Sita Sings the Blues

I do a lot of searching.  On a day to day basis i troll the internet for inspiration and new ideas.  It’s rare that I find something as awe-inspiring and wonderful as what i found today.  Sita Sings the Blues is an animated retelling of the story of the Indian epic, The Ramayana. The story is woven together with scenes from a parallel contemporary story about a broken heart. All this and it’s a musical too…set to the musical numbers of 1920’s jazz vocalist Annette Hanshaw.

I’ve always been a myth lover but this takes the cake.  It’s not only beautifully animated but the story is wonderful too.  The film can be seen streaming free at Reel 13 but you should also check out sitasingstheblues.com.  One of the more amazing aspects of this film is that it has been released as Creative Commons.  Nina the animator gives her work freely to the world to enjoy.  It’s a great concept and well worth a read.

The film is a little over an hour but completely worth it.  If you get a chance to watch it i’d love to know what you think.  Take some time today to watch this incredible film.  You won’t regret it.  Enjoy

A new type of type site

Ellen Lupton (design hero) came to visit PC last week.

She showed us her website Thinking With Type that promotes her book Thinking with Type (which is really on of the best books on typography I’ve ever read).  But the part that interested me most was the section on Crimes against Typeography. The amusing flash games and videos are well worth a visit whether you care about type or not.  Check it out.

Progress Report

I want to start posting the work I do each week…perhaps it will put a fire under my butt to make it impressive.

Couple of projects in the till.

Emily Dryden Photography has a logo

I’m also developing a new system for Plant Markers. I don’t know how many of you are gardeners but the little plastic spikes that provide information on plants in the garden center are rarely informative or easy to use.  They information design is unorganized and nonuniform.  I’m not happy with the form of my spike yet but the visual language is starting to develop.  I’ll post updates as I work on it.

The Spicery is also coming back into the picture…Which I’m estatic about. I spent some time tweaking the logo. as seen here.  The logo is suppose to feel sort of like a quality control stamp.  Like it’s not Spicery quality until the very end when the logo is stamped on the package.

Packaging and Website returning soon.

Lastly, a new project I started sort of on a whim and am now really excited about.  In college i had and art exhibition called QuinkanPixel. The collection looked at my personal interprestation of the history of graphic design. Following and comparing the underlying intentions of aboriginal cave painters to bloggers, social networkers and visual storytellers of today. I’ve been toying with the idea of revisiting this collection now that I’ve had two solid, crazy years of school under my belt and see where it takes me.

The peice I started this week will have many outlets.  I see it as the visual language of the show. I see the beginings of a really great interactive site, flash videos, posters, books..etc.

What you see here is in reality the size of a pencil eraser. I start with a central statement…still working on that and build upon it with motifs from around the world, quote and ideas that I believe have built the foundation of design as we know it today.  Whats great about the project is that it is as unlinear as I need it to be. I can continue adding layers forever and continue adding layers of complexity as I grow and learn. The piece will initially be an illustration/motion peice…but I’d like to take it further. We’ll see.

Feisty at Five am

Today…well actually in a few minutes I’ll be giving a presentation on form for the infamous “Hanks Class.”  It was suppose to happen a week ago at 6 am so i figured that when it got pushed back it would still be at 6 am. Not so…Instead the class and I had a really interesting bout of YouTubexploration. The lesson was about storytelling and the power and versatility a good story can have. We learned that a story is about an event that results in change. To really nail the point home we turned to the storytelling masters on Sesame Street. These three videos follow the same main character in the same story but applied in different ways that change meaning.

Also we looked at the fantastic storytelling that Craig Frasier uses in his series of short animations that you can check out here.

rough post…crazy times.

Is my work beautiful because I’m beautiful?

Just got back from one of the best seminars yet. The company Digital Kitchen sent some representatives out to the school to shows us a little about their process and what they do. Definatly one of the top ten places I’d like to work when this whole school thing is over. Great accounts. based in New York, LA, Chicago or Seatle. AMAZING WORK.  Heres a sampling.

