Jted's Delicious Facebook Reader

food+photography 2010 by Dayna McIsaac in Photography

Jason Theodor — Sun, 15 Nov 2009 10:48:05 -0800

food+photography 2010 by Dayna McIsaac in Photography

Source: www.lulu.com

food+photography 2010 by Dayna McIsaac: Food+Photography is a much loved site with delectable pictures, great recipes and stories to share. Each year a calendar is made available of the year's most beautiful photos.

You know you want it!

dailybooth.com

Jason Theodor — Sun, 01 Nov 2009 13:15:34 -0800

dailybooth.com

Source: dailybooth.com

It's Movember. Day One. That's not a typo, but a cause. Check out my moustache-growing-adventures at dailybooth as I raise money for a great cause: men's prostate cancer. http://dailybooth.com/jted/1571040

Optimus Primes Himself For Twitter

Jason Theodor — Tue, 16 Jun 2009 20:40:12 -0700

Optimus Primes Himself For Twitter

Source: www.flickr.com

This image is part of a post I wrote called Get Primed: Transform Yourself Into Optimus/.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/jted/3633928941/

"Advertising IS dead— which explains why you..." by @jted - Twitter Tees by Threadless - Tweets on T

Jason Theodor — Sun, 31 May 2009 07:53:23 -0700

"Advertising IS dead— which explains why you..." by @jted - Twitter Tees by Threadless - Tweets on T

Source: thrdl.es

It's simple, click 'Heck Yes' if you'd wear the tweet on a tee... click 'Hell No' if you wouldn't. Click 'Share this' to get to the Tweet's permalink page so you can send it to a friend!

If you feel so inclined, vote HECK YES for my Threadless Twitter Tee:
"Advertising IS dead— which explains why you can't kill it."
http://thrdl.es/~/8dC

The Creative Method: How To Generate Great Ideas | Rich Media Institute

Jason Theodor — Wed, 06 May 2009 20:33:54 -0700

The Creative Method: How To Generate Great Ideas | Rich Media Institute

Source: richmediainstitute.com

Dates: May 9th, 10:00 am - 2:30 pm (~4 classroom hours a day) Instructor: Jason Theodor Price: $199 Max Students: 33 Location: Rich Media Institute - Toronto - 156 Augusta Avenue, Toronto, Ontario, M5T 2L5 (map)

There are a few days left to sign up for my May 9th creativity course. Great for agency folk, entrepreneurs, artists, and anyone else who likes to make things happen. Use the code FB2009 for a 10% 'financial crisis' discount.

Catch preview here: http://jasontheodor.com/2009/04/28/the-creative-method-and-systems/

JasonTheodor.com » Blog Archive » Bush vs. Obama

Jason Theodor — Wed, 14 Jan 2009 11:29:08 -0800

JasonTheodor.com » Blog Archive » Bush vs. Obama

Source: jasontheodor.com

In honour of the departure of the Worst President Ever, and the inauguration of the first Geek President, I have updated my iconic arsonal and added Barack Obama to my list. This could also be called Fear vs. Hope or a host of other contrasting words. This is less a political statement than it is an...

Insomnia from sleeping all day allowed me to create this new political illustration last night. Don't judge me. Just link to me.

JasonTheodor.com » Blog Archive » New Google Circle Logo Revealed at 2009 CES

Jason Theodor — Fri, 09 Jan 2009 15:53:05 -0800

JasonTheodor.com » Blog Archive » New Google Circle Logo Revealed at 2009 CES

Source: jasontheodor.com

New Google logo revealed at CES 2009 is made entirely of 8 circles. Looks like a broken Twister game. Check it out.

Exponential Brainstorming: Taking Your Ideas to the Next Level | Rich Media Institute

Jason Theodor — Sun, 18 May 2008 08:43:03 -0700

Exponential Brainstorming: Taking Your Ideas to the Next Level | Rich Media Institute

Source: www.richmediainstitute.com

You will learn the latest techniques on idea generation: from finding a focus, to better brainstorming methods. Discover Routinizational Imprinting, the Law of 1%, the 10 in 10 technique, and many more tools to help take your creative power to the next factor of ten.

Blow your brains out with me, Jason Theodor, next Wednesday morning (May 21st). Expose yourself mind to new creative brainstorming techniques. New compressed 4hour format. Bring your thinking caps. Tell your boss you need to expand your 'ideation footprint' and get him/her to foot the bill.

KEYWORD "Theodor" = 10% off
Limited Space Available

Baz and the Banjo Puppets

Jason Theodor — Sun, 24 Feb 2008 21:55:53 -0800

Baz and the Banjo Puppets

Source: www.vimeo.com

Baz meets Randy Carrot from BanjoPuppets.com, and plays with Thrills, the Popcorn Monster.

Who let vegetable puppets into my house!

Twitter Tweet Sheet — JasonTheodor.com

Jason Theodor — Fri, 15 Feb 2008 06:19:15 -0800

Twitter Tweet Sheet — JasonTheodor.com

Source: jasontheodor.com

I have created an exhaustive, ultra-portable, business-card-sized tweet sheet that you can download, print, cut out, and stick in your wallet or purse.

visit http://twitter.com/jted and click FOLLOW!

Chinese New Year, New LifeFocus System 6.3beta — JasonTheodor.com

Jason Theodor — Fri, 08 Feb 2008 11:52:05 -0800

Chinese New Year, New LifeFocus System 6.3beta — JasonTheodor.com

Source: jasontheodor.com

Well, it’s finally the Year of the Rat. I’ve been waiting 12 years for this. I want to take full advantage of the momentum and launch myself into the best year ever. Today is the first day of the rest of my life.

LifeFocus System cards 6.3beta. I know you've been waiting for it!!

DAY 7 - Peace Cards and Presidents :: JasonTheodor.com

Jason Theodor — Mon, 04 Feb 2008 19:11:01 -0800

DAY 7 - Peace Cards and Presidents :: JasonTheodor.com

Source: jasontheodor.com

My daughter is turning 6 in a few months, and every day she amazes me. Today she was cutting pieces of cardboard and writing “PS” on them, then circling the letters with purple crayon. When it came time to clean up, I asked her to put them away. “What are these?” I asked. “Peace Cards,” she said. “W...

BUY A PRESIDENTIAL PEACE CARD WHILE SUPPLIES LAST!

DAY 4 - Cirque du Soleil Makeup by jted -- Revver Online Video Sharing Network

Jason Theodor — Thu, 31 Jan 2008 12:39:27 -0800

DAY 4 - Cirque du Soleil Makeup by jted -- Revver Online Video Sharing Network

Source: revver.com

A video by jted - Jason Theodor goes into the sunroom to shed some light on the Cirque du Soleil mask that has become his face.

DAY 3 - No More Bad Luck by jted -- Revver Online Video Sharing Network

Jason Theodor — Wed, 30 Jan 2008 22:38:19 -0800

DAY 3 - No More Bad Luck by jted -- Revver Online Video Sharing Network

Source: revver.com

Jason Theodor grows tired of all the well-wishers commenting on his string of bad luck, and aims to set the record straight. It's all in how you look at it, he says.

Leave Jason Theodor alone!

From safari to shimmy: the Dora Princess makeover

Jason Theodor — Tue, 04 Dec 2007 11:41:32 -0800

From safari to shimmy: the Dora Princess makeover

Source: viv.id.au

They have pinned Dora down and given her the Disney Princess makeover. Her effigies are now distinguished by their skinniness, fashion sense, sparkles, dancing, and “beautiful “comb-able” hair”. Previously an action hero, Dora is now an object to be gawked at and manipulated. Her only post-Barbifica...

Dora the Explorer is growing up. And turning into a Bratz meets Barbie wannabe. *sigh* And I thought my daughter would be safe...

North Island Gazette - House of Doc remedy for cold night

Jason Theodor — Mon, 03 Dec 2007 21:16:58 -0800

North Island Gazette - House of Doc remedy for cold night

Source: www.bclocalnews.com

PORT HARDY — The four members of House of Doc walked onto a Port Hardy Civic Centre stage that groaned under the weight of 21 musical instruments.

