DOT

The worlds smallest stop motion animation. Follow Dot through her teeny tiny troubled world. Shot using CellScope technology and a Nokia N8, with its 12 megapixel camera and Carl Zeiss optics.



This was simply a joy to watch.

REFRESHING

Anyone else getting fed up with the amound of, simplY, horrible website around? Poorly designed, poorly made, buggy, useless, and confusing. I don't like the way anyone can download a hot copy of dreamweaver - and then assume they're a webdesigner. It's amazing that we live in a world where more or less anyone with access to a computer can have their own little piece of the web - but please leave the design to people who know what they're doing.

Was just having my usual look through H&FJ's website, and found this masterpiece. I've been on there for ten minutes now, and haven't even begun to read any of the content, it's that visually pleasing. I'm not even going to tell you what it's about - just go look.

This has to be one of the nicest websites I've ever had the pleasure to browse.
"a typographic tour-de-force in Knockout (and a little Archer) that really repays scrolling in all directions" - Jonathan Hoefler

LET THERE BE LIGHT

I've been on a bit of an animation kick recently. Stop motion and time lapse in particular. Just found these video from Kim Pimmel, a self proclaimed designer, photographer, dj, and tinkerer... I like them already!

Light Drive from Kim Pimmel on Vimeo.

DIRTY DIANA

Just scanned a couple of negs from my Diana camera. If anyone hasn't had the pleasure of using a lomo camera, go grab yourself one at the lomography shop. I very much advocate the use of film cameras, especially 120.

Digital is all well and good - no one can argue with the cost effective practicality - but it's made people lazy. Everyone has a compact digital camera nowadays; social networking sites are flooded with poorly compositioned, incorrectly exposed snapshots... Everybody seems to love taking photos, but do any of these people actually like photography? Why take 500 snapshots, review and delete half, then store them on your laptop for the rest of eternity, only to be uploaded, downsampled, and compressed to a folder named 'random' on facebook... If you like taking photos so much, go buy a real camera, learn the basics, and discover how soulful photography can be. Don't buy that Canon 450D. Save yourself four hundred pounds and get a Pentax K100. Buy some out of date film. Cross process. Have some fun. Experiment.

Anyway, rant over. Back to Diana. There's a huge following for these plastic toy cameras these days. People have embraced and learnt to love the unpredictable outcomes, the imperfections and unrealistic results. I love it so much, I wrote an essay on it for my degree course. For some nice examples - head over to the Diana Flickr group. Here's a couple of mine.

Viva la revolucion!

TEN COMMANDMENTS

No one could argue that Dieter Rams has had a profound influence on many contemporary designers. You can find an array of his designs not only living in peoples homes, but immortalized in museums all over the world. Chief of design at Braun for more than thirty years; he has created some beautiful products, under the incantation 'weniger, aber besser' - less, but more. If you're not familiar with his work, I urge you to go find some.

How would you define good design? I often ask myself - 'Am I really a graphic designer. Have I just blagged my way through. Soon to be caught out as the fraud I really am?'... I hope not.

Dieter Rams - knowing that such things can't be measured in a finite way - constructed what he thought to be the ten basic principles of good design.

Good design:

• is innovative
• makes a product useful
• is aesthetic
• makes a product understandable
• is unobtrusive
• is honest
• is long-lasting
• is thorough down to the last detail
• is environmentally friendly
• is as little design as possible

LIFE ON MARS

Google Earth is so 2004. Have a gander at Mars instead.

NOW WE'RE TALKING

I played one of those Guitar Hero / Rock Band games the other day, and I've gotta say, it was pretty lame. Beating the drums to an inch of their plastic lives was the only fun part. Now, I used to play the drums when I was younger, so it felt vaguely natural to pick up the sticks and hit the pads to the beat of a song... But when I had a go on the "guitar", I was lost. I'm pretty sure playing the guitar is nothing like that. And where was the bass? Something needs to be done. And whoever made this video has the right idea!



Sorry for the cut-off screen. Youtube doesn't seem to embed on here since they went widescreen. Video here.

____ & ____

I love ampersands. I also quite like food, booze, and illustrations. So I obviously liked these.

Check the rest here. By Dan Beckemeyer.

I'M THE NINJABREAD MAN

Are people laughing at your mediocre standard-shaped gingerbread men? Well put a stop to it, with these ninjabread men biscuit cutters!

Molded from food-safe ABS plastic, and only $7.99. Get yours here (in September).

EVOLUTION

Good old ffffound. A neat little comparison of the trusty photoshop tool bar.