You may have noticed I’ve been a little less prolific around here lately; finally I can tell you why. I’m very excited to say that as of last November, I dropped out of my MFA program and am a cofounder of Firespotter Labs, a startup funded by Google Ventures. As cool as the concept of “stealth mode” sounds to me, I am decidedly *not* used to *not* writing about what I’m doing. Finally my sneakiness is over! In this post I want to talk a little bit about what it’s been like working full time at a startup, as well what went into the decision to drop out of my design program five months away from graduation. I really couldn’t be happier.
Of course all this would be more interesting if you knew exactly what we were doing. I wrote our About Us the other day and it’s spectacularly vague, so if you want to find out a little more, there were nice articles in The New York Times and Techcrunch last week. Continue reading →
Betty Wants In crafted this very unique skydiving video using a GoPro. It’s exceptionally peaceful; it makes skydivers look more like they’re floating gracefully underwater as opposed to plummeting through the windy stratosphere on their way toward terminal-velocity.
I’ve never used a GoPro, or gone skydiving for that matter, and now I really want to experience both. Mission accomplished Melbourne Skydive Centre.
I’m blown away by these self-portraits of Alex Stoddard. According to Alex, he is “seventeen years old, and spends far too much time running barefoot in the forest.” Love it. He also seems to spend a fair amount of time naked or dillydallying around open flames. Can’t help but feel I misspent my late teenage years…
This is the work of Thomas Doyle. Truly unique and unusual in the most wonderful way! I recognized the style from a NYT Magazine cover a few years back that I always kept around just because I loved the image. Definitely a little weird, but definitely a lot awesome.
On a side note, I love cityscapes or scenes contained in glass — I think a sentiment carried over from my days spent playing SimCity 2000 where the glass-enclosed Archipelago was the ultimate goal. Despite the obvious spatial downsides of being confined to a limited space, I’ve always wanted to reside in such a dwelling.
This is the work of OK-RM, a London based design studio. The style reminds me a lot of Sulki and Min and maybe a little bit of Qubik. I enjoy this style; where type is placed all over the page, in a seemingly gridless manner, while still maintaining a sense of balance and proper hierarchy. To me it shows a kind of fearlessness, and a clear love of letterform.
These drawings are by architectural draftsman Hugh Ferriss . His work is really incredible and demonstrates a fantastic imagination (not to mention patience). I prefer the style of the lighter, more detailed images, but I enjoyed the story behind the last few charcoal renderings. They are from The Metropolis of Tomorrow, where Ferriss imagined what a future megacity might look like. Delineator of Gotham indeed.
I recommend looking through this epic Flickr set to see more of his work.
This is the video for Matta’s “Release the Freq“. The incredible cinematography and design is by Kim Holm. I really like how the visual complexity builds subtly over the course of the video. And of course it maps to the music nicely, though I’m not really a huge fan of the song. The color grading on this is terrific — I’m tempted to go off into the woods searching for domesticated deers to photograph.
Aaron Feaver is an absolutely terrific photographer based in Los Angeles. His work is very moody and drenched in melancholy. It seems everywhere he goes it’s foggy and there are countless beautiful women moping around. Sounds like San Francisco…er…well, at least the bit about the fog.
Check out the rest of his portfolio here (depending how old school your job is, some of his shots may be nsfw).
These drawings are by architectural draftsman 
