Category Archives: Design

This music video was made with 700,000 Lite-Brite pegs in stop motion

Design, Music, Video, , , ,

Never heard of David Crowder Band?  That’s fine because the most interesting part of their new music video “SMS (Shine)” are the visuals.

The video portraying a love story made completely of LITE-BRITE pegs was done solely by hand. Even details such as the piano playing in the background and the monkeys beating a drum in perfect time was done free of digital affects and computer animation. It took 2,150 man hours, 1,200 LITE-BRITE images, 83 friends and 148 pizzas to complete the video.

Yeah.  Enjoy!

[Via Engadget]

Short film: Bits In Pieces

Design, Video, , , , ,

Dutch company OGD ICT Services has gone ahead and created this brilliantly intricate short film called “Bits In Pieces” with nothing but nylon wires, cardboard, and crêpe paper.  No special effect whatsoever are included.  When you think about it, this clip about computer malfunction and its bizarre ramifications must’ve been a crazy bitch to put together.  But the creative team pulled it off in fantastic fashion.  Sit back, relax, and enjoy the five minute short above, then peek after the break for a more lengthy behind-the-scenes video.

[Via Gizmodo; ThePresurfer] Continue reading Short film: Bits In Pieces →

Sound sculptures are color droplets brought to life

Design, Images, Technology, Video, , , , , , , ,

Dentsu London, the design studio that brought us iPad light painting, teamed up with photographer Linden Gledhill to produce an amazing array of “sound sculptures” to promote Canon’s line of PIXMA color printers.  Gledhill used a Canon 5D Mark II to capture these “dancing droplets of paint in extreme detail as they react to sound waves.”  How’d they do it?

The ‘colour sculptures’ were created by stretching a balloon over a speaker to form a membrane.  A few drops of paint were then placed in the centre of the balloon and a single sharp note was played through the speaker, causing the paint to erupt for just a fraction of a second.  We experimented with different instruments, frequencies and volumes, which each had an effect on the formations.

The color droplet experimentation resulted in beautiful imagery and video.  Look in the gallery below to see the makeshift rig and a handful of pictures; after the break you’ll find video of the droplets in super slo-mo action (5,000 frames-per-second slow) and a behind-the-scenes peek into how it was executed.  Head over to Dentsu London’s Flickr and YouTube pages for more content.

[Via Gizmodo; Dentsu London; DLFlickr]

Continue reading Sound sculptures are color droplets brought to life →

Nostalgia alert: iPod nano gets crammed into a Dreamcast VMU

Design, Technology, Video, , , , , , , , ,

Remember the old Visual Memory Unit, the Sega Dreamcast accessory that doubled as a memory card to save games and an auxiliary display during gameplay?  Well here it is with an new iPod nano stuffed inside.  Though it certainly took some effort power to properly align the 1.5 inch nano display and headphone port, doesn’t it look like the VMU was always destined to house an iPod?

[Via Engadget]

Mozilla Seabird is the smartphone of your dreams

Design, Technology, Video, , , , , , , , ,

Journey to a distant future with me, will you?  This is the Mozilla Seabird imagined by concept designer Billy May.  The smartphone’s specifications will make your eyes pop out.  Dual pico projectors can project images on virtually any surface.  When laid down on a flat surface or placed in a dock, the projectors can illuminate a QWERTY keyboard to provide content and interface simultaneously.  The embedded Bluetooth dongle doubles as a Bluetooth earpiece and IR pointer (with 1:1 IR tracking and haptic clicking) for manipulation of on-screen items in 3D space.  And isn’t the curved, ergonomic design to die for?

Now don’t get too excited there, partner.  Mozilla (yes, the company behind Firefox) has no plans to develop the Seabird, or any smartphone for that matter.  Billy May conceptualized the Seabird in this 3D rendering to support the Mozilla Labs Concept Series, a Mozilla-backed project that fosters the brainstorming of new ideas that “push the boundaries of the Web and the browser.”  The Seabird is May’s second attempt at an “open web concept phone.”  Since early 2009 he’s been listening to community feedback, and what you see in the 3D rendering above is the final result.  Salivating yet?

[Via MozillaLabs; Engadget]

Fan-made title sequence for The Walking Dead will blow you away

Design, Television, Video, , , , , , ,

Check out this utterly brilliant piece of art created by Daniel Kanemoto, a long-time fan of Robert Kirkman’s graphic novel The Walking Dead.  In his spare time, talented graphic designer Kanemoto used After Effects to combine Charlie Adlard and Tony Moore’s The Walking Dead artwork and music from Eels (the track is called “Fresh Blood”, how fitting) to create an animated spec title sequence for the upcoming AMC adaptation.  You certainly do not have to be a fan of Kirkman’s work to truly appreciate what Kanemoto has done here.

He says: “Just so there’s no confusion, I’m not affiliated with the production in any way — I’m simply a huge fan of both Frank Darabont and Robert Kirkman, and this is my attempt at creating a cinematic introduction to one of the all time great “continuing stories of survival horror.””

