Caramblogage

Hello, dear reader This post, like the title announces, is going to be about the difficulty of turning meat into decent and legible vector art without making it look like shit. The problem is simple: meat, when cooked, turns into a brown colour, that, when accompanied by the salubrious smells of cooked flesh, delights the palette and the sinus. I love meat, in most of its forms, whether it be hamburger, steak or sausage. Thus imagine my delight at receiving an assignment from StudentSN to create Ramadan (or Ramazan or Radaman) gifts and general decoration for them.* I, almost at once, set out to fill my belly and my eyes with the sights and flavours of Arab and Turkish dishes which might very well be served up during a Ramadan Iftar. Lamb Chops were consumed, as was kubeba (the singular, meatball-like form of kibbeh), as were various sweets. All perfectly delicious and entirely pleasing to the eye. No pictures, as I generally trust my gastronomical memory to serve me on occasions when...

I stumbled across a post by the perspicacious Lunatica Desnuda, about how comic artist Curt Rapala (I'm sure I've seen some of his work somewhere… someone remind me) has taken almost all of Disneys innocent princesses and recast them into Sin City of all things! Original…

The little lego man turns thirty! The site Gominimango celebrates this with games, t-shirts, a competition and a very fun film to commemorate the occasion. It can even be watched in 3D, if you have a pail of bichromatic glasses lying around... But it is a lovely tribute to something that som many of us remember fondly from childhood days, or with regret at giving our lego away... Created by the Lobos, hopefully using stop-motion animation.

In an attempt to move away from the more dangerous things in life, such as hmanely catching rabbits, flying to the moon in search of Wedneslydale or sheeprustling, Messrs. Wallace and Gromit, formerly of Anti-Pesto, have taken up part-time modeling for Harvey Nichols. They present us with an amazing transformation, which, in a wierd way, actually looks cracking great! The campaign is brought to your poppers by DDB London with photography by Giles Revell. Wallace: Prince of Wales check grey two-piece suit by Paul Smith Gromit: Ray Ban Wayfarer sunglasses and purple stripe silk scarf by Duchamp. Wallace: navy cashmere jacket and silk tapered trousers by Alexander McQueen, Dolce & Gabbana fitted white shirt and Giorgio Armani tie. Gromit: navy silk Paul Smith scarf Lady Tottington: black draped jersey ‘Acorn’ dress by Alexander McQueen, red patent ‘Triclo’ shoes by Christian Louboutin and metallic bronze ’Puffy’ bag by Zagliani More!

For anyone who remembers the pen madness craze, I now posted the video on the brilliant Vimeo site, allowing you to watch the thing in Fullscreen and HDlike quality. Just clicik right here to watch!

Two o'clock in the morning is generally a good time to randomly surf the web and the blogs. This lovely lady, known to me only as Wow Legs, points the blogophere in general to this brilliant Manga face creator . Akin to the Simpsonize me Viral effort, this allows you to create a mangaesque face for yourself, using prefab elements that actually work. Hours of fun to be had here. I think this might be how some tv cartoons are made, right down to the script, except that they don't possess the power of a handsome jawline. Just to clarify: This is Wow Legs manga avatar. Generally, I try not to mangafy people I haven't seen in real life. The picture above is something I threw together as a test. UPDATE: I don't know what happened here, but my clarification seems to have caused more damage than good. As my editorial standards prevent me from knowingly misinforming you, I posted the clarification (above) to do exactly that and not mislead the reader. I also wanted to preserve ...

