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

Tomorrows Caulk Today

GE Caulk Singles is a brilliant example of balanced form and function. The single-use disposable packages of caulk eliminates the need for messy and frustrating caulk guns and tubes. The idea is both smart in its application and more environmentally conscious by cutting down on needed packaging. Definitely a product i could see my dad using with a smile.

Momentive Performance Materials developed this package.

wouldn’t life be better if we all lived in photoshop?

Some great photos that really made me think…why didn’t I think of that.

made by Henry Hadlow and Ed Cornish.

magestically photoshoped squirrels. awesome.

Design O’Blog has a great post that brings to light the horrifying results of not requiring a license to operate photoshop. Check out their site and thanks them for making this rare gem of creepy photoshoped squirrels available to the world. So far it’s been the highlight of my morning.

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.

Recent Purchase

I’m doing some spice packaging on which …for the first time ever…I’ll be performing a delicate silk screening. Scary eh…not so. With “PhotoEz” silk screening can be both fun and profitable. Heres hoping that a good review will get me a discount on this pricey item…at least it’s cheaper than INT’s. Anyways, in the spirit of sharing heres what I know.

What is PhotoEZ?

PhotoEZ is a user-friendly product for creating custom silk-screen stencils to use on fabric, metal, wood, paper, glass, ceramic… the list is endless. PhotoEZ is a unique material made from fine silkscreen mesh coated with light sensitive water-soluble polymer. It uses black and white images on plain white paper, sunlight and tap water to develop.

Take your basic silk screen, remove the metal or wooden frame, do away with all those nasty chemicals and what do you end up with? PhotoEZ, a simple yet innovative product for creating custom screen printing stencils without cutting. And because it’s based on the old tried and true method of screen printing and photography, it’s much more versatile then plastic stencils

More? click here

Crazy A to Z

Found this video of an awesome pop up book that celebrate the alphabet in really clean and sophisticated way. 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!

The monkey or the egg?

Who came first.? Egg patrick or monkey patrick…the world may never know.

thanks emily…more to come

almost kuler than color

One of my favorite color resources kuler.com just released a great new feature that will probably change my workflow a lot. The “Create from an Image” feature allows you to upload an image into the dynamic software which then pulls the top five colors and creates a customizable palette that you can download and then upload into your favorite adobe product for future use. A great program from pulling spot colors from photos or illustrations a color cohesive peice. This will definitely have an impact on the way i work. Very cool.