Don’t forget your [insert modern essential here] December 15, 2009
Posted by Olivia McDowell in Art, Blogging, Design, Etcetera, FFFFOUND!, Laughing, Pretty!, Technobabble, The Ether, Typography.Tags: Apple, Decal, eyePhone, FFFFOUND!, iPhone, Mantra, Memory, Snellen Chart, Steve Jobs, Typography
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.
This…
… is a brilliant idea. Before Leaving Check List vinyl wall decals by Hu2 Design.
{ Public Poster Project by Egor Bashakov on Behance Network, via FFFFOUND! }
I abhor, loathe, and dread the niggling feeling that you’ve left something behind somewhere. Even when it’s just a completely unjustified twinge at the back of your mind all day. But especially when it’s true!
*Things gets more complicated with music players and reading glasses of course. Though I have yet to encounter said technicality, because music lives in the eyePhone, thus killing two birds with one apple seed [it's worth your time clicking that last link, for technological comparison with this, for example]. And these young eyes are working perfectly well, thank heavens**.
**Although if they weren’t, I could always test them out on this awesome type-lovers’ Snellen Eye Chart).
Dear Pantone® Santa… December 4, 2009
Posted by Olivia McDowell in Art, Design, Etcetera, Pantone, Pretty!, The Ether.Tags: cashmere, Christmas, Concept design, Eyeshadow, Nail polish, NotCot, Pantone, shopping
1 comment so far
I want this.
And maybe some matching eyeshadow:
Pantone® nail polish and eyeshadow (concepts) by Renata Veiga { via NOTCOT }.
And while you’re at it, how about a nice Pantone® cashmere sweater, in 2695C?
In fact, if I continue to be relatively well-behaved, would you see to it that your elves put into production every Pantone® concept product developed over the past decade or so?
[PS. I'm still waiting on that mug, lego, and Pannetone®* I asked for last year].
* What is it about Christmas that brings the Pantone® concepts out of the woodwork?
Screen vs. Paper ~ Bookworm vs. Social butterfly November 30, 2009
Posted by Olivia McDowell in Blogging, Etcetera, Pretty!, Technobabble, The Ether, Words.Tags: books, Hitchhiker's Guide, Holidays, Nerdgasm, New Scientist, Reading, Scientifica American, Study
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{ Evelin Kasikov, via FFFFOUND! }
Now that I have broken free from the manacles of full-time study (and settled into full-time desk work, for the nonce) I am readily able to indulge my desire to read Readables Of My Own Ready Choosing. No more Textbooks Which I Cannot Afford To Purchase and Do Not Wish To Read Anyway. And, hopefully — depending on my willpower — more printed matter, fewer blogs. I want to touch what I read (and not just on the eyePhone* screen).
Exhibit A:
Hyde Park.
Eoin Colfer (who is NOT Douglas Adams, but is trying VERY hard).
2 minutes later, a ladybird landed on me.
Then I had a nap.
Exhibit B:
Dotingly aware of my studious predicament, (LECTURES! THESIS! ASSESSMENTS! EXAMS!) Father saved a 3-month cache of my favourite nerd magazines.
I took delivery last week.
Nerdgasm.
Now, if only I could find the time to sit and read! [Not looking likely]
Maybe the outside world could stop being so remarkably interesting? [No thanks].
Oh, my library for a quantum life! Or alternatively, it may be time to start reading as a social activity. A bookworm with wings? Sounds nice.
* Secret tweeter’s tip: Never tweet about “iPhone” lest you suffer an instant inundation of DMing, @-replying macspambots. Choose an appropriate pseudonym, and tweet away.
Elvis + Helvetica? Hellsvetica yes! October 4, 2009
Posted by Olivia McDowell in Blogging, Cinema, Earworms, Etcetera, FFFFOUND!, Helvetica, Pretty!, The Ether, Typography, Videorama.Tags: Elvis, FFFFOUND!, Helvetica, Helvistica, Music, Rockabilly, Typography, youtube
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Firstly: Elvis + Helvetica = brilliant.
