Cats and Headbutting

via cat vs human

See the rest of the comic here. It is so true...

My Water’s On Fire Tonight (The Fracking Song)

via propublica.org
“My Water’s On Fire Tonight” is a product of Studio 20 NYU (http://bit.ly/hzGRYP) in collaboration with ProPublica.org (http://bit.ly/5tJN). The song is based on ProPublica’s investigation on hydraulic fractured gas drilling (read the full investigation here: http://bit.ly/15sib6).

Music by David Holmes and Andrew Bean
Vocals and Lyrics by David Holmes and Niel Bekker
Animation by Adam Sakellarides and Lisa Rucker

Image of the Day: Domino Sugar

Taken near Baltimore’s Riverside Park and Inner Harbor

Time Shutter New York

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via cultofmac
“Time Shutter New York, a new iPhone app, transports you to the streets of Manhattan at the dawn of the 20th century, allowing users to see and experience the city exactly as real New Yorkers did a hundred years ago. Time Shutter New York contains 170 photographs of Manhattan landmarks, skylines and street scenes taken between 1900 and 1925. The app guides users to exact locations where the shots were taken, and with an opacity adjustment slider, allows you to seamlessly overlay what it looked like then with what it looks like now...”
Visit Time Shuttter here.

Hollowed-Out Books

via Green Chair Press
Always inspiring, Green Chair Press’ post creating a hollowed-out book is the latest how-to shared.

Guilloché

via imprint
“A guillocheur is sort of a machine operator, sort of a craftsperson, sort of an artist, who creates the beautiful rosettes we’ve all seen engraved into the backs of antique pocketwatches. (The noun form of the art form is ‘Guilloché,’ and a single engraving is called a ‘Guilloche’ with no accent over the e.) Guilloché, in (rudely) simplified terms, essentially a precursor to the Spirograph. Watching the video, you see how much artistry goes into the programming of the machine to make a pattern, how much care goes into turning the design, with careful and consistent hands, into a piece of repeatable art.
Watch the video here, and read the rest here on digital guilloche and template coding.

When Colors Clash

sent to me by a friend, not sure of the original source


Perfect graphic design humor on a Friday afternoon!

Fine Dining Sign Language

seen on boingboing
“Here’s a guide to the specialized sign language used by the Maitre D’ and staff at NYC’s Eleven Madison Park restaurant; there’s also a set of traffic rules to keep things moving smoothly…”
See more of the signs here.

Earworm of the Day: Queen - Teo Toriatte (Let us cling together)

Let us cling together as the years go by,
Oh my love, my love,
In the quiet of the night
Let our candles always burn,
Let us never lose the lessons we have learned...

25 Years of Apple Technology

This post by Alison Bechdel reminded me of the first Mac I worked with in 1987, a Plus at an agency in State College. Crazy to think back on working on such a small monitor, and working with the OS, which at the time was amazing GUI. 

Today's BoingBoing pays perfect tribute to that here. 


I bought a similar Plus model at Surplus and Salvage a few years ago, just out of nostalgia. The first Mac I owned was a LC II, which I did freelancing work on in between the stint at Graphics II and getting hired Penn State in 1993. Today, we have an iMac, iPods, and an iTouch at home, and I use a Tower at work, and my daughter-in-law has an iPad. Apple’s technology and the way it has become ingrained in our lives is fascinating, and I wonder what things will look like in another 25 years.

Triangular Letters

via a raven
“[T]here was a time when this folding was not considered unusual at all, moreover the mails folded in this way were the most valuable the postman could bring; and, as the story unfolding from the few objects on the picture indicates, for several people they remained more valuable than any other a postman can bring them any more. These are the письма-треугольники, the ‘triangular letters,’ the standard form of soldiers’ correspondence during the Great Patriotic War…”
Read the rest here.

Planned Obsolescence

via fast company
“From lightbulbs to iPhones, tech has a history of being produced with planned obsolescence. And our children will never know the alternative…”
Read the rest here.

Business Cards of the Day: Mix and Match

Top Row: “Feeling Overwhelmed?” — at first I thought this card was for a psychiatric counseling service when I saw it on a bulletin board in Newport, PA. Somehow I hear Bob Wiley saying, “Well, at least I do not have to stress about photographers...” Context is everything for this card, and frankly, it doesn't work in a café. The card next to it is for locally-made wing and marinade sauces. We haven’t tried these, but the graphics tie in nicely to the label designs.

Middle Row: I have a feeling that the cake card is a stock image since the type is seemingly an afterthought. DCNR — pretty typical official government state agency formatting of text. Ranger Onavage is a quite the talker!

Bottom Row: One24 — even looking online, it is hard to tell what this card is about, but it appears to be a get-rich-quick [within 24 months!] scheme. Apparently she is not making enough to get new cards printed and just scratches over the phone number at this point. Maybe in another 24 months she’ll get new cards? The card next to it is for a photographer “of the unusual and extraordinary.” The card reflects the subject matter and tone of the photographs for sale.

Tattly Tuesday

via swissmiss
Every Tuesday, Tattly launches 4 new temporary tattoos and this week’s designs are a homage to print design.
More on these can be found here.

Sesame Street and Food Insecurity

via nytimes
“The familiar address of Sesame Street is about to get a new visitor, one who could surely benefit from the sunny days and friendly neighbors there. For a prime-time special to raise awareness about hunger faced by American families, Sesame Workshop, the nonprofit organization that produces ‘Sesame Street,’ has created a new Muppet character named Lily, a 7-year-old girl representing one of the 17 million American children that the Department of Agriculture estimates are ‘food insecure,’ meaning their access to food is limited or uncertain…”
Read the rest here.

Pantone's Converted to Process

When an electronic file is sent to the iGen [or other digital presses], it is seeing the swatch names. Even if a Pantone swatch has been converted to process, if the swatch still says "PANTONE 285" or "Pantone Red 032", the iGen is picking that information up and using its own color look-up table for that swatch regardless of any mix or alteration you may have made to that swatch.

If you do convert a Pantone spot to process, be sure to rename it, such as "285_4cMix" or the percentages like "89.43.0.0".

Above is a screen shot, showing a file with Pantone 285 and Pantone Red 032 converted to process, altering the color mixes dramatically, but still keeping the original swatch names. In this case, changing Red 032 to a blue mix, and 285 to a red mix. The resulting printout from the iGen is that what is red on my monitor prints PMS 285 Blue, and what is blue on my monitor prints Pantone Red 032.

Business Cards of the Day: Apple

The two on the left are from the early 1980s,
one on the right is from this year.
Clean designs that range from four color-apples and
cool-grey type, to silver foil and black text.

Business Cards of the Day: Vegan & Vegetarian

After a couple of trips to NYC and a vegetarian festival in Washington, D.C, I had some cards piling up to post. Quite the variety of shapes, sizes, and one is even a sticker [Action for Animals]. The two round ones above [purple and golden yellow] are actually the front and back of the same card for gobo. Very often, The Bacon is Not an Herb card [bottom row] has a QR code sticker on the back as well [seen to the right of that card] — kudos for great eye-catching use of technology!

A Simple Book Repair Manual

via green chair press
“Dartmouth College has a web version of their A Simple Book Repair Manual. It goes through the tools you’ll need as well as repairs such as tipping in a page and spine repair…”
Visit Green Chair Press here, Dartmouth College’s Book Repair site here.