Contre Jour – iPhone game

I’m only a couple of levels into the recently released iPhone game Contre Jour (which roughly translates to against daylight), but I am loving it. Visually it’s kind of a mix of Little Big Planet’s creatures with Limbo’s muted palette (with a little bit of Darcel’s one eyed attitude). The game itself is a simple but extremely engaging scene scroller as you help the main character, Petit, grab light sources and traverse an rough terrain by transforming the land around to move him in the right direction. The whole game is bathed in simple textures and monochromatic tones, punctuated only by bright blues and Petit’s ever wandering eye.

You can grab the game for only a buck on the iTunes App store here.

Gary Hustwit’s Urbanized

Documentarian and director Gary Hustwit has just released a trailer for the upcoming film Urbanized, his third “design” related film after Helvetica and Objectified. If the previous films are anything to go by, this surely won’t disappoint.

Learn more about the film at it’s website here.

Back4theFuture.com

 

This week, “sneaker freakers” and fans of the beloved 80’s Back To The Future film trilogy finally saw the realization of one of the holy grails of movie-fashion concept designs: The Nike Air MAG. A prop designed and used for the second installment of the film, the Air MAGs (or Magnetic Anti-Gravity) were fantastic futuristic sky tops complete with lights and auto-lacing technology. They were of course only an idea in a film about a supposed future, but fans fell in love with them and hoped, prayed and even petitioned to see their fateful production.

This week, Nike, in partnership with Universal Films and the Michael J. Fox Foundation released a limited line of 1500 pairs of the Nike Air MAG to be placed on eBay for charity auction to raise funds for the Fox foundation seeking a cure for Parkinsons disease. All of this is wonderfully explained on Nike’s new microsite Back4theFuture.com, a cleverly devised website to promote not only the legend and spirit of the films and the storied shoe, but also aiming to shed light on the affliction of Parkinsons in a witty and encouraging way. The site, which I believe was designed by Nike’s longtime agency of record Wieden and Kennedy, follows a similar structure to the previous Nike Better World site, leading the visitor downward through a series of automated tiles displaying messaging and finally landing at an interactive display video complete with a cameo from The Doc himself.

The site is clean and brisk, with bold messages set in Nike’s 80’s trademark tightly kerned bold Futura to give a perfect retro-future look and feel. Also, be sure to check out “The Continuum”, a running blog of sorts on the site that collects news, articles, events and social network activity related to the release.

Visit Back4theFuture.com here. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Time Magazine: Beyond 9/11 – Portraits of Resilience

It’s hard to believe that 9/11 happened a decade ago. While many memories from ten years ago fade away, that event is still so fresh in my mind. Time magazine has recently launched a nicely designed new site devoted to “Beyond 9/11” – the stories and the people that were instrumental in the minutes, hours, days and years following that tragedy. It acts like an interactive memory cloud, a way to listen and learn from others and to remember their stories.

Visit Time’s Portraits of Resilience here.

Pop Chart Labs – The Evolution of Video Game Controllers Print

Brooklyn’s Pop Chart Lab is back with a brand new print and this time they set their well honed sights on “The Evolution of the Video Game Controller”. Like most of PCL’s designs, they chart and document a varied and crowded topic, in an extremely detailed and organized way. Be sure to also check out their other great prints, especially “A Visual Compendium of Notable Haircuts…” and my personal favorite, “The Splendiferous Array of Culinary Tools.”

Visit the Pop Chart Lab here.

Relaunched: OMFGco.com

One of my favorite small branding/design firms, Official Mfg Co. (or OMFG), has redesigned and relaunched their website complete with some new features, an updated shop and new projects. The Portland, OR based firm has created or been instrumental in branding, identity, and design for such great clients as Ace Hotel, Property Of apparel, Clyde Common and many more. I love the professional yet still personal touches the small group of designers bring to the site, especially the home page Instagram feed, which sometimes chronicles projects as they work on them, giving a great peek-behind-the-curtain into their process.

Be sure to also check out their great new work for Scandinavian clothiers Dunderdon, the Spirit of ’77 bar, and their in-store graphics for GAP. Well worth a click.

Visit OMFGco.’s new website here.

Fauxgo (faux-logo) tumbler

The Fauxgo tumbler, curated and run by the very talented designer and illustrator Tymn Armstrong, focuses solely on “symbols or other small design created to represent a fictional company that exists only on film.” Pop culture nerds (me included) will definitely recognize Monsters Inc., Buy N Large from Wall-E, and other great celluloid corporate design. And best of all, Tymn assures me via Twitter, that one of my favorite faux-corporations, the evil quasi governing empire, Weyland-Yutani from the Alien films, will be added very soon!

Visit Fauxgo here.

Visual.ly launches

We are indeed living in the age of infographics. The amount of data collected and created everyday is exploding at a rapidly accelerating rate and the visualization of that data – the ability to transform those raw numbers into something understandable and digestable – is swiftly becoming a great tool and asset. Enter, Visual.ly, a socially enabled community site spearheaded by a team of partners like GOOD Magazine, CNN, Hyperakt and more, designed to create a space for designers to share, discuss and view infographics from all over the world.

Visit Visual.ly here. And also, check out this great interview iDsgn conducted with Hyperakt’s Josh Smith here about the good (and evils) of infographics. 

Outliers Project

Earlier this week, one of my favorite photographers, Kim Holtermand, announced an awesome new project in collaboration with film makers Scenic and fellow visionary Tim Navis. Outliers, Volume 1, aims to create a series of short films in and around the beautiful and mysterious Icelandic countryside. A Kickstarter project has already launched and you can pledge funds now until September, with a whole range of tiers with some great and unique gifts for your support, like limited edition books celebrating the project and one-off prints and stills of their sure-to-be impressive work.

Learn more about the Outliers Project and pledge funds here.

Libratone Lounge Speakers

Between these and the Jawbone Jamboxes, speaker makers are really making a well-designed attempt to cater to the Apple iDevice crowd. Scandinavian audiologists Libratone recently unveiled their Airplay enabled Lounge series of speakers, an all in one elongated case draped in cashmere wool, about the length of a large rolling pin. A modern, beautifully minimal piece for sure, but at about $2K each, I doubt I will come in contact with one anytime soon. Libratone, if you are reading this, I am, however, more than happy to test one out if you would like to send me one (in grey please)!

Read about Libratone’s new Lounge speakers here.