A little feature in .net magazine
I haven't written anything for a while since I've been busy with a few things, but just opened up my latest copy of .net magazine and found my face in there, where I talked about siteinspire.net.
Amazing aerial virtual tour of New York City…
My interview on MinimalSites.com
I feel very honoured to be featured as the member of the month on the newly redesigned and very sexy, MinimalSites: a website dedicated to profiling the very best minimal web design right now. In it, i talk about why I started siteInspire, and some details of my new venture, Kulör.
It does feel odd though that a web design gallery profiling another web design gallery, like one big Droste effect...!
Many thanks to Jung of MinimalSites!
The Real Good Chair Experiment
I read about Blue Dot's abandoned chair stunt ages ago, and now they have made a film about the experiment. To quote Shareable...
Blue Dot Studio put 25 of their chairs on the streets of Manhanttan, and then followed the chairs through a combination of GPS and video surveillance as people picked them up and took them home--which, by the way, the public could follow in real time on Twitter. Then the filmmakers interviewed the chair-collectors.
I thikn it's a really neat, playful promotion for Blue Dot, and the resulting video is beautifully put together...
Kate Tempest, slam poetry
I'm struggling to find anything at all about Kate Tempest - an amazing British female slam poet I just discovered, who was featured on a Teen's Speech video for Barnados...
There are a few more videos of her over at Dead Dean's blog, filmed during the BBC show 'Why Poetry Matters' with Griff Rhys Jones, and on a post at the Teen's Speech site itself.
Happy New Year!
Happy New Year to everyone. I took this picture in Sälen, Sweden where I spent New Year's eve. It was absolutely beautiful and terrifically cold (hovering around minus 17 degrees Celsius most of the time). More photos on my Facebook page.
The Highline
On my recent trip to New York City, we stayed at The Standard hotel, which straddles the Highline park in the Meatpacking District. It is a brilliant piece of urban regeneration, and I wish it inspired projects in London.
It reminded me to dig out this terrifically inspiring Coolhunting video from this year's 99% Conference, where Robert Hammond - the founder of The Friends of the Highline - talks about the project's history and how it came to be.
Christmas vital stats, by Simon Cook
I really love this Christmas cheat sheet by designer/illustrator, Simon Cook, the idea being that you complete your vital stats and hand them over to your partner, and watch the perfectly sized sartorial gifts roll in on Christmas Day. You can download a boys and girls version on his website.
Letters of Note
I'm particularly enjoying the website, Letters of Note that I found via Kottke. It features a fantastic array of fascinating letters and postcards from historical and contemporary figures, including Roald Dahl (above), Stephen Fry, Bill Gates, Albert Einstein, and a letter from Charles Monteith, then commissioning editor at publishing Faber & Faber, who sent a note to fellow editor and poet T. S. Eliot recommending Ted Hughes...
Elliot Burford, illustrating spam
Just found these funny illustrations by Elliot Burford, illustrating spam subjects. Tonnes of people do this, but I think this are nice and simple.
The Sexy People blog
Sexy People is a blog dedicated to the ‘celebration of the perfect portrait’ and is a brilliant curated collection of cringe-worthy/terrifying/hilarious photos taken from the 60s-90s. I only just discovered that the photos are carefully categorised by country, backdrop, styling (e.g. mullet, glamour, bow tie...), etc.
Go straight to Renzo’s favourites for a choice collection.
James Houston, motion artist
YCN are currently doing some work with James Houston, a supremely talented motion artist.
Here’s a piece from his Vimeo channel... every piece is worth watching in full, so please make sure you do!
And then there’s this, a late response to a competition to remix Nude from In Rainbows. (Skip to 1:08 if the static gets to you.)
Tweenbots; human-dependent robots
A really nice experiment by Kacie Kinzer, who let loose a very cute lo-fi robot in Washington Square Park, New York, to see if it could reach a destination written on a little flag with the help of pedestrians. It’s humbling that 29 people helped in its journey the little chap along!
My new bike; new to fixies…
While I was away, my new bike arrived: a Charge Plug. It’s a fixie, which I have never used before so the first ride is going to be pretty interesting/terrifying, but thankfully this one has breaks.
Hopefully I’ll be as insane as these guys soon enough… I’ve always wanted to be a courier, so if things don’t work out as a web designer you might find me at your reception one day…
London is a city of KFC rip-offs, and I love them all
I love all the KFC rip-offs around London (and pretty much everywhere in the UK) - they are all comically bad. I particularly like this one which I photographed near the office. Sadly the acronym doesn’t stand for Fried Chicken Kentucky Fried, which is what I’d call my chicken shop.
I want to hear about and see pictures/Google Street Views of your local KFC rip-offs, and build up a beautiful collection of photographs. Prizes for the funniest/most blatant/ridiculous.