February 2012
2 posts
Ethics In the Branding business
Below is a great extract from an article by Martin Lindstrom that offers advice to both sides of the business - design/ad agencies and their clients…
◦ Don’t do anything to kids and consumers that you would not do to your own children, friends, and family.
◦ Every time you launch a campaign, a new product, or a service, secure an “ethical” sign-off from your target group....
January 2012
1 post
December 2011
1 post
Email I received today from iDonethis
iDoneThis is a simple idea. What makes it much more impressive is their followup. I received this email from them today after slipping a few days and not noting down what I’ve done. How can you possible ignore this?? Kudos to you the iDoneThis team for a superb experience!
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Subject: Search you Dones Content: iDoneThis: There is no escape!...
November 2011
2 posts
A contemporary scribe at work!
Writing the Bible in Zurich: http://www.robotlab.de/bios/bible.htm
Great collaboration & presentation tools
http://freedcamp.com/ Project management - free
http://flauntkit.com/ Instant online collaboration - free
http://cageapp.com/ Online presentation - free
September 2011
7 posts
Tesco expands by creating virtual stores in...
In contrast to Osaka station, an analog water...
Scientists use brain imaging to reveal the movies...
Osaka waterclock
The Alphabet 2
The Alphabet 2 from n9ve on Vimeo.
The Alphabet 2- a horn book video experiment - is a developmental spelling - video where each character visually represents the meaning of the word itself. Playing with different techniques and materials into little and big spaces, but always focusing on Helvetica font’s proportions. A collection of words in a delightful spelling-video.
Visual reference
If you have been puzzled by Mona Lisa’s smile – how she’s radiant one moment and serious the next instant – then your worries are over. It happens because our eyes are sending mixed signals to the brain about her smile.
Different cells in the retina transmit different categories of information or “channels” to the brain. These channels encode data about an object’s...
August 2011
1 post
July 2011
5 posts
Handy Pangrams with tester scripts resource
I find pangrams very entertaining and creating them is a lot of fun.
Here’s a link to down a pretty extensive list of pangrams that can be amusing. Download here
Oh, sorry, in case you don’t know what a pangram is:
A pangram is a sentence using every letter of the alphabet at least once. Pangrams have been used to display typefaces, test equipment, and develop skills in handwriting,...
May 2011
9 posts
... and Robin's latte
Monday am help
Matt the Barista’s latte this morning went down well!
Multi-dimensional Typography
The Gardens of the World in Marzahn Recreational Park in Berlin is home to various gardens that show off the world’s different cultures. This particular installation is the Christian Garden. The walls are, well, literally made with type. The letters combine into passages of both Old and New Testament (hence the Christian Garden) and places the focus that Christianity is a religion of books and...
The ultimate pencil experience?
Pencils are cool but pencils with analog sharpeners are even cooler. So I thought what might be the ultimate pencil experience would be to have a steam powered pencil sharpener. And just on the off-chance, I thought I’d do a quick search and to my surprise I found several people have in fact created these beauties already. Have a look at the youtube links below.
...
April 2011
3 posts
Authentic wood working
Bill Carney, Director of the Chattanooga Woodworking Academy, hard at work on a cool project here in downtown Chattanooga recreating the 1st County Courthouse from 1817. Bill told me they will build the house short of adding the roof and then move the numbered pieces to Soddy Daisy where it will be permanently erected.
Chattanooga BikeShare
Bikesharing is coming to Chattanooga! Philip Pugliese, Outdoor Chattanooga Bicycle Coordinator, told me that the bikes will be operational this summer from downtown through the Northshore and will have an annual fee of around $60 which strikes me as pretty reasonable.
Philip also told me that you can fill up your electric car at the Double Tree here in town. So I cycled down to the Double Tree...
Left-handed programmers conspiracy?
