Saturday, May 21, 2011
The Music of Philip Glass, Visualized in Fractals
via brain pickings“What fractals have to do with classical music and the secret of Einstein’s genius: I’m obsessed with synesthesia and the visual language of music, and love the work of Philip Glass, often considered the greatest living composer. Naturally, I’m head over heels with these spellbinding fractal visualizations by Russian artist Tatiana Plakhova, abstracting Glass’s music graphically….”
Read the rest here.
Friday, May 20, 2011
Wood Type of the Month: Balloon
via international printing museumRead this month’s wood-type column to learn what typeface was created for use in comic strips…
Glagolitic script
via typonine“The Glagolitic script didn’t evolve from any older orthographic system, it was created as a completely new and original script. At first the Glagolitic script was rounded in shape and in that form came to Croatian ground in 9th century. From 12th century Glagolic script exists only in Croatian area and it evolves to a new angular style which is called Croatian Glagolitic.
The basic shapes of Croatian Glagolitic are determined by a few basic strokes mostly horizontal and vertical. The architecture of characters is very symmetrical which enabled the creation of numerous two-, three-, even four letter ligatures. Croatian Glagolitic is consisted of 32 alphanumeric characters. The script got its name in the 19th century from a verb glagoljati — to talk. This script was used in holy books, poems, legends, novels and legal documents…”
Llama Font
via swissmiss
“Avery Oldfield created Llamafont.com, a site that allows you to type a message in a font made of llamas and share it with your friends. Why? Because llamas make everything better...”
Makes me smile.
First Solar-Powered Engine
via retronaut
‘Eventually industry will no longer find in Europe the resources to satisfy its prodigious expansion. Coal will undoubtedly be used up. What will industry do then?’
— Augustin Bernard Mouchot (1825-1912), French inventor of the earliest solar-powered engine, converting solar energy into mechanical steam power
I love that the industry used in the image is a letterpress, which looks very much like the one we have at work.
Thursday, May 19, 2011
Final Encore: Pick Your Song For The End Of The World
via npr’s All Songs Considered“Let’s just say, for the sake of discussion, that Saturday marks the occasion when the righteous ascend to heaven and the wicked are sent to writhe miserably in the eternal damnation of hellfire. What single song do you plan to play when the end arrives?”
Join the discussion here. My song would be the Beatle’s “A Day in the Life”
Stand Up For Girls Big and Small
“...My five-year-old daughter came home from school last month and said she no longer wanted to wear pink because a girl in her class had told her that she hated pink and that it was too girly. My first instinct was to have my daughter tell this budding fashionista what she could do with her critique… but luckily I’ve learned to ignore my first instincts. I told my daughter it was a shame that her classmate couldn’t enjoy all the wonderful colors out there in the world. Then we made a list of some wonderful pink things: puppy bellies, cotton candy, strawberry ice cream, piglets, roses, bubble gum…
Let’s teach our daughters to celebrate other women’s strength, success and happiness. Let’s not limit their options. Let’s teach them that when they make decisions in their lives, to make them based on what’s right for them. Our dreams should never be hampered by fear of what others may think.”
Read the entire post by Tracey Stewart here.
How to create a ligature
via thisiscolossal“David Schwen demonstrates how typographic ligatures are created. It’s all about the details…”
Find out more here. This really makes me smile.
Douglas Coffin, Lettercarver
via typeculture“While this film may not be about type, it abounds with beautiful letters. Douglas Coffin is one of a handful of people in the United States who carve letters in stone with the same methods that were used in the Roman Empire. Two thousand years later, the most compelling results are still achieved through the design and carving skills of a passionate artist-craftsman…”
Watch this, and other short videos, here.
QR Code Portrait
via cmybacon“Scott Blake has been creating large scale “pixel portraits” using barcodes, and one of his most recent projects is a portrait of Amy Goodman using 2,304 QR Codes that link to 9 years of Democracy Now videos….”
Memento Mori
via makeCory Doctorow writes, “I’m often puzzled by how satisfying older technology is. What a treat it is to muscle around an ancient teletype, feeding it new-old paper-tape or rolls of industrial paper with the weight of a bygone era. What pleasure I take from the length of piano roll I’ve hung like a banner from a high place in every office I’ve had since 2000.
How much satisfaction I derive from the racing works of the 1965 mechanical watch I received as a Father’s Day present this year, audible in rare moments of ambient silence or when my hand strays near my ear, going tick-tick-tick-tick like the pattering heart of a pet mouse held loosely in my hand.
The standard explanation for the attractiveness of this old stuff is simply that They Made It Better In The Old Days. But this isn’t necessarily or even usually true. Some of my favorite old technologies are as poorly made as today’s throwaway products from China’s Pearl River Delta sweatshops.”
Read the rest here.
Wednesday, May 18, 2011
Tuesday, May 17, 2011
The Rapture: May 21, 2011 6:00 p.m.
via The Bennington Vale Evening Transcript
Read the rest here.
via wikipedia“Harold Egbert Camping has gained recent notoriety due to his prediction that the Christian Rapture will take place on May 21, 2011 and that the end of the world will take place five months later on October 21, 2011. Followers of Camping claim that around 200 million people (approximately 3% of the world's population) will be raptured. As for the remainder of the human population, Camping himself believes in annihilationism, which is the view that those who are not saved will simply cease to be conscious rather than spend eternity in Hell. Those who were "unsaved" and died prior to May 21 will not be affected by or experience the Rapture or the end of the world…”
Read the rest here.Or you can slog through his site here to learn more behind his prediction, or here and here or more links.
The Post Rapture Looting Facebook page [here] just makes me smile, as does the Post Rapture Pet Care Facebook page [here].Classroom-Sized Camera Obscura
Cuban-born photographer Abelardo Morell demonstrated the concept of camera obscura to college students in 1988 by turning the entire classroom into a camera.
Read the rest here.
Creating a community of happiness
via felt and wire“Eric Smith’s Live Now project began as a website collection of inspirational quotes illustrated by designers. It quickly turned into an international community project, which has now been released in book format. The Live Now book includes the contributed works of 65 designers and illustrators from around the world. Of the message that he hopes Live Now will inspire…”
Read the rest here, visit the Live Now community here.
Monday, May 16, 2011
Cartography and Photography
 |
| London, 2011 and 1572 |
via imprint
“My, how our perception of the world has changed in a few short centuries—a heartbeat in the universe’s chronology. The Atlantic has an intriguing slideshow comparing differences between cartographic representations of major cities in the 16th century, and modern Google Maps views. In many cases, the difference in underlying geography are striking…”
See the slideshow here.
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