{by Hulk4598 on flickr, via FFFFOUND!}
This girl approves.
Now, for a bit of waffle. (Err… waffle).
Note Exhibit A, above. Young Elvis* all dolled up for the film Roustabout, in too-neat leathers with too-tidy hair . Movie tagline: “Elvis Presley as a Roving, Restless, Reckless, ROUSTABOUT”. [Insert sceptical looks here].
But also note Exhibit B:
{also by Hulk4598 on flickr, via FFFFOUND!}
Young Elvis in a rather naff suit, with an acoustic guitar that he never really played much, and a messed-up coiff that looks like he’s just come off stage after this:
(Skip to 1:00 and press play. Watch to the end. DO IT. Honestly. Just trust me on this, okay? You won’t regret it.)
Now isn’t it ironic that despite the extra “L” in Exhibit A ["Hell for leather[s]“, anyone?] Elvis was actually at the peak of his corrupting deviance not as a “Roving, Restless, Reckless, ROUSTABOUT”, but as a cheeky, messy-haired rockabilly boy?
Clearly, the 1950s were hella good for the Rebellious Youth, in music and typography.
*[as opposed to Old Elvis: let's just not go there, okay?]
PS. Much as I appreciate the sentiment, I’m not such a fan of Helvekitty.
PPS. Whatever happened to Elvis movies on Sunday afternoon TV? Oh well, at least we’ve still got:
Venn Redux September 14, 2009
Posted by Olivia McDowell in Art, Blogging, Design, Etcetera, FFFFOUND!, Laughing, Pantone, Pretty!, Technobabble, The Ether.Tags: Art, Behance, Cake, CMYK, Cool, Design, FFFFOUND!, Narwhal, Nerd, Pantone, Unicorn, Venn diagram, Whale shark
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Okay, remember when the internet started leaking a steady supply of hilariously reworked periodic tables and I developed a tiny obsession (then revisited it) despite a distinct lack of real scientific knowledge?
Well, it’s happened again, this time with Venn diagrams. Usually, I try to avoid anything remotely mathematical (unless of course it’s Craig Damrauer’s New Math).
But there are Venn diagrams, and then there are Venn diagrams. These are the latter:
{ Douglas Adams loved giant, spotty, placid whale sharks, and so do I. via Behance }
{ I love both unicorns and narwhals, and this is genius. My original favourite, by ArgyleWhale via horkulated }
{ I’m also a fan of colour standards, so CMYcake is my new favourite, via FFFFOUND! }
There’s also something rather nice about memes that are gradually exuded throughout the ether like this. As opposed to those high GI memes that burn twice as bright but half as long, before hitting maximum saturation and maximum irritation at almost precisely the same moment (see also: Rickrolling, Squirrel Crashes, and — as much as I hate to say it — Play Him Off, Keyboard Cat).
PS. For a permanent source of often puerile, seldom unfunny, and not at all mathematical diagrams and graphs, you might like to bookmark GraphJam:
…but only if you can afford to fritter away vast swathes of time on a regular basis)
PPS. This one is conclusively prescient:
{ Enough said! via BuzzFeed }
The multifarious meanings of ‘Momental’ September 12, 2009
Posted by Olivia McDowell in Blogging, Pretty!, The Ether, Words.Tags: Etymology, Momental, Obscure words, OED, OED Word Of The Day, random, randominity, Words
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Today’s email inbox Oxford English Dictionary Word Of The Day is…
Momental
As far as ‘knowing thyself’ goes, momental is a fickle creature, caught seven ways between obscurity, rarity, statistics, maths, and philosophy. Behold:
1. Lasting only a moment; momentary.
2. Of or relating to momentum.
3. Of or relating to moments of time.
4. Of or relating to a moment or element, especially of a conceptual entity.
5. Of or relating to a moment of inertia. [see #2, smirk at the complete contradiction]
6. Of or relating to the moments of a random variable.
7. Momentous; of value or importance.
Now I know it’s been a while between OED Word Of The Day musings, but momental is so unexpectedly interesting that I couldn’t help but share. For though it is an unassuming word, its multifarious (and muddled) definitions give it that je ne sais quois that some like to call randominity.
