This made me chuckle a little – from no less than the Russia-based design consultancy Art Lebedev. Also made me think whether it’s possible to make them actual storage that corresponds with its labeled size… like hard disks or something, only cuter.
Like some creative outlets for your videomaking talents? Google has launched a rather interesting video campaign inviting people worldwide to join in imagining how interesting can an ‘M-velope’ (Gmail’s icon) be, when it is passed from the left to the right of the screen in 10 seconds:
Help us imagine how an email message travels around the world. Take a look at the collaborative video we started, and then film what happens next. We’ll rotate a selection of the clips we receive on this page, and add the best ones to the video. The final video will be featured on the Gmail homepage and seen by users worldwide.
All it takes is a video camera, the Gmail M-velope (
), and some creativity.
Submit your clip by August 13th, 2007 to be considered for the final collaborative video.
I certainly foresee all the bizarre and the interesting: perhaps we’d see the M-velope crossing Antarctica, passed by pet otters, or other wild adventures along the line. It’s definitely a great marketing trick by Google, utilizing Youtube (which they own) – it’s engaging and it’s great publicity for their brands. Clever!
The game is simple. You have one click to ‘explode’ a ball. As the ball explodes, those near it will also explode in a chain reaction as well. The idea is also simple. Progress through the many levels by meeting the increasingly higher number of target balls to detonate. With a nice background music too!
And, perhaps weirdly, I find myself looking at this game as an analogy to bringing a successful product/innovation in the marketplace. At the higher levels, you’d realize that chances are, if you click when there are a large number of balls already converged and congregated, you wouldn’t meet your target. Instead, you have to somewhat project your mental picture forward in time, to anticipate and spot a converging trend before it happens. That way, the chain-link gets to be more sustainable.
Maybe I’m just thinking too much?
Unmissable – CollegeHumor churns out quite a bit of funny videos, and here’s a real gem:
It’s a brilliant, hilarious take on how Minesweeper (yes, the Windows game) would look like if it was in real life – wait a minute, more like reel life – in a typical Hollywood blockbuster.
This summer, Minesweeper the Movie comes to a theater near you!
In what sounds like a can’t-be-true story, Thai police are required to wear bright pink Hello Kitty armbands against their dull grey uniform as a punishment if they commit petty offenses.
From the Bangkok Post article:
“A pink ”Hello Kitty” armband wrapped around a khaki-clad arm is shouting for attention at the police Crime Suppression Division. It is a new disciplinary measure introduced especially for police investigators who refuse to play by the rules.
Starting this week, the warning will come in the form of the popular Japanese cat cartoon sitting on a heart on a pink background. “The same old warnings no longer work for some officers,” CSD acting chief Pongpat Chayaphan said.
“This new approach is intended to engender a feeling of guilt and discourage them from repeating the offense.” Offenses liable to earn an officer the pink Kitty include failing to report for duty, parking in a prohibited area, fighting, or being the subject of a complaint about poor service.
Policemen see it as a bitter pill to swallow. Most agree it would be quite embarrassing to have to wear the pink armband, which stands out in vivid contrast against their uniform.”
Wow!
I stumbled upon this very cool project that’s a mash-up between a song file and pictures from Flickr. The idea is simple and captivating: as the song is played, pictures from Flickr are flashed according to the words/lyrics based on their tags. So you get a nice music in the background, while enjoying (somewhat?) relevant but random images. The interface is pretty cool too ~ you can drag them around just like a pile of real photos.
Try it out – it’s a little heavy though (~3MB).
This Moon Lamp is a whimsical giant lamp of – well – a crescent moon. While it’s certainly very literal and outright in its interpretation of the moon, it still somehow retains a magical attraction. Perhaps the moon itself has a strong sense of legacy, evocative mystery and beauty (can’t say the same for say, “Mars Lamp”). Although perhaps in real life, this lamp might just be the centerpiece of an extremely cheesy romantic proposal going along the line of “I’d even bring you the moon~~”.
[via English Russia]
According to Anil, there seems to be an trend of using pixels and grids to represent percentages rather than the traditional pie chart. There are some speculations on why – perhaps it’s a reflection of our digitized age? Or maybe it’s simple aesthetics – a rectangular chart gives you less dead/white space around your chart than a circle, so the article looks better? Text description of each region looks more neat with rectangular matrix compared to a juxtaposition against a circle?
Well there could be really any number of answers. The important thing is, is it better? Or perhaps a better way to ask – in what scenarios would grid charts be more effective, and when are they less so?
Wow, count me impressed!
This is an outdoor space, in the center of St Gallen in Switzerland. Known as the Stadtlounge (City Lounge), it’s a massive bold move to put furniture and all right amidst all the buildings. Born of a design competition in 2005 to create a “living room area” in the financial district, this red carpet treatment flows all around, even onto some fake cars on the street.
Amazing, and I wish where I live they have the audacity to liven up a place like this!
I loved the new MINI that was unveiled some years back. While paying homage to the original MINI with its classic and yet playful lines, the design was modern and alluring. That car proved to be very popular indeed, reviving the MINI brand, which I suppose was the raison d’être for this new expanded MINI Clubman, which unfortunately did not gain my affection.
Perhaps extending a tiny classic would necessitate some compromise in its design or spirit – after all, you can’t just chop the car in halves and extend the middle section (like what Top Gear people would do to make a limousine). The proportions aren’t quite so endearing, but the thing that really killed it for me was the rear.The silver plastic frame looked really squarish and squashed-up – it seemed like it was transplanted from some other cars, like a small Daihatsu van or something.
The car actually has five doors – but it’s not your typical configuration though. The barn door design at the back counts as two, and there are two front doors, so what’s left? One short door on the side, of course! It’s on the right side of the car (see the first picture), more like a half-door that allows more access to the back seat. For instance, where the driver seat’s on the left (non-British systems), this would allow the back passenger to get off onto the pavements on the safe side of the road. One of the griefs though, is that the back seats seems to be the non-folding kind, which means you’re very much screwed if you want to chug some bulky stuff around.
Overall, for me it’s really like seeing MINI grow up and entering the awkward adolescent age. It’s got bigger, and are pretty much still uncertain what to do with some of its parts. The cuteness that carried it in the tender years cant really pull it through, and yet it hasn’t muster enough sophistication for adulthood. Haha, am I thinking too much?
[Jalopnik gallery with more pictures]