Wow. The little band I brag about being related to is well liked in Port Hardy. Check out http://houseofdoc.com for more, especially if you want to listen to some of these 'new folk' tunes.

Channel 4 resurrects Max Headroom to promote digital channels | Media | Guardian Unlimited

Jason Theodor — Sun, 02 Dec 2007 10:44:08 -0800

Channel 4 resurrects Max Headroom to promote digital channels | Media | Guardian Unlimited

Source: www.guardian.co.uk

Channel 4 is to bring back 1980s creation Max Headroom for a series of ads to raise awareness of digital switchover. By Mark Sweney

OMG. C-c-c-catch the nostalgic future.

Vancouver 2010 mascots unveiled » Drawn! The Illustration and Cartooning Blog

Jason Theodor — Thu, 29 Nov 2007 21:55:53 -0800

Vancouver 2010 mascots unveiled » Drawn! The Illustration and Cartooning Blog

Source: drawn.ca

Drawn! is a collaborative weblog for illustrators, artists, cartoonists, and anyone who likes to draw. Visit us daily for a dose of links and creative inspiration. More...

These guys look cool. I wonder if Kid Robot will step in and make vinyl toys out of them…

a unicorn eating a bowl of glitter

Jason Theodor — Thu, 29 Nov 2007 18:25:42 -0800

a unicorn eating a bowl of glitter

Source: www.flickr.com

This picture makes me feel like faking true happiness.

The outrageously politically incorrect adverts from the time equality forgot | the Daily Mail

Jason Theodor — Thu, 29 Nov 2007 18:19:24 -0800

The outrageously politically incorrect adverts from the time equality forgot | the Daily Mail

Source: www.dailymail.co.uk

In a politically correct age, they seem like outrageous anachronisms.

I wonder how weird our advertising will seem in 50 years.

Sweeping the Couds Away

Jason Theodor — Mon, 19 Nov 2007 08:36:54 -0800

Sweeping the Couds Away

Source: www.nytimes.com

Children’s TV has changed so much that a preschool classic on DVD now carries a warning.

WARNING! “These early ‘Sesame Street’ episodes are intended for grown-ups, and may not suit the needs of today’s preschool child.”

If you ever watched Sesame Street as a child (back in the 70s or 80s) you can now blame them for why you're so messed up.

www.onedegree.ca

Jason Theodor — Wed, 14 Nov 2007 07:52:11 -0800

www.onedegree.ca

Source: www.onedegree.ca

What's hot with kids and tweens?

Gear (Like computers, laptops, ipods, cell phones, and digital cameras).

Also the Wii, Crocs, Facebook, Webkinz, Anime, and Lego.

Cool. (info from YTV, Fall '07)

IBM: The End Of Advertising As We Know It

Jason Theodor — Sat, 10 Nov 2007 19:57:29 -0800

IBM: The End Of Advertising As We Know It

Source: www.techcrunch.com

IBM released an interesting new report earlier this week that predicts the end of advertising as we know it within 5 years. ...

Advertising is Dead. Again.

Alpha-Bits Now Available In Serif Font

Jason Theodor — Thu, 01 Nov 2007 21:35:36 -0700

Alpha-Bits Now Available In Serif Font

Source: www.theonion.com

I see a whole new line of brand extensions…

TwitterPoster

Jason Theodor — Thu, 01 Nov 2007 19:18:07 -0700

TwitterPoster

Source: twitterposter.com

TwitterPoster is a visual application based on Twitter API.It provides a visual representation of the degree of influence of the Twitter users.

If you like/use Twitter, this app is very cool for finding new/popular people to follow.

Make My Logo Bigger Cream

Jason Theodor — Wed, 31 Oct 2007 10:37:54 -0700

Make My Logo Bigger Cream

Source: www.makemylogobigger...

Agency Fusion's Make My Logo Bigger Mock-u-mercial

I just got this link from Stuart MacDonald. The infomercial promises bigger logos, abolished white space, neon colours, starbursts, and much much more. All for just 3 simple payments of $29.99!

The Sword and Laser

Jason Theodor — Tue, 30 Oct 2007 18:19:00 -0700

The Sword and Laser

Source: swordandlaser.com

We’ve begun reading The Golden Compass, so if you haven’t already make sure you join the group for the discussion in the forums! There will be a new group for every book we read, so we can keep everything organized.

The Sword and Laser is a new sci-fi/fantasy book club started by Veronica Belmont, formerly of Buzz Out Loud c|net fame, now of Hahalo Daily. Who's in?

Jason Theodor Talks on Social Media Today #26 - Toyota WoW, Dove Onslaught, and Radiohead In Rain...

Jason Theodor — Fri, 26 Oct 2007 08:52:46 -0700

Jason Theodor Talks on Social Media Today #26 - Toyota WoW, Dove Onslaught, and Radiohead In Rain...

Source: thereisnobox.wordpre...

1:04 Introduction of Jason Theodor
— 2:10 Discuss Dove Onslaught
— 10:08 Discuss Toyota World of Warcraft Viral Video
— 16:16 Discuss Radiohead’s Pay what you want strategy for new Album In Rainbows
— 21:38 So Long and Jason plugs his stuff

Listen to my interview on Social Media Today!

Night of the Living Republicans

Jason Theodor — Thu, 18 Oct 2007 08:32:21 -0700

Night of the Living Republicans

Source: publish.clearspring.com

"Democrats Baaaaad"

Unnecessary Force - starring jted

Jason Theodor — Fri, 05 Oct 2007 23:08:18 -0700

Unnecessary Force - starring jted

Source: publish.clearspring.com

Watch me blow up The Donald & Paris, disturb Oprah, and get Steve Balmer right pissed at my bad attitude. Great fun from JibJab.

Busted Tees - Rock Paper Scissors

Jason Theodor — Tue, 25 Sep 2007 09:47:37 -0700

Busted Tees - Rock Paper Scissors

Source: www.bustedtees.com

What did Rock say to Paper? Beats me!

This one's for you, Doug.

Busted Tees - Dont Tase Me Bro

Jason Theodor — Fri, 21 Sep 2007 06:57:16 -0700

Busted Tees - Dont Tase Me Bro

Source: www.bustedtees.com

STOP!!! IS NOBODY ELSE SEEING THIS SHIRT?!

If you haven't seen the dude getting Tasered™ at the Kerry forum a few days ago, you don't know internet. Of course, Bustedtees is right behind him, making viral moneys.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SaiWCS10C5s

Internet People! A Tribute to Viral Videos

Jason Theodor — Thu, 06 Sep 2007 20:53:34 -0700

Internet People! A Tribute to Viral Videos

Source: www.youtube.com

An animated tribute to the internet people of the world, wherever you may be. Animated by Dan Meth, with music by Dan Meth and Micah Frank. Find out more at: http://www.methminute39.com

I missed a few, but I tried to document and link to most of the references in this Viral Video Tribute / Theme Song at 1%:
http://1percent.wordpress.com/2007/09/06/viral-video-theme-song-internet-people/

The Right Baby Name

Jason Theodor — Thu, 06 Sep 2007 06:59:44 -0700

The Right Baby Name

Source: www.therightbabyname...

The Right Baby Name is unique for the quantitative, data based approach to naming a baby. It offers a comprehensive set of personalized reports that cover all aspects that are relative for a name, such as socioeconomic, income, education, frequency, and fit.

Baby naming for math and statistic geeks! Touted as the "Scientific Guide" to naming your baby. You get one free test.

Busted Tees - Miss South Carolina

Jason Theodor — Fri, 31 Aug 2007 15:59:51 -0700

Busted Tees - Miss South Carolina

Source: www.bustedtees.com

"I personally believe that US Americans are unable to do so because some people out there in our nation don't have maps and I believe that our education like such as in South Africa and Iraq everywhere ...

Ever wondered what it feels like to be a beauty Queen? Embarrassing! Again, BUSTEDTEES are fast on the viral uptake. Poor Miss South Carolina.

Transformer patent sketches

Jason Theodor — Fri, 31 Aug 2007 11:37:12 -0700

Transformer patent sketches

Source: www.makezine.com

Found at MAKE magazine, using Google patent search.

