ten things i have learned about the sea from lorenzo fonda on Vimeo.
Caroline
Tuesday, March 29, 2011
10 Things I Have Learned About the Sea
An ethereal video shot by Lorenzo Fonda as he traveled on a vessel from Los Angeles to Shanghai in December 2008. A little over 10 minutes, but definitely worth your time.
Caroline
Caroline
Wednesday, March 23, 2011
Myeongbeom Kim
Educated in South Korea and the United States, Myeongbeom Kim produces otherworldly installations and sculpture works that juxtapose man-made elements with nature to create surreal dream spaces. I can't get enough.
Monday, March 21, 2011
Disaster and the Poster
I read a poignant post from one of my favourite design blogs, The Best Part. He spoke of how the natural disaster in Japan prompted designers to create posters to raise funds toward recovery efforts and how, in the process, he felt the purpose/concept of the poster seemed to get lost and instead added to the machine of production and consumption. Over and over again, he asked the question of, "What are we trying to communicate?" I felt like his words could similarly be applied to journalism. I'm copying his post below, but if you'd like to read from the original source, go here.
"I'm taking a break today from the usual link dump to address a trend I personally find disturbing, and hopefully get your opinion on the subject. As we've all seen with the current situation in Japan, the horrors of natural disaster inspire designers to create posters, of which proceeds go to help fund recovery efforts. This in itself is a noble act, we all want to do what we can when we witness fellow humans in dire need of assistance. We do what we know, and poster designers create posters. Sometimes, however, I think we lose sight of the purpose of the poster itself and instead create misguided monuments to our own ego, adding yet another piece to an already huge pile of production and consumption.
The question it seems we fail to ask ourselves before creating these posters is "What is the concept of this piece? What am I trying to communicate? Does anyone really want this monument to tragedy hanging on their wall as a decoration?" I understand that the money raised goes to a good cause, but is the middleman of the poster really a necessary step between the donator and recipient? I'm not going to single out specific designs because I truly believe these pieces are done by designers with their hearts in the right place. I will say, however, that most of the designs I've seen so far focus on two elements: the red circle of the Japanese flag and some sort of icon representing either the earthquake, the tsunami or the ensuing wreckage created by both.
What are we saying? If the intent is to simply communicate that there was a terrible disaster in Japan, then I guess they are successful. But shouldn't the purpose of a relief poster be to create something that motivates its audience to act while communicating a message of hope or some form of kinship within the human race? This is after all a piece of art that is intended to be hung on a wall in someone's home or place of business. As poster designers, it is our duty to create something that functions beyond a simple depiction of a disaster and inspires empathy or even action on the part of the audience. It seems as if we, in a race to get something produced and publicized as quickly as possible, forget the most important role of poster design to begin with...What is its purpose, and what does it say?
I'm definitely not saying we shouldn't donate as much as we can to the relief effort in Japan, obviously this is a terrible tragedy that deserves our help. By all means, donate as much as you can to foundations like the Red Cross or Salvation Army. But do we need another monument to tragedy and consumption in our homes? I can't say I won't purchase a poster that helps fund relief efforts in Japan, but if I do, it will be one that communicates a sense of hope and reverence for Japanese culture rather than destruction and pity."
"I'm taking a break today from the usual link dump to address a trend I personally find disturbing, and hopefully get your opinion on the subject. As we've all seen with the current situation in Japan, the horrors of natural disaster inspire designers to create posters, of which proceeds go to help fund recovery efforts. This in itself is a noble act, we all want to do what we can when we witness fellow humans in dire need of assistance. We do what we know, and poster designers create posters. Sometimes, however, I think we lose sight of the purpose of the poster itself and instead create misguided monuments to our own ego, adding yet another piece to an already huge pile of production and consumption.
The question it seems we fail to ask ourselves before creating these posters is "What is the concept of this piece? What am I trying to communicate? Does anyone really want this monument to tragedy hanging on their wall as a decoration?" I understand that the money raised goes to a good cause, but is the middleman of the poster really a necessary step between the donator and recipient? I'm not going to single out specific designs because I truly believe these pieces are done by designers with their hearts in the right place. I will say, however, that most of the designs I've seen so far focus on two elements: the red circle of the Japanese flag and some sort of icon representing either the earthquake, the tsunami or the ensuing wreckage created by both.
What are we saying? If the intent is to simply communicate that there was a terrible disaster in Japan, then I guess they are successful. But shouldn't the purpose of a relief poster be to create something that motivates its audience to act while communicating a message of hope or some form of kinship within the human race? This is after all a piece of art that is intended to be hung on a wall in someone's home or place of business. As poster designers, it is our duty to create something that functions beyond a simple depiction of a disaster and inspires empathy or even action on the part of the audience. It seems as if we, in a race to get something produced and publicized as quickly as possible, forget the most important role of poster design to begin with...What is its purpose, and what does it say?
