Duudeeeee.

Loving it in CA. Relocated to Dana Point, about an hour north of San Diego, for the first stop on my nomadic journey which will span throughout this year. Every 3 months a new location, new agency, new people. I kinda feel like my life’s a trailer for an upcoming reality show. Maybeeee it is. One thing I’ve noticed is compared to Miami people are a lot more chill here. For real. In Miami, grocery shopping and cart cluster fucks bring WWIII. Here it’s, “Oh, pardon me, I’m so sorry I was debating on a pretzel purchase let me get out of your way.” Dana Point, I love you and you’re beach town vibes.

Pictoplasma – Characters in Motion – Vol.3 Teaser from Pictoplasma on Vimeo.

In a word, Pictoplamsa is HUGE. If you haven’t heard, Pictoplasma focuses on collecting the best contemporary character designs across all cultures and media. They’re established themselves as the world’s first platform for character design, cataloging works from designers whose work hit viewers hard emotionally, regardless of cultural background. Which is no easy feat by far. Pictoplasma archives are home to over 5,000 international designers, illustrators and artists and recently, they dropped the trailer for Vol. 3 (comprised of book+ 180 min DVD of all animations).
You’re probably thinking, “Well this is sexy as hell, but what about interactive? Is there an app for that?” Well, yes and no. We’re in the business of interactivity, innovation and instant gratification, so while there isn’t an “app” for this per-say, it’s damned well useful in designing a likable character across all cultures for a video game app or any other popular app genre. Can you imagine what Microsoft might have created for Microsoft Office if they had this at their fingertips? Instead, we got stuck with the world’s most annoying paper clip that looked like he bought his human bits from Matel.
As you can see from Microsoft’s fumble, character design is not just slapping eyes and mouths on an inanimate object. It’s about finding a visual way to instantly connect the viewer emotionally to your character. So whether we’re talking about an app, a TV spot or a plain-jane print ad, we can all find some tips and inspiration in Pictoplasma’s archives.

Pictoplasma

David Levesque’s (LEVEK) cover of Grizzly Bear’s Shift has made its way around the web recently. David is a bus driver in Florida by day and kick ass musician by night. He’s quite the impressive one-band-man. The sheer number of instruments present in his work is definitely worth major props. That and his tracks trump a lot of pro’s out there in quality. Here’s hoping he gets his well deserved success. More here.

The look on the dog’s face is priceless.

“Psh. What you looking at?  I always get ’round this way.”

PS. In the future, all dogs will travel by tortoise…

Storybook characters getting sucked into their book prisons.

Photo series by Lissy Elle

I honestly can’t explain how awesome this is with just words so just do me a favor… get your 3D glasses out and watch!

Not Going Home from Faithless

** Ending not work safe. Well, depending on where you work

Chances are your trash won’t be used in a Nobel Webster sculpture so where does it go? New Scientist asked the question and gave people a chance to find out via a competition last year. They used GPS tags and the help of Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s Senseable City Lab to find out if your recyclables are really recycled. Check out the results.

Illustrator/Graphic Designer Tricia Klelnot is on my list of things I can’t stop looking at this week. She has a great sense of color and I love her line drawings. Normally I’m obsessed with digital art but on a personal scale I love anything hand drawn that retains that natural sketch-like feel.