – if you’d spent years on painting a picture, you’d hate to hear buzz about a copy even before your vernissage! 1
Last evening we saw Let the Right One In. It was a great, and yet somehow, an underwhelming experience for me. Perhaps my expectations were too high. It had all the elements that I want in a good movie: character, story, photography, yet something was still missing.
The photography tends to be mostly blues, greens, grays and the cool whites of fluorescent lighting. The framing is highly composed and stationary, with very, very (very) short depths of field. The architectural setting is decidedly modernist, buildings which are trendy by today's standards, but in the early eighties were tinged with institutional/socialist qualities.
Despite how great it is, the photography isn't what makes this film good. (Also, it is certainly not the typographical selection for the subtitles, which makes you work harder than you should to read the dialogue.) It is the story that does it. It is the complexity in its characters.
I failed to have a close connection to the cultural dimension of the film though and this is where I think a good film can be a great film to an audience. I felt foreign to it. I experienced the same thing when seeing Ringu, the Japanese predecessor to the American version, The Ring I liked the remake better. I'm curious to see if an American version of Let the RIght One In will do the same.
Why do I still have a slide projector and a minidisc player?
There have been many instances where I have thought of a fresh appropriation for something created years back on a different device like a tape deck or minidisk player. These bits of sound (or in some cases, images) never made the "technological jump" with the rest of my digital luggage. There they rested, locked into their own proprietary format, inable to be quickly realized in a new contex, only available on an abandoned device. One may choose to sell outdated equipment on ebay or donate them to a charity. Not me.
This got me to thinking how certain playback devices offer unique player-specific qualities. The cassette player adds an unexpected hiss to its recordings. The crackle of a scratched LP. The striped visual noise of a VCR whose tracking is a bit off. Likewise, there are recording-specific attributes, those that are encoded into the work at the time of the recording. Film does not look like video.
From wikipedia:
"The medium is the message" is a phrase coined by Marshall McLuhan meaning that the form of a medium embeds itself in the message, creating a symbiotic relationship by which the medium influences how the message is perceived, creating subtle change over time.
How might the media itself posses meaning regardless of the content it stores? Furthermore, should this understanding of media and their specific qualities belong in the communication designer's toolset? What if a movie that is set in the eighties is shot on a technology from that same time period, for instance on betamax?
In a recent exhibit at Art House in Castleberry Hill during LE FLASH, an artist displayed ephemera related to the Challenger explosion. The choice of slide projectors and 8mm film projectors added a layer of meaning that transgressed the content itself. It allowed you to see and experience the event as though you were in that 1986 elementary school classroom when the tragedy occurred.
Where Do Chicken Nuggets Come From?
We went to see Banksy's installation of animatronics entitled, "Village Pet Store and Charcoal Grill" now running on Seventh Avenue near Bleeker Street. It's like the hall of presidents only with fish sticks and hot dogs instead of presidents. See more videos and images here.
Why I like films about time travel
The actual why I'm not sure about. So sorry for that misrepresentative post title. Actually I'm now thinking it might have been better titled, "Please Tell me why I like FIlms About Time Travel," because I really wish I had a clue why. Back to the Future, Donnie Darko, Memento, Primer, Twelve Monkeys All are about time, all are on my favorites list.
CHIRP Fall 2008
This season's CHIRP mix is out. The cover art is done by the talented Mick Bailey. Get the Chirp Fall edition now.
Fashion Statement
I'm contributing work to Fashion Statement, an upcoming exhibition at Mary Stanley Studio in Castleberry Hill, Atlanta. Using Polaroid’s new portable technology my subject is the fashion choices of the people I see every day, my Armchair coworkers. Making a daily capture over the length of the show, October 2-24, I'll will be adding a new 2×3″ print each day. The final piece will be the culmination of the show duration. Join us during the Castleberry Hill Art Stroll on Oct 24th, 6-10pm. Mary Stanley Studio is on 211 Peters St. SW, Atlanta, GA 30313. Google Map it. Tel. 404.892.3211.
100 Dots
Working on a lecture series poster celebrating 100 years of Architecture at Georgia Tech. See the finished poster here.
Yesterday's Future, Today
A visit to the Kennedy Space Center in photos.
CHIRP Summer 08
Grab the summer CHIRP compilation before your next road trip. Cover art by Farbod Kokabi.
Today is Your Day Off
Hello Kev, it's June 15th, 2008. It's an otherwise normal Sunday aside from being your very first Father's Day. I'll admit that as I write this (reflecting as one does on such hallmark occasions), I'm astonished most by the fact that I've even made the time to write you. Other musings and pursuits have been on the front burner. I just want you to know a few things:
You now have a baby girl with Florrie, a fine woman who has held your hand for some six years now. She's walking in Candler Park today with your daughter Annabelle, Mom and Gigi. Though she was concerned with the burden of walking to the car with a stroller and a mammoth dog in tow, she didnt even quip when you intentionally did not volunteer to assist like you normally do in these instances. It's as if she's whispering, "be self-indulged today hon," by not saying anything at all.
And so you write and work on a summer CHIRP mix and think about how Annabelle is fast approaching three months. She's smiling, speaking mumblecore and getting fat thighs, and oh gawd do you love that.
There are several mini projects in various stages of development to mention.
You've started wrangling Flickr images tagged with "friedchicken" and/or "waffles." It's simply called Fried Chicken and Waffles. Your next step is to arrange this gallery into a limited edition hardback celebrating... well, you guessed it.
There's a 35mm E6 slide light casing you're working on too, inspired by Grayson's Slide Lamp. It's your first time experimenting with laser cut acrylic.
The Monster Quest motion-sensing wilderness camera you got is still in test-mode. One day you hope to attach it to a fence and make a photography series on people picking up after their dogs. (Like I said, it's still in test-mode.)
Oh and that oil painting of Gigi for Annabelle's room; it's on its way. She is one stately explorer of the Alaskan tundra, just like you all dreamed. Do compare the image vs the painting:
You're working at Armchair, and you love it.
OK the call just came. The ride is here to go to for brunch.
Talk soon,
Kevin
Future Home of Frontier Land and Dinosaur World
Down a dirt road on the outskirts of Boulder County, Colorado.
Chirp T-shirt
Threadless Select is a line of tees where an artist is invited to design a shirt. My favorite red headed giant, Justin Van Hoy has modified the CHIRP cover art he did last summer so it's ready to wear. Get it at Threadless
Design is Human - May 6-11
I'm proud to announce the MA08: Design Is Human event in Atlanta May 6-11, 2008.
MA is the result of the vision and efforts of Bernard McCoy and Elayne DeLeo to unify the greater Atlanta design community through modern home tours and events throughout the city. I have been fortunate to have been involved on the branding-concept-strategy-design side of things. It’s been a team affair of armchairs, pc students and design friends.
Join us, explore some of those homes you've had your eye on during the Modern Atlanta Home Tour. Other highlight events include the wine tasting at Poliform SWITCH, the Belgium Design & Fashion Event for Darfur, and the Launch Party at Mason Murer Gallery.
Ticket prices vary. Many events are free. More information is available at the MA web site.
CHIRP Spring Mix
Here's a new CHIRP mixtape for you to grab. Gabriel did the cover art.
We had a baby girl
Her name is Annabelle. She's grumpy when she's hungry.