Randominity is a specialised neologism, not entirely unlike The Dirk Gently Navigation Method:
“My own strategy is to find a car, or the nearest equivalent, which looks as if it knows where it is going and follow it. I rarely end up where I was intending to go, but often I end up somewhere that I needed to be. So what do you say to that?”
“Piffle.”
“A robust response. I salute you.”
{ Yes cheers, [Saint] Douglas Adams ( The Long Dark Teatime of the Soul) }
Now, momental clearly doesn’t know what it wants to mean. But all its various definitions are so nice in their own way that it hardly matters which one you intended to express in the first place (Ephemeral? Moving? Inert? Random?). Odds are you’ll be saying something of value or importance. Momental even.
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Verdana is IKEA’s font of the futura. August 25, 2009
Posted by Olivia McDowell in Blogging, Design, Helvetica, The Ether, The News, Typography.Tags: Font, Futura, Helvetica, IKEA, Typeface, Typography, Typophile, Verdana
3 comments
03.09.09 UPDATE:
- Great coverage of the issue on idsgn.org, which, I have just discovered, is a Bloody Brilliant Blog (BBB).
- You can sign the anti-Verdana “IKEA please get rid of Verdana” petition here.
- And TIME.com has even cottoned on to the debacle: The Font War: Ikea Fans Fume Over Verdana.
{ from Please Copy Me, via user Raumschiff on Typophile }
After 50 years, IKEA is changing its font from Futura to Verdana.
{ Follow through for the full story & discussion on Typophile.com }
I love IKEA. I can honestly attest that almost every item of furniture I have ever owned (since childbirth) has been from IKEA. IKEA is the Helvetica of the furniture world. It is a blank canvas. A neutral. Sufficient character to stand up on its own (pun intended), but muted enough that it doesn’t drown out what you’re really trying to say * .
I also love the kooky IKEA language, and the crazy nomenclature around which it is built. A mirror known as FRÄCK; a tiny plush owl toy called SOT; a computer table that answers to the name DAVE. Every book I’ve ever owned has lived on a BILLY bookcase.
Part of me worries that none of these will look or sound quite so Scandinavianly edgy when printed in Verdana…
*Probably something along the lines of “I like low prices, simple lines, white-on-white, and am handy with an Allen key“.
Our eclipsing star: The Big Picture July 26, 2009
Posted by Olivia McDowell in Etcetera, Pretty!, Technobabble, The Ether, The News.Tags: Boston Big Picture, India, Lunar, Moon, Sol, Solar Eclipse, Space
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I just knew that the The Big Picture would do a remarkable job covering last week’s solar eclipse! And I hate to say “I told you so”, but I was right in predicting that India would have an incredible view, wasn’t I?
(All amazing photography courtesy of that aforementioned Font Of Great Photography; click each image to link)
{ Eclipsing the Taj Mahal: Agra }
{ A golden eclipse, and the Sikh Golden Temple: Amritsar }
{ Sol, and a statue of Ghandi: Chennai }
{ The peeking “limb”: Varanasi }
{ The other Red Crescent: Varanasi }
{ The Full Corona: Varanasi }
Simply stunning! (The photographs, and our universe).
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“Refridgerators”, “pidgeons”, “burried”, and The French Band. July 17, 2009
Posted by Olivia McDowell in Art, Cinema, Design, Earworms, Laughing, Pretty!, Spellcheck, The Ether, Videorama.Tags: Air, Art, Craigslist, Mike Mills, Music, Open Salon, Pidgeon, Playground Love, Refridgerator, The French Band, The Virgin Suicides, typos
3 comments
Firstly…
Read (v.)>> Good luck selling that “refridgerator”
A brilliant (and very astute) rant from Verbal Remedy (“The She-Lord Of Perpetual Nattering”) on her Open Salon blog Verbs and Spices (once upon a snark) about the relationship between spelling and selling.*
Reminds me of something I once posted about back in the day: Good luck finding that “pidgeon”.