The Inside of the Mama World (on virb.com)

Jason Theodor — Tue, 28 Aug 2007 17:34:51 -0700

The Inside of the Mama World (on virb.com)

Source: www.virb.com

My Kid DOES Paint That

I recently watched the trailer for My Kid Could Paint That (http://www.sonyclassics.com/mykidcouldpaintthat/) which reminded me of the hundreds of paintings and drawings by my daughter I'd been meaning to photograph and upload to her site. Here's my current favourite.

The Secret Diary of Steve Jobs: Happy Monday

Jason Theodor — Mon, 27 Aug 2007 22:35:32 -0700

The Secret Diary of Steve Jobs: Happy Monday

Source: fakesteve.blogspot.com

Words fail me. Anyway, enjoy. Much love to reader Sam who sent this in.

Go To Hell With Church Sign Generator « 1%

Jason Theodor — Mon, 27 Aug 2007 21:59:07 -0700

Go To Hell With Church Sign Generator « 1%

Source: 1percent.wordpress.com

There’s often nothing funnier than real church signs, but just in case you’ve got a hankering for the devil’s work, play around with the official Church Sign Generator.

JESUS IS YOUR FACEBOOK FRIEND.

Btw, there are 500+ Jesus' on Facebook.

NOTCOT: Field Notes

Jason Theodor — Mon, 27 Aug 2007 19:48:50 -0700

NOTCOT: Field Notes

Source: www.notcot.com

Coudal Partners has teamed up with Draplin Design Company of Portland to bring you Field Notes Brand Notebooks… and the first batch has been shipped out this week! “We just wanted people who ...

The classic design and the affordable price (3 for $9.95 US) make these Field Notes journals a serious competitor to the old Moleskine.

shopmodi - genie in the bottle

Jason Theodor — Wed, 22 Aug 2007 10:44:59 -0700

shopmodi - genie in the bottle

Source: www.shopmodi.com

keep your vino fresh with a Genie to guard over the left-overs when you can’t make it to the bottom of a full bottle!

WISH ONE: This bottle is filled with the best tasting wine in the world. WISH TWO: This bottle will never run empty. WISH THREE: This wine does not cause hangovers. :-D

ConsumerReports.org - Car crash test

Jason Theodor — Wed, 22 Aug 2007 09:06:42 -0700

ConsumerReports.org - Car crash test

Source: www.consumerreports.org

Consumer Reports has crash test videos. Watch most modern models in front and side impact crashes. An excellent resource when considering a new vehicle.

Modern Lighting, Furniture and Home Accessories at Generate

Jason Theodor — Mon, 20 Aug 2007 16:51:25 -0700

Modern Lighting, Furniture and Home Accessories at Generate

Source: www.gnr8.biz

Little Joseph is a hand-painted, porcelain candle holder. We can't decide if he's sinister or sweet. Part of that will certainly depend on what you decide to do with his hair. Use dripless candles if you'd ...

For $80 bucks you can turn a vacent little baby head into a waxy horror show in your very own living room! Perfect for that friend or relative who has everything. (Can't wait for Little Mary to come out.)

Chocolate Rain by Chad Vader

Jason Theodor — Wed, 15 Aug 2007 21:45:51 -0700

Chocolate Rain by Chad Vader

Source: www.youtube.com

We couldn't resist.

You have to watch the original first, by Tay Zonday (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EwTZ2xpQwpA). Then this will be considerably funnier.

johns-boom-box

Jason Theodor — Thu, 09 Aug 2007 19:22:39 -0700

johns-boom-box

Source: www.flickr.com

ink and watercolour on paper

Marc Johns writes, "I like to draw these. not because they are old school, but because they are more interesting to draw than iPods." What about Zunes??!

my beard is crazy delicious - Marc Johns’s blog

Jason Theodor — Thu, 09 Aug 2007 18:58:45 -0700

my beard is crazy delicious - Marc Johns’s blog

Source: draw.vox.com

[this is good][c’est top][いいですね][das ist gut][esto es genial][ciò è buono][isto é bom][هذا هو الحكم][참 좋습니다][這個好][这个好][זה מעולה]

I just finished reading The Twits to my daughter, which has the most hilarious chapter about beards. I was literally crying I was laughing so hard. Then I came upon this great artist, Marc John. Serendipity.

BibliOdyssey: Theatrum Virtutum

Jason Theodor — Sun, 05 Aug 2007 13:00:52 -0700

BibliOdyssey: Theatrum Virtutum

Source: bibliodyssey.blogspo...

As the titlepage above suggests, 'Theatrum Virtutum' (The Theatre of Virtues) was something of a homage to the learned and widely respected catholic bishop and papal envoy during the Counter-Reformation, Stanislaus Hosius (1504-1579).

I am amazed at how thoroughly modern this 500 year drawing of Nobules Polonus looks. It would fit right at home in a current Alan Moore graphic novel.

jpgmag.com

Jason Theodor — Tue, 31 Jul 2007 20:43:13 -0700

jpgmag.com

Source: jpgmag.com

Although born over eight decades apart, up until just this past spring, these two girls had quite a short but magical bond.

Vote for Dayna's picture of my daughter and my Oma to be included in the next JPG magazine.

Darth Vader iPhone Upgrade « 1%

Jason Theodor — Thu, 05 Jul 2007 12:37:00 -0700

Darth Vader iPhone Upgrade « 1%

Source: 1percent.wordpress.com

May the Phone be with you!

Busted Tees - Jokes you can wear! Funny T-Shirts!

Jason Theodor — Fri, 22 Jun 2007 20:47:52 -0700

Busted Tees - Jokes you can wear! Funny T-Shirts!

Source: www.bustedtees.com

The funniest tshirts anywhere. Jokes you can wear! Mens and womens sizes available.

Busted Tees is FAST! Dramatic Chipmunk is now available for pre-order.

Dramatic Chipmunk

Jason Theodor — Wed, 20 Jun 2007 23:30:24 -0700

Dramatic Chipmunk

Source: www.collegehumor.com

Best five second video on the internet.

I don't think this is the best video, but it just MIGHT be the best FIVE SECOND video.

Busted Tees - Canada: America's Hat

Jason Theodor — Tue, 19 Jun 2007 09:01:28 -0700

Busted Tees - Canada: America's Hat

Source: www.bustedtees.com

That's what you get for being geographically located above us, suckers! Stay tuned for Mexico: America's Beard.

Who dares me to wear this on Canada Day?

Blogger's Choice Awards | Blog Detail

Jason Theodor — Mon, 18 Jun 2007 11:22:31 -0700

Blogger's Choice Awards | Blog Detail

Source: www.bloggerschoiceaw...

Welcome to the Blogger's Choice Awards! Here you'll see which blogs are currently making an impact in the blogosphere. All of the blogs you see here are nominated, voted and commented on by users like yourself! Winners will be announced on November 10th at PostieCon in Las Vegas, NV. Learn More.

GO VOTE FOR VEGAN VISITOR!
My sweetheart needs your help. Dayna only needs a few hundred votes to get to the top of this one. If you like good food, and have weird friends who eat strange things like... 'chard' than this blog deserves to rock its way to the top

Extreme Body Modification - Twin Amputates Arm To Give His Brother Third Arm

Jason Theodor — Sat, 12 May 2007 09:16:20 -0700

Extreme Body Modification - Twin Amputates Arm To Give His Brother Third Arm

Source: www.trendhunter.com

ALL | Technology | Fashion | Sex | Business & Marketing | Pop Culture | Art ...

If this trend catches on, I'm still not sure if I want to be on the giving or receiving end of it...

Newmindspace Pillow Fight 2: Apocalypse

Jason Theodor — Sat, 12 May 2007 07:14:15 -0700

Newmindspace Pillow Fight 2: Apocalypse

Source: www.blogto.com

Newmindspace is holding their second massive public pillow fight in Toronto this coming Saturday at 3 p.m. in Nathan Phillips Square.

This looks like fun for the whole city.

Ben Gibbard - Live in Detroit. May 5, 2007.

Jason Theodor — Mon, 07 May 2007 21:37:40 -0700

Ben Gibbard - Live in Detroit. May 5, 2007.

