The Donut Project

To create something original in the current digital world is rare. I can honestly say I’ve never seen anything quite like this.

The Wilderness Downtown, set to Arcade Fire’s song “We Used To Wait,” is an interactive music video that takes over your browser like nothing I’ve seen before.

Choreographed windows, interactive flocking, custom rendered maps, real-time compositing, procedural drawing, 3D canvas rendering… this Chrome Experiment has them all. “The Wilderness Downtown” is an interactive interpretation of Arcade Fire’s song “We Used To Wait” and was built entirely with the latest open web technologies, including HTML5 video, audio, and canvas.

Nothing I post here can remotely do this justice, you just need to experience it. Using a modern browser* visit www.thewildernessdowntown.com.

This video/movie/whatever uses modern web technology such as HTML5. There is no Flash involved in this. For more insight into the technologies used, visit www.chromeexperiments.com/arcadefire.

*(Safari or Google Chrome, no idea if Firefox works, if you’re using Internet Explorer bookmark it for later)

Umm, how sexy are these? TSOVET Time Instruments, or watches to the lay person, are inspired by vintage industrial gauges and avionic instrumentation. The inspiration is apparent, and makes for some nice looking watches.

Feel free to pick up the all-black SVT-AT76 for my birthday. Find your favorite at www.tsovet.com.

Oxxford Clothes, out of Chicago, is the only place in the United States that still tailors suits entirely by hand. This beautifully made video shows a glimpse into their painstaking process, all by hand, stitch by stitch, that they’ve been doing since 1916. The workmanship is astounding.

I’m sure these are far out of my price range, but I can appreciate the craftsmanship.

(via Coudal)

One of my favorite sites to visit for inspiration is StartupQuote.com. It’s a simple site, just quotes posted by people who run successful startups. Great words of wisdom.

Go and follow them: www.startupquote.com.

“The work you find yourself doing while you’re procrastinating is probably the work you should be doing for the rest of your life.”
—Jessica Hische

Friend of the site Mig Reyes has been making some great short interviews with respected designers.

Humble Pied is a collection of creative professional advice in an on-going project where the formula is quite simple: one awesome creative type sharing one simple and inspirational tip. All over iChat.

“Rip something off.”
—Jim Coudal

“Great designers are never content, struggling with a design is okay. ”
—Nick Campbell

There are plenty more where these came from. Go & be inspired: www.humblepied.com.

Here’s a great talk by Cameron Moll on inspiration, and his experience with good vs. great design. It’s long, so listen to it in the background. I’ve watched it 4 or 5 times in the past week and it’s really lit a bit of a fire under my butt. Highly recommended.

His blog is also worth following: cameronmoll.tumblr.com.

(via SwissMiss)

Design is History is a great resource for a glimpse at the history of graphic design. The site is a great collection of the major players, sorted by design era, going all the way back to the beginnings in the 1400s.

The design of the site is well done (it’d have to be!), a credit to designer Dominic Flask, who started the site as a thesis project. Each page shares relevant information on the web, related books and videos for more information. Well done.

Go and poke around www.designishistory.com.

Kevin Rose posted a great video about the design ethos of Dieter Rams, to show where much of the inspiration for designer Jony Ive comes from.

To Apple fanboys/girls Senior Vice President of Industrial Design, Jonathan Ive, is a god. But where does Jony draw his inspiration? Meet german industrial designer, Dieter Rams:

Jony Ive, as you probably know, is the Senior Vice President of Industrial Design at Apple, responsible for much of the design to come out of the company since the late 90’s. Behind Steve Jobs, he is probably the most important mind at the company.

(Above: Braun designer, Dieter Rams. Below: Apple’s Jony Ive)

The video touches on Rams’ famous ten principals to “good design.”

Good design:

is innovative
makes a product useful
is aesthetic
makes a product understandable
is unobtrusive
is honest
is long-lasting
is thorough down to the last detail
is environmentally friendly
is as little design as possible

(photo & post via Kevin Rose)

8 Bit Memory is an Etsy shop selling external hard drives mounted inside old Nintendo and Super Nintendo game cartridges. The drives range from 500GB to 1TB and run off the power of the USB (so no power cord needed).

Head over to their Etsy shop and pick one up.

(via Coudal)

It’s nearing the end of August, and before we know it, it’ll be winter. Sorry for pointing out that cruel fact.

One annoyance of cold weather is using a touch-screen phone in the elements. Taking my gloves off to make a call, or jam out a text can get annoying quickly.

Check out Dots Gloves, gloves with conductive material woven seamlessly into the thumb, index and middle fingertips which provide usage of the iPhone touchscreen with entirely warm, gloved hands — all with skin-like responsiveness. They are constructed out of high-warmth 100% Merino wool and produced entirely in the USA.

Pre-order yours (under $20) at www.dotsgloves.com to get them before it gets cold.