Allods Online

John and I have been beta testing this new MMORPG Allods Online. Adam has sworn off all MMOs since getting over his addiction to the digital crack that is World of Warcraft (WOW), but we have been enjoying ourselves while he plays Xplorers. Anyway, it is a real cool clone of WOW available to you if you have a gpotato account. When I say clone, I mean clone;  John says it reminds him a lot of WOW vanilla. I think it’s a little more steam punk than WOW, but generally it is the same thing. Only it’s free, and just because you clone something does not mean what you created is terrible (great artists steel).  When it comes it MMOs you really can not go wrong ripping off WOW. They have done a wipe, and the open beta is starting today. However, we were supposed to be able to login as of 2pm EST, but so far I have had no luck. Try it out for your self, let me know what you think.

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Inspiration

Over the past two weeks I have been handed multiple projects both at school and with Grok. They encompass brochure design, motion design for a logo, and multiple website designs. When faced with such a multitude of creative challenges it is necessary for me to find the magical thing known as inspiration. Where does one find inspiration? A few places.

While I do thumb through some relevant books and magazines at times like these the majority of my time is spent on the world wide web. The infinite expanse of information. On my computer I have bookmarked a few websites that I consistently refer to for inspiration. Today, I am going to share them with you. For logo design inspiration I refer to www.identityarchives.com, www.brandsoftheworld.com, and my personal favorite www.logopond.com. Specifically for print I sometimes refer to www.stationarystyle.net. And for web I browse www.cssremix.com, www.webdesign-inspiration.com, and the cream of the crop www.webcreme.com. But what about Flash sites? Good question, for inspiration on Flash sites I go to www.thefwa.com or www.bestwebgallery.com. For an organized list of specific types of websites you can visit http://www.vandelaydesign.com/blog/design-inspiration/ which will provide many different categories — however, from my experience, they don’t seem to update it much, if at all. And then, for general inspiration, which is potentialy the most important of all, I visit www.illustrationmundo.com, www.faceoutbooks.com, and the all-powerful www.typographyserved.com. You also might want to check out http://www.howdesign.com/top10sitesfordesigners/ which is updated every month with new websites that are generally portfolio sites. Where did I find all of these websites? Mostly through browsing the web, which is always fun. But one day I came across a splendid website that I plucked a good amount of these sites from and that has many, many more: http://www.aialex.com/2007/07/09/top-50-inspirational-websites-for-designers/ Here is listed 50 of the “top” websites for inspiration. So check it out.

Now, if you got bored reading the above paragraph or it looked too big for you and you inevitably skipped down here than congrats. Right now I am going to reveal my absolute favorite website for inspiration that I visit on a daily basis and refer back to continuously:

www.behance.net

This website is basically deviantart for professionals. With daily updated featured work and categorizing abilities such as “Most Recent”, “Most Viewed”, “Most Discussed”, and “Most Appreciated” you will definitely appreciate this website. The Behance Network encompasses work from the fields of Academia, Acrobatics, Advertising, Animation, Architecture, Art Direction, Automotive, Blogging, Branding, Caricature, Carpentry……………….Textile Design, Theatre, Toy Design, Typography, Urbanism, Video Arts, Video Blogging, Video Game Design, Video Jockey, Virtual World Design, Visual Arts, Visual Effects, Web Design, Web Development, Wood Working, and Writing. And I don’t know if you noticed, but I skipped a lot of our alphabet so you wouldn’t have to read that much. But go and check out the rest of the categories and never go anywhere else again.

Well, with all of that said. I’m not encouraging the theft of other designers work or unoriginal designing. These are just places to check out visually pleasing and user-friendly pieces so you can see what works and make something creative on your own.

