fall in love or fall in hate. get inspired or get depressed. ace a test or flunk a class. make babies or make art. speak the truth or lie and cheat. dance on tables or sit in the corner. life is divine chaos. embrace it. forgive yourself. breathe. enjoy the ride….

- Shannon Wildflower

via Facebook | Shannon Wildflower

As the internet rages on, I become connected with more and more people. I read their status updates, quick blog posts, tweets, etc… I’m seeing more and more comments from genuinely creative and talented people about feeling lost, not as good as they want to be, and generally in creative daze. To me, it seems their connectivity seems to be a cause of their creativity rot.

In a world where everyone has a blog and a Twitter account and a Facebook page, it makes it much easier to compare yourself to… anyone. Celebrities, artists, politicians, musicians, philanthropists, they all “blog,” “tweet,” and update their status on Facebook. Some actually do it themselves, while others obviously have minions finish their dirty deeds. The playing field has seemingly been leveled. If they blog and you blog, why aren’t you the famous/rich/important one?

Being connected brings great things. But as they say, with great power comes great responsibility. In this case, your responsibility is to yourself. A responsibility to be the genuine you, to embrace and push through the frustration that comes with being creative. If you aren’t where you want to be and are frustrated with that painting, that design, or that photograph, it’s probably a sign that you’re actually on the right track. Ignore everybody else and focus on yourself.

When in doubt, remember Hugh’s first rule: Ignore Everybody.

That means, it’s okay to quit looking at Facebook and Twitter and MySpace for a few days.

And while your at it, close your RSS reader for a day. ;)

traveling with the ghost: ??? (Yan Zhixiong)

Banknote patterns fascinate me. I can get lost for hours in all the details, seeing how the patterns fit together, how the lettering works, the tiny security ‘flaws’ – they’re amazing. Central to banknote designs are Guilloche patterns, which can be created mechanically with a geometric lathe, or more likely these days, mathematically.

via Guilloches | The Ministry of Type

As lorelle mentions, there are also quite a bit of wonderful treats surrounding WordCamp, like a WordPress Genuis Bar and a WordPress Charity Scavenger Hunt!

I’m extra excited to go, since somehow, they missed it, and are allowing me to present! There are going to be some really amazing speakers, like: Jane Wells, Andy Skelton, Andy Peatling, Alan Levine, Tantek Çelik, Noel Jackson, Joseph Scott, Lloyd Budd, Mark Jaquith, Stephen O’Grady, Jeremy Clarke, Aaron Brazell, Sam Bauers, Will Norris, Liz Danzico, Chris Lea, Tom Coates, Chuck Lewis, Stephan Spencer, Steve Souders, and more!!!!

modelcouture: Magdalena Frackowiak“Sortilège” Numero #

“The red icon on your iPhone or iPod touch always reminds you (and others when you show it to them) that you were rich enough to afford this. It’s a work of art with no hidden function at all.”

via wrongdistance.com

Eve Duhamel

 

No.57 | N 36°13’48.5“ W 116°47’09.2“, Bad Water, Death Valley, California, USA, 2006

[via Snowball's blog]

Which eventually led to you coming up with a technique that’s pretty much paved the way for all the D.J.’s and turntablists to come. What did you feel like the first time you were able to make it work? 
When I first did it, I called up Disco B and EZ Mike, and I was like, “Listen, I got something, I got something.” And when they came down, they were like “What the fuck is this?” And I was like, “Watch what I’m doing, ya’ll, please watch what I’m doing.” But they just could not grasp it. I went on to doing it in different parks. I figured if I was playing the hardest, best part of these different genres of music I would have people on the ceiling, but people were just like “What the fuck are you doing?” I went home and I cried, cried, cried, cried. Nobody got it! I tried to go to different clubs, get on for five or ten minutes, and I heard excuses like “My boss will fire me, I hear you ruin records, I can’t let you touch my stuff.” It was just ridicule after ridicule after ridicule. I was a geek for a long time. [Laughs.]

[via TMN]

FontFont recently sent me one with these two gems (oldies but goodies):

Ayres Royal

New Standard

[via stephen henault]

This is the most profound marketing I’ve ever seen for a book.

During my stint at “Art School,” all the freshmen would usually get really into one of the classic photographers, Avedon, Cindy Sherman, etc. Cartier-Bresson was one of the most referenced. For what he calls “The Decisive Moment.”

“There is a creative fraction of a second when you are taking a picture. Your eye must see a composition or an expression that life itself offers you, and you must know with intuition when to click the camera. That is the moment the photographer is creative,” he said. “Oop! The Moment! Once you miss it, it is gone forever.”

Henri Cartier Bresson

Today I ran across a lego reproduction of one of Bresson’s most infamous photos “Behind the Gare Saint-Lazare.” Pictured side by side below:

The Lego™ rendition is genius. But, the original, is a classic, if not a tale in itself. The photography, is said to have been staged. He still clicked the shutter, but only after many tries. Or so goes the legend.

If that’s true…

Henri wasn’t just a photographer, but an brilliant self-marketer. He created a “brand” around himself. He built upon this idea of “Henri” being in the right place at the right time, all the time. People thought and still do think, he was truly a photographic GENIUS.

Cartier-Bresson knew his audience. He was a masterful photographer, but beyond that, he truly understood what his audience wanted. They wanted to believe in magic and coincidence and fate. He gave it to them. Maybe, even if it was decisively.

[picture of lego guy via clusterflock via coudal]

She’s also got this ridiculous video for Wanderlust.

Her graphic designer is a king at modern typography, hence his domain name: http://www.moderntypography.com/

What does Björk not do to the nines?

Captioning Sucks! is a microsite about captioning, and why it sucks!

Joe Clark approached me to design and build the site. His request: “garish and vulgar.” So, eight6 went to town.

It was an odd request, and an awkwardly challenging one. Aside from wrangling with Comic Sans and coming out victorious, I got to play around with some alpha-transparency and I think the result is pretty interesting. This site was one of my favorites to design… It’s not every day you get to do this kind of work! And now, I can finally say, “I got a client to use Comic Sans!”

I want to point out, that this is the kind of stuff I really enjoy and one of the main reasons I started eight6. We don’t just want to design, we want to move the world forward through design. (Yeah, it sounds corny.) Captioning Sucks! is a perfect example of balancing graphical conventions and implementing contextual design. It’s vulgar appearance helps emphasize the importance of the project’s goals.

Go find out why Captioning Sucks!

I’ve been reading gapingvoid for ever. I don’t think I would have survived NYC without the backlog of cartoons Hugh has put online.

Hugh drew me this card, that will be cherished forever. Frame is on its way.

Hugh, thank you my friend!

BTW, be sure to check out this post over at Hugh’s site. He’s great.