Update: Sangki Kim of Kee Utility writes: “Desk Phone Dock has been modified to fit iPhone 4. The product will be available from July in some countries.”
With iPhone-Frenzy-2010™ in full swing I thought I’d add some fuel to the fire with this beautiful, yet suddenly obsolete, little peripheral from Korean design firm, Kee Utility. Of course, it will never see the light of day in this form — for some reason, concepts never do — but at least we have this nice model to salivate over. Couldn’t find any word on pricing or availability other then that it was supposed to have debuted at the China Sourcing Fair in April, 2010.
While it’s definitely a looker, there’s not much in the way of originality going on here — the dock looks straight off the cutting room floor of Apple’s design lab and hits all the cues from Cupertino pretty much on the mark. Kind of unfortunate timing to be releasing something like this when they did; apparently they don’t read blogs. I’d like to see Kee do a redesign based on the more angular aesthetics of the iPhone 4. The current base seems a bit overwhelming, I think it could do well without the curves.
On a side note, after trying to act all hard saying I was going to defect to Android for the past 2 months, I used Beamer’s iPhone 4 today and immediately purchased one for myself. I couldn’t resist, that thing is incredible. I also bought a pair of rubber tongs to hold it with in light of recent developments.
I am about as big a fan of Tim Heidecker and Eric Wareheim’s work as exists on this planet. So it was a very, very pleasant surprise to see that [adult swim] (the network that features one of Tim and Eric’s greatest works: the Tim and Eric Awesome Show, Great Job! show) was running a bump featuring Cloud Generator and a shout for the Past is Prologue digital reissue after the show. If anyone from [as] is reading this, thank you!
adult swim has run some other bumps in the past featuring Tycho tracks, you can check them out here. Was cool to find all of those, I had only seen one and didn’t know the rest existed.
We’ve posted on him in the past, but I’ve seen Alex Varanese around a lot lately so I thought I’d put up some more of his work. He made a splash on Reddit yesterday, making it all the way to the front page (which, for the uninitiated, is sort of a big deal — at least among geeks and programmers) with his recent Alt/1977 series. This sort of overt retro-ism doesn’t always settle well with me (Yes, perhaps the pot calling out the kettle, but I’m a fan of restraint in these circumstances), but Alex executes so well you can’t help but take notice. His mastery of the orange spectrum is unquestioned and while there is a bit of borrowing from the James White bag of tricks — and with some of the type-centric work, maybe more overtly so, Alex Trochut — it is a very focused and impressive collection of work. I don’t think I’ve seen 3D meld so well with this sort of textured print aesthetic in a while and the noise he’s getting in those color fields is spot-on.
Over the past few weeks I’ve been going through the process of putting together a live band for the Tycho show coming up on July 9th here in San Francisco. Those of you who’ve been to my past shows will know that I usually play solo and the focus is on the visuals and some light synth work. But this recent break from playing live (been working on the new album) has given me a chance to re-evaluate what I want the performances to be about and it’s also afforded me some time to put into developing the whole thing a little more. The visuals will still be a central element of the show, but I also want to try and bring some of the instrumentation to the forefront as well.
This upcoming set at Mezzanine will be my first show back in a while — and one of only a few I’ll be playing this summer as I wrap up the album — so I wanted it to be something special. I’ve been working with some other musicians on the new material so it sort of made sense to try and incorporate them into the live stuff. I spent the past couple weeks deconstructing a lot of the songs and working them into live versions that sort of bridge the gap between electronic and traditional instrumentation and have been rehearsing with the band at Ira Skinner’s studio in Sacramento. Zac Brown (frequent collaborator and guitarist for Dusty Brown) will be handling bass duties while Matt McCord will be on drums. I’ll be on some guitars and synth and Dusty and Jessica Brown will be joining us for a couple songs as well. We’ve got a few more practices but things are sounding really good and I’m excited to bring it all to life on the 9th. Hope to see you there.
I’m not following the World Cup (sacrilege, I know!). Partly because I’m American and not much of a sports fan to begin with, and partly because I just can’t seem to muster the strength to pretend I like a sport every four years and then watch a bunch of guys roll around on the pitch holding their knee in agony only to pop up a few moments later and sprint around like a fucking gazelle (seriously, what’s the deal with that? I swear that’s the number one thing holding me back from appreciating football, this theater of feigned injury). I’ve honestly tried to like it, my friend Jorge Calleja took me to a FC Barcelona game while I was there a few summers back. I had a blast and Ronaldhino even scored a goal (which is apparently sort of rare these days). The crowd was amazing; every movement of the ball (even movements that, to my untrained eye, didn’t seem to have any kind of significance) was met with a rush of electricity that filled the entire stadium. Sadly, this feeling has yet to carry over to the TV viewing experience for me.
