Where’s The Pixel?

I came across this silly game called Where’s The Pixel? this morning after Pieter from Today and Tomorrow tweeted about it so I thought I’d share it. As the title suggests, you simply have to find the one black pixel on your screen. Sounds easy, but it’s actually harder than you’d think. I was playing it on my MacBook and lord knows how dusty the screen can get. I figure some of you can play this game against your co-workers to see who has the best visual prowess.

Bobby

Building a vacation home with real plywood

The images above are from small booklet published by the Douglas Fir Plywood Association in 1960. The booklet shows off 18 houses that use real Douglas Fir plywood as the primary building material. In case you were wondering where in a house you might find plywood, there’s a handy diagram (last image) color-coding the different locations and uses of plywood in your future vacation home.

The booklet and homes inside epitomize the early 60′s for me. The houses are modern. This was a time when people could afford vacation houses, even if modest ones. Many of these houses have bunk beds or “bed spaces” which is really just a place to put a mattress on the floor; it’s hard to imagine that people building vacation homes today would be happy sleeping on a bunk or the floor. The book is also page after page of only white people: tanning, riding horses and taking pictures of deer.

I came across the booklet on the Building Technology Heritage Library, an online resource with “a collection of American and Canadian, pre-1964 architectural trade catalogs, house plan books and technical building guides.” Browsing plumbing catalogs from 1926 is more fun than you would expect. The archive is definitely worth a gander.

Alex

‘The Disciples’ – A Series by James Mollison

Over the course of three years, photographer James Mollison photographed fans at a number of concerts around the world. The resulting images form a fascinating body of work which he calls The Disciples. For Mollison, these concert crowds are almost like different tribes; he describes them as becoming like an extended surrogate family.

It’s a fun, fascinating, and at times frightening portrait of popular culture, highlighting the extent of how people aim to emulate celebrity and how they use it to form their own identity. The series exists both as an exhibition and as a 128-page book; published by Chris Boot. Above are only a few Disciples from the series. Many more can be viewed on Mollison’s website here.

Philip

A Tumblr dedicated to the art and design of Bloomberg View

Bloomberg Businessweek is hands down one of the finest publications out today, both the physical and digital versions. One of the best things they do is use talented illustrators and designers to create graphics for their stories, and now they don’t go to waste. They’ve recently started a a blog called Bloomberg View Art which showcases the images created for ,the op-ed stories that Bloomberg runs. It’s a great idea which shows off the illustrations and designs created while still linking to the stories they were created for.

What you see above is work from Tim Lahan, Mikey Burton, Labour and Kiji McCafferty, all favorites of mine. Click here to start diving through all the great work.

Bobby

Tauba Auerbach lives in a brightly colored universe

I’m severely behind the times on this, but Tauba Auerbach is my new hero. I came across her work last night and have been pretty obsessed since then. For those like me who are unfamiliar with her, she’s a San Francisco based artist who went to Stanford and now makes some really beautiful art. It’s all pretty conceptual, like the stack of gradient colored paper bound like a book, or the third piece above which is acrylic on canvas, even though it looks like something you’d make on a computer. Words can’t do her art justice, just click here to see a huge trove of her work and get obsessed like me.

Bobby