New little piece of music and a small visual experiment from my domestic factory.
Click on the play button at the top of the picture.

Entertainment Weekly are the first major magazine to try combining traditional editorial methods with the digital age and it could be the start of something special.

As with all new technology pilots, the system isn't perfect. "Chip technology is used to store the video - described as similar to that used in singing greeting cards - which is activated when the page is turned" (BBC, 2009). However the current system is clunky and has a lag making adverts not appear instantly.

Some critics are also arguing that the cost will have a big impact on its success, especially as the internet already delivers these opportunities to engage consumers free of charge. Despite these issues, I think that this (with the right investment of time and money) could really be a stepping stone in the print world embracing digital.

Related links:

• Video screens hit paper magazines article and video 
• Entertainment Weekly
  

Plastic Logic is presenting their reader and publishing application. This flexible electronic media would be available in 2010.

SHH has created a full branding package - including identity, environmental graphics, signage, menus, place settings and staff uniforms - for a new restaurant and takeaway concept called "Italiano", set to open this month. The first Italiano outlet, located in the food court of the Al A'ali Mall in Bahrain's capital city Manama, has been undertaken for client Al-Hilal Enterprises Group, for whom SHH recently designed and branded the highly successful Nu Asia new-build restaurant (about to roll out to a new second site in Bahrain). Continue reading...

Do you want your webjam to stand out from the crowd? Want to give it the edge over other’s websites? Well we cornered a top designer and asked them about setting up headers to give your site an extra bit of sparkle.

A standard header size on your webjam is 1000pixels (px) wide and 200px high. You can set the height in multiples of 25 between 100px and 300px. You don’t need many skills to turn the blank white background into a top class header. If you have photo editing software like Photoshop then that is a bonus. However, the template that we have set up can be run from paintbrush and that comes as standard on your computer.

Start by downloading your file from our site (see the bottom of this post) and opening it in your chosen platform. Save the document and go back to your internet browser. We’re going to use a designer’s best friend to make your site look the part.

Finding a Font

Visit www.dafont.com which is a font site with thousands of brilliant fonts for you to use. Have a look through these and find a couple that you like. Also take a look in the dingbat section where you will find some excellent resources to use as imagery on your header. In this example we are going to create an after school club site.

I’ve started by searching the ‘Kids’ section in the ‘Dingbats’ menu. I’ve chosen ‘Freaky’ and clicked download.

For my font I have found an ideal typeface in ‘Cartoon’ called ‘King Education Centre’ again, I select download.

Adding your fonts to your font library

1. Extract the zip files that you have just downloaded
2. Open you font library and drag and drop using windows or choose ‘install font’ on a mac

Creating the header

Now go back to your header. The first thing you want to do is choose a colour and use the fill tool to colour the header.

Now using the type tool put in the title of your webjam using the font that you have just downloaded.

Next to choose some pictures from your dingbats – they work in the same way as text, however a letter represents an image. Pick out a few and use them as you wish.

Save your file.

Now go back to your webjam and click ‘styles’ in the top bar and then ‘Customise style.’ Click on the ‘Change Image’ button and upload your header. Remember we set this up to work in 200px height so choose 200px in the height drop down.

That’s it, and your webjam is now unique and better still, it’s designed by you.

Take a look at the header I created here. And for those of you wondering I did create it using Paintbrush!

header 

Graphic designer Shigeo Fukuda, known for his distinct works based on optical illusions, died of subarachnoid bleeding Sunday, his family said Thursday. He was 76.

Fukuda, one of Japan's leading graphic designers after World War II, graduated from Tokyo University of the Arts in 1956 and created the official poster for the World Exposition held in 1970 in Osaka.

In 1975, Fukuda won the grand prize at an international poster competition in Poland with a work named "Victory," in which he depicted a bullet flying into a cannon barrel.

We're going to miss him so much...

Dive into Fukuda's world.

Thanks and props to Scott Beale from Laughing Squid in San Francisco for his post on this. This is sooo cute, and fantastic. Asian ad agency Bates 141 created this real life rendering of a Photoshop interface for a client. A picture set on Flickr gives you an idea of how they built it. Does anybody remember using typesetters and setting type by hand? I stare at this rendering wondering how it might actually work in real life; and it makes my brain hurt! Some things like the magic wand tool, layers, copy-paste, etc., etc., might also require scissors, a color copier, stencils, and on and on :) This has to be one of my all time favorites....

photo by Wanda Kamarga

Gestiarium is one of Guido Indij's projects. It's like a wikipedia of gestures!. You know, non verbal communication is prior to language, so in its site you can see different expressions by country and topic. And you can collaborate rating them and suggesting your local gestures as well.

Gestiarium via El Burlador

Design Can Change is an initiative that helps designers make the environment a bigger priority while uncovering ways to combat climate change.

Design Can Change offers a simple framework for bringing sustainable practice to design studios. There’s nothing particularly strict about the effort, it’s really just a set of guidelines that gets the ball rolling.

Scott Ewen from Emigre once said, “Designers make the world’s most beautiful trash”, and it’s true. Paper accounts for 81 million tons of solid waste annually,

By clicking on the "change" logo you can visit its Website...

I hope you find it interesting, useful and effective!

Few minutes ago, I receive a message from Asif Khan [Asif3000] about something amazing his is working on...(huge relation with Branding & Arts discussion)

Creative 30 is looking for creative people in UK... for the 30 Britain's most promising young creative people...

The winner of the people's vote will drive away in a Volvo C30 R-DESIGN and our esteemed panel of judges will award another nominee £10,000 to help launch their career.

Unfortunatelly, I'm not enough creative, not enough young and don't live in UK... :(

Take a look... It's great!... Thank you very much Asif

 Corporate Design ... God dammed, a committee!

"I can’t explain it; I just like looking at type. I just get a total kick out of it. Other people look at bottles of wine or whatever, or, you know, (..a part of the female anatomy..)  I just get kicks out of looking at type. It’s a little worrying, I must admit." (Spiekermann)

"and although, like many men, I sometimes look at (.. that part of the female anatomy, I probably spend more time looking at type."