Caramblogage

Some mornings are not for the getting up. Observe as our protagonist encounters just such a strange and wondrous occurrence. Carl Klapp is licensed under a  Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 Germany License .

A trusty A5 project book has once again been added to the dimensionally transcendental arsenal that is my bag. In itself, nothing so special. I go through about four of these a year, with no regrets. But one of the traditions I have with these books is that the first page should be filled with a bang, or with a babe. The newest one starts like this:

Todays' random project of interest has been around since 1994. It's called Exactitudes Photographer Ari Versluis and profiler Ellie Uyttenbroek, working from Rotterdam have been collecting portraits of people from various walks of life, motivated by a shared interest for similarities in the way people from the same strata of society dress. Over the years, they have compiled an extensive library of groupings from various continents, situations and lifestyles.  It is an amazing documentation without taking into consideration that the photos are good, too. Find it here. You might find yourself there.

A while back, I posted sketches of a poster for a performance of Strauss' opera Ariadne on Naxos. Today, I would like to confront you, dear reader, with what I ended up competing with. The Posters are based on the idea that Opera is sound, and in sound our imaginations are left to discover the images we think should go with it. The first version, in black and white…   Soon turned into a coloured version, when everyone started asking "Why the hell Black and white?" To answer those people: Colour is almost everywhere. Undersaturation was a relief to me when I made this.

And , to add to the Transmet Triptych, the Trio Triumphant, tipsy with tipple. Yelena is terrifying, taking no tincture yet thirsting for ethanol and tobacco. Ellis and Robertson, thank you… By the way: 300.

One of those things I keep an eye out for is relatively interesting placeholder text to use when setting type. I seem to finally have found a multilingual dummy text page, created by Thorsten Hagen and Immo Seebörger of the Sachbearbeiters . Even though is geared more towards the web design crowd, the variety of texts on offer and the option to set length, weights and number of paragraphs on the page make it viable for use in print, as well as offering a quick preview of what could be on site. Another nice touch is the html format box at the bottom left, which can be copied right into your style sheet, sparing you a lot of hacking. My one niggle with the site is the placement of the language buttons, as they made me think that they were responsible for changing the language of the site, not of the text. Other than that I can recommend it.  Via Fontblog

Continuing the exploration of Transmetropolitan, we are faced today with Channon Yarrow. And a bowel disruptor. Run fast. Have an informative link ! Today is a good day to dry.

He's a malformed, insane, honest, drug-addicted, kind black hearted bastard. He's right all the same. Happy Fridays all!

Here's one for all the youtube addicts out there: A web application that transforms those pixelated films you get to watch into  tiny little keyframes. It's called yooouuutuuube , and does something like this: Now go there and try it with select viedeos of your choosing.

Music is probably the first thing I got into, like many other people. Before music, write electronic, then you get the idea. I've loved electronic music, and in fits of madness, even made my own (now proudly defunct and undead). I've seen the racks and the tables and the mixers and the decks and it's all pretty… unwieldy. All that lovely, mouthwatering equippment does not have the charm of someone playing a bass on a street corner. So, for the first time in ages, I am excited by an undistorted instrument. It is called the Eigenharp and is, from my understanding, an interface that will map just about any instrument to its keys and allow you to play it. I never learned to play any instrument, unless tin cans and my knees count, but this is… amazing. I'm looking forward to seeing how this might work in a concert setup. A video of the Bond theme being played on the 'arp. Here's a link to a more detailed review/ explanation at Distorted Loop .

I've caught Fablesitotitis. It's what happens when you choose certain literature to be your evenings' entertainment. So here is a Snapshot of the Big Bad Wolf (reformed) and Tinkerbells Sister-in-Law. "Yeah, it's cute, the way you're floating up there flashing your bust 'n all, but I know that you're behind that fairy dust smuggling ring." Have a link to a wiki.

So, apparently the posters look great… I haven't seen them yet. So while we're waiting, this sequence of 15 variations on the theme of this particular poster… because the devil is in the detail. Be brave!

I went, in hope of experiencing a real life Godzilla moment. Giants, towering 7 metres above the ground! A diver, 15 metres tall, marching throug the Brandenburg Gate! What I got was impressive, but squeaky. The pictures of a day misspent at the Brandenburg Gate, as I realised that this kind of thing might work better on TV than Unter Den Linden. Even though, with a bit more action and a bit less waiting, I can see how this might be a very enjoyable experience…     Here's a link to the project. UPDATE: And here's a link to Boston.com, and a picture gallery.

Happy Sunday all! Rejoice, for today the walls have once again been drenched in paint and glue! They have been immortalised in their decorated state in pixels! They are displayed below! 

If you are reading this, it must be Friday. Today, the posters shall be finished and delivered unto us. We shall have proof that what you see here has come to fruition and has become embodied in ink. Or has it? Is this just a rumor? All shall be revealed.

The central theme, the Leitmotiv, the Main Visual of The Poster for The Horror Experiment is, as you may have noticed, a hand; holding a dangerous, steaming and green liquid, teeming with mystery and deadly intent it graces flyers and poster, boldly advertising the plays. The hand started out as a pencil and ink sketch on a stormy night in the initial stage. Knowing this would not do at all, I proceeded to colour it in signature red and add the green goo… … which of course had to be steaming to be at all convincing. Somewhere along the line, outlines must have been melted away by the goo, as the test tube no longer has any by this stage. This Version of the hand decorated the face of the first two flyers… When it became obvious we would be using the hand for the poster as well, it was time to really make the brew bubble and turn up the Technicolor steam engine, leading to this: Is this the version we used on the final poster? Do the Arches Fall before the end? Does Akzide...