Word got out about Kanemoto’s masterpiece when Lost co-creator Damon Lindelof tweeted about it (“We are arriving at that unique moment in time where the term “fan-made” becomes moot. This is extraordinary.”) and blogger Cory Doctorow posted it on BoingBoing.  The video reached an even wider audience when EW’s Jeff Jensen interviewed Kanemoto to discover his inspiration for the spec.  You can read said interview here.

Now I am oh-so-interested to see if the editors and animators of the upcoming show can out-perform Kanemoto’s fan-made title sequence.  We shall find out when The Walking Dead premieres October 31 at 10PM on AMC.

[Via @DamonLindelof; Vimeo]

This chandelier made of 15,000 feet of fiber optics is ALIVE

Design, Images, , , , , , ,

This unique chandelier constructed by MadLab is called Bacterioptica.  It was designed specifically for an extended family household that includes two parents, three children, a dog, grandparents, aunts, uncles, and cousins.  Bacterioptica was imagined “to synchronize with the life” of this large household in a rather bizarre manner.  Besides being composed of 15,000 feet of fiber optics, the chandelier is a literal “household organism” in that it also contains an assembly of metal rods and glass petri dishes with bacteria living inside.  The idea is that this extravagant piece of lighting represents another living, breathing member of the family.  See?  Bizarre.  Different sized petri dishes can be swapped out, the light intensity can be adjusted, and the fiber optic feeds can be rerouted to make for an infinately customizable light fixture.  I am left pondering this question: Is there a real life Addams Family?  Because only a family as other-worldly as them would allow for a science experiment such as this to hang high and mighty above a dining room table upon which food is consumed.

[Via Gizmodo; MocoLoco; MadLab]

Spinning lights atop a vinyl record player groove along with the Tron theme

Design, DIY, Music, Technology, Video, , , , , ,

In this time-lapse stop motion video, one Kim Pimmel managed to control a series of lights spinning on top of a vinyl record player to the fast-paced electro beat of the new Tron: Legacy theme.  Pimmel explains:

The video is stop motion, so every frame is an individually shot photograph. Each photograph is a long exposure photo, with exposures reaching up to 20 seconds in some cases.  To control the lights, I used an Arduino controlled via bluetooth to drive a stepper motor. The stepper motor controls the movements of the lights remotely from Processing [computer software].  The light sources include cold cathode case lights, EL wire, lasers and more.

Daft Punk would be proud.

[Via Gizmodo; Vimeo]

Teeny tiny Dot stars in the world’s smallest stop motion video

Design, Technology, Video, , , , , , ,

UK-based animators Aardman were recently entered into the Guinness Book of Records for creating the world’s smallest stop motion video.  Dot, a tiny 0.35 inch model figurine, struggles through a microscopic world made of fabric in this fun one minute thirty-seven second short film.  The video was shot using a Nokia N8, a smartphone that boasts a 12 megapixel camera and Carl Zeiss optics, attached to a CellScope microscope.  Yeah, this is technically a viral marketing stint by Nokia, but that does not take away the sheer magnitude of awesomeness surrounding this record-worthy feat.  Peek after the break to watch a making-of video.

[Via Gizmodo; TechRadar] Continue reading Teeny tiny Dot stars in the world’s smallest stop motion video →

Dell’s Inspiron Duo is a netbook/tablet hybrid with swivel design

Design, Image cache, Technology, Video, , , , , , , , ,

At this year’s Intel Developer Forum (IDF) in San Francisco, Dell unveiled a brand new super cool laptop design with the Inspiron Duo.  The Duo doubles as a netbook and tablet thanks to a swiveling 10.1 inch capacitive multitouch display.  What looks like a standard netbook at first glance can instantly be transformed into a tablet device by swiveling the screen from within the frame.  It’s powered by a dual-core Intel Atom N550 chip and runs Windows 7.  Additional specs and pricing have yet to be disclosed.  Dell says the unconventionally designed hybrid will be released into the wilds later this year.  Look after the break for a brief video showing off the swivel action and signs of capacitive touch in Microsoft Surface Globe software.

Update: A new video sufaced today featuring Dell Product Marketer Dave Zavelson handling the Inspiron Duo and showing off photo and video touch-based applications.  It’s sitting after the break for your viewing pleasure.

[Via Engadget, here, here & here] Continue reading Dell’s Inspiron Duo is a netbook/tablet hybrid with swivel design →

Light painting with an iPad creates awesome 3D visuals in space

Design, Technology, Video, , , , , , , ,

Light painting meets stop motion in this creative video designed by BERG and Denstsu London.  Using only a camera and multiple iPads, the team was able to capture illuminated 3D typography in real space.  I could blab about how they used multiple long exposures to create the awesome effect, but you should really just watch the video embedded above to see the final product and learn exactly how it was done.

[Via Engadget]