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$100m to figure out what you’re doing…

It’s no small secret that Twitter is the Internet’s largest growing social networking app/thingy. Micro-bloging was all the craze a few months ago when we got reports off every major news network of what soandso said on their Twitter account. Recently I was talking to an old friend of mine and bemoaning the idea that Twitter was actually a useful tool. He stated that you get out of it what you follow, he follows some very particular famous folks that lead what most would deem interesting lives. However when taking a survey of the Twitter landscape one can’t help but to see the spam/scams and generally banality of day to day living. At least traditional blogging can be construed as some form of news or at minimum an Op-Ed piece. But with only 140 characters its hard to really say anything of substance outside of a string of emoticons and LOLs, and thus my mind bending frustration with Twitter begins…

This morning I was linked to an article from Network World with the headline ‘Twitter is Dead’. Music to my ears, but really after reading I didn’t find the damning report that Twitter has ran out of money and is now belly up floating adrift in the gigantic pool of dead internet apps, but quite the opposite. While the author of said article thinks that Twitter is marked for death the reality is that people are funneling money into it (during an economic downturn mind you) to the tune of $100m to figure out a business plan. While I think its nice that the creators of the tweetverse hatched the idea without worrying about how to pump it’s users for money, its also laughable that it has grown to the point where sustaining the app/creating a business model costs around $100m. So the next time that a person signs up for Twitter and boarashly proclaims that s/he is going out to the grocery store to buy lemons remember that some investment capitalist thought that somehow, someway banal news and celeb induced stalking could generate profit 140 characters at a time…

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Stumbling, it’s awesome.

Stumbling, it’s awesome. In a society of media junkies, new and informative ways to gorge ourselves on delectable content are always welcome. And when that new fount of fun co-insides with work it’s even more diverting. Stumbleupon.com is my latest foray into media addiction, having accumulated almost four hundred “favorites” in as little as a month. Ranging from web design tools, to photoblogs, to funny videos, to top ten lists, to photoshop tutorials, to recipe sites, I can definitively say I’m hooked.

It is encouraging to see that such a community exists, as through stumbling I have found some resources that I use on a regular basis. Such as; www.bittbox.com ,   a great place to start on a search for free textures, and www.psdeluxe.com, with some awesome blog posts and lists on creative tools for todays’ savvy designers.

Oh, and a few favorites:

awesome fridge magnet:
www.onemoregadget.com/photoshop-magnet-kit-for-a-design-nuts-fridge/

awesome packaging:
www.krftd.com/special_report/transparent-mystery

awesome product design:
www.recyclart.org/2009/07/lighting-made-of-galvanized-iron

awesome public art:
www.yawoot.com/post/3206

awesome illustration tutorials:
www.tutorial9.net/resources/15-of-the-best-character-illustration-tutorials-online

awesome photoshop tutorial:
www.psdtop.com/blog/basic/understanding-blending-modes/

another awesome photoshop tutorial:
www.digitalartform.com/archives/2009/06/custom_halftone.html

awesome posters:
www.webdesignerdepot.com/2009/09/30-typography-posters-that-youve-probably-never-seen-before/

awesome museum:
www.moma.org

awesome tech:
www.dvice.com/archives/2009/08/color-picker-pe.php

-john

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3rd Ward: Fall Solo Show Submissions Opening Soon

So, I’m not a big one for picking news items out of other people’s blogs. Hell, if I wanted a blog like that I could just write a robot to go around finding blogs by tags and dropping them into our blog without regard for stlye, ingenuity, display, or the fact that some people get pissed off when you rip off their content; especially when you remove their links (I’m talking to you planet-x.com.au). Still, I think I’ll go and rip some content anyway.

To give credit where credit is due; you should checkout Design Glut, I know I’ve already recommended them in the Sexy Links section, but they wrote the story on 3rd Ward so they should get the credit. Their original story is here.

3rd Ward is a member based design center for professionals in my old stomping grounds of Williamsburg Brooklyn.  Their beginnings sound much like ours. Durring their early days they engaged in menial labor to make ends meet, and worked out how to live with each other (in leu of being overnight super stars). Our parties have been less successful at paying rent than theirs were, in fact we rarely exceed breaking even, but que ser a ser a (perhaps we should serve cheaper beverages). Today 3rd Ward is a thriving company. They provide freelancers with a place to work: with photo studios (bah we have one of those, oh 4 you say, well then), a shop (we have access to one), and a degital media lab (ha ha we definitely have a state of the art one of those), and they do a bunch of classes (okay I think I have 3rd Ward envy). Apparently they were approached by someone to open a location in Detroit, humm not the worst idea ever.

