Awhile ago I was searching the internet for creative inspiration, especially for freelance professionals like myself, I found Freelance Switch. It’s a community of freelance professionals from around the world, spanning all manners of fields. They have many articles for freelancers, everything from Keeping in Touch with Prospective Clients, Making the Most of a Critique to The Care and Feeding of Subcontractors. But I especially love the comic strip they have, I like it probably because I can relate to it very well. Freelance Freedom is illustrated by N.C. Winters. If you are a freelancer I would highly recommend you give the fine folks at Freelance Switch a visit.
I’ve included Issues #148, #149 and #150 below. Enjoy and be sure to visit Freelance Switch!
CCS student Andrew Kim’s Coke bottle redesign is an ambitious take on the iconic bottle, going square in the name of eco-friendliness. The new bottle shape would take up far less space in shipping pallets per bottle, and a push-up in the bottom large enough to accommodate the cap of the bottle beneath it would enable stacking. Said cap is offset for better drinkability.
Another interesting design feature is that underneath the label, the bottle is ribbed so that it can compress like an accordion, taking up even less space when it’s time to go into the recycling truck.
Infographics are visual illustrations communicating information by means of signs, symbols, icons, maps and diagrams. When these graphics are animated they can be used to represent complex situations and tell stories, or they can address social comment, satire and subversion. At their best, infographics in motion can be informative, involving, funny and at times surprisingly touching. This post brings together some examples of these stunning animations.
Grand Tour of the Known Universe
This is a truly awesome infographic animation revealing the scale of the known universe in relation to our home planet. Astrophysicists at the American Museum of Natural History have mapped and constantly update and maintain the Digital Universe Atlas, a four-dimensional map of the cosmos, created using the latest scientific data. Based on this map, the movie takes the viewer on a mesmerising voyage from the Himalayas to the furthest reaches of known space and time, with every galaxy, star, planet, moon and satellite accurately scaled and positioned according to current knowledge.
The Crisis of Credit Visualized
In this animation the credit crunch is explained in simple steps with informative narration and crisp graphics. Jonathan Jarvis’ film does what the best Infographics can achieve: distill a complex situation and represent it in an accessible manner.
Growing Up
This charming animation considers the worries of growing up, and reassures that the wonders of growing and life’s surprises are really nothing to fear.
Timothy Walter Burton was born August 25, 1958 in Burbank, California. As a teenager bored with suburban life, he entertained himself by painting, drawing and making short films. In 1976 Burton entered CalArts in Valencia, CA which led to a job as an apprentice animator at The Walt Disney Company in 1979. His independent temperament was not well suited to work on the studio’s The Fox and the Hound (1981) and none of the hundreds of wildly imaginative concept drawings he did for The Black Cauldron (1985) were used for the film. However, Disney recognized his talent and supported the production of the shorts Vincent (1982), Hansel and Gretel (1983) and Frankenweenie (1984).
Burton’s feature film career began at Warner Bros. in 1985 with Pee-wee’s Big Adventure, Beetlejuice (1988) and Batman (1989), and his international reputation as an auteur with a unique visual style and imagination was cemented with artistic and box-office success of Edward Sissorhands (1990) for 20th Century Fox and Disney’s Tim Burton’s The Nightmare Before Christmas (1993).
Burton’s fourteen features include work in such disparate genres as, biography of Ed Wood (1994), science fiction Mars Attacks (1996), horror Sleepy Hollow (1999), fantasy Big Fish (2003), stop-motion animation Corpses Bride (2005), children’s literature Charlie and the Chocolate Factory (2005), and the musical Sweeney Todd ( 2007). Burton has directed for television – Aladdin and His Wonderful Lamp (1984) and Alfred Hitchcock Presents The Jar (1986), commercials – Hollywood Gun (1998) and Timex (2000), a web series – The World of Stainboy (2000) and the music video Bones (2006) for the rock group The Killers. In 1997, he published a book of illustrated verse The Melancholy Death of Oyster Boy and Other Stories and in 2003 Darkhorse Comics introduced his collectible figures Tragic Toys for Girls and Boys. Although he is known primarily as a filmmaker, Burton has always pursued private projects as an illustrator, painter and photographer – work that further reveals what he shares with a generation of artists influenced by late 20th Century popular culture. Burton’s 3-D adaptation of Alice in Wonderland will be released in March 2010. He resides in London.
Tim Burton animates the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) logo:
The MeasureMe Stick transforms the traditional ruler into a playful, modern object. Display as an original graphic piece or use to chart your child’s growth through the years. Each piece is handmade in Chicago by Studio 1A.M.
Materials
* Bamboo construction
* Non-toxic ink and finish
* Stainless steel pegs (mounting hardware)
If you love Photoshop and own a fridge, these magnets might be for you. It’s a sure fire way to make any photo you post on your fridge look Photoshopped.
What else can I say about Photoshop magnets except that I am disappointed they didn’t include a magnet for the cursor. I’m hoping they eventually can come out with the entire Adobe CS Suite. Yup. I’m a nerd. You can order your set of magnets from thinkgeek.com.
What a start to the week! I got a good chuckle when i found these loafers. These Bread Shoes can be purchased online. They have them in adult sizes as well as sizes for kids, a great Christmas gift! This fine collection of loafers is quickly selling out.
More than 70,000 advertising professionals have lost their jobs in this “Great Recession.” Lemonade is about what happens when people who were once paid to be creative in advertising are forced to be creative with their own lives.
Ok, so in a rush to get you a post this month. I’m gonna simply re-post a very cool article on Under-Stair Storage. Originally posted on dornob – design ideas daily. Dornob is as much an interactive design archive as it is a collection of the latest innovative architectural, interior, furniture, furnishing and fixture designs. The primary focus of the design publication (blog) is on works that take form and function to the next level – that defy particular typologies, wander away from convention and are more than merely consumable objects.
One of the oldest space-saving tricks in the interior design handbook involves making use of that leftover area underneath the stairs, the awkward extra space that does not always lend itself to cheap or easy storage solutions. These designs, however, show just how creative one can be with what seems like the hardest space to deal with in a house.
While not a new idea, turning stairs into drawers is a relatively simple way to get easily-accessible storage space out of a staircase. Along similar lines, there a number of other clever but more technically advanced ways to hide under-stair storage or even an entire hidden room or secret passage.At the other end of the spectrum, this bookcase-and-stairs combination shows off your favorite volumes to anyone traveling between the floors of your house. An extension of the simple stair drawers design idea, there are other ways to make more complex and spacious compartments out of a staircase such as these storage stairs above.A less in-your-face idea, each tread of this alternating-tread bookcase/staircase becomes a self-contained storage-and-display shelving unit of its own. There are also do-it-yourself solutions out there for those people who already have a staircase but have simply run out of space, like this traditional-looking stair-and-drawer system one pictured above.Whether you want extra places to display your odds-and-ends collections, more room for your clothing or simply additional filing space there are a lot of creative ways to take advantage of all the extra area below something that every two-story-or-more home already has.
Ok, just one last post about my trip back in time. Below is another one of my favourite pieces. This one was an advertisement for Relentless e-magazine. or an e-zine. Yes, I know the proportions are slightly off. But when you are working with only 16 colours and a 14″ VGA monitor it took great skill for ANSI artists of the day to illustrate figures. You could only view a few lines at a time. So it took great talent to draw ANSI art.
This piece was done while I belonged to one of the best ANSI Art groups in the world. DARK – Digital Artists of the Rare Kind, a legendary Canadian group.
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