Visionary designer
Graffiti Analysis 2.0 – Documenting more than just ink.
I found an interesting site today called Graffiti Analysis that studies the unseen motion involved in creating a tag as opposed to just documenting the results. The original version of Graffiti Analysis, developed in 2004 as part of thesis research at Parsons in New York City and can be viewed here. The new version is done with custom software that records the motion data and archives it in a free database housed at 000000book.com in Graffiti Markup Language (GML) files, a new digital standard used by other popular graffiti applications such as Laser Tag and EyeWriter. Influential graffitis artist such as SEEN, TWIST, AMAZE, KETONE, JON ONE and KATSU have had their tags motion captured using the Graffiti Analysis software.
The custom software they use is Graffiti Analysis 2.0 that are playback and capture applications available for free in OSX, Windows and Linux as well as the open source code for both applications. You can also get both in one package with their iPhone application called Graffiti Analysis available through the iTunes Store for $1.99. The downloadable desktop applications require some handy work to build an acrylic capture stand that isn’t that hard to make but the iPhone application may be easier starting point for most people. The iPhone application records your tags with line thickness based on the speed you draw the tag and you can uploaded your tags to 000000book.com for free just like the applications. The resulting tags rendered in 3-D space with the ability to rotate the phone rotates the tag in 3-D and use multitouch to zoom in and out.
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Beyond Word – A death clock resume
I interview and talk with a lot of young designers who always smile as they hand me a business card they have spent 80 hours designing, printed with a 6 color process, a spot varnish and a die cut on hand made paper which they have then stapled to a an off center Xerox of their resume that they created in Word entirely typeset in 12 point Courier. Your resume is the first design impression you make on a new client or employer so why are we all content to “design” it in a word processor? Word, and really all Microsoft Office programs, are where design and typography go TO DIE!
I want to create a site called The Visual Resume project that would a platform for me to launch my personal crusade to change the thinking of designers that they have to represent themselves and their talents with something as vanilla and unimaginative as a Word document. We have to use our talents to create something more visual, more imaginative and more engaging to represent ourselves. I took a first pass at doing it to my own resume two years ago with moderate success and I have a new version in the works that will be finished soon.
My favorite example of a designer who has done something really unique with his resume is Dustin Curtis who created a death clock that tracks his progress through his life in real time to his predicted death on March 23, 2068. I love it because it is completely original, it is a living document and would if it was mine it would remind me everyday that I need to get off my ass and do something with my life.
I challenge you to stand out from the crowd and put your talents to use to create a resume that truly represents you and your talents. Post in the comments any examples you like or an example your have already created for yourself.
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Talking creativity with the world’s greatest chef, Ferran Adria
The world at large probably first heard the name Ferran Adria in 2003 because of Anthony Bourdain’s TV show No Reservation on an episode called “Decoding Ferran Adria” which was the first primetime look into Ferran restaurant and studio. I have been fan of chef Adria and the food he creates at his restaurant in Spain called el Bulli for a long time. His avante guard food is wildly creative and challenges the very conventions around what makes a meal and the role of science in cooking. For all of his work the restaurant has been named the best restaurant in the world a record four times.
I have long found a strong link between the creativity in cooking and creativity in design and advertising. I get a tremendous amount of creative inspiration from the the work of chef’s like Ferran Adria, Jose Andreas, Grant Achatz and Wylie Dufresne. I even use their work to teach how to have to break through creative ideas in my studio. I tell my designers here in New York to go to Wylie Dufresne’s restaurant WD50 and have the eggs benedict to see what I mean. It is a dish we have all had before but to completely re-imagined it into some you have never seen before in a form you have never eaten before the tastes bring back strong memories. It is that play between wild creativity that is contained in something familiar that I love. I think it is what all break through interactive work does. It gives you something completely new but there is something familiar in the usability and the experience when though it is all new.
A few weeks ago some of my friends in the culinary world got me a very special invitation to spend the day with Ferran Adria at the Culinary Institute of America where he was going to give a 2 hour lecture and 3 hour cooking demonstration with Jose Andrea and the chef du cuisine from el Bulli. Between the two events I had the opportunity to talk with chef Adria for about 10 minutes about creativity and his work. The three things I walked away with I have heard in other forms but hearing it from him made me refocus on the concepts in my own work.
Moving Forward by Looking Back
At the end of every season Ferran makes the entire creative team go through all the work they did over the past six months to see what was successful, what failedl and what they need to work on. His point to me what that most creative people do not like to look back like this and would rather move on to their next idea. He feels the process of reviewing your work like this is critical so you can learn from it and that it will help you grow as a creative thinker faster than just looking forward. I have to agree that i have never worked in a studio where this was done with any regularity and only seemed to happen after an assignment had gone very badly and management wanted to be sure I didn’t happen on the next assignment. I know I am guilty of it because so often when I look back I at my work I only see the short coming and the mistakes and I never take a more holistic view of it.
Creativity Isn’t Copying
This was a saying that Ferran got from his mentor and is the simple saying he uses as the standard he holds for all the work they do at el Bulli. We all have the tendency to want to fall back into past achievements and use things that we know work because it is safe and you don’t really have to risk anything. Going away from what you know is scarier because you have to risk a lot more. I think a large part of being able to make this a successful part of your process is have the support of a studio where risk, failure and sometimes even fighting are actually encouraged. Having this type of environment where everyone is taking risks all the time makes it easier for the individual to put themselves out there and break through into something new. I think if you look behind the food at el Bulli and look at the team and the environment that Ferran has created you will see just that,
Fail Constantly
This is something I have known and preached for a long time but ti was good to hear it from Ferran that it is a key part of his process as well. I know that sounds like a funny statement to teach people to fail. Most people don’t want to fail, they view it as a huge negative, they don’t want to admit they had an idea that didn’t work but it is essential to the creative process. The key is that when you fail you have to be able to look at your process to see when you did and then be able to try and improve upon it the next time. In this way failing creates a cycle where you can constantly try and to improve your process and it makes you a lot more fearless to really try new and far reaching ideas.
