not a TED talk

The hospital case study is really interesting.

Worst Album Cover in a while

It's been a while since Ive seen an album cover this bad. Check it out here on Amazon

I found this while looking for more info on nice covers for our new CD coverart blog Sleevage. It's still in early BETA release but getting there.

Semi Permanent Sydney 2007 Review

I have been practicing my "Baby Cakes" voice for an audio review of Semi Permanent as I feel this will be the best way to describe the last two days of the conference. I'm not sure why I just love his tone.
Until then here's a quick rundown on what I liked and didn't.

The MC:
Note to Andrew and Murry. Never pick an MC for an event based on how good her legs look in shorts. The MC they was as funny as clubbed seals and about as smart as a belt buckle.

Speakers:
Overall the speakers were a mixed bunch. There was little in "headliners" like the Joshua Davis of the past but it was Nash Edgerton (stunt man/director/actor) that was the highlight for me. The talented blue collar Aussie had everyone buzzing after his talk. He's like an Australian Sam Ramni (who does stunts) and I wouldn't be surprised if he moves onto bigger and better things in the next few years.

Mike O'Meally was another speaker that, like Nash, had a story to tell and told it well. Other highlights were James Jean and Method studios who not only showed good work but some of the stories being the work too. Method's creative director was a very charismatic French guy that really knew how to work the accent with his French humour.

The one person I actually knew and admired from the speaker list beforehand was Dave Kinsey and sadly he seemed to read his talk, even stumbling over parts he'd written. His work is amazing yet he's a quite restrained guy. There's a big difference between a written interview and a talk and I feel he prepared his talk like a written essay.

All in all the conference was good but it could have been great.

Below is the latest episode of Baby Cakes just incase you haven't met him.

Oh I'm writing this review very early into the morning as I had the free V drink and can't sleep.

Kapitol

Life on the Playstation

hehe the entire campaign for this is just as left field. I love it.

Cover Browser

Coverbrowser is a collection of covers for comics. An invaluable resource. It's a shame not all the artwork is scanned at the best quality.

I've only had a few minutes to browse but here's a few I remember seeing a while back that I always liked.

Places of Interest on Google Maps

Here are the 5 latest locations I have done Earth Wallpapers for. This will probably be my last batch until Microsoft, Yahoo, Google or NASA want to give me the OK that they will allow the site to continue. Google havent replied to my email asking what I can do to keep the site running so I've left it up. I guess they'll remember later and then send a more forceful letter.

Industrial Kazakhstan: Looks like a shit place to work

Egyptian Dock: Mmmmm I wonder if the P&O faor star stops here?

Alaska: Weird colors. Right next to this is a massive red area.

NZ Volcano: WOW. Probably the most amazing thing I've seen on Google Maps to date. It looks so surreal.

Saudi Lake: It's like Saudi Arabia 90210. The whole area is weird.

NoPattern Book : The Art Of Chuck Anderson

Mike just ordered this book from Nopattern.com and it looks great. An ecleptic array of artisitc styles all with a wonderful imagination.

Nathan J's Berline Exhibition

Nathan J has switched off the colour tab and produced a new style of work for his latest exhibition in Berlin. It's dark, moody, sexy but always imaginative.

Here is the show preview he sent me recently. The show is on October 10th at Gallery Neurotitan, Berlin

The full show consists of 22 framed ink/pen/watercolour sketches ranging in sizes between A5 - A2), a large installation featuring Bunniguru and various prints. It's titled 'Keliukis' - (the Lithuanian god of travel).

Earth Wallpapers To be shutdown

I got an email form Google today saying that the site will have to be shut down.

This is quite annoying but I guess I am using their imagary without persmission.

I'll be taking it down in the next few days and might just leave it up there with links to the locations and a guide on how to make the desktops.

Oh well, at least I didn't spend too long making the site. It was about 1-15 hrs work total.

Kid Robot Auction

Kid Robot are selling a huge array of toys from their latest exhibition. Check out the Ebay auction here. These are all 1 of 1 and make my wallet shudder to think how much money is beign spent on custom toys.

This RotoFugi one is pretty awesome. Your's for just under $500! It is 20 inches though.

There's also this insanly detaile done form Urban Medium.

This one from JUSTIN PITKETHL is probably the uglist!

This one form Zoo York is also nice.

Earth Wallpapers

I've done a quick mini site for the Google Maps wallpapers Called Earthwallpapers.org. Shit name I know but all the ones I thought of were already taken.

Mambo Kunst Exhibition

Mambo are runnign an art exhibition with heaps of store art. My fave (without seeing the show yet) is this Endless Board image. The exhibition is at the Monster Children Gallery in Darlinghurt until the 28th of September.

You can find more info on the show here.

Earth Wallpapers

I've started making wallpapers from Google Map images. As I've already spent the time to make them for myself I thought I might aswell make the other sizes needed.

So until I get the site up EarthWallpapers.org you can grab them all from my Flickr set.

