NYTimes (Again): Expanding the Creative Horizons of Your Printer

In the industry, we constantly talk about the value of print in today's technical world. Some view it as a soon-to-be archaic craft. I found this article to be interesting though rife with plugs for Canon. The article talks about the various uses of the run-of-the-mill home printer and how it can be used to create textiles, boxes, models, books, etc.

Canon has an entirely new campaign on atypical uses for its printers and it's benefits for more crafty projects. You can check out the article here.

NY Times: Does the Digital Classroom Enfeeble the Mind?

Yesterday's paper had an interesting article discussing the 'digital classroom' of today and how it can destroy creativity and self-thinking in the classroom.

Given my undergraduate degrees in Economics and Computer Science, I spent the past 9 years working in the financial technology sector. At a high level, this means that I implemented large-scale technology solutions for many of the major trading desks and banks on Wall Street. These technology platforms were responsible for creating million-dollar trades in a millisecond, and tracking P&L for the trader, the desk, the bank. Working with such technology forces you to see a dollar value in the system and treat it like any abstract number without fully realizing the value or the power behind it.

Conceptually, this is similar to what Lanier from the New York Times is telling us. A digitized means of teaching, if not carefully harnessed by a teacher who cares, can suck out the meaning and the life in what is being communicated. While we feel constant pressure to keep up with the times and learn to effectively communicate in a digital form, it goes beyond just mastering the latest program. We as designers have a responsibility to keep the human aspect alive in our work and the ability to include this in our designs will propagate a digital world where interacting, feeling, and learning is not just a simulation.

Bouncing Ball

I have been trying to play around a bit with Flash. It is a lot tougher than I had expected but so far,playing around has truly been useful. Per Christie's suggestion, I looked for a tutorial on creating a bouncing ball and it helped me better understand key frames between motion tweens. If you'd like to give it a try, here is the link:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_9FldZkcLPI

INSPIRATION: Catch Me If You Can (Opening Credits)

This is title sequence/opening credits for the movie, "Catch Me If You Can" by Nexus Productions.

Emigre No. 70

With the limited experience I have in design, I often like to start by looking for inspiration from various art/design books. As I peruse the personal book collection that I have been building for the past year, I am finding the "Emigre No. 70" lookback issue especially inspiring.

While the content of the book is not digital (it is a compilation of past print work by the Emigre Magazine), the layout of text is amazingly dynamic. The use of the spatial plane, oblique directions, contrast of text sizes, and the juxtaposition of different typefaces can be sourced as inspiration for the execution of our first project.

I guess being inspired is easy... it's really about the delivery, isn't it? (Maybe I should put this one down and pick up a Flash tutorial instead).

[Image taken from: http://www.gingkopress.com/03-gra/emigre-70.html]