The LetterMpress project is really interesting... As different as they are, letterpress printing and iPad do have some key elements in common, especially the fundamentally tactile nature of both.
Read more about it on Craft.
Good things come in threes... and sometimes more. Reading my RSS feed in last day or two, I've seen a ton of super cute desktop wallpapers or desktop calendars for March. So I thought I'd share a few of the best here.
It's time to pretty up the screens in your life!
Alexander Girard
The Globe and Mail's Report on Business has a good intro article yesterday about what they're calling The Industrial Revolution 2.0: "micromanufacturing" instead of manufacturing on a large scale.
Welcome to the Industrial Revolution 2.0. The last wave of North American manufacturing died off in the ’80s and ’90s, when manual-labour work decamped for the rock-bottom wages of developing countries like China. Between 2004 and 2008, one in seven Canadian manufacturing jobs disappeared. Over the past decade, the United States lost close to one-quarter of its jobs in the manufacturing sector. And the old paradigm isn’t coming back. We are increasingly becoming a society that consumes but does not make. Companies like Etsy, however, herald an interesting shift: Call it micromanufacturing. Advances in technology mean that small firms—literally mom-and-pop shops—can design products and take them to the global market, sometimes in a matter of hours.
In a recent speech to the National Academy of Sciences in Washington, President Barack Obama implored Americans to “create, build and invent—to be makers of things, not just consumers of things.” Economists have argued for years that manufacturing was never coming back to North America. But maybe they’ve been looking in the wrong place. The next industrial revolution isn’t happening on the shop floor—it’s happening at the kitchen table.
I also appreciated the fact that the article not only featured companies like Etsy and Ponoko, they also highlighted a local Langley crafter Groovy Glass Girl (also on Etsy). I have one of her necklaces, it's pink and silver and lovely.Google Maps' "Street Views" are finally coming to Canada.
This is exciting. I love the Street View feature. The fact that you can see -- street by street -- another city far away is amazing. It let me see my friend's building in Boston and my brother's home in California before I had a chance to visit.
But there's soooo much more you can do with Street View... When Google came to Pittsburgh last year, a brilliant thing happened: a group of residents decided to create the "first-ever artistic intervention in Google Street View."
Residents imagined a fictional day on Samposia Way, staging all kinds of crazy events for the Google cameras. And it was the best day ever! Using Google Street View, you can visit the street and see the progression of a marching band, a person escaping from a window using a rope made of tied sheets, a band practicing in a garage...
Explore the Street With a View website, which outlines the various scenes that are taking place on the street and videos of how it was done.
I took to Google Reader pretty fast for organizing my RSS feeds. It's convenient, since I'm on Gmail all the time anyway (especially now that there's a chat option in the gmail browser), so it just made sense. However, it always seemed as though Google didn't have "really nice interface for Reader" as a high priority. Well, someone else has taken care of that!
Helvetireader is a minimalist interface theme for Reader that not only makes it much nicer to look at, but also pares down the information available from Reader to the essentials, decluttering it by removing stuff you don't really need.
BEFORE
AFTER
The best part is that, since I'm a Firefox user and already had Greasemonkey installed, this loveliness was only a click away - literally! Joy.
Scanwiches takes food blogging to the next level, by seriously melding food and technology.
Sandwiches are cut in half ... and scanned.
These lunchtime cross-sections are, as the site says, "for education and delight". (And, presumably, followed by "eating".)
Banh Mi So 1: Number 6, Grilled Pork and Vietnamese Salami
Parisi Bakery: Pastrami, Provolone, Lettuce, Tomato, Hot peppers, On a hero
M&O Market: Fresh Turkey, Extra Turkey Skin, Swiss, Lettuce, Onion, Cranberry Sauce, Mayo, On a roll
Scanwiches is oddly compelling. Not recommended when you're hungry.
Everything tastes better with bacon. Including the internet.
Before:
After:
Boof!
Click here for the full effect.
The power is your's with Bacolicio.us. Use it wisely.
More Obama fun! Paste Magazine has made a neat little site where you can make your own Obama poster, in the style of Shepard Fairey's iconic work.
Obama:
Me:
Barack can go lead the USA next week; I'm planning to just kick back and draw.
Apartment Therapy recently paid a visit to Etsy's HQ in Brooklyn. They've kindly posted a slideshow of their trip, so we can live vicariously / enviously through them.
Why does everything have to be in New York?
I don't have an iPhone, but if I did, I'd use Poolga. They have a ridiculous number of beautiful and awesome wallpapers that you can download to make your shiny black toy even prettier.
Ana Galvañ
LOV-E
Pietari Posti
Dubassy
Hopefully there's an app that can rotate your wallpapers, cause chances are you're gonna grab a few.
