Archive for May, 2009
All the faithful readers of this blog (all 3 of you) more than likely know how much I dig augmented reality. Well, check out some new cool uses for it. The image to the left comes from a new AugReality idea from Topps. These new baseball cards, mixed with the Topps application, let you see 3d representations of the players on the cards, and then let you use them to play a small mini-game. Pretty neat idea that I think could If there’s a negative about this new direction, it definitely has to be the incredible simplicity of the games you’re able to play. Such cool new technology and the best Topps can muster is Game and Watch 2.0? Hit the jump for another awesome AugReality app. Read the rest of this entry »
Love these creative ads for the Panamericana School of Art and Design. Not sure if they were actually produced, or if they were just proof of concept. I love how simple they are, and the awesome explosion of creativity that comes from them. They merely present people with a grid of simple shapes and asks, “how far does your creativity go?” This might be a neat process to try when working on an ID project sometime. Hit the jump for some more pics, or check the site out for even more. Read the rest of this entry »
Part of me bets that when this first started it didn’t contain ads or the banal tweets of people like Oprah. But, I’m sure it wasn’t long before Amelia Earhart started paying someone to update these gizmos with notes about her travels and Londoners started claiming that the service had jumped the shark.
I came across both of these links today and felt that I should share them with you, the loyal Straw Dog readers. However, I felt that by themselves they were not of high enough quality for single posts. So you get a lovely dose of 2-for-1 goodness today.
The first: a post from PSD Tuts detailing how to place a fantasy creature in a misty landscape.
The second: Open Source Release Feed is having a contest to design a jackalope-themed desktop wallpaper. What can you win? An Intuos4 Medim Tablet. If you have no idea what that is, hit the jump, push play, and make sure you have a rag handy because you’ll start drooling. Also looks like there’s some prizes from the always amazing Think Geek.
I cannot begin to describe the amount of bonus points you will win if you combine these two posts and enter a wallpaper you’ve created using the mist tutorial. If you leave a link to your entry in the comments, I’ll dedicate a Straw Dog post to you. Excelsior, my little mist-covered jackalope artists!
Read the rest of this entry »
I love this. If you don’t instantly get it, you’re either not a designer, or a bad one. It’s today’s (4.8.09) shirt on shirt.woot.com. Sounds like you can buy it for the rest of the week, and perhaps longer if it’s voted up. It’s currently only $10, but will go up to $15 after Friday. What a great way to end the week.
thanks to @Stagmo for the tip
I was debating whether or not to post this recent find. On one hand, it claims it contains beautiful typography, and on the other hand, I don’t think it does. Actually, some of the examples are just bad typography. Still, I thought it was worthwhile because along with the examples they show you the CSS used to create them, allowing you to pick and choose some of the good parts.
Here’s one to bookmark for that one random future project you’ll get where you have to design a menu: What graphic designers need to know about restaurant menu design. Interviews with menu engineers, reading about the psychology behind menu design, case studies, definitely a great launching point (and an interesting read regardless). In fact, I’m willing to bed it would be infinitely more helpful than something like…about.com’s menu design help page.
Sometimes I peruse the archives of the Dieline and I find myself thinking, “how did kerning like this ever make it into the wild, and who got paid to do it?”
Short article up at The Next Web giving a nice overview of Quicksilver. When I was first introduced to Quicksilver I thought it seemed like a pointless waste, and even deleted it after using it for only a day. A friend convinced me to give it another shot and after a couple more days of use I became totally and utterly addicted. Hit the jump to find out why. Read the rest of this entry »
This picture is awesome. Let it inspire you. Shot by Isilmetriel over at DeviantArt (hissssss)…or was it? This picture was actually created using Terragen: a fact I didn’t catch until I read the details of it.
Today’s inspiration lesson: consider how to show people differences in time; utilize new tools.