Source: youtube.com

Ben Gibbard sings his opening two songs of his set; a Donovan cover of To Sing a Song For You and Brand New Colony. This is a great recording from his rare acoustic tour, May 5, 2007 at the Majestic in Detroit, MI.

Dayna took this nice little clip at the start of the Ben Gibbard acoustic set in Detroit (at the Majestic Theatre) last weekend.

TwitBin - twitter your browser - twitbin.com

Jason Theodor — Sat, 05 May 2007 14:23:09 -0700

TwitBin - twitter your browser - twitbin.com

Source: twitbin.com

Why'd you build this?We didn't know of anything other than twitterific(which rocks) for streaming our tweets to us. So we decided to build something into firefox, since its what we use all day. There are ...

As if facebook wasn't enough, or syncing my facebook status with twitter wasn't enough (using FBTwit), now I'm going to embed twitter in Firefox and see what happens. So much for that media diet I was planning...

House of Doc on Virb.com

Jason Theodor — Fri, 04 May 2007 13:02:40 -0700

House of Doc on Virb.com

Source: www.virb.com

Friends, Music and Video... we're helping you stay connected.

Bluegrass. Folk. Rock. Gospel. I listened to the rough cut of their latest album, due out in summer 07, and these guys are going to make waves. And I'm not just saying that because they happen to be cousins of mine from Winnipeg. You can listen to their crazy harmonies and O' Brother stylings on VIRB°.

19 Ways To Make Social Sites Pay

Jason Theodor — Fri, 04 May 2007 10:04:50 -0700

19 Ways To Make Social Sites Pay

Source: mashable.com

With the top YouTube users becoming paid shills for Coke, and the top Diggers being accused of taking 'cash for ...

Hey kids! Make (a teeny tiny bit of) money online with your videos/images/blogs/links/clicks/crap! Everyone wins!

imgs.xkcd.com

Jason Theodor — Fri, 04 May 2007 06:41:38 -0700

imgs.xkcd.com

Source: imgs.xkcd.com

Middle Earth 2.0

The price of a mom: $138,095 - MSN Money

Jason Theodor — Thu, 03 May 2007 16:29:58 -0700

The price of a mom: $138,095 - MSN Money

Source: articles.moneycentra...

That's the figure in a report by Salary.com, which calculates the wages that would have been paid a stay-at-home mom in 2007 if she were compensated for all the elements of her "job." That total is up 3% from 2006's salary of $134,121.

This article raises a lot of emotion and a lot of debate. According to Salary.com, the average stay-at-home mom works a 92-hour week. Should we refer to putting our own kids to bed as working overtime? I think this study is flawed, but it also promotes discussion. How DO you put a value on taking care of a family?

Happy Birthday to me... you...

Jason Theodor — Wed, 02 May 2007 09:59:05 -0700

Happy Birthday to me... you...

Source: www.youtube.com

Baz celebrates himself... then finds his twin in the birthday balloon.

My little dude does his birthday routine, then grabs for the camera.

Trimming the attention sails at Like It Matters

Jason Theodor — Sun, 29 Apr 2007 10:32:56 -0700

Trimming the attention sails at Like It Matters

Source: www.brianoberkirch.com

Social Media & Relevant Conversations

Selective dis-attention is the only way to survive the 21st Century.

Portal Demonstration from Valve's EA Summer Media Event

Jason Theodor — Sat, 28 Apr 2007 21:31:57 -0700

Portal Demonstration from Valve's EA Summer Media Event

Source: www.youtube.com

Portal Demonstration from Valve's E3 Summer Media Event

This is mental. It's like Doom meets Escher, with a little Loony Tunes thrown in.

The Inner Life Of A Cell (HQ)

Jason Theodor — Sat, 14 Apr 2007 07:44:37 -0700

The Inner Life Of A Cell (HQ)

Source: youtube.com

A very small percentage of all the good stuff that is going on in a cell.

We're all Sci-Fi on the Inside

An interview with Fantastic Mr. Fox storyboard artist Christian DeVita

John Martz — Mon, 09 Nov 2009 10:45:49 -0800

I had the chance to interview OneHandClapping’s Christian DeVita, the lead storyboard artist for Wes Anderson’s stop motion adaptation of Roald Dahl’s Fantastic Mr. Fox. Here is the interview, along with several of Christian’s storyboards, sketches, and even some of director Wes Anderson’s thumbnails.

Drawn!: Tell me a little about your involvement in the production of Fantastic Mr. Fox.

Christian DeVita: I was the lead storyboard artist on the movie. I was drafted in early in the production (Sep 2007) along with other 6 artists.

We went through a few passes of the scenes, based on some thumbnails that Wes drew, before he decided he wanted to work closely with one of us in Paris. The animation studio and sets were in East London’s Three Mills studios.

(...)
Read the rest of An interview with Fantastic Mr. Fox storyboard artist Christian DeVita

Posted by John Martz on Drawn! The Illustration and Cartooning Blog | Permalink | No comments
Tags: Animation, Christian DeVita, Fantastic Mr. Fox, Interviews, stop motion, storyboards, Wes Anderson

The way Social Media is explained is WRONG

(author unknown) — Sun, 08 Nov 2009 17:15:25 -0800

Michael Bierut’s 5 Secrets of Design

DT — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 08:01:44 -0800

Michael Bierut of Pentagram and Design Observer fame, has shared some of his words of wisdom collected through his years as a designer. He digs through his 86 notebooks filled with his design work, and distills his thoughts down to 5 awesome design secrets.

If you don’t have the time to watch the 19 minute video, check out Michael’s 5 secrets which I have reproduced below.

1) Listen first, then design

2) Don’t avoid the obvious

3) The problem contains the solution

4) Indulge your obsessions

5) Love is the answer

What I also found particularly interesting was how Michael started his talk by claiming that he is not creative at all. (Shock, horror!) He then goes on to describe himself more like a “doctor” waiting for “patients” to come to him with design problems to solve. This echos my believe that design or creativity cannot exist in a vacuum.

Via: Behance’s 99% Conference

Like Ghibli Barfing Rainbows: the Art and Motion of Capybara's Critter Crunch - Boing Boing

(author unknown) — Sun, 01 Nov 2009 17:53:36 -0800

Mortal Enemy of the Hyphen

(author unknown) — Fri, 28 Aug 2009 08:10:00 -0700

Fatal Infection

david — Thu, 24 Sep 2009 04:36:26 -0700

A few people asked for this. And I was curious about it too. So here it is. Case fatality rates for well-known diseases.

This was very hard to research. The AIDS/HIV figures are especially difficult to find. Many of the numbers are locked into the tables of 1,000,000 page PDF reports. Grrrr!

(I tell you – when I sleep these days, my dreams unfold in rows and columns…)

Anyway, if anyone can find tighter, better figures, or can think of any key diseases I’ve missed (preferably with data!), please get in touch.

UPDATE 1: I’ve added this. Thanks to Gorka Cortazar for the suggestion.

UPDATE 2: I’ve edited the Seasonal Flu fatality figure, previously 9% to 0.1%. The original figure was based on the number of patients *severely* ill with ‘flu who died, not the overall number of infected people. Sorry for the error. (Thanks to Lucie Melahn for the correction). I’ve also reclassified MRSA to “serious” or invasive MRSA.

sources World Health Organisation, Centre For Disease Control, Guardian Datablog
see the Google doc of data for more

antonieta e o laptop en Flickr: ¡Intercambio de fotos!

malisia — Thu, 24 Sep 2009 20:59:31 -0700

More Truth About Twitter (via feedly)

(author unknown) — Fri, 11 Sep 2009 08:02:07 -0700

Revisited If Twitter Was 100 People with some interesting new data

sources: Sysomos: Inside Twitter, Sysomos: Twitter’s Most Active Users, Pear Analytics Twitter Study

Maths Dreamed Universe (via feedly)

(author unknown) — Thu, 03 Sep 2009 21:52:49 -0700

New poster from The Luxury of Protest — “Maths Dreamed Universe” : visualising the aesthetic beauty of mathematical equations. Available exclusively from Stereohype.