Gorgeous Type, amazing music and a keenly moving visual language. and thats not all.

They do stuff that isn’t so dark too…I just couldn’t find it on youtube.

Getting to the point, however, the real reason I wrote this post today is this project Digital Kitchen did for Slash Magazine. Hilarious look into the world of the graphic designer and the delusions many of us suffer from. Very spot on and one of the reason I’ve fallen in love with this company.

No Reason

Just cause we are friends. ENJOY!

Man Rabbit Design

Just finished my first illustration class of the quarter and I have to say it was outrageous. I’m not allowed to say swamp or use navy blue and I’m going to be building a rocket ship out of garbage for my first assignment. I’m unusually excited.

We had a guest speaker (the instructors son) who came and spoke about his work in the graphic design industry and what it’s like to be color blind. Charlie Burnett is his name and heres the construction page of his portfolio Web site. Don’t judge it by the initial animation…the cool part is the hidden easter egg. Once the illustration has played through click the dot on the I and hopefully you will be as amused as I was. Cool class. Couldn’t find any work of his but heres a spiffy headshot from his acting site. ENJOY!

My vote goes to Wall-E

Fantastic article this morning from the New York Times that touches a lot of important topics…one in particular that I’ve been trying to convert into a blog post since I saw the film Wall-E last weekend. Besides being one of my top two animated films of all-time the movie is amazingly timely in message and approach. I’ve linked to the article Wall-E for President because the NYT’s says it way better than I could. I’d very much recommend not only going to see this movie but also to take someone with you. It’s a very poignant film that triggers discussion in all the right places. Don’t believe me check out the often harsh RottenTomato.com that gave the film an unheard of 96% approval rating. Thats amazing and so is this film.

Op-Ed Columnist

Wall-E for President

Published: July 6, 2008 in the NYT’s

SO much for a July Fourth week spent in idyllic celebration of our country’s birthday. This year’s festivities were marked instead by a debate — childish, not constitutional — over who is and isn’t patriotic. The fireworks were sparked by a verbally maladroit retired general, fueled by two increasingly fatuous presidential campaigns, and heated to a boil by a 24/7 news culture that inflates any passing tit for tat into a war of the worlds.

if (acm.rc) acm.rc.write();Let oil soar above $140 a barrel. Let layoffs and foreclosures proliferate like California’s fires. Let someone else worry about the stock market’s steepest June drop since the Great Depression. In our political culture, only one question mattered: What was Wesley Clark saying about John McCain and how loudly would every politician and bloviator in the land react?

Unable to take another minute of this din, I did what any sensible person might do and fled to the movies. More specifically, to an animated movie in the middle of a weekday afternoon. What escape could be more complete?

Among its other attributes, this particular G-rated film, “Wall-E,” is a rare economic bright spot. Its enormous box-office gross last weekend swelled a total Hollywood take that was up 20 percent from a year ago. (You know America’s economy is cooked when everyone flocks to the movies.) The “Wall-E” crowds were primed by the track record of its creator, Pixar Animation Studios, and the ecstatic reviews. But if anything, this movie may exceed its audience’s expectations. It did mine.

As it happened, “Wall-E” opened the same summer weekend as the hot-button movie of the 2004 campaign year, Michael Moore’s “Fahrenheit 9/11.” Ah, the good old days. Oil was $38 a barrel, our fatalities in Iraq had not hit 900, and only 57 percent of Americans thought their country was on the wrong track. (Now more than 80 percent do.) “Wall-E,” a fictional film playing to a far larger audience, may touch a more universal chord in this far gloomier time.

click here to read the rest of the article

Sesame Street and the trippy color wheel

 I have always been a fan of the color wheel. When i saw this video it instantly sent me back to grade school. I would have watched this as an 8 year old and drooled. This video was designed for old school Sesame Street, back in the day when the show was still groundbreaking. Just a side note but the music was written by avante gaurde musician Phillip Glass. So it’s really just cool all the way around.