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the next generation
blog. Friday 3rd of July, 2009.
Has it really been over a month since my last little flurry of posts? I make a terrible blogger. To be honest, at least I've got a decent reason this time — I've had a whole bunch of great freelance projects that have occupied approximately 92% of my waking time (the other 8% was G&Ts in the sun, and why the hell not).
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Jayne Wallace: Digital Jewelry
blog. Thursday 28th of May, 2009.
Yesterday I made it to Super Mondays for the first time. Like many of the amazing things going on in this town, I only recently found out about it — I was gutted to find out that I missed a talk on Arduino recently. Not that I was disappointed at all, as there was a load of great stuff to see — students from the Culture Lab were demonstrating their work. This included 'home-made' multitouch computers and their 'ambient kitchen' project, which is aimed at helping sufferers of dementia to retain independence in the kitchen, and features Wiimote-based utensils which are able to sense the action which is being performed. Following the general demonstrations, there were several interesting talks — Patrick Olivier kicked off with an introduction to the work that takes place in the lab, and later Andrew Waite gave a short but informative talk about collecting Malware with the low-interaction honeypot Nepenthes. For me though the highlight of the talks was digital jeweller Jayne Wallace talking about the amazing work she has created with the lab.
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Mychael Barratt
link. Monday 25th of May, 2009.
Mychael Barratt is another excellent printmaker that I hadn't encountered before my last trip to the Biscuit Factory. I was particularly taken with his Marriage a la Mode set — a six-piece series of prints chronicling the process of a relationship (and which caused a mini-argument about interest-free credit between myself and Kathryn). The image above is the fifth part — temptation — and while the reference should be pretty obvious, my soft spot is based on a (slightly more nerdy) nod from my childhood.
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Anja Percival
link. Monday 25th of May, 2009.
One of my favourite things that yesterday's little jaunt to the Biscuit Factory turned up is the work of printmaker Anja Percival. Her work is a beautiful study of hazily lit urban areas — gentle glows picking out and softening abstract sections of carpentered environments. These prints manage to capture the contrasts of the subject — the implied warmth beyond the window contrasting with the lonely, slightly sinister feeling of being outside looking in. I have to admit that they reminded me of nothing so much as the beginning of Braid, when the protagonist makes his way through the darkened city to his home — which, not coincidentally, is one of my favourite moments in a game, ever.
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Robert Doisneau
blog. Monday 25th of May, 2009.
I got a chance to hang out in town the other day for the first time in ages, and while we were on our way up the hill Kathryn dragged me into the Side Gallery. Being (relatively) new to the area, I'd not been in there before, but I'll definitely be a regular visitor in the future — it's a magnificent gallery with a great layout for small, characterful exhibitions, and with a great stock of well-picked (and equally well priced) photo prints.
A Woman's Eye, the downstairs exhibition, was decent enough and had a couple of real gems in there, but the real treat was to be found at the top of the (precarious) staircase. Robert Doisneau's impossibly intimate shots of Paris life span sixty years, yet show no real progression in either style or subject — each is a moment as perfectly preserved as the last. A lovely, warm sense of humour runs through all of these images — it's never at the expense of the subject, and the theme almost entirely celebrates life's small victories. I obviously wasn't the only one who thought so — while we were there, three other couples made their way around the exhibition — each pair starting off in quiet discussion and gradually building up to an excited, giggling chatter.
The short short version? I left the gallery several units more happy than when I entered — I'm not sure I can give a better review (of anything) than that. The exhibition runs until Saturday 27th of June — if you're in Newcastle in the meantime, I can't recommend it thoroughly enough.
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Charlie Brooker vs. the BNP
link. Monday 18th of May, 2009.
“ Extremist material of any kind always looks gaudy and cheap, like a bad pizza menu. Not because they can't afford decent computers — these days you can knock up a professional CD cover on a pay-as-you-go mobile — but because anyone who's good at graphic design is likely to be a thoughtful, inquisitive sort by nature. And thoughtful, inquisitive sorts tend to think fascism is a bit shit, to be honest. If the BNP really were the greatest British party, they'd have the greatest British designer working for them — Jonathan Ive, perhaps, the man who designed the iPod. But they don't. They've got someone who tries to stab your eyes out with primary colours. ”
Charlie Brooker talks about the BNP, making (as ever) his own fearsome brand of sense. I'm a graphic designer, and this site is primarily concerned with graphic design, so I'm sort of duty-bound to quote the above section. To be honest, I know a lot of graphic designers, and a fair percentage of them (us, I should say — I include myself) share a few particular negative traits . But not one that I can think of would lower themselves to the level of working for the BNP.
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www.kathrynwarwick.com
work. Thursday 14th of May, 2009.
Another day, another Wordpress theme — this time for my lovely girlfriend Kathryn. Her new blog is a bit sparse at the moment, but I am assured that she intends to fill it with tasty recipes (as well as more general musings). As a regular benefactor of Kathryn's cooking, I can assure you that these are recipes that are worth a look.
I also spent an hour messing with the site's front page (as I had accidentally deleted the previous version's stylesheet without noticing). Mmm... Microformats.
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Sarah France - Work in Progress
work. Saturday 9th of May, 2009.
A little while back, I put together this Wordpress theme for the awesomely talented Sarah France. She was in the process of moving her blog from Blogger onto her own site, and had asked me to help her set up a downloaded theme. I suggested making a custom theme — it didn't seem right that a designer with such an interesting, distinctive portfolio was going to be stuck with a generic layout. I tried to keep it simple, readable, and generally nice to look at and use, while also reflecting Sarah's love of modernist grid-based design.
Fast forward a couple of months, and Sarah has finished packing up her old blog, and is officially launching the new one. Go check it out!
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Today I die
link. Friday 8th of May, 2009.
Today I die is a Flash game. It's also short, thoughtful, and a little bit beautiful. Its creator, Daniel Benmergui, has also made a bunch of other short, thoughtful, slightly lovely games in Java and Flash, mostly as experiments in ultra-minimal storytelling.
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BakerTweet
link. Saturday 2nd of May, 2009.
A simple, smart idea, BakerTweet is the brainchild of POKE on behalf of their neighbouring bakery. Basically a bakery-proof Twitter notifier, it can be pre-programmed with a list of baked products which can be scrolled through using the dial on the front. When a batch is just about to come out of the oven, a press of the button will notify the bakery's Twitter followers that freshly baked goods are now available.
On a technical note, BakerTweet is built using the extremely interesting (and open source) Arduino prototyping system. The possibilities of this kind of system — extending eminently hackable web apps like Twitter even further, into the realms of hardware — are the sort of thing that makes me glad to be working on the web right now.