Congress Speaks: All Words Spoken in the 110th US Congress (via feedly)

(author unknown) — Tue, 01 Sep 2009 07:06:57 -0700

Congress Speaks [congressspeaks.com] is a light-hearted exploration of the more than 14,548,598 words spoken in the 110th United States Congress. It explores who has being doing all this talking, and more importantly, what they have been saying. The website allows the comparison of individual legislators or states, or even states with legislators. The statistics include the exact number of words spoken, a tag cloud of the most common words used, the distribution of the party affiliations of the words spoken, and their relative weight against all words spoken in congress. All this data is part of the public record.

See also Capitol Words. Via Flowing Data.

Dustin Curtis is a Statistic | Dustin Curtis (via feedly)

(author unknown) — Sat, 29 Aug 2009 09:52:07 -0700

Redesigning Craigslist (via feedly)

(author unknown) — Thu, 27 Aug 2009 09:07:46 -0700

Launched in 1995, Craigslist remains one of the world’s most popular websites… but why does it still feel like the ’90s?

Craigslist has built a cult-like following, changing the way people find jobs, apartments, and romance. But unlike most websites, its design has gone mostly unchanged over the years. In a recent article called “Why Craigslist Is Such a Mess”, Wired magazine exposes why (and tries to help).

Besides offering nearly all of its features for free, it scorns advertising, refuses investment, ignores design, and does not innovate. Ordinarily, a company that showed such complete disdain for the normal rules of business would be vulnerable to competition, but craigslist has no serious rivals. The glory of the site is its size and its price. But seen from another angle, craigslist is one of the strangest monopolies in history, where customers are locked in by fees set at zero…

- Gary Wolf, Wired Magazine

Despite Craigslist’s lack of interest in change, Wired asked some leading interface designers to give the site an extreme makeover—with some hopeful results.

Before

The current site, while familiar to existing users, is a mess of confusing hyperlinks with very little consideration for user experience:

After, by Khoi Vinh/NYTimes.com

The NYTimes.com team retained Craigslist's basic look and feel while making the site work more like an app. Since search is the most important feature, design director Khoi Vinh and his colleagues gave this function more real estate and placed it at the top of the page.

After, by SimpleScott

‘Craigslist is working,’ says SimpleScott, former design director of BarackObama.com—why fix what isn't broken? Instead, he focused on making the site easier on the eyes.

After, by Studio8

‘Craigslist is frustrating and claustrophobic,’ Matt Willey says. His layout has a contemporary look, a Web 2.0 feel, and plenty of breathing room.

Personally, I like the direction of Vinh’s design. It’s not too drastic of a change—echoing the minimalist approach of the original site—but the clear typography and clean interface go a long way in improving readability. Best of all, it saves my head from exploding. How could Craigslist go wrong with that?

For more designs (including an interesting one by Pentagram), check out the article at Wired and even submit your own makeover.

13 Fantastic and Fun Image Generators (via feedly)

(author unknown) — Sun, 23 Aug 2009 07:02:03 -0700

Whether you’re artistically inclined or not, sometimes you just need to whip up an illustrative or entertaining image for a blog post or presentation. The tools on this list help you generate respectable graphics in a jiffy — design talent optional!

Most of the tools on this list are web-based and as easy to use as filling in a web form. We’ve added a couple of desktop applications that make visual communication a lot quicker and easier, even for those of us without a ton of graphic design skills.

1. Warning Labels and Signs

Advising people to the dangers of the situation has never been so easy. Simply pick a label style, a warning icon, and enter your desired text into a simple web form and voila, you’ve got a standup warning label.

For a vertical sign-style warning image, check out the companion site Warning Sign Generator.

2. De-Motivational Posters

Annoyed by those superficial and unflaggingly insipid motivational posters we’re subjected to in dentists’ and corporate offices everywhere? Why not take a stance against mass-produced pseudo-solutions to important problems?

With the Demotivators tool you can easily generate a realistic illustration of the trials and tribulations of Real Life. Just choose an image from your desktop to create a motivational parody from, customize your image settings, add a title and de-motivational text and you too can contribute to the better psychological health of us all.

3. Street Signs

From the same fine folks who brought us the Warning Label Generator above is a tool for making funny and inappropriate street signs. Once again this is a simple web form; simply choose one of four background styles, input the text you want displayed on the sign, and choose an optional suffix (Road, Lane, etc.).

4. LOLcats

Almost no list is complete without a reference to funny cat pictures. On the internet, all roads lead to LOLcats, so you might as well make like the natives and start rolling your own.

The LOL Builder tool will help you achieve goofy captioned imagery of your favorite felines and other irresistibly cute animals in no time. You can upload your own photo or re-use an image someone else has submitted.

There’s even an advanced version of the LOL Builder for once you’ve mastered the basics, allowing you to adjust the position of your text and caption bubbles. Poster and “breaking news” bulletin styles are also available, and there’s no rule that requires an actual funny cat to be present. If you want to use any of these tools to make images with other themes, the Internet Police will probably not be showing up at your door.

5. Magazine Covers

This magazine cover tool from Big Huge Labs lets you upload an image or bring in one of your photos from Flickr, Facebook, Photobucket or from a URL. You can customize the color palette, fonts, and up to 17 lines of text to generate your own custom print mag cover.

6. Tombstones

It takes a hardy soul to laugh in the face of death, but if you have the courage this tombstone generator might help. It’s a quick and painless web form that adds your custom text to the headstone.

7. Xbox 360 Achievements

This one goes out to the gamers in the house — especially those of you who experience that satisfying pang of joy each time the achievement badge with trademark sound pops up on your console.

You can make your own achievements with this handy tool, and we sincerely hope you put them to hilarious uses. Know of a funny Alterna-Achievement? Let us know in the comments.

8. Movie Posters

Another project from Big Huge Labs, the movie poster tool is a web form that helps you design a film-style poster from your own images. Choose an alignment for the photo, a poster style, text and accent colors, title fonts and colors, and enter your own custom text for the film title, taglines, credits and MPAA rating.

9. Garbage Pail Kids

Who else is old enough to remember these gems? Relive your youth, or your child’s youth, with this Garbage Pail Kids card generator. Modify the text badge, customize your font and the positioning of the text, and you’ve got your own gruesome custom and classic trading card.

10. Presidential Seal

Going from the cultural to the political, this simple tool lets you add your own verbiage to the official U.S. Presidential seal. And did you know the Vice President also has a seal? Can someone please alert Biden?

11. Add Photo Effects

The Tuxpi site offers a bunch of easy, one-click web-based tools for adding borders, captions, reflections, and other types of effects to your digital photos. You can turn any image into a postage stamp, wanted poster, pop art collage, and more.

12. Skitch

Sorry Windows users, you’re out of luck on this one. Skitch is a Mac desktop app that makes screenshots dead easy to edit and share. Simple edit tools allow you to overlay text, lines and simple shapes to your screenshots or other images. Skitch integrates with iPhoto, Aperture and Photo Booth to easily pull in your existing images or grab a shot from your webcam.

Once your image is ready, you’re one click away from sharing it to the web (publicly or privately), uploading it via FTP, or dragging it to your desktop. A history trail saves the images you’ve worked with for easy reference.

This tool is so useful it’s one of the few I have set to launch automatically on startup. I wouldn’t want to be on a desert island without it.

13. Comic Life

From the makers of Skitch is another great application for would-be doodlers and ad hoc illustrators. Comic Life is available for both the Mac and for Windows PCs, and helps you create professional-looking comic panels, photo albums, and other image layout template styles.

Have you ever torn your hair out looking for those great poofy comic fonts in Photoshop or other tools? That’s one of the areas where Comic Life shines, allowing you to easily drop in impactful lettering text to your images or panels.

More than that, Comic Life provides a fun and easy entry into getting more create ideas flowing with your images. This is the only paid app on this list, but at $24.95 for the standard and $29.95 for the deluxe version, it’s on the cheaper side of imaging tools that help achieve professional-looking results without spending a heinous amount of time. There’s a free 30-day trial as well so you have a chance to check out if it’s worth shelling out the registration fee for your needs.