(Man, I suddenly have a serious craving for Alpha-getti.)
Polaroid may have stopped making film, but that doesn't mean you have to stop making Polaroids.
Poladroid is a free downloadable program that turns your regular old digital pics into old school wonders.
I really like some of the features that keep it connected to the real-world Polaroid experience: the paper has that classic texture; you can add fingerprints and smudges to the photo; you have to WAAAAAAAAAAIIIIIT for the photo to develop - digital does not mean instant! - and, best of all, while you wait you can shake the photos around on your desktop.
You know, shake it like a polaroid picture. Yes!
Be warned: if you answer yes to any of the following, you may soon have a new addiction.
- Did you played dress-up with your dolls as a kid?
- Do you love to play with colour combinations?
- Do you wish your closet (and wallet) were larger?
- Do you like to collage?
Polyvore is essentially virtual dress up for adults. The site lets you mix and match images of clothes, accessories, shoes and more from various stores and sites online - allowing you to create collages of your dream outfits and interiors. It's really easy to use: you can quickly resize images and even search for items by colour.
It's also interesting to see what other colours and items other people are grouping together. And, if you really love an item, you can purchase it from the linked shop.
Here's the collage I made. This is what I'd wear tomorrow if it just happened to be in my closet.
It's my birthday, so I think it's appropriate.
Now head on over to Polyvore and get yourself all gussied up, too.
And of course - how could I forget in yesterday's roundup? - one of the best Obama art projects (or web apps? maybe art app?) is Barack Obama Is Your New Bicycle.
Aww. What a nice guy.
Also see: Hillary Is Mom Jeans and John McCain Is Your New Bicycle.
The other day, I mentioned a company that prints custom wallpaper. If your needs are more virtual - you have a website to decorate rather than a living room - then there's help for you, too.
London's Victoria & Albert Museum has a fun online game where you can customize your own textile patterns. The choices are all quite grandiose, but if damask and chintz are up your alley (hmm, that'd be a really colourful alley...) then you'll get a kick out of this. (via)
If your tastes are a little more modern, try Colourlovers' pattern maker. This tool is much more flexible, as you have tons of pattern-bases to choose from (contributed by the community on an ongoing basis), and can adjust up to five different colours. You can use the patterns you customize on your desktop, website, profile page, etc, or add it to the Colourlovers' community library. Read more about the tool here or to start playing with it, go here.
I enjoy a good Rube Goldberg machine. They're defined as a "comically involved, complicated invention, labourously contrived to perform a simple operation." I went to an art gallery this weekend and watched a film that showed a lengthy one, involving a lot of fire. Here are some for you to enjoy:
The now-classic Honda commercial.
HEMA "interactive" website. Put your mouse over the blue cup.
From Japan, the incredible machine and the incredible machine 2, two sets of sequences of "machines" that use this principle.
Anyone know of other ones?
Woop! Laurie at TipJunkie.com has awarded us one of her Great Tip Awards! Thanks, Laurie!
In her post about fun advent calendars she gave a shout out for my 3D Joke Tree Advent Calendar. (For the tutorial to make your own, click here.)
As per the rules of the Great Tip Award (and no, it's not "Don't talk about Great Tip Award"), I am supposed to link to three blogs with great tips.
This week (and always), I am into creativity and technology, so here are some tips along those lines:
1. Tips for selling your crafts...
Tips on how to be a good businesss owner from Emily at OrangeBeautiful, who recently guest-blogged on Design Sponge. Read part 1 and part 2 and part 3.
2. Tips for craft bloggers (or anyone with a computer who wants to get organized)...
These Are A Few Of My Favourite Tools (from the last Northern Voice blog conference), plus 100 Web Apps for Everything You Will Possibly Need (via So Misguided.) Bonus tip: DecentURL.com is one my latest fave web apps. Goodbye ugly and unintuitive URLs!
3. Tips for photographers (AKA: I just got my first DSLR and need to learn all the magical features!)...
How to master your DSLR camera, on LifeHacker.com.
I love Big Huge Labs' Palette Generator.
It's a handy little application that helps you isolate the colours in a photograph to create a colour palette - even giving you the appropriate CSS colour codes. I love the idea, because I often see scenes or photographs with fantastic colour combinations - and want to capture them in something I create later on. You could use this tool to create a website, paint a room, or sew a dress - all inspired by a favourite photograph.
Try the Palette Generator for yourself.
This is awesome.
Make your own Google Map.
I especially love that you can tag locations with your own photos.
Love the Google!
Got some extra yarn? Not sure what to do with it? Well I sure do... and don't. So when I saw the random stripe generator (thanks, ReadyMade blog), I was pretty thrilled!
You select the colours of the yarns you have, the thickness of stripes you want to allow, and presto! A random set of stripes! What a good idea.
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