These beautifully executed commercials for EF International Language Centers were created by designer Albin Holmqvist (who did the type) and director Gustav Johansson. The typography is simply incredible; many of these frames would be suitable as posters. There are four commercials in all, the rest can be found at Albin Holmqvist’s Vimeo.
Via Wanken
I came across these great photos from Québec-based recording facility Studio Frisson while gear-lusting tonight and was stricken by their quality. Most studios don’t do a very good job of tastefully photographing the facilities so it was refreshing to see these very well executed portraits of some of the most rare and prized recording equipment in the world. Some of the post on the photos is a little synthetic for my tastes, but still nice. Unfortunately the images are watermarked so you’ll have to imagine what they’d look like clean.
Speaking of watermarked photos, I’ve really been getting annoyed by the practice, particularly by good photographers. I get why they’re doing it, but honestly, is the damage it does to your image and composition worth whatever infringement someone could pull off using a 650px, 72dpi JPEG? Just asking for the sake of argument, I can certainly understand the motivation.
Anyways, you may not share my hopeless obsession with analog audio hardware, but you can’t deny the sexiness of these machines and their interfaces. I’ve always found equipment like this a good source of inspiration when designing realistic software interfaces.
Sorry, no mention of the photographer that I could find. If anyone knows please speak up!
Here are a couple of great high res scans from Sarcoptiform’s excellent Flickr stream. Emilienne and Emmanuelle are apparently French books from 1968. I can’t find any more information on them.
The title face looks like Clarendon to me; one of the better uses I’ve seen, particularly on the Emmanuelle cover. And that black background would make a great texture for all sorts of applications. Sharpen > Desaturate, Levels > Select Color Range, or just use in blending mode.
Update: According to Blo in the comments: “Emmanuelle and Emilienne were erotic best sellers, and Emmanuelle was also a film. 10x18cm is the size of the pocket book. It was and still is a collection of novel paperback.”
Via Sarcoptiform
While digging around for more info on the “found” work of Vivian Meier, I stumbled onto Todd Bieber’s video detailing his discovery of a roll of film in Prospect Park. He shows some of the (well shot) photography and wonders if he’ll ever find the people who took them. While this is an interesting story, I didn’t find it all that poignant until I read Peter Kirn’s take on Create Digital Motion.
Indeed, we are losing touch more and more with physical media. Perhaps this is a good thing for many reasons, but as a musician I struggle with the most meaningful way to release my work. I grew up focusing on the media as a sort of physical manifestation of the art that it contained. Perhaps it was just my childhood fascination with all things printed and ephemeral, but I do feel a definite disconnect now between myself and my –all digital– music collection. I personally like the idea of a physical object to represents an otherwise unsee-able art form.
I realize that we are marching inexorably towards a physical media-free future (and for most of us, we’re already there), but I’d love to see more ideas like IDEO’s C60 Redux concept; an RFID music system that plays on the strengths of physical and digital media. A system like this might not always be as practical as purely digital music, but I for one would love to experience music at home this way.
More at Create Digital Motion, NPR, TechGear
Some pretty incredible footage from the Phantom Flex high-speed digital camera shot at 2,564 fps. While this is impressive, it starts to be a little bit less so when you consider the price: around $150,000. Hopefully this kind of performance starts to trickle down sooner than later.
Biology Today was a college biology text book in the 70’s and early 80’s. A Journey Round My Skull has posted some high res scans from the 1972 edition. Beautiful stuff, suitable for textures or printing at these resolutions.
Biology Today via on A Journey Round My Skull
I’ll be playing a live Tycho set at The Independent here in San Francisco on April 7th for the SOMA FM 11th Anniversary Party. SOMA FM is a listener-supported internet radio station based here in San Francisco, have a listen here.
This show will be with the entire live band and we’ll be running through a lot of new material from the upcoming album (which, incidentally, is very near completion; hoping to have it wrapped up by the time of the show). We’ve been working a lot on evolving the live set and the visuals so I’m excited that we’ll be bringing all the new elements together for the first time at The Independent, which just happens to be my favorite venue in the city.
I hope to see you out there.
SOMA FM 11TH ANNIVERSARY PARTY
Tycho
Inu, SOMA FM DJs
Thu, April 7, 2011
Doors: 7:30 pm / Show: 8:00 pm
$18.00 – $20.00 – Tickets
The show posters will be available at the show, along with other Tycho/ISO50 shirts/posters.
Alan Fletcher (later of Fletcher/Forbes/Gill) created these adverts for Pirelli while living in Milan in 1959. Just another one to add to the pile of things I wish were posters.
Via Display