Listening to: American Terrorist - Lupe Fiasco Feat. Matthew Santos
… that HOLY CRAP! adrenaline rush I get when the size of the workload finally sinks in. It’s a project cycle I’m used to… it was pretty much my MO at Provoke. Sanguine dithering followed by an almost neurotic focus. It washes over me like stepping into a cold shower.
I noticed it because I haven’t felt it in seven months. It pops back like any other skill that I have neglected for a period - like one of those friendships you have where you can be apart for years and yet still ask intimate questions over a chance coffee.
Well one of the joys at least, is that it doesn’t feel bad when you’re told that you really don’t know what your talking about.
After months of navel gazing and prevarication R&D (it was actually very very productive time… but fighting the desire to BUILD really got to me sometimes) we have gotten to the very exciting logo stage. We’re really fortunate to have a designer who has been responsible for one of my favorite NZ brands doing our work. He presented the design to us last week and I rapidly fell in love with it. Towards the end of the meeting I foolishly (you know… one of those moments where you know stupid words are about to come out of your mouth) requested a change. I was politely told that I wasn’t the designer.
Squid Labs is an innovation foundry that aims to go beyond what the future could bring, they just build it. It started with some MIT students who loved the playful attitude they found at MIT, enjoyed the possibility to explore crazy ideas but were missing the output from the “real world”. MIT was too academic. So when they launched Squid Lab, their aim was to keep the fun and the openness but be more driven by the real world.
Generative graphics and organic information design are making their way into the world of the applied arts: Last monday, I had the pleasure to attend Michael Schmitz’ thesis presentation at the UDK digital media class. Mika has a history of meshing up biology and graphic design, for example breeding fonts in Genotyp. This time he took to the creation of dynamic logos and corporate identities…
SGI Japan has unveiled an intelligent room system, called RoomRender, that can control the electronics, appliances and hardware in a room based on the spoken commands and emotions of the room’s occupants….the cost of RoomRender’s basic components estimated at between 5 and 6 million yen ($40K to $50K)…
From the “common sense now backed with data” file:
SAN FRANCISCO—A small-scale, regional nuclear war could disrupt the global climate for a decade or more, with environmental effects that could be devastating for everyone on Earth, researchers have concluded.
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The lingering effects could re-shape the environment in ways never conceived. In terms of climate, a nuclear blast could plunge temperatures across large swaths of the globe. “It would be the largest climate change in recorded human history,” Alan Robock, associate director of the Center for Environmental Prediction at Rutgers’ Cook College and another member of the research team.
