…how about this rather nice Mirror’s Edge cityscape by MichalKus?
Quadtree Art
I’ve always had an interest in computer generated imagery and art, even though I’ll be the first to admit I level a level of artistic skill roughly on par with underdeveloped slime-mould. Fractals, Lorenz Attractors, cellular automata, and so on. All fascinating.
So after seeing a few pictures generated using Quadtrees to approximate actual images, I thought I’d give it a shot.
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Wallpapers for you Sir
The talented and presumably human Christian Anderson has created a series of wallpapers for Big Robot’s Sir, You Are Being Hunted. Despite the frailties of his mortal, organic frame Master Anderson’s works are both sinister and delightful. Just like the game.
Add requirement. Repeat until original goal lost.
Right, time for a quick tangent from music, games, technology and programming. It’s design-related, don’t worry. Introducing the Camden Bench, quite possibly the nadir of seating and certainly a depressing symbol of modern life. Cities and councils have long since been using public seating designed to resist sleeping – bus stops with narrow, sloping seats that only mutant lizard people could find comfortable, benches with spikes or excessive arm rests. Hell, even metered seating. None of which is surprising given we live in a world where people can try to pass laws making it illegal to feed homeless people.
So against all that the Camden Bench looks positively tame. But let’s look at it from a design perspective shall we?
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Join the fight to save Zebes!
Wow… Via Dueling Analogs I’ve discovered the Etsy store of Barrett Biggers, who does some truly amazing artwork.
Fine art prints in my geek vintage and tradigital painting styles of famous games, anime, and films. Legend of Zelda, Miyazaki, Nintendo, Evangelion, Final Fantasy and so much more!
They aren’t wrong. The Metroid pictures are particularly wonderful, though the my personal favourite is probably the Dune poster.
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Changing perceptions with an icon redesign
Icons and symbols surround us, digitally and physically, and we give the vast majority of them a vanishingly small amount of attention. By and large we know what they represent and what they mean. A recycle bin on your desktop. A stop sign on the road. They are ubiquitous to the point that we barely actually see them as actual visual images any more, simply a representation of a concept. We all know what a fire exit symbol looks like but could you actually draw one? Maybe, maybe not. Without looking could you describe the DVD-drive icon on your computer? Do you know what the colours each letter is in Google’s logo?
So, icons are everywhere and we barely see them on a conscious level. The argument then that common icons can actually colour our perceptions of what they represent might be met with scepticism. It’s an icon, it means what it means. Not necessarily. The Accessible Icon Project certainly don’t think so. They’ve been redesigning the ‘International Symbol of Access’ – the wheelchair symbol – with the explicit goal of altering people’s perception of it and those it represents.
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The power of Sheng: Super Mario Bros
This has been sitting in my “to post” bucket for a couple of months now, so better late than never I guess. Just watch this video of young musician Li-chin LI from the Taiwan Philharmonic playing the Super Mario Bros theme on a towering obsidian cathedral Chinese mouth organ.
When fanbases explode
Everyone knows that the Apple fanbase has a reputation for… let’s charitably say loyalty and enthusiasm. But if you want to see real fans, real evangelists, look no further than Bitcoin. Honestly, go watch them on Reddit.
Now, Apple users are no strangers to having things they like vanish from the App Store, fading from their phones like a distant memory. It’s rare however to see something be removed and face a real backlash but that’s just what happened here. The cause? Bitcoin of course. Apple removed the Blockchain.info app from the store, leaving users bereft and optionless.
“What happens when an irresistible force meets an unmovable object?” the philosophers ask. We’ll maybe never know but it’s proving fun to watch the overlap of two rabid fanbases have collective hernias. I really hope this escalates because it will be hilarious.
Snarky IP wallpapers
Installing Might and Magic X introduced me to the wonders of Uplay, via Steam. What a stupid idea that is. The whole DRM issue annoyed me so I responded in a typically British manner, by putting some desktop wallpapers together.
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This! This is my new anthem!
This! This is my new anthem!
CHIPTUNE! CHIIIIIIIPTUUUUUUUNE!
From KeyGenMusic.net. I in no way endorse keygens or crackers. I do endorse stupidly happy and addictive chiptunes that simultaneously give me spine-tingling nostalgia and happy-foot syndrome.