Anyway, one cool thing about 3rd Ward is that they put on solo and group shows for artists. They have open calls for artists nationwide. This is my primary reason for writing this post. If you don’t read Design Glut, and you aren’t aware of 3rd Ward, you might miss a stellar opportunity. Check out their Fall Solo Show: Open Call for Artists this October, and perhaps you will become a 3rd Ward discovery. Or, on second thought, don’t; I mean I’ll be submitting and who needs the competition.

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Adding a Little Green to the Industry

We were checking out Gray & Partners, a new start up advertising and design agency out of Boston. They have made it clear they prefer to work with companies that are committed to ‘going green’. To introduce themselves they delivered irises to green companies they are interested in at the 2009 Going Green Conference. One of the companies they highlight on their site is Planet Tran, a transportation service that employees exclusively hybrid vehicles.

Of course there are issues to consider when it comes to hybrids. While great for the environment because of low carbon emissions, their is the drawback that the production of hybrids has a greater environmental footprint than that of normal vehicles. The main concern comes for the destructive impact of the mining of certain minerals used in the production of hybrid batteries. However, responsible companies like Toyota are doing their part to try and lessen the impact of battery production by doing things like offering a $200 bounty for to make sure all ‘used up’ batteries come back to the company, and being responsible about the cleanup of waste.

To spite these concerns it is nice to see people in the industry trying to do something for the environment. As designers we often do not realize the impact that our own production has. If you are interested in ‘going green’ you can do just a few little things to lessen your carbon footprint like; turning off computers when not in use, getting media printed on recycled paper, and making sure your company has recycling bins. A little bit goes a long way.

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What does grokking mean to us?

When we claim to grok something, we are claiming to understand something completely; holistically if you will. However, this is a simplification of the definition. For a better understanding of the definition we must go to the source of the word. In Robert Heinlein’s Stranger in a Strange Land, there is a passage in chapter 21 where the character Dr. Mahmoud attempts to define the word grok. Mahmoud is cast as a semanticist (and surgeon), and thus is able to approach defining such an illusive concept as grokking from a studied and scientific perspective. While many of the definitions in Heinlein’s tour de force are metaphysical and elude understanding on a purely analytical level, the character Mahmoud puts forth what seems to be one of Heinlein’s only attempts to give you a dictionary definition. In answer to the question, “Do you grok ‘grok’?” Mahmoud says:

“No. Not really. ‘Grok’ is the most important word in the Martian language - and I expect to spend the next forty years trying to understand it and perhaps use some millions of printed words trying to explain it. But I don’t expect to be successful. You need to think in Martian to grok the word ‘grok.’ Which Mike does and I don’t. Perhaps you have noticed that Mike takes a rather veering approach to some of the simplest human ideas?”

This would seem to suggest that the word grok has an ineffable quality to it. However, Mahmoud continues to express that this concept of thinking in Martian is not unlike language barriers that we suffer between cultures of our own species. We think in language and thus our thoughts reflect the limits and limitless possibilities of our native tongues.

“English is the largest of the human tongues, with several times the vocabulary of the second largest language - this alone made it inevitable that English would eventually become, as it did, the lingua franca of this planet, for it is thereby the richest and the most flexible - despite its barbaric accretions … or, I should say, because of its barbaric accretions. English swallows up anything that comes its way, makes English out of it. Nobody tried to stop this process, the way some languages are policed and have official limits … probably because there never has been, truly, such a thing as ‘the King’s English’ - for ‘the King’s English’ was French. English was in truth a bastard tongue and nobody cared how it grew - and it did! Enormously, until no one could hope to be an educated man unless he did his best to embrace this monster. Its very variety, subtlety, and utterly irrational, idiomatic complexity makes it possible to say things in English which simply cannot be said in any other language. It almost drove me crazy … until I learned to think in it - and that put a new ‘map’ of the world on top of the one I grew up with. A better one, in many ways - certainly a more detailed one. But nevertheless there are things which can be said in the simple Arabic tongue that cannot be said in English.”