But I digress, this isn’t about sports, or football, or even pretending your leg has been amputated at the hip when a stiff breeze from the guy running by ruffles your jersey. This is about the fact that despite having watched exactly zero World Cup games, I somehow have an intimate knowledge of the ball used in them. This is because no one will stop talking about it (or those plastic horns for that matter). I found it rather intriguing that it’s being roundly panned by the players — both the winners and the losers. It made me think about all the R&D that must have gone into designing this ball only to have it be put on center stage and incessantly ridiculed. Designing high performance sports equipment has to be the most difficult gig in industrial design. It’s a sort of alchemy of engineering, physics, and craftsmanship that, to fulfill it’s intended purpose, must perform equally well for an extremely diverse range of end users. Just designing a jersey probably involves a few parts rocket science, so imagine designing the central element of play for a game, the results of which can make or break the hopes of entire countries. I don’t envy these designers.
So after hearing about this ball for the better part of a month, my interest was piqued when I came across this video detailing the ball’s construction on Abitare. I’m always a sucker for manufacturing videos and this one is exceptionally well done. I really enjoy the style and tones and it’s always amazing to see these giant, purpose-built machines doing such specific tasks. It always makes me wonder how mechanized manufacturing is ever cost effective.
So I know we have a pretty internationally diverse readership (hence the fact I haven’t used the word soccer once, until now), who are you rooting for? Also be sure to remind me of what a terrible human being I am for not liking soccer (yes, after the disclaimer earlier in this paragraph, via an obscure UN sanction, I am now legally entitled to call it soccer).
Also, the first year I moved to San Francisco some guy with a bus put up a gigantic LED screen (seriously, like stadium sized) in Dolores Park and played the World Cup on it. There were like 30,000 people at the park and it was completely awesome. If that guy comes back this year I will watch soccer.
As evidenced by the various posts I’ve made on the subject, I’m quite fond of all things surrounding the World’s Fair Expositions. So when I found this gem on Ian Henry Smith’s Blog, Smallcano, I was pretty blown away. For someone who has fetishized all manner of official documentation since childhood, seeing an artifact that somehow combines the ideas of a passport and a 60’s-era World’s Fair Expo was pretty much the holy grail. The stamps send this thing over the top; it really doesn’t get any better. And check out the Habitat 67 stamp on the last image! I swear I’m going to get a tattoo of one of these.
According to Ian from Smallcano, he found this thing while “rooting around in [his] parents’ basement”. For me, this is basically the equivalent of those old stories about digging up a cigar box with a Honus Wagner in it. My only gripe is that the images are scans and not photos; scans don’t do objects like this justice. So Ian, if you’re reading this (I found the link through a comment he left here), thanks so much for posting these, but please shoot the passport on a nice wood table or something, a’la Insect54. That is, if you have the time, we’ll all thank you!
Thomas Scholes is a digital artist out of Seattle who uses Photoshop to create painterly landscapes sort of in the vein of Roger Dean and more recently, Dan McPharlin. I love his color use and the texture; it’s really incredible that this is all being done within software.
Thomas also does a lot of process videos showing how he works with various imagery and textures to get these effects. I particularly enjoyed this one which shows him modeling a landscape from a photo of a woman (see video below). I love the idea of incorporating unrelated imagery into a composition as texture or distressing — or, in this case, as a framework.
You can check out more of Thomas’ work and videos at his blog
Yours Truly is a sort of video collective out of San Francisco who’s mission statement is to “discover and document” the bands and artists that inspire them (link to their full mission statement). They essentially craft short films about interesting bands; some are in-studio alternate takes of songs, others are live footage interspersed with interviews. All are thoroughly engrossing a must watch for fans of any of the bands they cover or anyone wanting to discover new music.
My favorite short of theirs has to be the Toro Y Moi in-studio of him recreating an instrumental version of You Hid from his last full length (see video below). Hearing the song in this new way was really something to behold; I have to say I’m partial to this version now. Another highlight is a session they taped of The Morning Benders. They filled up a studio with a bunch of local musicians and recorded a version of Excuses; the result is incredible and once again rivals the album version. Check both videos out below and check out a ton more at Yourstru.ly (do URLs get better than that?).