And also, of something I haven’t posted about, but keep meaning to:
I can forgive a typo like this. I kind of like the idea of one Mike Mills being too “burried” in romantic sentiment to spell it correctly… And yes, it’s mainly because, as I just discovered, HE DID THE COVER ARTWORK FOR ALL THOSE INCREDIBLE ‘AIR’ ALBUMS!
My gosh, how I adored (and still do adore) this album and its cover art:
In fact, I wholeheartedly believe we should all listen to it now, and “burry” ourselves in romantic sentiment. So very Virgin Suicides.
* Brilliant name, by the by.
Everything Will Be [Techn(olog)ically] Okay June 28, 2009
Posted by Olivia McDowell in Blogging, Etcetera, Ire, Laughing, Technobabble, The Ether, Words.Tags: Blogging, Dell, Everything Will Be Okay, Hitchhiker's Guide, Marvin, Tech Support, technology, XPS m1330
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I have been a very bad blogger. But with good reason, of course. Here begins the story of a Miraculous Laptop Resurrection.
On the first day, at the first sign of computer malfunction, I made one emergency backup.
{ via hannahbeth }
On the second day, I witnessed increasingly psychedelic bouts of computer death. RIP Graphics Card (and therefore, motherboard, into which said graphic card was unfortunately integrated).
{ via Gizmodo }
On the third day, I put Marvin away and started what would become several weeks of Using Someone Else’s Laptop (Mother, Work, Friends…).
{ by breadandbuttershop on etsy }
On the fourth day I began procrastinating about repairs. 1 expired warranty + 3 University end-of-semester essays (+ subsequent holidays) = 3 weeks of procrastination. Anticipated interminably long phone queues, futile complaints, ending inevitably in a very expensive motherboard replacement. Not to mention the idea of a Restore-From-Backup, which never quite returns things to normal.
{ via fromkeetra }
… [Insert here: Several weeks of frustration. Using a netbook (I advise against them, unless your preferred work speed is "glacial") loaded with Internet Explorer (not recommended, unless you love a good crash... every 5 minutes). Enduring the mundanity of Open Office, and "This is a public computer: please don't remember my password" on the work computers. Missing my pedantic email filing system in Thunderbird, and all my delicious, delicious cookies (NO, not that kind, THIS kind). ]
{ via Lolita }
The Call to Dell was made on the Thursday, at 4pm. By 4.05pm (including 1 minute of synthesised glockenspiel muzak) I was saying thankyou to the phone operator who had just promised FREE delivery and installation of a FREE replacement motherboard (which will be covered by a 1-year warranty, FREE), hopefully next-day, but by Monday at the latest. Almost. Fell. Off. My. Chair. In. Shock! (I like to think that it was because I mentioned my awareness of the Dell forums showing more than 150 people with the same problem, many out of warranty,who were still able to claim a free replacement.)
And so, on the Friday, Marvin* rose again. Dell Man appeared at my office at midday, as arranged, and with power drill in hand, disassembled my poor machine into a pile of bits and pieces. And lo, by 12.25pm the lappy resurrection was complete! Free of charge, and less than 24 hours after I finally made the rescue call? A miracle! It’s like nothing ever happened. Marvin even set about launching my last-running instance of Firefox and downloading new emails from the server.
{ via FFFFOUND! }
Anyway, if this saga has taught me anything, it’s that Everything Will Be [Techn(olog)ically] Okay. Also, that I have a lot of haphazardly-gathered but accidentally-themed-alike bookmarks stored away on my harddrive…
{ via myguerilla }
{ via cardboardlove }
{ via FFFFOUND! }
{ via FFFFOUND! }
{ via FFFFOUND! }
{ via FFFFOUND! }
* Named after Marvin The Paranoid Android in Douglas Adams’s Hitchhiker’s Guide To The Galaxy: a computer with a brain the size of a planet, but very poor interpersonal skills.
