Category - Art
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Bloody hell, it’s great to be back to normality after being away on a pain management course, being swamped in pitch-related madness, a couple of days off by the sea, and then back into more pitch madness.
Hence blog hiatus.
And overflowing inbox.
So lots of things I’d ordinarily have blogged about are a bit, well, old hat.
NESTA Innovation Edge
[photo courtesy of ]
Like seeing Tim Berners-Lee, Bob Geldof, Charles Leadbeater, Sam Pitroda and Gordon Brown (yes, that Gordon Brown) speak at the NESTA Innovation Edge Conference, as well as catching up with Neil, who’s already blogged the day.
Tim Berners-Lee was utterly awe-inspiring (the phrase “that’s why I invented the web” was a particular standout) and his discussion of his Web Science research initiative absolutely fascinating - the central point being that it’s not about technology in and of itself, it’s human behaviour enabled and facilitated by technology:
The web really has to be thought of not as a system of connections between computers, or even as links between web pages, but really as humanity connected.
[ See the rest of the session on Web Science at NESTA ]
The World’s First Internet Balloon Race
Or the World’s First Internet Balloon Race (as others have already observed).
Beautifully executed, it deftly brings the joy of the real-life balloon race into the digital space, encouraging participation by offering all manner of elegant widgets and applications to users - and best of all, engaging site owners as partners in the whole event.
It’s not just viral, social, web 2.0, or whatever other buzz words will no doubt be attached when describing it. It’s bloody genius. And utterly delightful.
Naked Anonymous
Or Untitled Anonymous, the recent anonymous art exhibition put on by Naked, featuring pieces submitted by employees from across the agency (including an exceptionally underwhelming entry from yours truly)
Conceived by the always-fabulous Kyle and Hass, it was a fantastic experiment and experience, and fantastic to see everyone from all different disciplines get involved. In their own words:
We wanted to see how well creativity would function when it has to speak for itself, stripped naked of everything but the expression – no title, no statement, no background.
So we briefed everyone who works at Naked London (the strategists, the creatives, the founding partners, even the cleaning lady) to create a piece of original art to be shown in an exclusive, one-night-only exhibition.
The twist was that every piece of art would be shown anonymously and without a title (this would all be revealed in a special online gallery the following week).
Phase two of the project has just gone live and the creators, titles, statements and inspirations have all been revealed.
You simply click on the work to discover the information.
So, just a few of the things I would have blogged, but, er, didn’t.
Normal service should now resume - back to your regularly scheduled programming…
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Like many (most?) music lovers, the artwork always used to be a core part of the album experience…which has largely fallen by the wayside as I listen to music pretty much exclusively digitally - with my CDs and 12″ sitting on the shelves, or boxed up out of the way. I indulge my love of album artwork from a distance, via Sleevage and the like.
My other half was showing me the design treatments for the new album, which prompted reflection that it was a shame that the finished design would end up either unseen - or only briefly glimpsed - by many; who either download their music digitally, or then rip the CD to mp3 and shelve the CD to gather dust (like me).
Although you can search iTunes using artwork, the small compressed imagery is clearly no comparison to the richness of a 12″ sleeve (and to a lesser extent the CD case). Despite fantastic efforts by artists like Beck to innovate in their use of the physical product (offering users stickers to design their own covers, and upload their own designs for the second pressing) Wired described album artwork as a “dying art form … [which] has been dying a slow death for decades”. So it’s thrilling to see a glimmer of hope that album artwork is beginning to be redefined for the digital age.
More and more designers have been exploring more varied digital techniques to bring the album artwork to life - such as DVD-style menus and liner-note fly-throughs (as on Gnarls Barkley’s latest release). Death Cab for Cutie’s latest release on iTunes in the US includes a $3 package of a digital booklet, bonus tracks, and “making of the album” videos. Nice start, but I’d hope that digital artwork & extras would be a standard inclusion - artwork used to come as part and parcel of the physical release, not a paid-for extra.
In Japan, Warner have been trialling their Wamo service, allowing mobile phone users to access a bundle including ringtones, videos and artist interviews as well as the album tracks. Better.
However Radiohead, once again, have really attempted to embrace the digital medium, with the widget which accompanied the now-infamous In Rainbows (which also featured several pots of gold)
I say attempted, because as pointed out at Sleevelessness, it’s a bit clunky. But the spirit is there, and it’s a good first step in trying to realise the digital potential for artwork to complete the full album experience.
And a note to Discovery, realising the potential for digital artwork doesn’t mean insane animated gifs.
[ via PSFK ]
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