This is only a baker’s dozen worth of imaging tools that are easy to use for the non-graphically inclined. Do you have a favorite photo tool other readers should know about? Let us know in the comments!

More Resources from Mashable

- 26 Places to Find Free Multimedia for Your Blog
- 20 Simple Productivity Tools for Bloggers
- 20 Great Online Image Editors
- Eight Tools for Capturing Screenshots in Firefox 3
- 8 Cool Tools for a Different Photo Viewing Experience

Reviews: Facebook, Flickr, Photobucket, Skitch

Tags: comic life, graphic design, graphics, image editing, images, skitch

The Indie Rock Coloring Book From Andy J.... (via feedly)

(author unknown) — Wed, 19 Aug 2009 07:31:20 -0700

The Indie Rock Coloring Book From Andy J. Miller and the Yellow Bird Project published by Chronicle - all the proceeds go to charity! Contributors include; Rilo Kiley, Clap Your Hands Say Yeah, MGMT, Bon Iver and The Shins.

(Want more? See NOTCOT.org and NOTCOT.com)

Personas: Representing Your Online Identity as Visual Data Portraits (via feedly)

(author unknown) — Tue, 18 Aug 2009 12:52:16 -0700

Personas [media.mit.edu] uses sophisticated natural language processing algorithms to create a detailed, visual data portrait of one's aggregated online identity.

Personas explores the web for information and attempts to characterize the person: to fit them to a predetermined set of categories that an algorithmic process created from a massive corpus of data. The computational process is visualized as a DNA-like, colorful strip with each stage of the analysis, finally resulting in the presentation of a seemingly authoritative personal profile.

Be sure to type in your own name in the online interface: is Personas able to analyze and represent your online identity in a sufficient way?

Unique TV Series Episodes That Inspire Creativity (via feedly)

(author unknown) — Fri, 14 Aug 2009 12:53:19 -0700

Whatever creative field you are striving to excel in – whether it be graphic design, web development, blogging, or writing of another kind – inspiration can be gleaned from any creative field, even if that field is not directly related to what you personally do. As artists striving to stand out in our own niches, it is important that we notice and appreciate ground-breaking or otherwise imaginative work done in a broad range of artistic spectrums.

In this article you’ll get inspiration from the area of creative writing in popular television series episodes from the past 40+ years, and we’ll discuss how the creativity achieved in these particular episodes can motivate all of us, as artists, to always strive to prevent our creations from being too normal and predictable.

The artists who wrote or co-wrote the TV Series episodes that we’re featuring here were accustomed to producing work in a familiar environment, in harmony with the shows’ usual themes and settings. But in specific instances, those writers decided to create something unique that would long be remembered and appreciated. Some of the creativity was visual, other examples were more related to adjustments in theme, and others involved a little of both.

Let’s review how these particular episodes were different from what came before, and hopefully this will inspire artists today to become motivated to similarly push their work to a new level.

Star Trek “The City on the Edge of Forever” (1967)

Season 1, Episode 28

Show Synopsis: Star Trek is one of the most famous TV series in the history of television and portrays the adventures of the U.S.S. Enterprise as commanded by Captain James T. Kirk (William Shatner) and his First Officer and best friend, Mr. Spock (Leonard Nimoy). They lead a 5-year mission, representing the United Federation of Planets, to boldly go where no man has gone before.

Why This Episode Was Unique: Star Trek traditionally was heavily dependent on fictional technological elements for its plots. In this episode the writers allowed the characters to be removed from that familiar environment through a time portal that is accidentally discovered by members of the Starship Enterprise during a search for Doctor McCoy (DeForest Kelley). McCoy jumps into the time portal, initiating a series of events that causes Nazi Germany to conquer the world, which in turn prevents the U.S.S. Enterprise from ever existing. To correct the disaster, Kirk and Spock decide to enter the portal at a time period just before McCoy entered, ending up in New York City during the 1930s “Great Depression”.

This episode may be one of the greatest stories in television series history, not only because of its dramatic portrayal of the changing of world events, but because of the Star Trek producers’ innovative idea to remove their main characters from their all-too-familiar high-tech setting and propel them daringly into one of the darkest and simplest time periods in human history.

How It Inspires Creativity: Artists today tend to become dependent on a specific “brush size” or “canvas style”, incorporating the different elements of their creations into familiar and “safe” environments. By imitating the producers of this episode, artists can stray from old habits and work in fresh and original settings.

The X-Files
“The Post-Modern Prometheus” (1997)

Season 5, Episode 5

Show Synopsis: This series was based on the investigations of two FBI agents, Fox Mulder (David Duchovny) and Dana Scully (Gillian Anderson). Their investigations center around attempting to solve marginalized, unsolved cases involving paranormal phenomena. Mulder believes in aliens and the paranormal, while Scully, is skeptical and tries to debunk and control Mulder.

Why This Episode Was Unique: While The X-Files was often unique and creative, in this particular episode the writers combined a different visual with a distinct musical score and an interesting plotline. The episode’s storyline references the 1818 novel Frankenstein and seems to be influenced by the 1980 film The Elephant Man, using a “carnival music” score similar to that of the film’s opening and closing credits. Also, the entire episode was shot in black and white, creating an indelible visual to nicely complement the atypical theme, which includes an investigation into the evident existence of a modern-day Frankenstein-like monster.

How It Inspires Creativity: This episode of The X-Files can inspire artists to endeavor to be influenced by interesting and classic works from the past, incorporating visuals and sounds that highlight a particular theme or subject matter.

Seinfeld “The Betrayal” (1997)

Season 9, Episode 8

Show Synopsis: This popular American situation comedy was based on the life and relationships of the comedian Jerry Seinfeld (played by himself), incorporating many of his and co-creator Larry David’s real-life experiences into often bizarre themes.

Why This Episode Was Unique: This episode, which was partly set in India, was unique for the simple reason that the entire episode, including credits and closing sequence, is shown in reverse-chronological order. It has been colloquialized as “The Backwards Episode”, and involves the use of captions to indicate the backwards nature of the plot. Each individual scene is shown in regular time, but the scenes themselves are organized in reverse order, providing a very interesting and memorable composition.

Some of the story’s particulars include details that would have been quite commonplace had the episode run normally. For example, the character Cosmo Kramer (Michael Richards) is shown in different scenes with an “all-day sucker” (a candy lollipop that is very large), and in each scene the sucker gets progressively larger, indicating that time is reversed.

How It Inspires Creativity: To this day, this episode stands out as something completely different from what its writers had produced prior. As artists, we too can strive to turn a theme “on its ear” (so to speak), creating something unique and different, as the writers of this episode did.

Moonlighting “Atomic Shakespeare” (1986)

Season 3, Episode 7

Show Synopsis: Moonlighting was a comedy-drama series that starred the now-popular movie actor Bruce Willis, and featured characters David Addison (Willis) and Maddie Hayes (Cybill Shepherd) working as detectives in a big-city agency, attempting to solve various crimes.

Why This Episode Was Unique: This episode, which aired in the show’s third season, has stood out as one of the most unforgettable and creative in television series history. It begins with a young boy watching an episode of the very show he’s in (Moonlighting), then being reminded by his mother that he has to read the Shakespeare play The Taming of the Shrew for school. When the boy starts reading the play, the show enters his imagination; the remainder of the episode, aside from the closing scene that again involves the boy and his mother, is an abbreviated reenactment of The Taming of the Shrew by the Moonlighting cast in full Shakespearean garb. Mixed within the 16th century theme are humorous anachronisms and other references to the show’s own modern-day influence, including a scene where Bruce Willis’s character rides in on a horse with BMW logos on its saddle blanket.

Atomic Shakespeare was a stunning and original creation in a TV series that was already years ahead of its time. Moonlighting often furnished ground-breaking humour and dialogue that would influence many TV shows for years to come. This episode took the characters completely out of their element, and created an astonishing contrast with the modern city environment that the show normally portrayed.

How It Inspires Creativity: As creative professionals in our own fields, we too can strive to break from the norm by placing our own “characters” in unusual and contrasting settings, striving to break ground both thematically and visually.