Perhaps you’ve encountered this: you are ready to “yes” the pay terminal at a checkout and find yourself briefly disoriented as you’re about to check off “yes” on the terminal screen. The reason: I dare say the majority of on-screen “yes/no” buttons are lefthanded… I have only seen right-handed physical buttons where the green button (yes) is...
March 2011
1 post
February 2011
1 post
January 2011
3 posts
Fortune favors the bold and italicized effects of...
A study by Princeton and Indiana University states that “Previous research has shown that disfluency – the subjective experience of difficulty associated with cognitive operations – leads to deeper processing. Two studies explore the extent to which this deeper processing engendered by disfluency interventions can lead to improved memory performance. Study 1 found that information in...
List of handy pangrams
Below is my ever expanding collection from a variety of sources including a few of my own.
A large fawn jumped quickly over white zinc boxes. A mad boxer shot a quick, gloved jab to the jaw of his dizzy opponent. A quart jar of oil mixed with zinc oxide makes a very bright paint. A quick movement of the enemy will jeopardize six gunboats. About sixty codfish eggs will make a quarter pound of very...
December 2010
2 posts
July 2010
1 post
Bellezza Script launched
I am pretty excited about my latest Script offering called Bellezza. Mark Solsburg of Fonthaus made a really nice splash of Bellezza on their homepage: http://www.fonthaus.com/fonts/wiltontype/bellezza/wtf110
June 2010
1 post
Creative Chattanooga Camphouse Cuppa Coffee
May 2010
29 posts
Memorial Day!
“Size seems to make many organizations slow-thinking, resistant to change, and...”
– Warren Buffett
“I invent nothing. I rediscover”
– August Rodin
3 tags
How dimensional are your senses?
I am sure you must have considered that perhaps we don’t all sense things the same way – for instance, does PMS 185 red actually seem the same to you as I perceive it? I was especially intrigued by an article I read about Letter-Color Synaesthesia in which the author explains this “condition” : ” For as long as I can remember, I’ve had this implicit sense of a relationship between...
2 tags
Anamorphic effects
An anamorphic image is one that can only be interpreted when viewed from a particular angle or through a transforming optical device like a mirror.
There’s a really interesting photo article in New Scientist about a scientist Andrew Hicks from Drexel university who has done some pretty amazing things with mirrors.
2 tags
Smallest type ever!
An Osaka University research team has demonstrated an “atomic pen” that can inscribe nano-sized text on metal by manipulating individual atoms on the surface.
The completed text measures 2 x 2 nanometers, which is roughly 40,000 times smaller than the width of the average human hair.
“It’s not possible to write any smaller than this,” said Masayuki Abe, a researcher involved in the...
1 tag
The complex process of learning to read
Because of my typographic interest, I am always fascinated by anything that remotely touches letters. I found this article in the Wall Street journal today discussing the how the brain learns to read, but interestingly, how different languages effect how we learn. I am reminded again of how little we really know about this incredibly complicated process and humbled by the small part (or ...
1 tag
Photosynthetic imagery...
Photosynthetic photography is by no means a new technique, but it’s certainly new to me. By placing a “canvas” of grass in a darkroom and shining light on it that first passes through a film negative, artist/scientists have been able to tweak the chlorophyl levels of blades of grass and create living photographs. Their permanence is fleeting, but the effect is quite remarkable. This piece...
2 tags
Earth's magnetic signature mapped
The World Digital Magnetic Anomaly Map shows the variation in strength of the magnetic field after the Earth’s dipole field has been removed. Earth’s dipole field is generated by circulating electric currents in the planet’s metal core. Hot colors (reds) indicate high values; cold colors (blues) indicate low or negative values of the magnetic field strength.
The magnetic signature of the...
2 tags
16 Billion pixel image
The “Last Supper” is now available on line in amazing detail, meaning it is 1600 times more detailed than if one used a 10 megapixel camera! More than 350,000 people visit the painting each year.
http://www.haltadefinizione.com/en/