taste

rare books on calligraphy: I have literally struck a goldmine! After searching for hours for examples of beautiful penmanship from history, I finally found this site with many LARGE pdfs from rare books on calligraphy. I cannot contain my excitement. Check these out!

little factory:  a typographic scarf made of microfiber suede. available in numerals, lowercase, and uppercase. this is a link to the lowercase one.

cube me: this blog entry is of a laser cut book by artist Olafur Eliasson. it is awesome.

evil mad scientist laboratories: an apple apple pie.

PAPER FOREST: Check out this blog about paper art. Click on September and scroll to look at the steak dinner. Yes, that is paper.

three types of websites.

REFERENCE SITE

yahoo astrology: open the site. click your sign. read your horoscope. exit.

INFORMATIONAL SITE

sheridan and co.: this is a retail design company with a pretty flash website.

tak!: a creative team of designers.

designers guild: luscious fabric, wall coverings, etc. 

EXPERIENTIAL SITE

sour sally: a website for a frozen yogurt company, but you navigate the site by flying on a balloon, bouncing on cupcakes, etc. it becomes more of a game. to find out information about the company, fall into one of the teacups or teapots.

zandar the great: this is neat. if you first get on the site you have no idea what to do, but read the instructions and you can learn how to trick your friends. great idea. when you address zandar you must type in Zandar, amaze us with your knowledge. however; you don’t actually type this. think of a question you are going to ask zandar. say the question is, what’s my middle name? instead of typing Zandar, amaze us with your knowledge you type \nicole\ or whatever your middle name is. when you type this, you will notice that that is not what is being typed in the blank, instead it is typing Zandar, amaze us with your knowledge. then you can ask the question and he will respond with the answer. you have to type the answer between two \. this tells him what the answer is. if the answer is not as many letters as Zandar, amaze us with your knowledge, then just type random letters, but it has to be after the second \ otherwise the random letters will appear in the answer. it is kind of difficult to explain unless you just experience it.

HYBRID 

elf yourself: a hybrid, viral marketed, site from office max. it is only available during the christmas season, so the website has a countdown till it is launched again. you can put you and your friends heads on dancing elves.

Symbolism Chart by Culture : a basic overview from about.com

Colour Symbolism by Culture : a bit more

Color Symbolism : about symbolism in western culture, you can also click for a little bit on symbolism for other cultures 

Symbolism Wiki : a wiki for looking up symbolic meanings, search for a color

Colour Lovers

“Unusual Color Wheels Found in Life and Art”

I just found this this morning.  I particularly like the one made of leaves.

MUTO : “An Ambiguous Animation On Public Walls”

This is awesome. Animated graffiti by BLU. The web design is neat as well.

how do you pick color?

GenoPal : after you pick a color, a scheme is generated. then you can pull the sliders to determine whether you want more or less contrast in the colors chosen and also whether you want the colors to be darker or lighter

Instant Color Scheme : type in any word and it generates 5 color schemes from 5 images searches with that word. not always reliable though, who knows what the first 5 images are that it will find, but works great sometimes.

Color Blender : pick two colors and it will find the in-between.

Color Blender 2 : okay this is a better color blender. this one comes up with more colors for your color scheme and doesn’t just blend two colors.

Pick a Color : color for the web. move your cursor over a color and immediately see the web page flooded with that color. you can also see how other colors change relative to that color by looking at the labeled colors on the left hand side.

Color Tools : a list of links of different color resources, downloadable software, color schemes, individual colors, and techniques and references.

Color Theory : this lengthy article talks about color theory. what interested me about it is it talks about how color works in web design, what the viewer does when looking at a website and how color can direct the viewers flow throughout the website. what pathway do the eyes move in? what do they fixate on?

Color in Motion : this isn’t really about picking colors, but it is an entertaining way to learn about them and their meaning. it is an interactive and animated site exploring colors. i opened the middle door to see “the movies.”

Isn’t it strange when life just syncs up sometimes? Class was about to start and I was in the middle of taking this test. It determines your career by your color preferences. 

Color Career Counselor

So I am clicking on green when my professor pulls up a presentation on color. How bizarre? Anyway, I finished taking the test later that evening. You select colors that you most and least prefer to look at. My results were perfect. My best occupational category: “a creator.”

An interesting way to think of color: colors as they relate to different personalities.

I was looking through MoMA’s catalogue of well designed gifts and gadgets this weekend and found some interesting items.  

 A kitchen timer that you pull out like measuring tape and it slowly goes down as time passes.

Chopping boards that are made like index cards. They have symbols on the top for the   type of food that each board is used for. This prevents cross contamination.

This is my favorite find in the catalogue. It is a clock entitled “Around Clock.” It tells time linearly. The red indicates the time.

Little pop-up note cards.

Here is a unique piece of art. When you order this, you receive a kit in the mail. You sample your DNA with a cheek swab and send it back in to a lab. MoMA then sends you a framed print of your DNA. 

These scissors are interesting as well. Why not have more than one blade? How about four?

A heat sensitive mug that changes from OFF to ON when filled with hot liquid.

This is interesting.It is made of porcelain and silicon. I Am Not A Paper Cup.