When I think of balloons, I usually think of the helium variety. They’re like brightly-colored bubbles of optimism that can only be held down to earth by white curling ribbon and mailboxes. But balloons can be so much more. They come in all shapes and sizes, and the size of this balloon is… humongous.
During stressful launches, NASA’s jet Propulsion Laboratory mission control eats handfuls of peanuts for good luck. Peanuts have been a part of space exploration for a long time. A dedicated reader passed along the above Peanuts Snoopy astronaut action figure: Snoopy was the NASA Manned Flight Awareness Program mascot (with the blessing of Peanuts creator Charles Schultz) and spoke out for flight safety. NASA even awards a “Silver Snoopy Award” to employees and contractors for outstanding human flight safety achievements.
Tom Stafford and Gene Cernan of Apollo X named their Lunar Module (LM) Snoopy. The Command Service Module was named Charlie Brown.
I stumbled upon these beautiful photos by Daniel Barreto this morning and I thought they were rather lovely. Daniel is a Boston based illustrator, designer, photographer who does all sorts of interesting work. He even makes cute animated GIFs, like this one called Bear and Maths.
With this double exposure series I thought the balance between people and places was really well done. The interaction between both is interesting, like the clock tower in the bun of the girl in the image at the bottom, or the bokeh of the lights streaking through the face of the woman at the top. I think it’s also nice that the nightscapes are in color while the portraits are in a subdued sort of sepaia tone, providing a nice contrast between both.
Also be sure to check out his new series where he’s combining houses and trees, it’s super rad looking so far.
About an hour ago Sigur Rós dropped an email announcing the release of a new album called Kveikur which is being released on June 17/18. In addition they also released a new video to accompany it titled “Brennisteinn”, which takes Sigur Rós into a much harder musical territory. Like I’ve never heard Sigur Rós sound this bad ass before, it’s kind of amazing. Plus the video, directed by Andrew Huang, is also pretty gnarly. I think it’s about a ritual sacrifice and the end of the world, but you can make your own assumptions.
I’ve been a little bit obsessed with the work of Brandon Locher for a few months now. I first caught wind of him when avant-techno artist Holly Herndon Tweeted about a sound piece Locher did involving phone conversations being looped and volleyed from one caller to another. The resulting sound piece–Conversations (Revisited)–represents a very simple wrinkle in reality caused by a simple mirroring of a phone conversation. Investigating Locher’s work, you find that he has a great talent for warping what is real: he is an artist obsessed with the circuitous.
This is a delightful little animated promo for The Leisure Society’s new single “Fight For Everyone” which is animated by the British animation studio Persistent Peril. The video shows the creation of a new planet by a giant blue hand but unfortunately things don’t go quite according to plan as chaos unfolds when evolution steps in. It’s a lot of fun, featuring great colors and a lot of playful whimsy.
The track is taken from the bands third album Alone Aboard The Ark which comes out on April 01st on Full Time Hobby.
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Click Here To Download Episode 6
My good buddy Jon Setzen and I had a long chat last night about all sorts of wonderful things, and thus, we have a brand new episode of The Build Up. We’ve been pretty busy since our last podcast so we had quite a number of things to speak about. Let’s see how much hate mail we get!
• Stealing on the Internet
• Bobby rants about not being able to go back in time
• You’re gonna get what you give
• SXSW was pretty great this year
• Icelandic adventures
• Formal Design Education Is Necessary for Practicing Designers. Yea or Nay?
• Is Vine still cool?
• Good magazines we’re into
• With music from New Radicals, The Aislers Set, Rhye, Devendra Banhart, and Cayucas
Gestalten’s latest architecture and design book, Northern Delights, poses the eternal question of what would go into the ultimate dream house. While they imagine the architecture might be Italian, the furniture Japanese, and the garden of British design, they agree wholeheartedly—and we concur—that the interior should be left to the Scandinavians. Longstanding leaders in a timeless, spare, and streamlined aesthetic unafraid to mix in bold color or the occasional touch of whimsy, Northern Delights explores both classic and newer designers from Sweden, Norway, Denmark, and Finland, as well as the latest in product and home design.
Nothing makes me happier than finding a science-centric video that is also well designed. And that’s what this video is: a mesmerizing and sleek animation that explains the very basics of DNA. What is it? Why is it such a big deal?
I’m a sucker for weird, tripped out, colorful imagery–especially in motion. NYC-based multidisciplinary design studio EyeBodega is thoroughly all of those things, describing their work as “post-apocalyptic modernism.” With a focus on work for underground art and music culture, founders Rob Chabebe and Joe Perez have created a body of work spanning print, interactive, photography, and video that is jarring, glitchy, and perfect for the contemporary music scene it often finds itself in.