I'm definitely not saying we shouldn't donate as much as we can to the relief effort in Japan, obviously this is a terrible tragedy that deserves our help. By all means, donate as much as you can to foundations like the Red Cross or Salvation Army. But do we need another monument to tragedy and consumption in our homes? I can't say I won't purchase a poster that helps fund relief efforts in Japan, but if I do, it will be one that communicates a sense of hope and reverence for Japanese culture rather than destruction and pity."
Caroline
Sunday, March 20, 2011
National Geographic recreates flying house from 'Up'
That's right. National Geographic created a real-life version of the flying house in Pixar's animated film Up.
"National Geographic Channel and a team of scientists, engineers, and two world-class balloon pilots successfully launched a 16' X 16' house 18' tall with 300 8' colored weather balloons from a private airfield east of Los Angeles and set a new world record for the largest balloon cluster flight ever attempted. The entire experimental aircraft was more than 10 stories high, reached an altitude of over 10,000 feet, and flew for approximately one hour."
For more pictures, go here.
Caroline
"National Geographic Channel and a team of scientists, engineers, and two world-class balloon pilots successfully launched a 16' X 16' house 18' tall with 300 8' colored weather balloons from a private airfield east of Los Angeles and set a new world record for the largest balloon cluster flight ever attempted. The entire experimental aircraft was more than 10 stories high, reached an altitude of over 10,000 feet, and flew for approximately one hour."
For more pictures, go here.
Caroline
Wednesday, March 16, 2011
Cool advertisement
I'm loving the interactive element to this advert! Unfortunately I can't embed it, so watch the ad here. It's worth your 22 seconds. Also, if anyone can tell me technically how that was done, please do. I'm really curious!
Caroline
Caroline
Monday, March 14, 2011
The State newspaper
So I was searching online for images of the front page of The State newspaper in South Carolina for a music video on which I'm working (long story; I'll post it later). Of all pages to appear in Google images, a page in 2005 appeared, with a front page story by me! Completely random and unfortunately pretty small, but I have to post anyway, just because.
Thursday, March 10, 2011
50 Unexplainable Black & White Photos
I think the explanation is pretty simple - people are goofy and have enjoyed taking silly pictures for as long as they've had the ability to do so. Go here to browse them all.
Caroline
Caroline
Sunday, March 6, 2011
Non-Sign II
Annie Han and Daniel Mihalyo are the artists behind Washington-based Lead Pencil Studio. I am completely blown away by the beauty and ingenuity of their "Non-Sign II" installation.
Located on the US-Canadian border, the installation is a billboard advertising fresh air, or no advertising, or imagination.
Caroline
Located on the US-Canadian border, the installation is a billboard advertising fresh air, or no advertising, or imagination.
Caroline
Friday, March 4, 2011
The Oscars according to kids
The Kids Act Out is an AOL series (just learned this). Recently, the pint-sized actors created parodies for each of the Best Picture nominations. I must admit I have not yet seen The King's Speech nor did I have any interest until I saw this video.
Also, Black Swan
Inception
The Fighter
True Grit
The Social Network
127 Hours
The Kids Are All Right
Caroline
You’re watching Kids Act Out - The King’s Speech. See the Web's top videos on AOL Video
Also, Black Swan
You’re watching Kids Act Out - Black Swan. See the Web's top videos on AOL Video
Inception
You’re watching Kids Act Out - Inception. See the Web's top videos on AOL Video
The Fighter
You’re watching Kids Act Out - The Fighter. See the Web's top videos on AOL Video
True Grit
You’re watching Kids Act Out - True Grit. See the Web's top videos on AOL Video
The Social Network
You’re watching Kids Act Out - The Social Network. See the Web's top videos on AOL Video
127 Hours
You’re watching Kids Act Out - 127 Hours. See the Web's top videos on AOL Video
The Kids Are All Right
You’re watching Kids Act Out - The Kids Are All Right. See the Web's top videos on AOL Video
Caroline
Wednesday, March 2, 2011
the.
the. is a design duo consisting of Hong Kong-born Sherwood Forlee and Japanese-born Mihoko Ouchi. They meld functionality and a delightful sense of fun and quirkiness to make innovative products. I'm loving their walls notebook for the inner-graffiti artist in all of us. Someone needs to expand on this idea and make wallpaper designs. They'd be perfect to install for parties where guests could tag it up. I actually saw something similar when I was in South Africa. There were sick stencils of Nike shoes which had repeatedly been painted on a big sheet of paper. Party-goers at the commercial event were able to color and design the shoes with markers. It was genius. Try as I might though, I wasn't able to get my hands on the stencil itself.
Caroline
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