AdWeek has sent out the assignment of creating campaign poster for the two American Presidential hopefuls to the huddled masses of professional advertisers,  tired of yet another biased (candidate-generated) campagin ad. Some interesting results to be found here. Generally, I try not to play favourites, but the ad (by TBWA\CHIAT\DAY) that I could relate to most is displayed above. Probably has to do with not living in the US. However, I have the sneaking suspicion that it is not as simple as that particular ad makes it seem

from Vimeoh, that resplendent repository of rendered radiance, this trailer for a film that will never be made. Put together out of computer game renderings and soundtrack bites, it is a beautiful vision of what could be…       . The Death of Jar Jar (Supreme Edition), by Darth Angelus

and on what a subject. Using the dubious beauty that is Jessica Simpson for an ad may seem like a good idea. This short dialogue on adrants illustrates what probably did go wrong during the photoshoot.

Downloaded some new, free fonts from la smelterie, and played around with them a bit. The above was made with W Atch TV and Geronto bis. Very usable fonts, those, though they may require some redrawing for crooked lines.

Why is it that Vodka, of all spirits, generally generates brilliant ads? If you look at it: Absoluts classic and iconic bottle campaign, Smirnovs beautiful Clear TV Ad last year, and now this ad for Stolichnaya. It plays on socialist imagery (as is fitting for a russian drink), has a russian choir singing about vodka in the background and is just gorgeous to look at, even the the visual language may seem somewhat overused to some. I won't drink it (my current Vodka is Russian Standard ), but I do love the ad. I will except Moskovskaya from that list, as they have been running the same crappy ad after ten at night for years. The same goes for Gorbachov "Des Vodkas Reine Seele" (The pure soul of Vodka) may be a nice line, but I never got why the bottle has to break out from the ice? The spot is, by the way, brought to you through Publicis London and Psyop.

We're all used to seeing our realities distorted through Photoshop by now. Or do you really think all that advertising content is actually a faithful representation of reality? Or that Britney is still seventeen. Photography, ever since the first Daguerrotypes has been a reflection of reality through the photographers eye, and is, as such, not the objective reality that we are faced with daily. Rather it is the processed version of reality we experience through our own subjective filters. The New York Times Alex Williams explores how the prevalence of Photo-editing software in our daily lives has changed the way we accept photographs, and how these edited snapshots of our lives affect our memory in retrospect.

It looks like the empire has found earth after all, and decided to start it's conquest of this planet by parking its entire fleet over the city of San Francisco. Somewhat surreal and completely out of context, but good fun to watch. And I can't come up with a fittingly original star wars quote…

And this, from yet another pink room in the US, is just strange. The idea of being made up is not bad, though. The concept of being fictional opens up some very interesting real-life opportunities. Such as putting eyeliner on the sunshine or riding a burning raindrop or maybe just being unreal.

While we're on the subject of people uploading TV snippets to youtube, I believe this deserves mentioning as well. Actually the concept of you being a tube is somewhat scary. I think it's the general idea of being a long, round, hollow cylinder that can be used to channel liquids such as oil or pinot noir that worries me. (Though I don't think I'd mind the pinot all the much). Note the lovely cascade of letters in this post.

Okay, she may have gotten less publicity than miss Teen South Carolina, but watch this to see another example of how geography has failed in the US. Lovely concept, geography. I think it's the idea of the world being flat while turning around a match like a poster around the Fernsehturm that excites me most about this philosophical worldview.

The 100(and 88) dollar computer being an old trick by now, even though it remains a very nice piece of design, a group of students at MIT have directed their attention to building an even cheaper computer.. It recylcles old NES parts and some indian know-how to produce a web-capable, cheap and environmentally pretty friendly solution to bringing the needy online. A good Idea. Let's see where they take it. Their Blog makes pretty interesting reading, as do some of the links.

Chap Manifesto: While we're on the subject of manliness, I'm going to plug the Chap Manifesto, a guide to modern gentlemanliness, it takes the modern and enlightened man through all aspects of daily life. It was published by the same people who bring you the Chap magazine every two months, and who continue their process of thinking online. (Title Link) Revolutionary reading for the enlightened homme du monde! and for les bonnes dammes to understand what he's on about half the time! The Chap Manifesto: Revolutionary Etiquette for the Modern Gentleman (Hardcover) by Gustav Temple (Author), Vic Darkwood (Author) 144 pages Publisher: Fourth Estate (1 Oct 2001) Language English ISBN-10: 1841156574

We are all so young so cool, such a desirable target demographic for advertisers, who spend our time spending our money on finding ways to spend our money on being different. The art of manliness, that venerable fount of wisdom on all things good, honourable and manly, shares it's thoughts on the Indie myth. Worth reading. Oh, and thanks to Paul for pointing me there.

