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.

Philip Govedare – Excavation paintings

Landscapes, along with portraits and still lifes are the holy grail of traditional painting. So to see a classic format using the same tools but so obviously created in a more modern fashion seems like a revelation. Mapping man’s persuasion on his terrain, Philip Govedare‘s series entitled Excavation, takes a macro approach to it’s landscapes – giant, sweeping washes of color that appear almost like abstract color studies at first, are in fact attempts to showcase the enormity of our destruction and ability to reform our world to our whims. What I found most impressive is the perspective, as if you are peering down from an airliner in mid-flight, thousands and thousands of feet above the ground, a view earlier landscape artists never had the pleasure of knowing.

See more of Philip Govedare’s artwork 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.

David Guttenfelder – Scenes from inside North Korea

“David Guttenfelder, chief Asia photographer for the Associated Press, who has been given unprecedented access to the isolated Stalinist state as part of the agency’s efforts to expand its coverage there. The pictures are among the most candid ever published in Western newspapers. “

Striking images of a truly isolated society. The photographs also portray a culture mesmerized with, but unable to duplicate the abundance and aesthetic we take for granted in the Western world. American-style food, water parks, etc., all replicated but through a slightly warped lens.

Read the article and see the slideshow here.

Instagram reaches a milestone

With Instagram just announcing their 150,000,000th photo uploaded and shared, I thought it was a good time to post a couple of my own in loving appreciation for the iPhone app. Instagram is a great way to compose, manipulate and sometimes even promote (General Electric and IBM both have great feeds) photographs that get shared and “liked” by a community of over 7 million and growing. My initial reluctance (I’m a physical Polaroid fan at heart) has gave way to full-on conversion, I have really enjoyed sharing and seeing all the great photos posted from all over the world.

I have a running collection of my Instagrams here. And if you are on Instagram, be sure to say hi, I’m “BryanByczek”.

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.

Google cleans up their act

new Google homepage

new Gmail theme

new Google+ Circles UI

I’ll just come right out and say it, Google is ugly. As a designer that prides himself on creating, developing and using beautiful things, having to search, or check mail, or find a cafe’s phone number through any of Google’s multi-tentacled omnicorp products over the years has been wince inducing. In some ways, Google’s interfaces, designs and layouts are almost mirrors to the very brand and logo itself – ubiquitous, utilitarian, but hardly attractive.

Read more after the jump.