"Why am I a designer? The facetious answer is, there's nothing else I can do; the real answer is, there's nothing else I can do."

HAHAHA...sigh :(

Live your life, live your life, live your life.
Illustrations by: Christopher Niemann

I am a bit late in the game to post this video even though I had the intention to do so the day they debuted the video. OK Go is out with another inventive and creative (well deserved to be) viral video albeit not being a big fan of their music. I tried hard to like them in their freshmen year. Lately, I noticed a lot of the optical illusion spacial design projects, you know the ones when a designer/artist uses an urban space to create a 2D artwork. It's mind blowing and bending to figure out their methods and this video takes it to a new level, to which may i also add one sequence shoots are also on trend with music videos lately ( Phoenix's Trying to Be Cool, as an example). Special Guest and 1st Ave Machine were the agencies that collaborated with the band and their approach was simple: not a music video, it's a brand project. OK Go has become more known for their creative videos than their actual music. It's a smart move; their brand is a unique, humorous, ironic personality.

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Wow did I just type a large paragraph which I haven't done in months. It feels nice. Definitely does.

This 30 seconds commercial for Nikon is so simplistic and calming (i swear I felt a breeze but only to realize it was from my heater a second later). Beautifully shot and edited, Nikon is advertising a new camera that will soon arrive, and the enigmatic sound of the shutter sends nostalgia to many camera fanatics. Apparently this is a hint at the old school design of the new DSLR. interesting, I seriously got chills. weird. I'm a weirdo.

----- Age -----

Since I can remember, I'm obsessed at the science of aging and the psychology of aging. The characteristics and flaws that come with each number adds emotional pressure, which is unique to each of one of us. I recall, and my mom corroborates, being a young child and constantly counting our ages into the future (if my old sister is 30, I'd be 20 or if I'm 25, my youngest cousin will be 16). Being a curious person, I always imagined what that age would feel like. So when I watched this 4 minute video of a single person who's aging process was created by animators and special computer effects, it puts me at the spot again, imagining how I will look 20 years from now. This video artwork gravitates your attention and holds it, it is so subtle but astonishing, exactly what aging does. Sometimes you forget what you use to look like or maybe you only remember looking the same way for a long time until someone points out an old picture and realizing the subtle changes.

----- "We Press Play. Don't Press Pause" -----

Initially "Thift Shop" didn't quite move me, nor did it catch my attention, abeit Macklemore and Ryan Lewis giant step away from accustomed, over-recycled hip hop crap of the current age, Same Love  definitely won me over (perhaps until i preview their whole album). If this beat doesn't pull you in, the words most irrevocably will. And his awkward vintage shirt is cute. Preach.

----- Dying of cutness! -----

Created by advertising agency McCann Melbourne: Dumb ways to Die.

*Dare you to not smile while watching it.*

Music produced by Ollie McGill; sung by Emily Lubitz can be downloaded on iTunes already. 
It's created for Melbourne's Metro PSA for public safety. I think it's the one of the most fun and creative PSA. There's also the website to check out: http://dumbwaystodie.com/

----- "Out of Sight, Out of Mind" -----

alarming. it starts with educating the young.

----- Embroidered Powder -----

Incredible. Speechless. At first, your mind thinks it's an embroidery of some kind that turns out to be snow drawings (carvings) by an artist of the name of Sonja Hinrichsen. Just incredible, really.

Genius. They actually used 220 t-shirts to create this stop motion animation. It's a brilliant idea but having to use that many t-shirts makes me eco-conscious self twitch; nonetheless, creativity has no cost or price tag. McDonald noticed their unique idea and gave them probably a nice cheque to create a commercial based on the same concept. Oh to be an artist. enjoy!

So true in every way.

----- Comic Without Sans! -----

What if Comic Sans took over logos?

For those readers who don't speak French — but, seriously who is even reading my blog— 'sans' in French mean 'without'; in type, it means without serif, which are the little stroke in the letters. In my world, Comic Sans is ironically named because we really can go "without" it. I remember in my childhood days, when home desktop computers were happening, Comic Sans was kind of cool because honestly there wasn't much to offer in the font book. Now it has become the world's most hated font. There are so many jokes, mockery and essays against it (there is even a ban comic sans group); the reason? Comin Sans is like an indirect, kick in the groin insult to typographers. The time it takes to design a set of typeface is so strenuous and detailed, accurate and planned, the job is not haphazard, and it is what Comic Sans look like: a lazy, child job. We have no excuse now for lazy-looking fonts; yesteryear, we didn't have many fonts to begin with; todayyear, floods of excellent, I-could-cry-because-it's-so-beautiful fonts bombard our repertoire, and hand-written font look less lazy.

Comic Sans, designed by Vincent Connare, was modeled after comic books (no way!), and introduced it in Windows 95 (ah, the good old days). Connare, while on job, discovered the wrong use of Time News Roman in a software that is meant to be casual, Times News Roman seemed too serious. Thus he created the softer font with curves. Initially the results were positive, like I said, there weren't anything similar back then. Type was not not a priority at offices and homes, people never thought emotions can be projected through the choice of font.

Office workers unfortunately still use it, probably to send spam mail to each other (remember the crazy ones telling you must send it to 20 friends else you will have no love life, IN COMIC SANS). To me, Comic Sans cannot be used for text due to its lack of readability, and be seldom used as header. Children is probably the only exception; though there are much better suited fonts today.

Time to waste? Youtube: comic sans.

I'm Comic Sans, Asshole from joehollier on Vimeo.

BBC Article
Ban Comic Sans

----- Ah Doe Beh -----

Fotoshop by Adobé from Jesse Rosten on Vimeo.

----- Ay Yi Yi Ai Wei Wei! -----

Ai Wei Wei is bringing his Sunflower Seeds to New York! The infamous Sunflower Seeds art installation began in London at the Tate's Modern, which regrettably makes me wished I began my Europe trip one year earlier because I missed this incredible art piece by Ai Wei Wei. He and 1600 Chinese hand-painted the one hundred million porcelain sunflower seeds displayed in the large space. The term, "You have to see it to believe it", stands true for this. The notion is to demonstrate the art of craftsmanship, mass consumption and the Chinese industry. Traditionally in those days, especially during my mom's childhood, families worked at home to construct and built things. Like my grandmother and mother would tell me, they would go out, search for work and bring them back home to finish while preparing dinner and taking care of the family: envelopes, paper bags, candy wraps, etc. It was a group effort. People can criticize how wasteful this project is financially and time wise but they can also be people who could never understand the impact of art.

----- Très mignon! -----

Les illustrations sont brilliantes!

ICE CUBE AND EAMES ON THE SAME SENTENCE, who knew?!!

http://youtu.be/eGG_UZE0Rxs

- Is that a gram ?
- New card. What do you think ? 
Whoa-ho. Very nice.  Look at that.
Picked them up from the printer's yesterday. 
Good coloring.
That's bone. And the lettering is something called Silian Rail.
It's very cool, Bateman, but that's nothing. Look at this.
That is really nice.
Eggshell with Romalian type. What do you think ?
Nice.
Jesus. That is really super. How'da nitwit like you get so tasteful?
I can't believe that Bryce... prefers Van Patten's card to mine.
But wait. You ain't seen nothin' yet.  
Raised lettering, pale nimbus... white.
Impressive. Very nice. Hmm. Let's see Paul Allen's card.
Look at that subtle off-white coloring. The tasteful thickness of it.
Oh, my God. It even has a watermark.
Is something wrong, Patrick ?  You're sweating.

The famous business card scene in American Psycho.

----- Freddie Mercury Goes Google -----