And yes and yes and YES! I don't quite know how to classify this ad from Virgin Money, but Sir Richard has brought out another lovely piece of advertising… two years ago. An oldie but a goodie! (Title link)

She is a chameleon, is Beyonce Knowles. Can you spot the subtle differences in the next three pictures? 1.) 2.) 3.) 1. Ad from L'Oreal 2. Web picture 3. Ms. Knowles, trying to please everyone by not corresponding to any kind of racial stereotype. Or trying out for the role of Jarella in the next Hulk movie.

One of the most noticeable adjustments in the time I have been gone, apart from changes in the lives of friends and relations, is the oil price: at the time I was gone, it was soaring at 140 dollars, now it is down to wait, 116 and a few odd cents. This was noticeable in Eire, of course. As we set off, petrol was selling for up to 145 cents per litre, upon retuning to Dublin, we could fill up for about 10 cents less. The problem with the pastoral scenes, mentioned below, is that, once you get out of the car, you are stuck bang in the middle of them. This also means being immersed in the side-effects. They are also mentioned above. After a week of these and accompanying scenic effects, such as cows, hunchbacked horses and loads and heaps of sheep (where all that knitted and woven Irish wear comes from), a life-long city boy starts to yearn for the polluted canyons of a city. I got those too, later on. Renting a cottage in Port Nua (or Port Noo), next to Narin, Naran, An Fhearthainn (or...

I always think of violin cases as a good way to dissimulate a handy machine Gun or violin in case of robbery. One to threaten, the other to enchant with the power of music. But what to do if you want to take your trusty watering can along?  Enter Belgian Artist Wim Delovye, who, in 2004 designed a series of form-fitting violin cases to hold unexpected objects. They are not quite as subtle as the classic, but they are quite fun to look at. His full website is also a flash treat (title link).

The Typography assignment, printed and bound. The version on display here is my all than can go wrong, Murphys law version, but it should give you an idea how the thing may look like when done. 

Sketches I did in Ireland… Didn't get around to doing too much of it due to a prevalence of nature and my extended presence therein.

For a short 3d film I'm working on, I recently drew about ten-thousand variations on the caped crusader. Though I doubt it's gonna be just as extravagant as chris Nowlans outing, they were fun to draw and are now displayed here… More to come

So, a while back, we had the angry parade, now, we have the full set of emoticons and one of the many excellent reasons that come to mind for joining a student networking site called StudenSocialNetwork. 

What follows is a summary of typography homework, in spreads exported from indesign.  Three different documents in three different formats! Booklet (100 x 100 mm): Magazine (190 x 277 mm): Book (118 x 177 mm):

Ah, beautiful Ireland. Very green, very quiet and very nice. In fact, I frequently and distinguishedely describe it as being a very nice country, this being it's prime characteristic. It appears, in approach by air, as a disorganised patch of various shades of green, arranged randomly and fenced off.  Upon landing in Dublin, notice the unfriendliness of the airport staff towards the arrived visitor, and their incompetence at reading Egyptian passports. From the point when you enter the island to the time when you leave the airport in the car, you are practically visiting cattle. We moo our way through and exeunt, rapidly, by the highway.  After that, as if in apology, the country improves markedly and rapidly, slowly turning from an industrial variety of smells to the smells of the village of the country, and finally the pastoral, and the sea. Still enchanted by the various qualities of the greens of the trees, the meadows, the grass, hedges, bushes and all the rest, one settles in...