Dawson’s Creek “The Longest Day” (2000)

Season 3, Episode 7

Show Synopsis: Dawson’s Creek was a very well-written, semi-autobiographical show about the lives of four teenagers in the fictional town of Capeside, Massachusetts. The show was loosely based on the small-town childhood experiences of Kevin Williamson, the show’s creator.

Why This Episode Was Unique: This episode featured an important turn of events involving the show’s main character, Dawson (James Van Der Beek). Dawson finds out that his best friend Pacey (Joshua Jackson) has started a relationship with Dawson’s long-time childhood sweetheart Joey (Katie Holmes). For such an important episode the writers chose a unique way to tell the story, borrowing from a similar style presented in the movies Groundhog Day (1993), The Usual Suspects (1994), and Go (1999), the latter of which also coincidentally co-starred Katie Holmes.

The episode plays out the day’s events from 4 different perspectives, each time adding details to the story to help fit the puzzle pieces together. Each of the first 3 perspectives begins with Joey’s voice setting the tone both thematically and compositionally, when she says: “Ever have one of those days you wish you could live all over again?” And that’s exactly what the writers did with this episode, creating one of the most emotional, tension-building arrangements in recent television history.

How It Inspires Creativity: Although the style presented in this episode was done a number of times before, the writers used the idea to make an already tense and memorable episode even stronger. As artists, we can similarly add originality and singularity to our creations to make a powerful work even more forceful.

Family Ties “A, My Name is Alex” (1987)

Season 5, Episode 23

Show Synopsis: Family Ties was an award-winning, family-oriented dramatic sitcom that helped propel the career of Canadian actor Michael J. Fox. The show focused around the Keaton family, and addressed a number of social and domestic issues in comedic ways.

Why This Episode Was Unique: This Emmy Award-winning 2-part episode featured Fox’s character Alex dealing with the death of a close friend who had died in an accident in an automobile that Alex himself was supposed to be in. Because Alex was too lazy to help his friend move a piano, Alex did not go, and so avoided dying in the car with his friend.

The episode still remains vivid in the minds of those who first saw it, as the majority of it consists of Alex speaking to a psychologist to help him deal with what has happened and help Alex find his place in the world. During the conversation, the background is completely black and numerous rudimentary, prop-filled, theatre-influenced vignettes take focus in the darkness behind Alex while his life and relationships are analyzed.

The writers and producers of Family Ties created a groundbreaking masterpiece that is still remembered as the best of all Family Ties episodes, and certainly one of the most unique presentations in the modern-day history of situation comedies. It was memorable not only because of a superb performance by Fox, but also because of its distinct and innovative setting.

How It Inspires Creativity: Similar to what the writers did here, artists in a variety of creative fields can incorporate dark, melancholy, and – where appropriate – simplistic elements into their creations to help propel their work into visually stunning masterpieces that will for years be remembered and appreciated.

Xena: Warrior Princess
“The Bitter Suite” (1998)

Season 3, Episode 12

Show Synopsis: Xena: Warrior Princess was a fantasy drama series set in ancient Greece that was heavily influenced by Greek mythology. It portrayed Xena (Lucy Lawless) fighting for good against evil in her quest for redemption of her past sins as a ruthless warlord.

Why This Episode Was Unique: This Emmy-nominated episode presented a huge change of style that would later be imitated by other television series including Buffy The Vampire Slayer and the comedy-drama Scrubs. Instead of having the characters do straight dialogue, the show was done as a musical and later inspired a 9-song soundtrack released by Universal Music.

It is quite daring for a show’s production team to attempt a musical episode because of the potential for negative response from fans and critics. But this didn’t stop the producers of Xena from creating a distinct episode that would inspire for years to come.

How It Inspires Creativity: All artists can give their creations a new voice through inventive sights and sounds, in the same way the writers of Xena did in this one-of-a-kind, often-imitated episode.

Buffy The Vampire Slayer “Hush” (1999)

Season 4, Episode 10

Show Synopsis: Buffy The Vampire Slayer was a fantasy-drama with comedic elements that involved the main character Buffy (Sarah Michelle Gellar) fighting as a vampire slayer against the forces of darkness.

Why This Episode Was Unique: In this episode, writer and show creator Joss Whedon fought back against repeated assertions from fans and critics that a crucial part of Buffy was its dialogue. He did this by producing an episode that was nearly completely lacking in dialogue. In the episode, the town of Sunnydale are put under a spell by creatures called “The Gentlemen”, leaving the characters unable to speak, or “hushed”, and in the process creating a memorable and truly original plot that later received an Emmy Award nomination.

How It Inspires Creativity: Whether you cringe at or are even offended by the demonic elements portrayed in Buffy, the creativity and originality of this episode cannot be denied. Artists today can use whitespace and other “silent” elements to give their work an inventive visual flair, or to create vivid contrasts – taking advantage of the fact that, in some circumstances, “less is more”.

Growing Pains “Meet The Seavers” (1991)

Season 6, Episode 21

Show Synopsis: Growing Pains was a feel-good situation comedy that revolved around the suburban lives of the various members of the Seaver family.

Why This Episode Was Unique: Generally, Growing Pains episodes were quite ordinary, even in comparison to other shows, but this particular episode completely broke the show’s established mold and paid homage to the famous television series The Twilight Zone. In the episode, the Seavers’ younger son Ben (Jeremy Miller) wakes up one morning to find out he is a cast member on a show called “Meet the Seavers”, and his name is in fact Jeremy Miller.

The writers performed a very daring feat with this plot, essentially breaking through “the fourth wall” – which is a show business term used to describe the unseen invisible wall where the camera crew is stationed. Although Growing Pains was not a particularly creative series, this episode diverted from that pattern and is worthy of imitation.

How It Inspires Creativity: Today creative professionals can make their work exist “outside the box” on occasion, preventing their creations from becoming mundane endeavors that are soon forgotten.

Just Shoot Me!
“A&E Biography: Nina Van Horn” (2000)

Season 4, Episode 23

Show Synopsis: Just Shoot Me! was a situation comedy that followed the staff of a fictional big-city fashion magazine called “Blush”.

Why This Episode Was Unique: In this episode, the writers diverted completely from the show’s traditional format, instead creating a sort of mock documentary parodying the real biography shows done by the A&E Network. The exposé chronicled the life of one of the show’s supporting characters, Nina Van Horn (Wendie Malick), incorporating a number of key events in American cultural history. This was an out-of-the-ordinary episode that bore little resemblance to prior episode plots, and indicated that the show’s writers were not afraid to push the boundaries of what audiences expect in modern-day situational comedies.

How It Inspires Creativity: This episode required visuals and thematic elements that were very different from what the show’s audience was used to. Today, artists can avoid repetitive habits in design by incorporating elements in unusual and unexpected ways – even allowing secondary-type design elements to take focus where appropriate.

Conclusion

There were many episodes that were not included on this list that deserved to be here. I have attempted to include a list that is diverse and allowed for discussion of a number of specific creative and inspirational elements.

In each of the television series episodes discussed, it is undeniable that the writers crafted a masterpiece that can inspire artists from many different creative fields to rethink their own work – helping them to break out of normalcy by creating something unique and memorable.

Please feel free to comment and include your own favourite unique television series episode – something that inspired you to strive to present your own work in a distinct and memorable way.

Did you like this post?

This post was not something that you usually read on Smashing Magazine. Did you like it? Should we go beyond the “traditional” scope of web design in our future articles? It’s up to you – let us know!

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About the author

Louis Lazaris is a user interface developer currently working for a large broadcasting company in Toronto, Canada. He has 9 years of experience in the web development industry and posts web design articles and tutorials on his blog, Impressive Webs.

Project Retweet: The End of RTs as We Know Them? (via feedly)

(author unknown) — Fri, 14 Aug 2009 07:47:17 -0700

Today’s big news is that Twitter has just announced phase one of Project Retweet, their program to formalize the retweeting movement on Twitter. They’re opening up the flood gates so that developers can tap into the four new APIs and update their applications, or build new ones, in preparation for the official release, which is expected to happen in just a few weeks.