“…But the Martian language is so much more complex than is English - and so wildly different in the fashion in which it abstracts its picture of the universe - that English and Arabic might as well be considered one and the same language, by comparison. An Englishman and an Arab can learn to think each other’s thoughts, in the other’s language. But I’m not certain that it will ever be possible for us to think in Martian (other than by the unique fashion Mike learned it) - oh, we can learn a sort of a ‘pidgin’ Martian, yes - that is what I speak.”

The very existence of Mike as he is portrayed in the novel demonstrates that grokking is not outside the realm of human understanding. We can draw parallels between what our language will allow us to express and this infinitely complex concept. It is also important to remember that the word ‘grok’ was pioneered in reality by a human, and thus has limits of definition restricted by his own language (however flexible and less effective those limitations might be for a writer of Heinlein’s caliber).

“Now take this one word: ‘grok.’ Its literal meaning, one which I suspect goes back to the origin of the Martian race as thinking, speaking creatures - and which throws light on their whole ‘map’ - is quite easy. ‘Grok’ means ‘to drink.’”

In this simple statement we find the heart of the definition as we can understand it. Heinlein uses the sharing of water between individuals as a bonding ritual in the book. One must ask the question; why water? It is not simply that the Martian’s inhabit a resource poor world where water is precious in so many ways. This would be an over simplification of the significance. It would bring water down to the level of a highly sought commodity with ritual significance, similar to how it is valued by the Fremen in Frank Herbert’s epic Dune. Let us then consider the properties of water and why it is so intrinsically linked to grokking. To do this we can look to a simple quote by the famous martial artist and movie star Bruce Lee

“Empty your mind, be formless. Shapeless, like water. If you put water into a cup, it becomes the cup. You put water into a bottle and it becomes the bottle. You put it in a teapot it becomes the teapot. Now, water can flow or it can crash. Be water my friend.”

What we are suggesting here is that the act of drinking is more a metaphor for taking something into one’s self and joining with it, than it is a simple synonym for grokking. But, once again this definition is limited.

“But Mike would also have agreed,” Mahmoud went on, “if I had named a hundred other English words, words which represent what we think of as different concepts, even pairs of antithetical concepts. And ‘grok’ means all of these, depending on how you use it. It means ‘fear,’ it means ‘love,’ it means ‘hate’ - proper hate, for by the Martian ‘map’ you cannot possibly hate anything unless you grok it completely, understand it so thoroughly that you merge with it and it merges with you - then and only then can you hate it. By hating yourself. But this also implies, by necessity, that you love it, too, and cherish it and would not have it otherwise. Then you can hate - and (I think) that Martian hate is an emotion so black that the nearest human equivalent could only be called a mild distaste.” Mahmoud screwed up his face. “It means ‘identically equal’ in the mathematical sense. The human cliché‚, ‘This hurts me worse than it does you’ has a Martian flavor to it, if only a trace. The Martians seem to know instinctively what we learned painfully from modern physics, that the observer interacts with the observed simply through the process of observation. ‘Grok’ means to understand so thoroughly that the observer becomes a part of the process being observed - to merge, to blend, to intermarry, to lose personal identity in group experience. It means almost everything that we mean by religion, philosophy, and science…”

This statement is (if you will excuse our arrogance) what we try to model our actions around when we attempt to grok design. Whether in designing something ourselves, or in assessing the design of others, we try to fully understand the motivations, the creative process, the limitations of the person who is creating or has created a work, and the many other massively complex aspects of any design. The simple questions one might ask at a critique such as: “Is this technically sound?” “Do we find the use of color interesting?” “Is the use of negative space effective?” are not enough. Sure we analyze things using the rules that have been set down through the long practice of creating in the many different aspects that design takes on. However, we are not bound by these rules,  and believe no one should be. The question of;  “Is this person creating a ‘good’ piece?” results in a subjective answer whether or not our approach is formulaic. To completely understand design, one must understand the limits of ones own perceptions, and attempt to overcome them. The mind must be like water. It is a process which has mixed results. Often grokking something in fullness is illusive, and perhaps unattainable. The creators of a design may be too alien in thinking for us to grok them and their work. But, we strive to grok, and in so striving, we believe, we bring a unique perspective to the analysis, and creation of art.

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