images
Alfons Mucha was a Czech Art Nouveau (master) artist that left us a while ago (1939) but not without leaving behind a distictive (and remarkable) body of work.
Below is but one of his unmistakable creations:
Or. The beautiful, intricate, detailed, 3D-like elements from the Islamic/Persian architecture.
A snapshot from the (current) Wikipedia entry:
An architectural ornamentation reminiscent of stalactites, muqarnas developed around the middle of the 10th century in northeastern Iran and almost simultaneously — but seemingly independently — in central North Africa; they take the form of small pointed niches, stacked in tiers which project beyond lower tiers, commonly constructed of brick, stone, stucco, or wood, clad with painted tiles, wood, or plaster, and are typically applied to domes, pendentives, cornices, squinches and the undersides of arches and vaults.
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Muqarnas display radial symmetry based upon N-gonal symmetry. The number of unique tiles possible is derived from N = N/2 - 1. Larger N values result in thinner muquarnas tiles. There are an unlimited number of muqarnas tile sets given the wide variety of tile profile design possibilities. Computer graphics and fabrication today allow the design and production of novel muqarnas compositions not found in the historical record.
A handy article, courtesy of Before & After magazine, for those difficult times when one needs to find just the right color for a particular purpose.
With a clear bias towards cinematic themes, minimalistic, and, yet, representative and beautiful: those are the posters of designer/artist Matt Needle.
A design classic and, also, a personal favorite: Tintin's (Hergé's) rocket from "Objectif Lune" ("Destination Moon").
Odeith's special brand of street art "generates" pieces that defy belief (and gravity) by, seemingly, hoover in mid-air, just in front of the beholder's eyes.
More of these anamorphic creations in the gallery section of his web HQ (1st jump).
The "Midnight Planétarium Poetic Complication" is a striking timepiece that doubles as small planetarium (wrist size).
It's the result of a collaboration between Van Cleef & Arpels and Christiaan van der Klaauw.
Fractalius is a Photoshop Plugin (by Redfield Plugins) that allows the creation of striking visual pieces, in one go.
It relies on the "extraction of the hidden fractal texture of the image" (paraphrasing a bit there).
The image above (fragment of the original, by DeviantArt user Hemamm) is a perfect example of the possibilities of such a tool.
Another great series: "Azurri Italia" is a set of old school, vintage-looking, distressed, evocative posters, depicting Italian football legends.
By Marija Marković.
OPTA's 110% is a football data visualisation competition.
The, first, winning entry:
More designs after the jumps.
Favorite all-time short story!
"Profession" is a 1957 novella by Isaac Asimov, about education, teaching, drive, vocation and creativity. It first appeared in the July 1957 issue of "Astounding Science Fiction".
A small fragment follows:
All over Earth, George knew, Olympics would be taking place and young men would be competing, matching their skills against one another in the fight for a place on a new world. There would be the holiday atmosphere, the excitement, the news reports, the self-contained recruiting agents from the worlds beyond space, the glory of victory or the consolations of defeat.
How much of fiction dealt with these motifs, how much of his own boyhood excitement lay in following the events of Olympics from year to year; how many of his own plans –
George Platen could not conceal the longing in his voice.
It was too much to suppress. He said, “Tomorrow’s the first of May. Olympics!”
And that led to his first quarrel with Omani and to Omani’s bitter enunciation of the exact name of the institution in which George found himself.
Omani gazed fixedly at George and said distinctly, “A House for the Feeble-minded.”
Full text after the 1st jump.
In the world of optical illusions, the terms ‘autokinetic illusion’ or ‘apparent motion’ are used to describe the convincing appearance of movement in a picture that the viewer knows to be static.
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Useful "cheatsheets" (work aids) for those developing web sites. Including: XHTML, CSS, JavaScript, Colors, Fonts, Characters, PHP, MySQL, amongst others.