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Takashi Murakami – Andy Warhol 2.0
I just got back from an evening at the Brooklyn Museum where I was invited to preview their latest exhibit by one of my two favorite living artists modern artists Takashi Murakami.
For those who may not know his work a quick background. Murakami gained an international reputation for merging fine art with popular Japanese anime films and manga cartoons to create his theory called Superflat. The theory and his art explore art as contrast between hi and low art, east and west, cute and dark themes. It creates a fantastical universe of creatures like Mr. DOB, a Mickey Mouse-type character, and Mr. Pointy, another cartoonlike creature, inhabit this space alongside smiley-faced flowers and colorful mushrooms. All of it explores how mass-produced entertainment and consumerism are part of art. That concept reached it’s peak for him in 2002 when he teamed up with the fashion house Louis Vuitton and it’s creative director Marc Jacobs to reinvent the classic LV monogram and create a whole new visual language for the brand that came to life in brightly colored versions of the classic Vuitton handbags.
Murakami has been called the Japanese Andy Warhol because he creates everything from very large one of a kind painting to sculpture to small run lithographs that are produced through his studio in Queens. The studio in Queens is only interesting because Murakami is based out of Japan and every morning receives digital hi-res photos of every piece of work large and small for his review, comments and changes.
So if you are going to be in New York City any time soon be sure and swing by MOMA to see Design and the Elastic Mind and then head over to Brooklyn to check out Murakami because this is the shows second and final stop in the states. For those of you who aren’t going to be able to make it you can check out videos of the exhibit from it’s last stop in L.A. here though new pieces have been added for the NYC show.
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Microsoft Photosynth Tech Preview
I saw an absolutely fascinating new piece of technology this morning from Microsoft Live Labs called Photosynth. It takes a large collection of photos of a location or an object and analyzes them for similarities, and displays them in a reconstructed three-dimensional space. It is based on another new technology called Seadragon that lets you scale images of any size and resolution with amazingly smooth motion and speed.
I know it hard to visualize so check out the tour and then download the tech demo. You should also check out this talk given by Photosynth’s architect, Blaise Aguera y Arcas, at the TED conference where he shows it off.
Once you have the demo up and running you can see the 3D model made up of hundreds of dots and each of which represents a photo from the collection that has been mapped on to the model. You can click or fly through a scene to see photos from any angle in a very seamlessly zoom in or out of every photo no matter the file size. You can also turn on the camera cones to see where pictures were taken in relation to one another which is interesting because the groupings show you areas of interest. If the 3D model becomes too much you can see the photos in a contact page style layout and then click on photos of interest to see where they fall on the model.
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VISIONARY DESIGNERS – d’strict
I praised the work done on the unique Samsung SGH site and finally learned who created it. A design company out of Seoul Korea called d’strict. You look through the work that d’strict has created and you are struck with their clean designs and unique approach to interface design. Even their own site is one of the most original user experiences I have seen in a long time. I think we all could learn a lot from this kind of original thinking.
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Jonathan Yuen – a stunning portfolio site
I came across the portfolio site of Jonathan Yuen today and it is absolutely stunning. The artwork is a rich blend of traditional painting, calligraphy and motion graphics all wrapped into a flowing interface. It is one of the most original and beautiful sites I have seen in a long time and it is definitely worth checking out.
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VISIONARY DESIGNERS – Yugo Nakamura
I am not sure you can a conversation about visionary designers without talking about Yugo Nakamura. His work on sites like NEC ecotonoha and ITL Interior Designers are examples of visionary thinking. NEC ecotonoha is an utterly unique community experience where the results of the virtual communities work are tied to real world results and actions. His experimental Flash work is just as fascinating and has been for years. I admire Yugo’s work not only for it’s originality but for the fact that he been able to stay out in front for so many years.
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VISIONARY DESIGNERS – Tokyo Plastic
No one is better at proving that Flash can be a cinematic art form than Tokyo Plastic. Their Drum Machine animation is a masterpiece and a classic. Their new animation The Little Fella is yet another brilliant fusion of 3D animation and Flash that is created with their unique and humorous animation style. Their main site TokyoPlastic.com is a showcase for some of the best Flash animation out there.
For me the greatest thing is that their site has become so popular that they have created limited edition Vinyl figures of their main characters. You can find the sold out figures like the geisha in white, red or black on eBay on a fairly regular basis. I have all the geisha figures because I think there were a real collectibles since a web design has never spawned a line of toys before and it was just too cool to pass up.
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VISIONARY DESIGNERS – AKQA
AKQA proves that big firms can do great work. They have won every award that isn’t nailed down, have offices in 5 cities around the world and clients like Nike, Mini, Microsoft, and VISA. They are the kind of firm that if they were hiring a creative director in the U.S. I would send them enough resumes to wallpaper their office.
Also check out their book “AKQA Ideas: Vol 1″ which has 21 recently launched projects presented as a case study. I personally own this book and it’s only available through the UK version of Amazon.com for about $50 with delivery and usually takes about 4-8 weeks for delivery.
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