Some are quite practical others just look cool. It's amazing how much fun it is navgiating Google Maps searching for wierd patterns in the landscape. It's actually quite relaxing.

They are available in the following sizes 1920x1200, 1600x1200, 1280x1024, 1152x864 and 1024x768. Anyone on an 800x600 can just go buy a bigger monitor.

Triple J logo and Golden Drum?

Check out the logo for the Golden Drum. An european advertising festival.

It looks just like the Triple J logo. Weird.

Flickr API URL Change

Flickr have changed the URL for their API. This will affect flash developers in a huge way so make sure you update your URL. So instead of http://www.flickr.com/services you need to use http://api.flickr.com.services.

More details here.

Semi Permanent

I spent my Friday and Saturday at Semi Permanent at Darling Harbour and had a great time. Not technical fuckups and all the speakers, except 2 unprepared ones, were all imformative and inspiring.

I would prefer if people had a purpose to their talks and not just get up and crap on about their work but tried to tell a story or inform the audience in some way. The best speakers Paul Pope, Joshua Davis and Anyhow tried to do that.

The place was packed with peopel with 3,000 or so design type people in Darlin Harbour. Tehre was lots of bad hair (mainly the designer wanna be guys) and lots of sexy chicks (who will somehow dissapear into an abyss of print design)

Wolfmother Ipod Rock Ad

The IPOD ads are really a treat for the eyes and I'm glad to see that an Australia band has been featured on the latest one pimping rock music. I'm not really a fan of Wolfmother just a guy that likes to see Aussies in high places.

Black Apple Macbooks

Once you go black.......

finally Apple have gone back to black for their laptops. Imagine how much of a mofo you'd look with a black G5 tower would look!

Rock up to an Apple store with AC DC's Black in Black blasting out of your boom box and order one of these sexy machines. I'll be swapping back to Apple once all the software runs native on the Intel Duo's and keep my throw my Dirty Dell.

Nathan J's Scary Girl Exibition in Japan

Nathan J has just finished his first Japanese exhibition. There's plenty of original artwork and limted digital prints of his work up for sale. It seems Scary Girl is going off for him right now with a movie and TV show planned.

Nathan and the gallery sent me a few pieces of his work. If interested contact the gallery for pricing. Prices ranging from about $80 AUD up to $2,000AUD

View the rest of what was on offer here. I really like the sketches and am hoping to get one or two for home to add to the Ash-enhiem Gallery.

Artist Proof

House Industries always make nice stuff and their new Artist Proof collection is no exception. It looks pretty sexy but from what I can gather it's just a bunch of nice looking patterns on paper?

I don't understand is why you'd spend $300 USD on a bunch of pretty paper. I mean the book was great archive of their work and their though process vbut this artist proof looks nice but woudl end up just becoming junk in your office. Maybe I'm missing the point?

I didn't realise that House also have a blog of sorts. It's called Show and Tell and is quite good.

L&P

The standout ad for me last night at AWARD was these ads for L&P. Bomb & Stubbies

If I hadn't of had a NZ friend while in highschool I wouldn't have known what L&P was at all but it doesnt matter these ads can be enjoyed by anyone. Sems Kiwis are producing some FF (fucking funny) ads lately.

Not only are the ad written well they look great too.

Agency Websites

I found the following two agency websites funny as they just didn't seem to try very hard.

Publisis Mojo seems like someone forgot to upload the rest of the site. You'd think with 10,000 staff someone could finish off the site.

Grey Worldwide at least has content but unlink Mojo they put a map of Australia yet call themselves worldwide?

This is in comparison to sites liek BBDO, Fallon and Leo Burnett which are just as good as the agencies behind the sites.

Rprsnt Confrence

I spent my Friday at Saturday at Rprsnt a "Creative" conference in Syndey's Luna Park.

This was run by the guys at Refill magazine and featured a good variety of speakers both from Aus and overseas. I enjoyed MrCartoon and his entourage, Pablo Farrer (the dudes like 70 and still kicking it), Brand New School, Umeric (best prepared talker) and the guys from Odd Studio.

They tried out a new format which was one of the organisers (Luca) interviewing people as they showed their work. This is different to the usual get up and speak format.In theory this is a great idea but in practice it makes for bad viewing. Umeric kept to the traditional presentation format and I think the crowd (around 2000 people) would agree that his presentation was the best. If only Ash from Umeric was better at fielding questions from the audience like the Mr Cartoon guys.

The problem with the interview format is the lack of direction, even with prepared questions (i don't think there were) it's hard to extract a good story from people if they are not prepared. Also Luca had a hard time just listening to the speakers and felt the need to talk between every answer (repeating himself and contradicting himself quite a bit) and at times talk over his guests.

There was a small store presence out side the talks and a few technical issues on the days but these are to be expected from volunteers and designers. Maybe next time spend more money on getting professional help guys :) One central computer that everyone presents off would probably be a good idea too.

After the two days of hearing all these designers speak you cant help but feel inspired. Even if it is to start your own conference and watch as the mo' money pours in :)