We’re definitely excited to see Twitter embrace the art of retweeting and try to support it. In fact, it reminds us of Twitter’s early days, prior to the official support of mentions. The original version of Twitter did not include a formal way for Twitterers to respond to others’ tweets, so users took it upon themselves to copy a BBS-style reply format and add an @ symbol in front of a username, and replies were born. Twitter eventually caught on to the reply movement, making replies a very real part of the Twitter ecosystem.

But does retweeting, a Twitter trend all its own that’s very much akin to forwarding an email, require the same formal adoption and API support? We’re not so sure, as Project Retweet is going to flip the format we’ve come to expect on its head. Here we’ll dissect some of the implications surrounding Twitter’s plan to formalize retweeting.

The New Look of Retweets

If you’ve read our other coverage surrounding Project Retweet, then you’re probably well aware that the new retweets will look quite different. The retweet has always taken the form of “RT @username: original tweet.” Once Project Retweet comes to fruition, the RT and @ symbol will be stripped from the tweet. What you’ll see instead is the original tweet, from the original author, and a new field below the date/time stamp that reads, “Retweeted by [username].” If there are multiple retweeters, then you’ll see multiple Twitter names.

The new look of retweets has interesting implications, because now your followers will see tweets in their timeline from people you follow that they may not be following. Follow? So let’s say that you follow me but don’t follow Mashable. Now when I retweet Mashable, you’ll see the tweet from Mashable, not from me. This could get a little hairy.

Here’s why. You’ve already become accustomed to seeing tweets from the people you follow, so a retweet from a trusted party actually means something. If Ben Parr, a fellow Mashable editor, retweets something, I immediately sit up and take notice. Now, however, if a tweet shows up in my timeline, without the RT format I’ve come to expect, I may miss it at first and not attribute any value to its contents.

Of course, we hope to see developers build in ways to get notifications for retweets (similar to audio notifications for replies in our favorite desktop apps) from the people we trust, and this could be a potential way to ensure that we don’t overlook valuable retweets as they happen. But, if the sample screenshots are a visual representation of what we can expect from Twitter.com, then retweets do run the risk of being missed.

What Happens to Our Retweet Analysis?

Another retweet conundrum surrounds appended Twitterer analysis. As you’ve no doubt been exposed to, retweets are often accompanied by an introductory statement of analysis by the retweeter. Maybe we think we can add more value to the original tweet, but whatever the reason, many of us have become accustomed to adding our two cents to tweets that we retweet.

The new retweet format, however, doesn’t seem to leave room for our additional commentary. So when we hit the new retweet button on Twitter.com, or in any of the third party apps that support the new APIs, what can we expect? Can we insert our words of wisdom? If so, where do they go? We know we’d be more than a little disappointed if this offshoot of retweeting behavior was taken away from us.

Retweeting Extras

Putting some of our initial questions aside, let’s take a look at some of the benefits we’re likely to get as a result of the four new retweet APIs:

1. Retweets in the new home timeline: We actually really like the idea of seeing all the different Twitterers retweeting a status update within the tweet itself. This approach is a lot less cluttered than the RT @username: RT @username: redundancy we see all the time. In fact, getting a more aggregate view of all retweets related to a single tweet, within our timelines sounds like a beautiful thing.

2. Retweeted by me timeline: Now this is nifty. Twitter and third-party developers will start to create ways for us to get a filtered view of our own retweets — currently set to return the 20 most recent retweets. We can only fantasize about what this could look like, but we love the idea of seeing and analyzing our own retweeting behavior.

3. Retweeted to me timeline: Retweets from the people I follow serve to draw my attention to content I may have missed. So this particular API addresses part of what we talked about above, making sure we don’t miss retweets that were meant for our eyes. In this fashion, we should be able to get a filtered view of just the retweets from our Twitter friends.

4. My tweets, retweeted: This API will return the 20 most recent tweets that are retweets of me. This could also be a very useful way for us to get a filtered view of people retweeting us. Sure we could use searches to probably arrive at similar results, but we’re looking forward to seeing how developers can slice this up and make it pretty and functional.

Were Retweets Broken?

The existence of Project Retweet — ie. formalized retweeting — essentially implies that Twitter felt that current retweeting practices need repairing. But were retweets ever really broken?

Granted the four APIs will bring significant additional functionality around retweets, features we’ve never been privy to before, but is it at a cost that takes away some of the intended purpose behind retweets? Eliminating retweet redundancy, adding retweet filters, these are all good, but we’re not entirely convinced we needed a new retweet format.

And this is where you come in. We’d love for you to share your thoughts on the impending nature of retweets. Did retweets need fixing? Are these changes for the better or worse? Are there any implications of the new APIs that we didn’t cover? Use the comments to tell us what you think.

Twitterigami image courtesy of I am Paddy

Reviews: Mashable, Twitter

Tags: Project Retweet, retweet, retweeting, twitter

Everytime I Think About You I Multitouch My Cell (via feedly)

(author unknown) — Fri, 24 Jul 2009 10:50:22 -0700

Creative Method Workshop Edition (via feedly)

(author unknown) — Sun, 12 Jul 2009 19:42:57 -0700

Shared by jted
The Workshop Edition of The Creative Method and Systems is finally available for viewing and download. It is over 200 annotated pages from my creativity workshops.

http://kimhyeongrae.com

Five Fantastic Friendfeed Filters for Flow (via feedly)

(author unknown) — Fri, 10 Jul 2009 13:24:51 -0700

Friendfeed, it seems, isn't going mainstream anytime soon. That doesn't mean it doesn't rock. In fact, I am using it a ton as a real-time front end for in-bound social flow. The secret is to use three powerful features: lists, imaginary friends and saved searches. Combine these with email alerts and Gmail and it gets even better.

Here are five ideas...

Co-workers - Group and track your colleagues
Feeds - Follow your favorite feeds in Friendfeed (or groups of 'em via Google Reader tags)
Influencers - find the top influencers on Friendfeed (or your own personal list) and bundle them
News - Some news sources are already on Friendfeed, if not, you can put them there
Tweets - set up a saved search for service:Twitter use Friendfeed as a Twitter front-end

These ideas just scratch the surface of what you can do with Friendfeed. For more see the gallery below. How are you using it?

See and download the full gallery on posterous

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Schubert|it PDF Browser Plugin

Fri, 20 Nov 2009 10:29:23 -0800

Firefox

Branding & Corporate Identity Design

Fri, 20 Nov 2009 10:17:39 -0800

IBM takes a (feline) step toward thinking machines by AP: Yahoo! Tech

Wed, 18 Nov 2009 13:26:48 -0800

Slaughter the Sacred Cows

Sun, 15 Nov 2009 17:22:19 -0800

Creative Director turned writer Sally Hogshead questions the conventions and dogma of the modern ad agency.

Fever° Red hot. Well read.

Sat, 14 Nov 2009 20:00:35 -0800

40 Free High-Quality WordPress Themes | Smashing Magazine

Thu, 12 Nov 2009 21:23:48 -0800

A great lists of free WP themes in late 2009.

Twitter | MintLife Blog | Personal Finance News & Advice

Thu, 12 Nov 2009 21:13:52 -0800

cityofsound: Monocle: design notes

Thu, 12 Nov 2009 09:31:02 -0800

How the Monocle magazine was brought to the web.

New microsyntax for Twitter: three pointers and the slasher | FactoryCity

Thu, 12 Nov 2009 09:24:55 -0800

/cc /by /via

Backups

Thu, 12 Nov 2009 07:57:35 -0800

Best backup device. Ignore at your own peril.

50 Graphic identities oldschool, vintage and retro design | Pixiome : nouvelles inspirations et tendances.

Thu, 12 Nov 2009 07:47:35 -0800

Some great labels that look like they came from an apothecary.

BBC World Service - Special Reports - Save Our Sounds

Thu, 12 Nov 2009 07:39:15 -0800

Cell Size and Scale

Tue, 03 Nov 2009 20:02:22 -0800

digiday:DAILY - Ten Things Social Media Cannot Do

Tue, 03 Nov 2009 17:05:00 -0800

The Corporate Identity Style Guide - Brand Standards and Guidelines Manuals

Tue, 03 Nov 2009 15:55:54 -0800